Sonya Syed

 A very happy new year to all my lovely family, dearest friends & amazing readers. I am amazed that on 1 January 2024 for the first time in my life I am not home but in Dubai. Dubai, a city of lights, kites, bikes, heights, and of course Rolls Royce; where people of so many beautiful & different languages, cultures come for earning livelihoods, some for shopping, others to optimize their wealth and while others come aboard on winters to have some fun. Dubai was not in my bucket list because it was synonymous to earning money and I hardly had any sense or concept of wealth. All I enjoyed is the little pocket-money that my mom used to give me out of my own salary and that was my life. I could buy coffee, I could go crazy with stationary shopping (I know stationary sounds crazy but I never claimed to be normal). However, it all changed about two years ago when, one fine day, my mom handed over the burden of financial management over to me. No more pocket money but I will b...

So Sindh government has finally announced Children Drama Industry Ordinance and the Sindh Actor Royalty Ordinance to protect the rights and well-being of children working in the entertainment industry. Since the law is announced by the Government of Sindh it will only protect children in Karachi, as there is hardly any entertainment work carried on in other areas of Sindh. It is a nice step but more of it seems to be purely for marketing purposes before the elections of 2024, because till yesterday the above laws were not available in draft/ bill forms on the Sindh assembly’s website. Then what else is interesting that both these laws would be introduced as ordinances, consequently they would be only valid for 120 days thereafter these legislations will need approval of majority of “ ELECTED ” members of parliament.  What an irony? At one end Sindh govt. is introducing laws to protect rights of our children but on the other end Sindh assembly's entire elected members of oppositio...

I feel certain heaviness in my mind, thought process is not what it used to be. Yet I don’t want to sound sad or depressed. I want to be hopeful in the midst of the darkness that seems prevalent in Pakistan these days. Worst economic news is coming from every direction, we all are struggling with apprehensions and insecurity regarding the future and our government /power circles are apparently unaffected and living in a bubble of denial. Since the political ousting of former Prime Minister Imran Khan the political instability, role of Military and Civil establishment is so badly exposed that it is impossible to be remain naïve any more .    So what am I supposed to do? Worry, panic or go crazy with stress- honestly I don’t have the luxury to lose control over myself even for a bit. With all these frightful happenings I chose to take one deep breath, then another breath and another. A word called “Faith” suddenly pops out in mind. But what does  faith  means? I am a M...

Today my heart is shattered and broken into pieces; every piece is hurting and giving pain. The leader who was appointed after so many of prayers may be ousted from his office. Yes I am talking about Prime Minister Imran Khan’s removal after voting on the no-confidence motion given by the opposition parties. This no-confidence motion is provided as our constitutional right; however it is being used for every other purpose which the constitution makers never even dreamt off. Lots of negative politics, foreign interference, corruption cases and fear of losing power are the main aims for this no-confidence motion. While on the other hand, millions of people like me are in dismay and melancholy apprehending what is in store for the citizens of Pakistan. As difficult it is, we have to accept the reality and face whatever is to come with the hope that tomorrow the sun will shine erasing the darkness of night.  With war in Ukraine where the entire country is going through so much des...

  Today I am deeply saddened and lost for words at the passing away of  Mr. Sohail Muzaffar. A lthough my teacher, my mentor and a wonderful soul Mr. Sohail left us for his  heavenly  abode in February 2021. The most painful thing is that I just came to know about his news few days ago when I tried to call him for some advice. He wasn’t picking up the phone so I checked his facebook to contact him and from there I came to know of his passing away. Every day I thought about calling him but one thing or the other happened and I kept postponing my call; for almost a year I have not even looked at my facebook account. Yet I always found solace from the very thought that he will be fine and some fine day I will call him or probably pay him a surprise visit at his office and then we will gossip about the latest happenings over a cup of coffee.  All these plans only remained in my mind, for years I made plans but never acted on them. Today I am at lost for any words,...

Finally Sindh govt is taking a positive step to reform our Police Rules,  FIR (or the first information report) which is lodged by a victim or by their relative or even by a citizen was enough for police to make an arrest without collecting any concrete evidence or conducting full investigation. Our law makers must have had good intentions when they made this law; however, this FIR has been a nuisance and was used or more appropriately abused by powerful and ill-intentioned people to falsely trap innocent people and suspects in the vicious chakra of crime. Recently in Shahzada Qaiser Arfat v. The State , Justice Syed Mansoor Ali of the Honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan observed that having power is one thing but using this power with proper justification is a totally different ball game (Article 4(1) (j) of the Police Order, 2002 and Police Rules, 1934 gave power to police under Section 54 of the CrPC to make an arrest without a warrant).  According to the above judge...

Its hours past midnight, I can’t sleep, my mind refuses to quieten- I have tried meditation and present moment exercises, all failed. Noor Mukhadam is revolving in my thoughts, she was found brutally murdered at a residence in Islamabad by the suspect Zahir Jaffer.  I desperately want to put the onus of this crime on Noor so that I could be over and done with it. I want to justify the trauma and the fear of her death by saying that it must have been her fault, she must have said or done something to infuriate Jafer. It is always the woman who say or do something that hurts or irritates a man to such an extent that he would just behead her. Is it really the truth, I wonder? More than half of Pakistan’s population is based on women and every time she says or does not say something; does or does not do something which makes a man so angry that he hits her, or molest her or burns her, or kill her. And it all seems justified, of course it is her fault. If she is molested at a bus st...

Sometimes a little ray of hope is enough to carry us through the rough times. USA health officials are allowing its citizens to go outside without wearing masks, if they are fully vaccinated. I am extremely grateful to Allah for easing the pressure. Here I must also commend our government for providing free vaccinations to all Pakistanis. If elders in your family are not vaccinated please do go for their vaccination; the process is quite easy. Just SMS your CNIC number to 1166, within seconds a reply message with your registration details will come.     With such meagre resources Prime Minister Imran Khan somehow managed to get everyone vaccinated age wise. In the first stage, it was 60 to 70 plus of age individuals, then age group of 50, currently registration is open for 40's age group.   Senior citizens of 70 years and above, can walk into any officially authorized vaccination centre without the need to have any prior registration. Two of my family members...

2021 is a year to start with prayers and love for all. For couple of years I lost all my willingness to write or to communicate with anyone. I wanted to be consistent but sometimes what you want is not always possible to get. Last year was emotionally, physically and mentally challenging. I was forced to come out of my comfort zone and above all I was compelled by time to become financially intelligent. So I thought it is a nice idea to share with your all what I learned l ast year and how it has helped me to grow both inwards as well as outwards.   Now let's see, finance and money has never been speciality in fact my entire life until the year 2020 went into a haze, money-wise. I had no idea about savings or how to invest, all I knew was to happily get money from my Mom as and when required. Even though I had been earning myself for more than a decade but I never knew a thing about finance. I have been very fortunate that my mother is a financially savvy person or else only God ...

It is best to make no promises, nor to take any vows and just to leave everything unspoken and open-ended. The vastness of unspoken words is immense as well as beautiful. So let us be infinite and silent. The boat is rocking, the tides are quite high and the times are unsure. It is a dream- no probably a scream which has taken away light from the pendant of a stream.  Crying babies, tears of healers, pain of losing, fear of suffering tore the hearts of millions this years. Yet in the despair there appears a glimmer of hope from the steeple of faith, beaming lightly and softly yet constantly- heralding us to hold on...to hold on to the rope of faith even when our hands are bruised and bleeding through- telling us; compelling us; teaching us:                                          “ So, verily, with every difficulty, there is relief:        ف...

  I am speaking on behalf of Karachites: “Please Allah, I love you and I love rain but please make it stop. I am okay with a bit of drizzle here and there, dark skies and cold breeze but this city does not have the capacity to endure your divine love, we just can’t handle it.”     After a tornado of chaos, emotional roller coaster rides, Covid 19, isolation, social distancing, masks, sanitizers, pain of losing a beloved family member suddenly and the craziest social media- I have been trying to find my centre the inner place where I can go and dream of anything. Immense struggle of no avail. 2020 has been a very difficult year probably the most challenging one of my life. For the last 9-10 years I have been meditating, praying diligently and life has been pretty good to me however the emotional and financial crisis of the world jolted the best of the spiritual practises. I really believe that corona virus was a three-second trailer of the judgement day. Now on 27 th ...

“ On no soul do Allah Place a burden greater than it can bear. It gets every good that it earns, and it suffers every ill that it earns. (Pray:) "Our Lord! Condemn us not if we forget or fall into error; our Lord! Lay not on us a burden Like that which Thou didst lay on those before us; Our Lord! Lay not on us a burden greater than we have strength to bear. Blot out our sins, and grant us forgiveness. Have mercy on us. Thou art our Protector; Help us against those who stand against faith." Surah Al-Baqarah) verse 286- the Holy Quran. “Every soul gets every good that it earns, and it suffers every ill that it earns.”  These lines from the Holy Quran are echoing in my mind today, and after a bit of investigation I found the following information, I will connect the dots later but for now please bear with me: According to Wikipedia: Augmented reality (AR) is a shared experience of a real-world environment where the objects that exist in the real world are enhanced by...

Planning, organizing and time-management were the skills that I used to hear in my business management class and never truly believed in their significance in order to have a productive and healthy life, until recently.  And oh boy I have become obsessed with organizing and managing time efficiently, would you believe I have three separate planners for my daily, weekly and work life. Plus I am using reminder apps, evening shopping list app on my mobile so I don’t have to memorize the grocery list or paying bills or doing errands. It gets even better, because there are Namaz/prayer and even present-moment reminder apps and all we need to do, is install them all. I recently bumped on Google calendar and it is Amazing . I simply put all my work schedules, including breakfast, lunch, afternoon nap, dinner and prayer timing, it then colour codes/time blocks that period giving me a precise track of my daily and weekly activities. Before using Google calendar I thought I was wasting my t...

Today’s post ‘planning time and setting goals 1’ is greatly useful for everyone who is trying to efficiently manage time and balancing their life, work and family. The last paras are especially written for people going through depression or anxiety yet they are bravely trying to cope with life. It is quite amazing to survive another year and so many years till now, it is such a blessing to be able to breath into a new year. Life is beautiful, it’s a gift from Allah but the real challenge is to live it fully. I learnt a great deal in 2019, my students and my colleagues have been wonderful and as usual they inspired me to become and learn more as a person. In order to accomplish my goals I realized that I needed to manage my life effectively.  So with 2020 I would like to share with all of you some thoughts and ideas of what worked for me and how I plan to utilize the new information this year. I have never been a planner because planning entails studying and organizing tomor...