Go Aish - Lake

Go Aish - Lake
Originally uploaded by Umair Mohsin

A host of 'adventurous' activities await the person who visits 'Go Aish' Adventure Park. Chairlifts are just one of the many attractions here.

Haider Ali

Haider Ali
Originally uploaded by Umair Mohsin.

Haider Ali, is Pakistan's finest Truck Artist. He's even had his work displayed at the Smithsonian Museum, USA under the Silkroad Folk Festival.

He started his work when he was just 12, working alongside his father after school. 14 years laters, he's amongst those who're changing the face of this art.

This picture was taken by me in 'Golimar', Karachi. Haider Ali's own workshop is in Garden East.

Here's some links i found, which you can explore further:

digitizethis.com/travelogue/2003_sackler/index.html

community.iexplore.com/planning/journalEntryFreeForm.asp?...

elkeandsteve.typepad.com/photos/washington_dc/img_0101.html

Homeward Bound

Homeward Bound, originally uploaded by Umair Mohsin.

Truck From Peshawar heading towards Karachi with a bale of cotton.

On Death & Dying

I saw my first death yesterday. I was visiting a relative at a local hospital that deals with patients suffering from heart problems. This person i saw was close to dying (suffering from a cardiac arrest) when i visited and died whilst i was there. It wasn't a pretty sight, that anyone whose seen a person dying can testify to. Relatives crying and hugging the now dead body intoning it to come back. Other people leaning on each other for support, calling those who're weren't present with a numbness that was heartbreaking to look at. I guess whoever that old man was (because it was a very old man) he was very much loved.

However, this wasn't why i write this article i.e. to describe the death of a person. I write because at that moment i was wondering about the people who have forgotten that someday they too shall have to pass through that hidden veil and go off into another world. You can tell who these people are too. They're the money grubbing people, who lie, cheat, adulterate for a few more extra bucks. They're the people who're the kingpins, the thieves, the murderers who wrongly take what is not theirs.

What i thought at that moment was, why? Why bother with accumulating billions of dollars wrongly when they won't be with you when you leave. Why bother killing innocent souls, waging war or whatever evils that are there in our society, when at the end of the day, you too have to face a greater being out there. This is the lesson that some people forget and then fall into a cycle of no return.

I was studying Islam the other day. Something in there really made an impact on me. The Quran (the Holy Book of Muslims) keeps intoning its followers to keep remembering that they have to die one day and meet their Allah. The Quran does this because it keeps vices in check. It was exactly the same thing i was thinking at the time i saw the man die.

I also thought of something else whilst i was there. Will the 'man' even exist say in the next 50 years or so? I wonder if someone has thought about their existence in this manner. Say you're a man, happy, great family, with a beautiful wife, amazing kids and for some reason you die. What will happen? Your family will mourn you for a while, but they'll get over it. Your wife will miss you but after a few years, maybe she'll find someone else or will get busy in something else and you will become another memory. To your kids, you'll be missed, but only as if you were a dream and as they grow up, you'll become just another name. In 50 years time, there will be no one left who'll remember you except as a name to those closest ones or if you have done something really outstanding history will remember you for a few years and then that too shall pass. It will be as if you never existed. The biggest names like 'Einstein', 'Aristotle', 'Freud' are meaningless to the majority of the world's population. What standing does yours or mine have and no intones like 'I will remember you forever' has any meaning in this show we call life. Nothing is forever. Nothing.

At the end of it all, the only things that you have with you are the good deeds that you have done in this world. Nothing more....and rest assured there is another world out there and there is a creator present. Life is too full of too many 'coincidences' to imagine that everything is random and everything is to chance.

Live life, love it. You only live once. Don't be afraid of dying, be afraid of living but be afraid of doing evil. Who knows what death might someday bring?

Flight Of The Moth

Flight Of The Moth
Posted by: umairmohsin.

Slow Shutter Capture of Moths Flying Around an Incadescent Light, Bhurban, Pakistan.

Falling, Falling, Fall

Falling, Falling, Fall
Posted by: umairmohsin.

Waterfall, Bhurban, Pakistan.

Mi Amour?

I had never planned to love you. But somehow i just did. I don't know when was it that i started loving you. I don't know when you became the most important thing in my life, but it happened and i was helpless against it....against your strong tides that swept me away. I wish that i had known that you would also drown me. I remember how I had been shaking and blushing when i had told you about how i felt, and how you had put your arms around me, shusshing me and telling me that everything was going to be all right. How much i had loved you for that. For not rejecting me, for not making fun of me.

You had wrapped me in your love and i had blossomed under you.You had made me feel so good about myself. I had felt wanted, i had felt loved. I had felt giddy with it all. "I am in love", "I'm in love", i had told my friends and they had laughed. But nothing had mattered as long as you had been there. Not my dysfunctional family, not my friends, not my life.

Then you shattered my world by saying you had never felt the same about me. That you had just wanted to give our relationship a TRY. That now we should just be friends. "FRIENDS". After all this time, you had realized we could just be friends....But just to have you there with me, i had accepted that. So friends it had been. I had hidden my feeling well. I never shed a single tear in front of you. I didn't react when you told me that you had found someone else. I didn't blink when you had said that you thought she was the one and I didn't even move a muscle when you said we shouldn't see each other anymore, because it makes her jealous...you never saw what i went through.....but the pain...it doesn't stop. It hurts. It hurts so much.

Tell me what is the price of love...and how long must i continue to pay for it?