Motorcycle Girl: An Inspiration to Dream and Travel

I had a chance to see the movie last Sunday in cinema. For those who don’t know, Motorcycle girl is a Pakistani film written and directed by Adnan Sarwar penning the autobiography of Zenith Irfan (Played by Sohai Ali Abro), a young Pakistani girl making a road trip all the way from Lahore to Khunjrab; Pakistan China border to fulfill her deceased father’s dream. Even though my initial thoughts while watching the trailer of the movie was it to be a road trip of this young girl showing landscapes of Pakistan’s northern areas, the movie reviews say it is more towards women empowerment in Pakistan which is true after all. But I have my own perception regarding the movie Motorcycle girl which is “Life is short, follow your dreams”.

 

About the Movie

The movie begins with a clumsy Zenith late for her office and missing her van and getting scolded by her strict boss (played by Sarmad Khoosat). Zenith works at an ad agency saving money for her collage and supporting her family as well. He family consist of her mother (played by Samina Peerzada), younger brother Sultan and her nsupportive grandmother (played by Shamim Hilaly) who constantly urges to get her married and is totally against her working as she believes a woman’s career should solely be in homemaking. Parallel to the story depicting life of Zenith, there is a story in which Zenith is actually on a road trip to Khunjrab riding the bike. While at various rest stops along her journey, she reads comments on her Facebook page condemning her of being a “Kafir” (disbeliever) constantly just because she is a woman and riding a bike (highly uncommon in Pakistan). After series of incidents, she finally learns to ride a bike by the help of Sultan and goes to office watched by everyone all over the road just because they never saw a girl riding a bike.

 

 

Pahiya Song Video | Motorcycle Girl

 

 

After a series of various incidents she gets fired from her job and getting herself engaged arranged by her granny to an investment banker Zafar (played by Ali Kazmi), she finally asks her fiancé to let her fulfill her father’s dream for a biking trip to Khunjrab to which he reluctantly agrees. After the approval, she finally sets off and begins and competes the journey.

 

Urr Chalay Official Song Video | Motorcycle Girl

 

 

Glimpse of Gilgit Baltistan, a hidden gem of Pakistan

Along Zenith’s journey, various landscapes of Gilgit Baltistan, villages and lifestyle of the villagers has also been shown. On Zenith’s stay in Passu, the hospitable and moderate lifestyle and behavior of the region is a great example for the rest of the country despite if being relatively under developed. The way they treated her throughout her stay is a good example of how our behavior should be like treating as well as educating women equally.

 

 

Inspiration to dream and travel

Despite the message given strongly points to the women empowerment by breaking the unnecessary boundaries deployed by the ignorant society, the message also encourages us to follow our dreams irrespective of our gender as we are only given one life. If your dream is to travel and see the world, you must. There is a saying “You have always time for things you put first!” so why not putting our dreams first? This question has been answered quite well and I guess Adnan has done a great job and showed us many aspects of life which we need to follow.

Feminism in Malaysia and Pakistan

 

Even though, this blogpost has nothing to do with the blog niche I write about but still, the news regarding recent feminism march on women’s day in Pakistan caught my eye. Especially its slogan “Mera Jism, Meri Marzi!” (My body, my rules!). It made me think about my trip to Malaysia. I wanted to write about the women workforce there which certainly caught my eye but couldn’t find the post that with made an impact. This time, I got the right idea of comparing feminism in two different Muslim countries.

 

Feminism in Malaysia

 

The few things that caught my eye during the trip there were the peaceful multi ethnic environment, high literacy rate and of course, the women workforce. According to Wikipedia, 47% of workforce in Malaysia are women working alongside the male workforce. Even while sightseeing, doing grocery and even the ones serving at the restaurants and food stalls, almost all the time while buying or ordering something to eat I encountered were women. All of them spoke English well enough to communicate with foreigners.

 

14 June 2011, Kot Chutta – Facilitator Humma Malik (R) guidng a rural woman working in a vegetable field as part of the Women Open School (WOS) where they gain experiential learning and skill development on pesticide risk reduction, kitchen gardening and small enterprise development (goat and chicken farming, vegetable seed production). FAO Project: GCP /MOZ/099/EC – Boosting Agricultural Production and Market Linkages for Small-holder Farmers to Counter Soaring Food Prices. The overarching impact of the project as a whole is to enhance the food security and livelihood status of 30 000 farmers (150 000 people) in rural poor agricultural communities to buffer the effects of soaring food prices.

Image source: Google Women workforce in Malaysia

 

I am not saying that Malaysian society is ideal or they don’t have any cases related to domestic violence especially regarding women. The fact is the way they deal with it. According to http://factsanddetails.com, an NGO called Sisters in Islam founded in 1988 by Zaniah Anwar has been dealing with issues regarding feminism under the light of Islamic teachings. The details can be seen in the link mentioned.

 

Feminism in Pakistan

Image source: Google ‘Aurat March’ slogans

 

As discussed in the paragraph above, the news of feminism march on women’s day in Pakistan has been circling on social media for several weeks; especially the slogans the women were carrying while marching. Unfortunately, whenever the term ‘working woman’ is mentioned, the image that comes into people’s mind are often of a lady dressed stylish with makeup on along with designer clothes and accessories.

 

Image source: Google Working woman Pakistan stylish

 

By looking the persona of working women like these, we often neglect and forget the ones who are to be called real woman workforce like Flying Officer Marium Mukhtiar, the first combat pilot in the history of Pakistan, several women in rural areas working on farms and let us not forget the maids in urban areas working several in homes six days a week even on labor day.

 

Image source: Google Flying Officer Marium Al Mukhtiar

 

 

Image source: Google Women working in farms

 

But after seeing the news regarding the slogans women were carrying during March, it seems like women are asking to go wild rather than becoming independent. I agree women in Pakistan face issues regarding harassment and domestic abuse but I ask you to name a single country completely free from such issues. Name any country other than Pakistan where women will be completely free from such issues. Issues like these are required to be controlled and dealt with and this is certainly NOT the way to handle such issues. We call Marium Mukhtiar ‘daughter of the soil’ and ‘pride of the nation’ but not willing to follow her footsteps. Instead we seek escape routes like these slogans. These women are needed to be asked if you want a society or to be free from males, consider the following slogan below:

Image source: Twitter Male slogan

 

Conclusion

 

In the end, the comparison above seems conclusive.  The march was conducted certainly for a good cause but handled poorly. Unlike Malaysia where an NGO made decades ago is resolving issues in the light of the Holy Quran, we being a bigger Muslim majority and having the country’s foundation solely based on Islam have failed to handle such issues despite of having several NGOs working for such causes. All we can do is learn now from our fellow Muslim Majority nation before it is too late.

 

Image source: Twitter Hadith

 

 

Port Grand Karachi: Carnival at the Docks

 

I had a chance to visit Port Grand with family, a carnival themed food street located near Native Jetty Bridge connecting Karachi Port Trust (KPT) to Kemari, a neighborhood located near boat harbor. If you are looking for a place containing both entertainment and food and you are with a family, this place might be good for you. Luckily I had a UBL Bank debit Card with allowed me to get three entries for free; I mean almost fee as they charged a rupee for it so I had to buy only once ticket instead of four for PKR 300 only. We missed the sunset at due to traffic issues in the city but still got the dusky view of the site.

 

 

Dusk at Port Grand Karachi

 

As far as entertainment is concerned, you’ll find 6D cinema showing an animated video just under ten minutes along with motion ride you give you a feel that you are part of the movie. We wanted to enjoy it but on the day we visited, it had a technical problem so we had to skip it. A part from 6D cinema, there are various activity stalls also available like karaoke stall, palmist, street market stalls, magic shows, puppet shows, street musicians, face painting and other activities for children.

 

Street musicians playing flute and dholak

 

Food stalls included street food including fries, kabab rolls, gol gappy, chaat and various franchises of restaurants in Pakistan like Mr. Cod, OPTP, Walls ice cream etc. We opted for Afridi Inn restaurant and ordered Koyala Chicken Karhai and Chapli Kababs; a famous dish of KPK Pakistan.

 

Afridi Inn restaurant balcony

 

 

Panorama of Afridi Inn restaurant balcony

 

We had a great refreshing experience. I must say it is a great place to spend time with family and enjoy as it has everything whether you are a child or an adult.

 

 

Video Port Grand

 

What I learned from my first ever road trip

After hearing from my colleague Irfan and learning about the road trip I mentioned in my previous blog, I decided to accompany him on the next road trip from Karachi to Hyderabad to have a dinner of Palla fish. The group consisted of both mid-level as well as low level staff. It seemed like placing a Manager and a Janitor together so you can imagine the clash of standards as well as the taste regarding music, habits etc. Anyhow, we all regrouped at the office and from there, we had booked a bus to take us to Hyderabad using the National Highway. We departed minutes after 2 p.m. and reached the highway almost within an hour.

 

Hyderabad Trip Intro

The time we got on the highway, we were speedy as there was very limited traffic. We even saw the newly built Bahria Town and DHA city on the way.Soon we reached at Nooriabad in the afternoon at 4 p.m. and had tea as well as prayed ASAR.

 

Stopover at Nooriabad

 

 

After the tea break, we left for Hyderabad and reached there by sunset. After prayer at the mosque near the famous Bombay Bakery, we came to the bakery to buy their famous cake. These bakers have opened their bakery at their own residence and have no other branch most probably because they don’t want their recipes to be leaked. Cakes weren’t there and were supposed to be ready after an hour. So we had to wait for an hour even though being the first in line. During out wait, we met another customer in the line who had given the order in advance of cakes. He explained that at least 2 lbs of chocolate and coffee cakes are the specialty of this bakers because these cakes include an extra layer of butter to make it tastier.

Bombay Bakery and the crowd

Anyhow, after nearly an hour wait, we got the cakes and went for Al-Manzar Restaurant at Jamshoro to have the fish dinner. Upon arriving there, we learned that there wasn’t the season for Palla fish. All they had was the fish from cold storage. Instead, they had Rahu fish which was big and fresh. We ordered Barbeque and fried fish which was marinated with batter made of tamarind and spices and was absolutely delicious.

 

BBQ and Fried Rahu fish

After the dinner, we headed back to Karachi. We had a small stopover for tea on our way back to Karachi and after nearly 3 hours, we finally reached our meetup point in Karachi which was couple of blocks away from home.

 

Karachi to Hyderabad road trip quick view

The thing I learned in this trip is that there will be situations that you might have to travel with different kinds of people. Likewise I said earlier that I travel with low level staff, they belong to different class, had different set of values and the way they were behaving like ignorant irritated me a lot. I admit I struggled half of the trip with the way they were behaving and in fact became so frustrated that I even tried to throw the cell phone of one of the guys traveling with me out of the window. Anyhow, after a few rough encounters, I finally had in under control and enjoyed the rest of the trip with quite ease.

Road trip to Thar on motorbikes: When I met Trail Blazers of Pakistan

My colleague had a chance of sharing his experience of his biking tour to Thar. He is a professional biker and regularly makes tours with his group of friends known as “Trailblazers of Pakistan” touring specific areas of Pakistan on their motor bikes. So I am sharing the story as narrated by him as follows:

“Up till now they have covered half of Baluchistan province and most of the area in Sindh. The area left unexplored by them was the area of Badin, Sajawal, Kot Islam, Mithi and Nagarparker.

The leader of the group is a senior biker named Hammad Mustafa. This tour was his plan and was supposed to begin on 14^th August 2017 but unfortunately, most of the participants were busy so it was postponed to 18^th August.

In the beginning, most of the people agreed for the tour but in the end, only few of us were on road. The final participants included Irfan (My colleague and the narrator), Raees, Malik Zeeshan “Shaani” who has made Pakistan tour on bike previously, Ather and of course, Mr. Hammad. The meetup point was Anwar Baloch Restaurant. I (Irfan), Shaani, Ather and Raees gathered at the airport as we refueled our bikes and then waited for Hammad Bhai at meetup point.

Along with Hammad Bhai, came his colleague named Shah Nawaz who joined our group specifically for this tour. He being from Sindh was our main guide for the trip.

 

 All of us departed and our first stop was at Sajwal but as the road near Thatta is under construction, Ather’s bike had a flat tire unfortunately and most of our time was consumed in fixing his bike. However, later on we covered up the delay driving a bit faster.

We reached our first stop in Sajawal. After having rest for a while, we left for Badin, had breakfast there and refueled our bikes. Next stop was Mithi, which is mainstream city of Tharparkar District. After travelling for about 100 KM towards Mithi from Badin, we got our bikes refueled again and had refreshments.

 

On the way, we were joined by a friend of Shah Nawaz, named Badal from Kot Islam who travelled with us throuhout rest of the trip of Nagarparker.

We saw many beautiful sceneries along the way in the pictures seen on this blogpost. After departing from Kot Islam towards Nagarparker, our plan was to have lunch in Nagarparker but Badal insisted to look for “Marvi’s well” first because on our way back towards Karachi, it would be night time and we would miss the historical site. We went there first, took few snaps, heard the folklore of Marvi from the local townspeople, drank from the well and then departed for Nagarparker.

 

 

It was almost 2:30 p.m at that time on 19^th August. Restaurants and hotels there are owned by both Hindus and Muslims. I asked Badal to ask one of the hotel owners as the locals there spoke Sindhi only. The owner of the hotel we stayed in was a Muslim, we stayed there and had lunch. Everything was good and fresh. We visited the dam and saw the border with India there. Badal told us that if we reach Kot Islam by sunset, we will have a chance of spending night in a small village of Thar, where we could experience actual lifestyle and culture of Thar people. Since we always prefer to get acquainted with the locals and their culture where ever we go so it was a golden opportunity. So we left the following evening and discovered few new places and departed for Thar. We reached there by 8 P.M. On our way to Thar, we rode our biked through sand so thick that would suck you two to three feet in it. The local town’s people in Thar showed as a great hospitality that even we won’t be able to do so in Karachi.  They have great water shortage and rely totally on rain water. There, once again Ather’s bike had a problem as it was altered but still we manager to continue. We had our dinner in Thar and we were served with chicken with vegetables and Lassi (Butter Milk).

In fact, they were so hospitable that they kept themselves awake in case we ask for anything we need. We really enjoyed their hospitality. In the morning as soon as we woke up, we were served with tea and biscuits. Then we went to tour Thar where we also got sight of peacocks there.

At that time, the Thar Desert had gone green due to recent rains. While wandering around, we also found a well where the water was being pulled out with the help of camels. We requested the locals to show us how they do it. Even though the process takes a long time, they decide to pull out some water just to show us. They prepared the camel to pull out the water and we really got fascinated while watching the process. The water level in the well is really low and it certainly requires great effort.

 

 

 

As we got back, we were again served with breakfast; this time a traditional one comprising of sugar, butter of both cow’s and goat’s milk and bread.

 

They told us a shortcut which will take us directly to Mithi by travelling about 10-20 KM. We reached Mithri as we entered from Kot Islam and we sure were relieved by this short distance in the desert which helped us a lot. After refueling in Mithri, we decided to travel further 40 KM to see Naukot Fort, which is considered a gateway of Tharparkar desert.

We also discovered that and took pictures and then left for Badin with was about 100 KM. After nearly covering half of the distance, Raees’s bike had a flat tire as there were many small pits long the way. After getting rid of the flat tire, we went further. Even though we had decided to have lunch in Badin, we changed the plan and decided to have lunch at Sajawal as we didn’t want to break the momentum we had just formed. So we travelled further 80 KM towards Sajawal and reached there at 5 in the evening and had the meal.

Then after travelling further, we finally reached back home on Sunday evening so that we can get back to work.”