Exploring the Artist in me

A lot of things have changed within the span of weeks. Given the contagious nature of coronavirus, the entire globe is in state of havoc with each country trying to take measures to reduce the spread of virus.

Offices have either shut down or employees asked to work inside home premises. In my case, its now been 2 weeks I am working from home. The exam I was studying for got postponed for another 8 months at the minimum and all of the sudden, I have a lot of spare time in my hand.

I have been trying to stay grateful at this time as I have been wanting to read books or simply move my hand on the canvas and paint out my imagination but was always busy with one thing or another.

So in the past week while I was working from home, I did painting using acrylic paints for the first time and this is what it turned out to be:

Here goes the quote of Rumi  “Inside you there’s an artist you don’t know about.”

1)Dervish : This painting is after being inspired by Sufism. It shows a mystical connection between a person and God. Dervish is a wanderer and dances in circles to get divine message and attain spirituality. The person is free from the worldly affairs and wants to connect with higher being.

 

2) Alhamduillah: Second painting is to thank God for all the countless blessings which a person forgets if one of his/her desires has not been fulfilled or answered by God. After all, “What’s meant for you will reach you even if it’s beneath two mountains, and what’s not meant for you won’t reach you even if it’s between your two lips”. We should remain calm, be a better person and have patience, tawaqqul for our desires to be accomplished.

 

3) Evil Eye Protection: I have seen a lot of souvenirs from Turkey and Syria with a blue eye. It is said to be a belief that having a blue eye in the house protects against Nazr i.e. evil eye. Given the current condition of entire earth and seeing the photo of mother earth wearing a mask flooding the social media, I was motivated to make this painting with the hope that the world will recover from coronavirus soon.

4) Old Lahore: Having lived in Lahore for four years, I loved the old city especially Mochi Gate, Delhi gate and purani anarkali. The buildings although old have vibrant colors and the houses are so close that women can pass the food dishes through windows. The people are poor but lively ‘zinda dil’.

5) SeaView Karachi: Do you wanna have a sair of Karachi with Raju (a.k.a the famous seaview Camel)? This photo is a depiction of my favorite child hood memory of going to seaview with my family and enjoying the thandi hawa of karachi while the rest of the city is polluted.

6) Chai: The last painting for now is a fun one I made as I was missing Pakistan while being away from family at this time. Chai (tea) is the most popular drink in Pakistan and there is a lot of variety with my favorite being Elaichi chai (cardamom tea). Chai has alot of cultural significance and I did something similar to truck art on kettle.

Someone please get me garm garm jaleibi to dip in my doodhpatti… a combination to die for 😛

I made four more paintings and you can see my quarantine wall. Grateful to paint again after a gap of around a decade because of the busy routine. I have been seeing loads of people do cooking, baking, sewing, learning music etc. Although, the situation is tough..on a positive side,  we would have learned a new skill by the time things get to routine.

Adios!

 

Homesick Child

Hi to all the bloggers out there. I have been out of touch since ages or even centuries. I tried logging on my blog account on laptop but realized that I have forgotten the username and password both (my memory is to be blamed for it :p). Luckily, I was able to login automatically through the phone and here I am writing. (Dont even know if people still read blogs :p)

I went through the posts I wrote in 2014 when i first started writing and was laughing on how immature I was but still received so many positive comments. Guess we all grew up. It’s now 2019 and good five years have passed by. I have changed multiple cities, countries and even continents all by my self but I still miss the smell of rainy roads of Karachi where I spent 13 years of my childhood. I also miss the 17 year old me, super excited to go back to Pakistan from Saudi and study at LUMS. I had so many dreams and passion to make my own school for the poor girls and contribute to the economy. I realized its difficult to get done at this time with no finance of my own and then after studying so much for the 4 years, I got admission in Canada for Masters on scholarship.

The 21 year old girl came all the way to Canada alone ( probably the few Pakistani girls who come alone to a foreign land). These 16 months have been alot of struggle and I experienced things I never did in life. After tons and tons of networking and even more crying, I finally got internship at a dream bank and have finished the program. But I do get homesick especially when I go and meet families living together. I try to keep myself positive and have faith in destiny but no matter wherever I go and become, I will miss the golden carefree days of childhood wandering on the streets of Karachi and coming home to a big loving family (to my Da, baba, mama and siblings)…

P.S: the photo was taken in Gerrad Street,Toronto where I could feel the bit of  Pakistani culture,for a while..

 

5 things I learned for which I am thankful

5  new things I learned/accomplished in the past 3 months for which I am thankful

1) As I have always been busy in my studies, I never used to get time to learn cooking. Nor did I ever bothered trying myself. However this time when I came home and was completely free from studies my mom asked me to learn a few dishes. So, in the past month I have learned making Kaal Masur di Daal ( Black Gram), Moong Masur di Daal (Yellow Gram) and Bhindi (Lady Finger). I am Thankful that at least I learnt a few dishes.

2) Second thing I am thankful of is that the burden of certification is over (for now at least). It was really difficult to prepare myself and read the six volumes of book and retain so much of the material.  As it was my senior year at the university, there were a lot of events and parties and it was hard to study when all my friends were enjoining. So, I am glad that it’s done but I do hope that I pass.

3) Third thing that I learned last month was cycling. As a kid I remember riding a three wheeler but I never learned a bicycle.

4) This Eid, I applied Mehndi/Henna to people at a parlour and earned a good amount out of which I gave a proportion to charity. This was the first time, I donated and I felt really happy. I hope to continue working for social cause in the future as well.

5) I found out one of my closest friend on a social networking site and it was great talking to her after 5 complete years. After high school, she was out of touch with all the classmates, however it was truly a joy re-connecting with her.

Welcoming 2017

So I am writing this blog post after four months and 8 days to be exact.
2016 was a fine year except when I look around me and watch the news channel, there was so much trauma happening which I really hope would reduce in this new year. I pray that my Syrian brothers find solace and those seeking refuge in other countries become successful. There were so many air crashes this year with the recent being the the PIA accident and the one in Russia, I pray that may God give the families of these victims patience to bear the loss and I hope that no one dies such an unexpected death. I also pray for all those students studying to pass out with flying colors and make their parents proud. May God bless everyone with good health and guide all of us to follow the good deeds. May the suffering in this world end and everyone gets prosperity.
I welcome 2017 with a beacon of light and lots of hopes.
Wishing all my readers a very happy New Year!!!

Cheers,
Mehak

Numbers

This week’s topic for the weekly photo challenge by “The Daily Post” is “numbers”.

This is something that most college students have dreaded and since I am procrastinating studying it, I thought it would be the right picture for this weeks topic. It shows the algebra problem to solve.

I hope this will serve as a reminder for people procrastinating like me to start preparing for Gmat if they are to give now.