When i try to see Pakistan through the news and media then is see a country which is no better then Somalia or Nigeria, but then i roam the streets of Lahore, Enjoy the delicious food at Food Street behind Shahi Mosque or walk in the busy Market of Anarkali or take a walk in Shalimar Gardens or Bagh-e-Jinnah or been dragged by my sister in Liberty market for shopping then nothing of that sort can be seen.
On my recent visit to Pakistan, I saw busy roads, People cursing govt while telling me how much profit they have made and what new methods have been introduced in the market to avoid taxes and what not…
Yes there has been days when i met few who have seen the ugly side of the their businesses, who have suffered alot from power shortages and are near to bankruptcy and i have seen also those who were nothing few years back and have now grown phenomenally in an environment which in the world is labelled as war-area or dying economy or anything close to it.
Markets are busy, roads are jammed and restaurants are busy as hell… what other sign i need to see in the country to draw a conclusion??? During my recent visit i have been to Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar and Karachi, apart from Karachi ( because the day i landed their some Shia folks got killed over a stupid dispute but then next day i enjoyed alot at Clifton) where things are bit surprising for me… in a sense i have been to this city after the break of 6 years and thanks to Mustafa Kamal, now this city looks like a city… I had plans for Quetta as well but my cousins were in my city to attend the wedding and with all the trips i had, never had time left to visit that mountainous city i loved the most.
All in all, when it is said, Is Pakistan safe to visit? Is it OK to stay in Pakistan, is it right time to do business there??? and then looking at the so-called Pseudo-intellects saying no to these, i was wondering, this time around, if any one wants, then this is the best time to enter into Live Stock Business, best time to re-visit the trading partners and look into new markets of Bangladesh, Myanmar, Srilanka, Central Asia and Asia Pacific, Specially Japan, where the fish and related item are in great demand.
The problems such as power cuts, corruption and all these are there and they there in whole lot of South Asia, the Country called India who is giving us 500 MW of electricity, faces power cuts upto 4-6 hours in cities like Delhi and Mumbai…
What i liked most is the available opportunities in Pakistan and i don’t like is lack of chances for somebody like me to invest in these. Pakistanies can easily be called sheep-herds because they just tend to follow what other is doing without thinking twice about it, although i have also notice little change in that and hope things will get far more better then they are now.
I just hope someday, we stop at focusing on the problems only and try and work out the realistic and doable solutions of our problems…
For instance look at our neighborhood, the country where 70% of the population and that is 4 times of our total population lives under the line of poverty, where one third of the country is known as Red-Corridor, where The movement like Kashmir Freedom Movement is ranked as 3rd because there are other serious separatist movements going on can do better with all these things, then we have better infrastructure and brains (globally acknowledged fact).
Why complain only, why not do things, why search for jobs why not create them??