Who's this VERSATILE blogger?
An avid writer with skills in photography. She grew up watching BBC Food, which naturally makes her addicted to food! Yes, I LOVE eating. Interests: Versatile! P.S, She's got a Higher Degree in Mass Communication, Research.
Her mission: To inspire and Motivate
"I'm Creative with Captial C. Alhamdulillah!"
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 15,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
So this is it. It’s my last post at this place. On the bright side, I’m happy to announce that this goodbye is a hello to my own new blog.
Khanumsays.com is officially on! Click here to catch me there.
Much love and thanks to all my friends, fans and readers and to WordPress for giving me wonderful 4 years of blogging. You rock!
Please, Don’t forget to subscribe to khanumsays.com for latest updates.
Hala Hala Hala ! And there go all the supporters of Atlético Madrid against me. What a match !!! what a TENSE match for both teams. And Surprisingly, despite the fact that Atletico was successful to make the 1st goal, all of my family rooted for Real Madrid right from the beginning without any disputes. This was the first soccer match ever to be watched by my family. No joke. Even I never had any interest in Football before, all I used to hear was how down to earth Messi Messi Messi is, and how show off Ronaldo looks. But this is what I think: Ronaldo may be hard to digest sometimes but hey! Give that guy a break! His team got talent which got them this victory.
Here’s a quick recap summary of the match from the newly born soccer fan who thinks Bale is actually cool !
1: Atletico Team has got great players. But they are big whiners, cheaters and do not care for the yellow cards whatsoever!
2: David Villa has to do more than that to impress me. (No I am just joking. He’s married for God’s sake)
3: Pop corns are a must to watch the game. A consensus we all reached upon. Mom included.
4: Billion dollars Ronaldo has to stop taking his shirt off at every win. It becomes hard to root for Real Madrid then. But His act of affection towards his mate at the end of the match, that was just beyond words cool.
P.S. To those Atletico players who pushed him down several times on the field today, My family hates you all.
5: Real Madrid players got to spread on the play ground well. That’s where Atletico was better. They were sharp and all over the place like grass hoppers.
6: GARETH BALE! I saw this guy making some real efforts on the play ground there. There were 209,594 tweets per minute after Gareth Bale made the goal and Real Madrid went up 2-1 ! That was spectacular and so sudden that we all screamed in union MADRIDDDDDDDDD!!!
7: I need Real Madrid T-shirt. Any soccer player interested in gifting me one, please drop a comment. No jokes.
That’s all for today from Khanum. I still need to learn alot about soccer. But I already know who’s my favorite from now on.
Bale who I called, Gale, throughout the match. Lol
Hala Madrid !! (My 1st ever post on soccer)I hope you enjoyed the recap
Note: I do not own the pictures
e were 209,594
The wonderful world of Shaukat Khan is filled with Holiday cruising adventures, Awareness Campaigns and fantastic art works. He doesn’t just write travelogues telling interesting stories about every place he visits but also paints such fantastic things. Have a look at the picture below. This was painted by him during his Save The Disappearing Flora & fauna Of Rainforest campaign.
I admire his work, especially the one he put on Saatchi Online. Do check it out. There’s a painting by the name, Fantasy Butterfly. It’s so unique and colorful! Simply splendid work.
On Wednesday, He gave a marvelous presentation on Ship Cruising before leaving Pakistan. Did I mention he’s settled in UK?
The event started off with a slide show on Flora and Fauna campaign and then escalated with his presentation on Cruising Holidays. All the students just simply loved the idea of cruising and pictures from all over the world that he been to on ship. Every eye was mesmerized, every student had his breath taken away. I was given the task to photograph the event but even I was so taken away with the presentation on a big screen that I stopped clicking my camera for awhile.
Here are some of the pictures from the presentation day.
P.S. He’s my Uncle.
Life, is beautiful. What makes it even more pretty are the astounding unique ideas of brilliant people.
Meet Sara Hussein! Another brilliant girl. One of the many beautiful people on earth who came forward with a unique and productive idea of her own. NORAK. “A product that brings the beauty of Islam and Technology together.”
I came across this product on Twitter, when I met Sara who was extremely busy running the fundraiser campaign. You all remember the Pop Quranic Book by Hajera Memon, right? A product that I got to know via twitter as well. The news update on that one is that it raised the required funding to go ahead with their project and now they are in the production phase.
As for NORAK , the journey has just started and am so glad that they have raised $2,526 already. With 13 days left to reach their target of $50,000 , Sara is hopeful that it would turn out well. See her website http://bit.ly/1e48ekZ
Is it just about lights?
This is where you’ll be surprised my friend. NORAK is a WONDER. In the words of the creator of this product,
“I created this product to help enhance my children’s bedtime routine and give them something that holds true to our Islamic identity, as well as giving me the freedom to be in control my children’s bedtime routine. In a world filled with technology it can sometimes feel like everything around us is chosen for us before we even get given a choice.
When I was looking for night-lights for my son to help him get to sleep at night all I could find was the same generic moons and stars with pre-installed musical lullabies. I believe that the Quran is our light in this world and so it’s important to be able to share that with our children as soon as we can. With NORAK you can choose what you listen to, and if you take a look at our perks you can get one of the first ever NORAKs to be made with a micro-SD card pre-loaded with Quran for you to listen to.
Although NORAK was designed with children in mind, it’s also a beautifully timeless classic addition to the home. It’s a piece of art / technology that is interchangeable between generations. From babies to grandparents were confident this is a gift to give or keep.”
I find her story very inspiring and her kids too adorable. NORAK is like a perfect gift you can gift to your kids and to your friends as well. If you haven’t checked out their site yet, Follow them and support their campaign by helping in raising the funds. Click here to run fast to their site.
May Allah help NORAK get launched good and soon. Ameen
P.S! Happy 200th Post to me
Ever since I got my new camera, Canon 600D, I have been doing photography almost everyday. All my posts are about photography and all my days revolve around ideas that can improve my skills.
This. is. getting. too.much.now! I want to take a break from my camera, break up with it for awhile, announce to my family that I’m on a vacation and would concentrate on reading and writing alone. If you’re also that person who feels its getting a bit overwhelming with shooting all the time, you need to stop too and do something else. Refresh your system and I know, even though it would be hard to stay away from your camera, you need to try for the sake of saving your other talents and plans for life. If you’re a writer , this break is definitely needed for your soul.
Help yourself by knowing these points.
1- A picture is better than a thousand words. But words are there for a reason. Tell yourself that. Realise it and don’t over do it with photography. Still can’t stop? Find a way to add words to your picture. Make long descriptions, this way you would find the joy of writing again and the devil camera might leave your mind for awhile.
2- Know that everything can’t be photographed. There are emotions that you can’t capture in still photography but only in words. Make schedules, do photography but only once a week. On other days, do something else that gives you joy. Write if that’s what makes you happy. Don’t give up.
3- And finally, make your photography meaningful. Don’t just snap snap and snap all the time. Go for conceptual photography and if you know what that is, you also know that is it takes proper planning and timing because its like a project and not photography for the sake of photography alone.
When I’m back with my camera and we are no longer in a broken relationship, I’ll start writing digital photography tutorials to help you learn how I do my stuff and also to make room for writing. Meanwhile, enjoy some last of my work because you won’t be seeing much of it for few days.
I had another blast just few hours ago. I was taken to Gilgit, Baluchistan, Kashmir, some more places and ahan! Konya, Turkey!!
I got to Enjoy that famous Turkish dance, yup, that whirling dervishes performance where they spin round and round endlessly.
Are you kidding me, Khanum?
No, I am serious. But I didn’t actually go to all those place, All this was brought right here in Lahore at Expo Centre, Cultural Night, infact. Not only this, I also got to enjoy a dance performance by gilgit group.
I must say it was my favorite one out of all the performances. It was soothing and beautiful.
The men in the background played beautiful flute or sitar, whatever it was, while two men danced so elegantly on stage in white shalwar kameez. The amazing thing was their jumps! Yup, they jumped so high many times in it. Ooooo it was so entertaining! Look again, at the jump!
Then a 3rd one joined them on stage and it got all bomb amazing.
So good that even Turkish dervish dance performers couldn’t help but observe them from behind the curtain. Have a look at the picture below! See, how amused the man is behind the curtain at backstage ?
This was very new to me. I am not a concert person. Nor it was a concert but somewhat near to that. The Turkish performance was not as I imagined it would be, I was waiting for a moment when I would feel a certain emotion and go in trance or something. But It was rather strange, I wonder how they could say that this specific dance was a form of worship. How can an act of worship be a performance that needs an audience any way?
But I have to say the stamina these men displayed was enormous. They kept whirling for like an hour or maybe more than that. It requires stamina and alot of patience. That’s the only inspiration this could convey.
Perhaps I need to go to Turkey to see the real thing. And to china as well. Because the Dragon dance that was the second biggest attraction of the night got cancelled at the last minute. I was very disappointed. Let’s hope they arrange another cultural night for that. However, I would appreciate it if they would make it less noisy. I don’t know , maybe its me, but my head was already aching bad after an hour inside that auditorium. Do I need to add that few people among the Pakistani audience are total idiots? Why the heck they had to whistle even at the Whirling Dervishes performance is beyond me. Clapping out of the blue was another hilarious and entirely crazy act. Minus that, it was a GREAT night for Photography. Hope you like the pictures out of the 500 that I took! Lol
Another long and rather strangely new kind of performance was given by a group of men in colorful frocks. They also said their dance was “Inspired by Sufism”, by the way.
The night is long gone. The performances are done, but I am still mesmerized by that one performance.
No .. not the Whirling one. But the one by The gilgit group who had amazing outfits with caps having pigeon feather on top like a crown and jumped so high while dancing. This makes me want to visit Gilgit.
A very pleasing idea.
