Light Within

An old sleepy and dusty village Sher Garh lies about 20 minutes drive away from Renala Khurd (Okara). The coins found at Sher Garh prove that the place was inhabited at the time of Kushan dynasty. Though “the name Sher Garh was given by the Governor of Molten, Faith Jang Khan after the name of Afghan King Sher Shah Sure,” wrote Abbas Khan Sarauni in his book Tarikh Sher Shah Suri.

On the old bank of River Beas, it is a typical Pakistani village where farmers live like rustics in the face of urban attractions. Even the electricity and telephone are a recent phenomenon. But the village has never been out of limelight. Besides heritage conscious people from all over the world, the village is venerated by a large number of devotees. Reasons, a massive mud fort and mosque which were built in the period of Afghan Sher Shah Suri. And, it is the last resting place of Saint Muhammad Ibrahim Daud-e-Sani Kirmani Bandgi.If one wants to absorb the sense of history, Sher Garh is a place to visit. Director Syed Noor has set his film Chooriyan in the background of this village. One has to possess a sensibility shaped in granite not to be moved by the village of past age that has not changed much in last 400 years. In the periphery few van (salvadora) trees, may be as old as the village stand witness to the bygone era. The village is experienced changed due to awareness about various things and agricultural advancements but at a snail speed.

Saint Muhammad Ibrahim is regarded as one of the famous saints of central Punjab. His forefathers migrated from Kirman (Iran) and settled in Seetpur (suburbs of Multan) where Muhammad Ibrahim was born. The family later moved to Sher Garh when Mir Chakar Rind was ruling in the area. The Baluch hero Mir Chakar Rind having refused to help Sher Shah Suri joined Humayun when, after a long exiled Mughal emperor recaptured Delhi and ousted Afghan Suris in 1556. The emperor as a reward conferred a vast jagir including Sher Garh (also horses and slaves) upon him. He ruled this chieftaincy till he died in 1565. Farishta has written, “Mir Chakar Rind was a holder of jagir and commanding hordes of warriors in Punjab.”

Muhammad Ibrahim completed his education in Basirpur and Lahore. Contemporary of saints like Musa Pak Shaheed and Sher Shah of Multan, he got his spiritual blessings from Saint Syed Hamid Ganj Buksh in Uch Sharif before he set about preaching Islam in Central Punjab. Komal Singh Maghyana, a famous landlord of his time who used to keep 1000 buffaloes (hence Maghyana) was one of the first who embraced Islam. Mulla Badauni wrote, “Hundreds of non-Muslims used to convert to Islam on the hands of Muhammad Ibrahim every day.”

Sher Shah Suri built a fort in Rohtas against gakhars. But why the Governor Fateh Jang Khan built the mud fort near strongly defended and fortified places like Dipalpur and Pak Pattan? “It might have been built to guard against thieves and robbers,” says Muhammad Abbas Kirmani, the direct descendent of the saint, once told me. There is no trace of the fortification in the village. The mosque that was built in the middle of 10 century in the village was a fine specimen of Islamic architecture. It had large (100 x 25 feet) main chamber, five doors, five dooms and a wide compound with a well for abolition. The mosque had 30 feet high octagonal minaret in each corner. During the Sikh rule, the mosque was desecrated and damaged and it decayed completely in 1958. Now a new mosque has been built in red bricks at the same place. There used to be a library containing rare books and manuscripts that too was destroyed by the Sikh rule.

It was the shrine of Saint Muhammad Ibrahim that I had come to see at Sher Garh. Among the cluster of old and new houses inside the village is a dominant building of the shrine which is enclosed in a court-yard. It was constructed by Shah Abdul Maa’ali- the nephew of the saint. Upon entering the doorway to the shrine compound, I was taken aback at the sheer tranquility and beauty of the place. This grand edifice with solid masonry and ornate design wrought by artisans and artist centuries ago is one of the fine specimens of Muslims architecture. There are many graves of descendants and devotees and another smaller shrine in the enclosure. People were having food at lounger (community kitchen for free food) in one corner of the courtyard.

Constructed of narrow red bricks, used in upright courses to ensure additional strength, the shrine is located at the vantage point in the village. Being at the raised ground it looks higher than its actual height. The fine quality of marble has been used outside where as inside is decorated with intricate Kashi work.

A devotee was reciting Holy Qura’an in the main chamber. The shrine is in the care and custody of the Auqaf, though the department has not been able to repair even the gold plated pinnacle that needs immediate attention.

The first impact that this monument gives is an emotional one for it is a symbol of cultural identity – a part of heritage. It also has architectural historic, documentary, spiritual and symbolic values.

I managed to arrange impromptu meeting with Muhammad Abbas Kirmani, a progressive farmer, who had graduated from Government College Lahore in 1930. Muhammad Abbas is remarkably alert at the age of 84. Sitting inside the room of his home adjacent to the shrine, Muhammad Abbas Kirmani told me about the family history. He also talked candidly about every thing from agriculture policies to old customs to modern culture. I could not see the hand written Holy Qura’an, though. “It is taken out on the eve of annual mela which is held on March 13,” he said. Besides my differences of opinion on few of the things he said during our frank conversation, I was impressed by the amount of interest he had in variety of issues of the society, his force of conviction in arguments and intellect.

As I drove back on a single way metallic road through the green fields of sugarcane, piled mainly by animal transports and milkmen on the motorbikes, I could not help thinking: I shall have to go back to Sher Garh again. May be to see the annual mela next March.

I miss letters and greeting cards. A letter delivered by a postman, with its lines of handwriting, loops and angles that give a reflection of personality and, perhaps, secrets tucked inside the letters. Waiting for the postman to find a letter is old fashioned but many cherish still. Then opening letters, reading, and reading them again. There is a romance in writing and receiving letters that seems almost entirely lost to people particularly those who inhabit the cyberspace in this information era.

The switch to email and instant messaging has created an entirely new kind of language - of shorthand, emoticons (term coined by joining two words emotions and icons), graphics, and poor or nonexistent grammar, and missing punctuation, computer slang. It has also given birth to another kind of greetings: cyber greetings. This is about that.

Emails, instant messaging and text messaging (through cell phones) are quick and easy. Even person like me writes more of shorthand letters now than I ever did on paper. Granted, that they have increased contact with family, friends and colleagues than ever before. They provide eases and convenience. What would any day be like without a message window popping up mid-afternoon with a little emoticon sent by a dear and near one? Indeed, online communication is doing wonders for human relationship. A little goes a long way.

With rather longer prelude, the idea of cyber greetings is undeniably relevant to today, and it is intriguing. Information communication technologies provide an anonymity that allows people to reveal more than they ever would face to face. It also allows temptation to overcome good sense, and the results sometime can be overwhelming. Imagine two persons who came across each other after any one of them seeing online profile of the other and finding it "interesting" makes an endeavor and reaches out to the other online. Both are easily drawn to each other in online exchange of messages, too predictably, and without enough explanation as to why. The whole exchange takes in "real time". And before too long, the causal exchange turns into witty flirtation and may be into full-blown romance between those who have yet not met face to face. Clever combinations of e-mails, live chat lines, explicit emoticons and computer shortcuts, give way to the situation where 'the headstrong-girl-meets-self-sufficient-boy' and the urge to meet may becomes very strong.

Tags: Travel, Balochistan, Railways, Chappar Rift, Owais Mughal

Owais Mughal

Today we will introduce a historic and scenic railway route which once existed in the Balochistan province and Chappar Rift was considered as its main attraction.

The first railway link to Quetta was inaugurated in 1886 via Bolan Pass. A year later another rail route to Quetta was opened via Harnai, Khost, Chappar Rift and Bostan. This route through Chappar Rift, though non-existent today, has been considered one of the most revered engineering projects in this part of the world. Many rail hobbyists around the world try to emulate the scenery of Chappar Rift in their models and many others still visit the area to see the remains of what was once a very scenic railway. A retouched color replica of an original photo from Chappar Rift is given to the top right. An approaching train over a viaduct is visible. Can you spot couple of signalmen standing in the photo? This photo is orignally dated circa 1895.

The map below gives the location of Chappar Rift. The ruling gradient of this track was 1 in 40 with a maximum altitude of about 6000 ft above seal level. What made the railway route through Chappar Rift an engineering marvel was the overcoming of two significant geological hurdles in the area.

The first hurdle was an 8 kilometer long mud gorge made of gypsum clay. Since gypsum is not a hard material, laying rail track on this gypsum floor was a challenge.

The second geological obstacle on this route was the Chappar Rift itself. It is a 5 kilometer wide cleft with hills, as high as hundreds of feet on either side. Look at the photo to the right. It shows how two sides of the Chappar Rift were bridged. If you look carefully, you can spot an approaching train in the photo. Look just above the trussed bridge. The Railway line was laid negotiating and surmounting these natural hurdles. The salient features of the project included almost 2 km of tunneling, a seven span via duct and a 250 ft high bridge. In the photo to the left, this bridge and the viaduct are visible in center of the gorge.

Chappar Rift is considered a freak of a nature. Look at the photo to the left. It shows Chappar Rift from the north. It was formed when a mountain split open in two parts after an earthquake in the area. The nature had carved these two parts so perfectly that from a distance the gorge appeared to be mating parts of a jig-saw puzzle. As the rail track entered Chappar Rift area it had no feasible foundation to be laid on the mountain edge.

The rocks on the edges alongside the mountain were not considered practical. Engineers then decided to cut a line of continuous tunnels to make the rail bed more secure. See the photo to the right. It shows how sequential tunneling was done in Chappar Rift to lay the railway line. This type of continuous tunneling was planned for both sides of the Chappar Rift cliffs and track from both ends was to met in the center by an iron girder bridge. As normal convention of that time, if tunnel work was started from either side, it would have taken a long time and effort to finish the project. Therefore instead of constructing the tunnels in the usual way, the engineers adopted an expedient way of tunneling by driving openings (adits) into the side of the cliff at various points, and then cutting the tunnel right and left of these openings until the various sections met. The photo to the rigt shows how this process was achieved. Also note a standing person in the photo to the left. Since mechanized elevators were not available, these openings were created by lowering men down by ropes several hundred feet from the top of the cliff until they reached the point where the work for an opening was to be started. The workers then drove crowbars into the perpendicular sides of the cliff in order to get the necessary support for a platform from which the blasting operations could be carried on. Six of these openings were made on one side of the cliff and six on the other. Altogether there is a collection of 1.95 km (6400 ft) of tunnels in the rift.

The icing on the cake in this project was the construction of a 225 ft high bridge. The design and calculations for this bridge were the most difficult for the period when it was constructed. The highest pier was 90 ft from top to bottom, and the weight of iron girders alone was 600 tons. The bridge consisted of seven 40 ft long and one 150 ft long girder span which was used over the deepest part of the rift.

To build this bridge, the executive Engineer of the project named Captain scott, borrowed two similar spans which were built out as cantilevers from each side of the abyss. When this temporary span had met in the middle, Scott built his permanent span on top, afterward removing the false work. The whole work was completed without the loss of a single life. The bridge was opened by the Duchess of Connaught on 27th March, 1887 in the presence of Duke, Lord Roberts, and a distinguished company of people. The occasion was marked by the explosion of 20 mines. The bridge was named after the Duchess who praised it as the most glorious piece of work in the subcontinent. From that day on the bridge came to be known as the Louise Margaret Bridge.

The Railway line served as an laternate route to Quetta for about 55 years. On the night of July 10, 1942 there was a flash flood in the area which swept away the scree bank in the Chappar Rift. With the scree slope washed away there was nothing left for the railway to be laid upon. It is said that water level reached upto 30 ft in the mud-gorge area and it caused wide spread erosion of rail foundations.

The railway route through Bolan Pass had stabilized over all these years in terms of weather as well as security. This left the importance of a longer rail route through Chappar Rift to non important issue. Therefore in 1943 it was decided that the railway line between Zardalu and Bostan which carried only one train a week, should be closed down. The decision was carried out in the same year and the track was finally uprooted. The photo to the left shows how in 1944 the Louise Margaret Bridge was being taken down after this section was closed down. 133 km of track between Sibi, Harnai and Khost was operational until early 2006. The track is operationally (but not officially) closed due to damaged bridges. There is a chance that Sibi-Khost route will become operational again.

The locomotives that were used on Chappar Rift included the L class and then XA class steam locomotives. The photo to the left is circa 1935 and shows an L class loco pulling an express through Chappar Rift. There is even a poem written about L class steam operation. Two stanzas of that poem which talk about Chappar Rift and Mud Gorge go like this:

Now that which was once my domain,

If someone wants to visit the area to explore the leftover remains of Chappar rift railway, there is now a gravel road that goes from Bostan to Harnai and passes through the Chappar Rift. A portion of this road is shown in the photo to the left. The photo also shows the north end of the mud gorge tunnel. Most of the time the road is nothing but the embankment of the old abandoned Chappar Rift broad gauge railway line. On the way the road goes through at least three railway tunnels. Then there is a Chai Khana (tea shop) in the middle of no-where. One can find stone boundry pillars engraved NWR (North Westen Railway), holding poles for the sunshade of this ramshackle tea shop. The piers of a number of bridges including the Margaret Louise Bridge are still there as also some tell tale signs of railway stations. The Nari river valley including the areas of Harnai, Khost and Spintangi produces a lot of fresh fruits & vegetables. These are transported by trucks to Quetta and other places over the Chappar Rift. People associated with this freight service form the customers of this out-of-no-where Chai Khana because there is hardly any local population around.

In 1895 a delegation by the name of 'World Transportation Commission' visited different transport landmarks of India. The rail route via Chappar Rift was one of the landmarks visited by this delegation. Following photos were taken by the commission members.

References and Acknowledgements:

1. Couplings to Khyber by P.S.A Berridge, 1968
2. Hundred Years of Pakistan Railway, M.B.K Malik, 1962
3. Mr. Iqbal Samad khan, ex CEO Pakistan Railways, for his email/verbal account of Chappar rift travel
4. Mr. Nick Lera, for many of the photo of this article as well his email account of Chappar Rift travel. He also corrected some of the mistakes I had made in an earlier write-up of this article.
5. Mr. J.F. Andrist for his email account of Chappar Rift travel.
6. Mr. Jeff Bounds for his email account of Chappar Rift travel.
7. Afghanistan Railways: A dream coming true
8. Mike's Railway History
9. Chappar Rift Photo Album - A collection of photos that appear in this article.

Pakistan Railway Discussion Group:

If you want to learn more about Pakistan Railways, then feel free to join the 'Pakistan Railway (PR)' discussion group. Everything and anything related to PR is discussed here e.g. preserving of Pakistan's rail heritage, steam locomotives, sharing of photos and news, time tables etc. You can join the discussion group here.

Information Technology has already changed the way we work, live and do business. With growing Internet users’ base, trend to do more and more online is increasing at a fast rate. Users across the world are taking advantages of multiple technologies in more than one ways. Every savvy concern needs any or all of IT services like hosting managed services, assisted living management, and management consultancies. That is where NCC Data comes in. It is one stop shop for high end IT solutions.

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Have a look and feel free to explore. It will give you an overview of what NCC Data can do and you will be able to make an informed choice.

Posts that come from heart and speak personal truth and experience are the best. "Hit an emotional chord, not just intellectual ones," as a friend says. Next best are those when experts share their knowledge on specific subjects.That said, one of the best ways that I have found out to expand my bloggy fraternity is to set a goal to comment on say 5-10 blogs a day that are outside my usual reads. I also continue to see the work others are doing about topics of my interests. Technocrati is a good source to see what other bloggers are writing about on a specific topic I am exploring.

 

We all like to be linked to and so the more I have trackbacks to other people’s work they are expected to come by and read mine and eventually may link too! I try in addition to putting a link or two into my posts. It seems to have worked really well for me.

 

How do you reach out and how are you expanding your blog community? Another thing, Though gender is not the issue while reaching out but I some time see bloggers commenting men to me, men to women, women to women, women to men. Is there any substance to this hypothesis?

Things may change tomorrow as they always do. But today the cricket records read Misbah-ul-Haq as the most successful cricket captain of Pakistan. The criteria being somebody who has captained Pakistan in atleast 10 test matches and has the highest winning percentage. Following is the list of most successful Test cricket captains of Pakistan under this criteria.

Google updated its pagerank (Google PR) on January 6, 2012 for the first time this year. I got PR 1 for one of my .com that was PR NA. Go check your PageRank. I am expecting another majore Google PR update in this month (February 2012). Stay tuned.

As per the information, a minor update started from February 6th 2012 and continued for February 8th 2012. Another major update may occur anywhere at the end of this month so keep hopes high. Google updates PageRank at quarterly period, which means all webpages are gifted with a special rank once every four months. PageRank (PR) as you know is a scale ranging from 0 to 10. A PR increase is awarded to those websites only that are well recommended by niche websites.

If your homepage receives backlinks from other websites then your importance in the eyes of Google rapidly increases. Sites with higher PageRank are crawled at faster rate compared to web sites at lower PageRank. A crawler visits any website several times per day. Sites that have PageRank above 5 are crawled every minute and blogs below PR 5.0 are crawled every hour. The faster your site crawl rate the higher the chances to establish your rank in search results page and higher the chances to drive traffic for your content.

Tomorrow is 12 Rabi-ul-Awal – Eid Milad-un-Nabi – the day to mark the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him and his progeny).

“The panoply that Salman Rashid paints through his pen and his photography is simply breathtaking- a delight for the connoisseur and general reader alike,” writes Agha Akbar, Editor Sports and Magazine Pakistan Today while reviewing Roads Less Travelled 2011 – a PPL book of days  for year 2011.

With the demise on 29 May 2011 of Mahmood Ali Khan (MAK) Chaudhry - five months short of his 88th birthday and within hours of his son's arriving at his bedside from abroad - an entire generation of a remarkable Jullunduri Rajput family has passed into eternity.

This blog post was written during world cup 2006 and appeared in the daily Nation.

The stage is set for football lovers for the biggest event in history of the game where teams from 32 countries are battling hard to prove their worth, for many players, once-in-a-lifetime experience. Word Cup is taking place in twelve cities in Germany, from June 9 to July 9, 2006 and football fans have gathered there to watch the thrilling game and the rest are glued to different media channels to find what is happening.

The passion for Football is certainly sweeping every one in Pakistan this time, particularly the youth and sportsmen. In addition to conventional media (Radio, TV and Press), for the first time on the Internet, Pakistani football fans are going online to find all sorts of information about the championship, including multimedia content such as an extensive gallery of brief video clips of stars and highlights from games from earlier championships. Many Internet sites have sprung up which are reporting during the matches about every goal, foul, booking or other event out on the stadiums. “The hype this time is of an entirely different order," says Shahid Javed, a student in Business and Information Technology, University of the Punjab.

Earlier football fan frenzy started when the FIFA World Cup Trophy (designed and recently renovated by Italian sculptor and creator Silvio Gazzaniga) was taken on whirlwind tour jointly organized by FIFA and a beverage company where it received a thrilling welcome - 200,000 visitors, some 1,000 articles published and 45 Television shows broadcast in its honor.

The passions of hundreds of thousands of football fans were stirred for three months in 32 cities in 30 different countries. On 5 January 2005, the statuette so coveted by footballers the world over set off in the direction of Accra, the capital of Ghana, before finishing its journey in Italy and Rome on 9 April. Nigeria, Tanzania South Africa, South America, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Argentina, Ecuador, Columbia, Paraguay, Japan, Korea Republic, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, China, Bangkok, Indonesia, Sydney, France, Zurich, Russia, Ukraine, Portugal are some of the places where Trophy was paraded.

The tour gives an idea that FIFA is cottoning on to the idea of an equivalent to the Olympic Torch for football. Two years ago, instead of being carried by athletes to the Olympic Games in Greece, the torch made a tour of all the countries that had hosted the games. This year, the World Cup trophy was taken from country to country before it finally reached in Germany. It is not just visiting the countries which have hosted the tournament, but the idea seems to be along the lines of Olympic Torch.

For Abdul Ghafoor (65-year-old Pakistani), once known as the "Black Pele of Pakistan," life revolves around football. He has found a renewed vigor ahead of the World Cup finals. Mere mention of football and the mega event in Germany which helps him forget his loss of hearing and nearly impaired vision sparks life in him. As the showpiece events approaches, the former Pakistan caption told AFP, “One of my wishes is that Brazil retains its title.” Though away from football ground, Ghafoor still is in touch with the English Premiership and Brazilian soccer.

Lahore School of Economics students are looking forward to the World Cup and when asked unanimously replied, “Brazil are the favorites to win the World Cup. Argentina will try hard for the top honor, but Brazil are the main candidates because of their players’ abilities and because of their recent performances. Tufail Raza says, “I have no doubts that Brazil will keep the title. I wish I could go to Germany to watch the World Cup live in the stadiums, but it is costly for me.”

“Being a Pakistani, I expect Pakistan to play and win. May be we will be in the tournament in 2010,” said Ammar Pervaiz, but when Pakistan is not playing, I will still watch the game with concentration and enjoy without accompanying tension and verbal duel of traditional rivalries as are seen in Indo-Pak cricket series.

We Pakistanis are used to kind of sporting atmosphere, with fans rapt to the game, extremely cheering for players and teams,” says Taha Amir, player and an ardent football fan who is currently studying in Lahore School. “What I take for granted at football matches, others are amazed by. It is always a joy to see international tournaments and understand the game. Seeing my favorite stars at their best improves my own game.” That is why football fans from around the world will watch the World Cup even if their own teams are not participating.

Mobashir Ahmad, an ex army football color holder has his 15-year-old son Mubarak who has got the love for the game from his father. Most of his friends play the game in a satellite colony where they live and have a football ground nearby. “I will certainly be following World Cup,” he says enthusiastically. I asked him how many of his friends would be following the World Cup. "Oh, about 20, and my father has invited them to come a watch the matches at our home," was his answer. His father told, “Mubarak’s interest in football is due to my own passion for the game mainly and our stay in cantonments where this game is regularly played.

Mobashir is disappointed that our country is not participating in FIFA World Cup in Germany. For Pakistan he says, “as far as the future is concerned, we have great potentials. Some talent hunt, some sponsorship from public and well as private sectors may take Pakistan in next finals.”

Iran is participating in World Cup. Commenting or Iran, Mobashir says, "I do not think that Iran will win the trophy. Thinking this will be unrealistic, but getting through the group stage would be a fantastic achievement for Iran.

Iran's Croatian coach Branko Ivankovic has been quoted as saying that the team heading to Germany is the "best generation in Iran's football history". We will not go to the World Cup just to make up the numbers," he said after qualifying, "we feel we can beat anyone."

Bitter controversy of Jewish community leaders notwithstanding, Afshin Afshar writes, “Iranians should get their manifestly talented stars to gel as a team and they stand a chance of being the first Iranian side to make the second round of the tournament.”

Despite being among the pick of Asian sides since the 1970s, Iran crashed out of the finals in the first round in Argentina in 1978 and in France in 1998. Iran's only victory in the finals, a 2-1 win against the United States in 1998, sparked delirious street celebrations. “Wizard of Tehran, the Asian Maradona and Asia's "Player of the Year 2004″ Ali Karimi will present the biggest headache to first-round opponents Portugal, Mexico and Angola,” adds Afshin Afshar.”

Great supporting events have different impact on economies too. Remember bazaar closed and low turn-out in offices and educational institutions on the eve of India Pak cricket match across the country in the past. Germany will have upward economic surge due to large number of foreigner fans coming to watch World Cup in the country. On the other hand it is feared that the World Cup finals might have negative impact Asian markets as during the 2002 World Cup (May 31-June 30), the Stock Exchange of Thailand slipped 4.34 percent. In Singapore, when England played Nigeria at the last World Cup, turnover on the market plunged and the Straits Times Index fell 11 points on a lack of buying interest.

“This time we are expecting dwindling sale during the Word Cup. Which is why we are putting up big screen TV for the customers to sit and watch the game,” says manager of a reputed café on M M Alam Road, “football fans are already enquiring about when we will put up a multimedia for the Word Cup as we do for cricket.” Many other cafes and posh eating joints across the city are putting up bigger screen televisions to attract the Word Cup enthusiasts.

Zahir Khalid, good player of his own time and father of two promising football players says, “Football is one of the greatest and most powerful things in the world. It is more than a sport, it is an economical activity. The amount of money and trade passed during Word Cup is remarkable. So many sports retailers, shops, transport channels and restaurants do good business during the championship; football creates many potential jobs for those who have that unique gift. Football gives our children hope and dreams. In places such as Brazil, there is extreme poverty and yet they still worship the beautiful game. Football is a lot more than a game. We should encourage others to become involved in the game. I can see footie fever striking Pakistan like cricket, hockey in near future.”

Representation of Pakistan – once a credible footballing nation, grinding its way into Asia's top 10 with players in demand from league clubs in India - in the 2006 World Cup is limited only to sending a few hundred “Made in Sialkot” balls to be used in practice sessions, and the attendance of three Pakistan Football Federation officials at the opening ceremony.

Unlike cricket that can be played on streets, football needs need wider grounds. And there is dearth of open spaces and grounds in our cities. That is one of the reasons that this game has not been popular in the past. But “football craze is picking up here too. There are many ardent fans who are looking forward to the Word Cup, for entertainment if nothing else,” says Mujtaba Haider, manager marketing in an international concern who was on Lahore College University team in his own times. Sports are often referred to as the world’s finest form of entertainment. They are health social and activities that holds the attention of an audience as well as its participants. “Football does it best,” Mujtaba adds”.

On the other side, story is the exact opposite in Holland where the Women for Football-free Netherlands have launched a campaign to get rid of the World Cup. “We are really bored with it. All our guys are glued to the TV, forgetting about us and everything else. They think that women do not understand the game and are only good to serve beer and snacks.”

I don’t think so. And I am going to spend my time immersing myself in the world’s most amusing and impulsive drama: Word Cup 2006. You are invited.

No matter whether the team of any country is participating in the FIFA World Cup 2006 or not, it has not discouraged the football fans across the world from joining the general mood online.

As the passion for football is sweeping every one in the world, fans are logging on to the Internet to find all sorts of information about the championship, why Edmilson of Brazil will miss the World Cup, who is opposing participation of Iran or multimedia content such as an extensive gallery of brief video clips of stars and highlights from games from earlier championships.

Many Internet sites have sprung up which are reporting during the matches about every goal, foul, booking or other event out on the stadiums. "The hype this time is of an entirely different order," says Abid Jamal, a student in Business and Information Technology, University of the Punjab.

The best joint for online reporters and geeky fans is an apartment in Berlin Wilmersdorf that will be the meeting point for bloggers, vloggers and podcasters from all over Europe, meeting to cover the 2006 FIFA World Cup. The weblog weallspeakfootball.com is described as "a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of football fans around the big upcoming event."

"We have a 220 square meter flat with an awesome patio on the rooftop in the center of Berlin," according to the team's announcement. "Our blogger team will blog live for 30 days from the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. We will have the time of our life and the best is: anybody who's interested is invited!"

Another interesting place for Football fans is The FIFA World Cup Fan Park in Dubai where game lovers will be able to watch the thrilling FIFA World Cup football with oscillating emotions in the only venue of its kind away from actual stadiums in twelve cities of Germany.

"The FIFA World Cup Fan Park gives spectators a true stadium experience with a giant 140 m screen, grandstand seating, stadium food and football-themed games and activities for the whole family. Each of the 64 matches will be broadcast live at the venue, which occupies much of Shaikh Rashid Hall at the Dubai World Trade Centre. The Fan Park will reverberate with cheers and chanting from up to 3,000 people, including 1,500 in stadium seats, 500 in the VIP balcony and 1,000 on the indoor football pitch that will double as a seating area during matches," reads a report that came across my desktop.

What is more, Football fans have been searching for information about England striker Wayne Rooney more than any other player, ahead of this summer's World Cup finals, according to new research. The news about the state of Wayne Rooney's fitness ahead of the 2006 FIFA World Cup led to a huge surge in users on Yahoo!

Besides more than 60,000 fans will pack the Olympiastadion in Berlin on June 7, nearly 5,000 dancers will boogie to Oscar and Emmy winner Doug Jack's choreographed routine; Il Divo will sing the "A Time of Our Lives" theme song, with some help from R&B singer Toni Braxton in an Olympic scale ceremony, fans all around will be glued to all media channels for the moment to moment updates on mega event. According to Initiative, a London company that buys media space for advertisers, the Cup's 64 matches will attract a cumulative live TV audience of more than five billion.

What a great idea for connecting with other citizen journalists, and working together to cover a big sporting event. Wouldn't it be fun to hang out with those bloggers and vloggers?

Right now though, Germany is at the forefront of our minds, and as a simulation of that tournament is every bit as welcome (and as unexpected) as a Rooney recovery.

There was a time when most of my day was spent riding motorcycle on Karachi streets. I had literally driven more than 40000 km in the first year I bought my motorcycle. After I had travelled all the metalled city roads, my friend Umar and I decided to go for an off-roading trip.

It was C hristmas morning of 1991, when before dawn I took my motorcycle out and went to Umar’s place. The cold wave from Quetta valley had come to grip the city and it was extra cold that morning. The night before, a tree outside my bedroom window kept shrieking in the cold wind and I kept praying for the wind to stop so that we could go on our safari in the morning.