A wedding in the IT community

You will rarely find me attending a wedding but this was one I could not say no to. When Ashraf Kapadia, Managing Director of Systems Ltd and Immediate Past President of P@SHA, comes over and personally invites you to his only son’s wedding, there is no way you can say no. Add to that the fact that his wife Honey is one of the sweetest people you’ve met and heir apparent Omar also happens to be a part of the IT community, it becomes imperative for one to be there.

Omar now works for IBM after having put in some time at Si3 and Sidat Hyder so there were naturally people there from all 3 companies. Of course the fact that Ashraf is a long-time IBMer having spent decades at Big Blue, had something to do with so many current and former IBMers being there.

I got a snapshot of the happy couple with my iPhone – which I love to show off at every opportunity – even when I am dressed in wedding gear and looking pretty (this according to Yusuf Jan of Mixit).

I also got a classic shot of my friend Jawwad Farid of Alchemy fame looking very different from his normal bermudas, t-shirt and flip-flop clad self. Do you recognize the man? Also in the photo are Zak, Amer Hashmi and Yusuf Jan.

The wedding arrangements were wonderful – every detail taken care of and the Kapadias glowing with happiness and pride. The food was delicious – Ashraf you have come a long way from the first lunch you hosted for the P@SHA CEC! There was the normal Pakistani cuisine and there was a range of pasta, roast beef and gravey, roast chicken and some really unique salad variety, my favourite being the vermicelli. But the final touch was the delicious Apple strudel with cream and ice-cream. Absolutely to die for!

Congratulations Ashraf and Honey, Omar and Sanober and of course Rabia (Omar’s sister who lovingly made each wedding invitation herself). Thank you for including me in your celebration.

Is this what we are resorting to for entertainment?

Tell me, can something like this be remotely considered entertainment? No I am not crazy. I have a reason for asking this question.

The other day as I headed home from work after what had been a pretty harrowing day with back-to-back meetings, only 15 minutes to gobble down some fruit at around 3 pm (and I still don’t lose weight – argggh!) and pots of freshly brewed coffee to keep me going, I was dying to get home and chill.

It is normally a 25 minute drive and pretty smooth. Not that day though. The traffic on Shahrah-e-Faisal was chock-a-block. I grumbled to myself that there must be VIP movement due to which the traffic was held up. As we edged forward at a snail’s pace, and I got closer to where the blockage appeared to be, I noticed that there was a 5-car pileup in the lane to the extreme right. The reason why the rest of the traffic was held up was because all the cars in the adjacent lanes slowed down to see if they could get a glimpse of what had happened. It was this curiosity that was responsible for the huge traffic jams.

This morning I noticed it again on my way to work. There was an accident involving two motorbikes that shouldn’t really have impacted too much on the rest of the traffic but it did because everyone who passed by in all parallel lanes slowed down to see what was going on.

Are we really that short on entertainment that scenes like car pileups or accidents are of so much interest to us that we are willing to cause a holdup of traffic just so we can get a quick glimpse? Sigh!