Building Brand Pakistan - Part 4

Pakistani youth making a difference in their own pockets - every little change adds up to become a revolution...[news posted from CNN]

14-year-old girl wins Pakistan's first peace prize

November 24, 2011|By Nasir Habib, CNN

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A female teacher gives a lesson at a girl's school in the main town of Swat valley, Pakistan on August 1, 2009.

An eighth-grade girl was awarded Pakistan's first National Peace Prize Thursday for her online diary reporting on the Taliban's ban on education for girls.

Malala Yousufzai, a resident of Swat Valley in northwest Pakistan -- one of the most conservative regions of the country -- wrote about her frustration with the Taliban's restrictions on female education in her town.

Using the Internet, she reached out to the outside world, taking a stand by writing about her daily battle with extremist militants who used fear and intimidation to force girls to stay at home.

Building Brand Pakistan - Part 3

In an attempt to share what'good' is happening in Pakistan. Peshawar is not the most advanced cities of Pakistan, but this story shows that talent could be hiding in any town, under any circumstances - all you need is the passion and a little bit of encouragement and recognition. I'm so proud to see these two brothers aiming to establish a world record to bring glory to our nation.

We need to share more stories like these - this is the on the ground reality of our country.

You're from the country where they 'cook up their men' !!

I land at JFK airport and my husband and I go to the rent a car section to get ourselves a car for the trip. I hand over my passport to the lady at the counter - seeing my green passport, she jumps up with a laugh and says in her unique nasal afro-american accent...'Oh I love the women in your country, very strong women I must say, you cook up your men if you're not happy with em' and then looking at my husband she says 'You've gotta be careful man, she can be a tough one!'.  I was confused, first trying to translate the accent and then the context of 'cooking and men'! (at first I thought she means we cook food for our men, which we do).  I got her to repeat it for me and then i realised she was talking about the news two days back about this lady in Pakistan who happened to murder her husband and cook his body to hide the meat. She did it to take revenge from him for eyeing her daughter (his step daughter) for an affair while he was already married to the mother. She was so angry she decided to kill him and then cook him up. 

I hadn't seen this news till then, but the way the lady described it, we both had a good laugh about it. Then she looks at my passport and says 'O you've got your husband's name here' and turns to her colleague and says (in her accent again)  'Ya know, in their country marraige is serious business, naught like ours, where ya don know who your husban' is, or who's husban' he might be thamorrow'. I smiled at the fact that an american for once was appreciating the fact that we have our husband's listed on our passport. Usually we pakistani females dread the whole passport changing hassle and this chauvinistic law of having either your father or your husband as part of your identity (as if you, your living breathing meaty self were not enough to prove that you actually exist!). But this lady saw it as a sign of respect, something to go by as a legal and social protection. 

This might not be a very unusual interaction between a customer and a service agent, but post 9/11 any pleasant interaction between a Pakistani and a US citizen is definitely unusual now and I took a sigh of relief that one my first declaration of Pakistani identity in the US land, had something light-hearted to talk around it, rather than the monotonous link of terrorism. 

My experience with Painting...

Coming from a family of artists, I've always dreamt of being one since I was a child. I was above average as a kid in my art skills and managed to win a prize or two in art competitions. However I was more studious and ambitious than artistic I guess and growing up art went from being a passion, to seldom thought of hobby to finally a 'had been hobby'. 

Moving to Toronto and being jobless reminded me of my childhood passion and I decided to take up an oil painting class. During this course, I came across some surprises about myself and about painting that somewhat changed my cherry-eyed image of the subject. I realised, I was a very impatient person and oil painting demanded more than average patience; you've got to wait till layers and layers of paint dry out, so you can apply the new layer. It required attention to detail, another quality I'm happier living without - you need to look the the minute details of lights, shadows and shades to get the 'real look'. It required following rules! Yes, art of all the things, I thought artists were all about breaking rules and being free and crazy but that's definitely not the approach to a good painting. You've got to follow the rules of proportion, of colour mixing of spacing and much more. I realised art is also very technical. But most of all what surprised me is the kind of 'undivided attention' a painting demands. If you really want to paint, you need block yourself out from the rest of the world and life around you, doing it at home doesn't work because the kitchen or the mess in the living room or the emails keep distracting me. Unless I go to my studio, I cannot block myself out to give undivided attention to the painting. Once you're alone with your painting, it is a lot of fun and you can be there for 3 hours, feeling like they were just 3 minutes. 

I just had my last class yesterday and I learnt a good deal about art theory, different artists, different techniques of painting. I liked the pallet knife technique the most; I think I like this technique because it is more forgiving, you can mix colours and give a rough touch which still looks interesting and neat in its own way. It saves you picking different size brushes or cleaning your brushes again and again when you switch from one colour to another. Guess I'm a short-cut artist. No wonder I was always more drawn towards abstract painting. 

P.S: Yes, those are from my course work, attempts of re-producing Van Gogh and Tom Thompson. Glad they are not alive to see these! 

Toronto Diaries: An Organic Experience!

I happened to visit the Whole Foods grocery outlet for the first time yesterday. I did expect it to have a good range of organic and wholesome food offerings, but what came to me as a 'marketer's delight' was the way Whole Foods has built it's entire shopping experience around its core proposition of 'health via organic living'. 

First of all the grocery store has a very neat, clean and up-class environment to it (as you can see in the picture, it looks more like a cafe than a grocery store). You know that feeling you have when you think of your grocery list? Well you enter this store and you forget that dull feeling, in fact you will feel like you do when you're shopping for your favourite shoes or clothes - that's how pleasant the outlay and environment is. 

You think its a grocery store, but it's more than that. They also have hand made organic material gift section, natural ingredient cosmetics and more than that, they have a health bar - which includes an amazing Salad bar and an international cuisine bar. On the salad bar the board says 'Your Healthy Living Starts Here' 

On Saturday's the store invites you for their 'all you can eat healthy breakfast' - so you can make your Weekend grocery shopping trip a family breakfast time too! Something quite valuable to the busy working lifestyle here. It's also a great way to make your customers more 'organic loyal' by offering opportunities for them to taste and enjoy healthy eating. 

The store has an amazingly aesthetic display for each food section, be it cheese, bakery or sea food! They also have free sampling of their latest bakery or cuisine recipes. 

Another small but impressive difference was that all price tags were 'electronic'. How smart is that! Canadians would know how often stores have deals and sales on here - imagine how much paper and printing is wasted in changing prices over and over again! This is a truly  a 'green' initiative. As I said, I get excited by such things also as a marketer, because I can imagine how easily a brand could keep a check on their displayed prices at Whole Foods using their electronic pricing. I've seen the examples where brands lose out on sales because of mis-pricing by the merchandiser and it only gets detected after the loss has materialised - how often can you go to a store to physically check on each and every price in the aisle? 

When we talk about next generation shopper experience, Whole Foods is definitely one of the retailers bringing a step change! They stand for 'organic' in each and every way they sell their merchandise. Organic food is usually considered expensive to buy but if it is offered wrapped in a value added experience, I can imagine a lot of people feeling happier to invest in healthier food! 

Next weekend if you feel like breakfasting out of home and also have a boring grocery list - Whole Foods is your destination! 

Toronto Diaries - Home Shopping

If you're new to Toronto and looking around for some good ideas for home shoppping, well here's a tip list from my very fresh and recent experience: 

1. The main places for furniture shopping are IKEA, Leons, Bricks and Ashleys. IKEA is perceived to be cheaper and good for quick and practical home set ups, but beware - IKEA with its flimsy finish and quality is usually more pricey than Leons and Bricks - we experienced this mainly when comparing beds and dining tables.

So if you have kids, go ahead with ikea furniture for their bedrooms but for your lounge and master bedrooms, it might be a better idea to check out Leons, Bricks etc. Ashleys is really good too but on the pricier side.

Leons and Bricks seem to have either the same or extremely similar suppliers, because you find the same designs in both places. Leons offers free home delivery  for any thing over USD400 whereas Bricks charges about USD 50 for delivery, no matter how expensive. They usually have great deals on in some seasons so its a good idea to only buy during deals - its definitely worth the wait. If you however you buy something off deal and its put on deal within 30 days of your purchase, you can claim for a refund of the extra amount and they will cater to it.  For that you need to keep an eye on their prices even after you've bought your furniture!

2. So once you're done with the big furniture, you're probably thinking curtains and blinds now. This is a tough one,especially if you've seen better things back home (and especially if your home was Pakistan or India, where beautiful and customised curtains are made at amazingly low prices as compared to the dollar prices you see here). So my first suggestion is, if you can get your drapes made custom made back home (incase you have an excellent cousin, sister or friend who can do that for you and ship them across, or you happen to be going back for a holiday soon - that should be your first option). Because good drapes are found few here. The ones that are even close to good are extremely expensive.

If however you just need very plain, no frills, simple drapes - I'd suggest you get them at Walmart (starting at 20 dollars). If you'd like to get slightly classier ones, then you can get them at Home Outfitters or Sears(starting at 40 dollars) 

If you're going for blinds, then IKEA or Blinds to go - are good options. Blinds are relatively easier to find and cheaper than curtains.

3. Ok drapes done too. What's next? I guess Kitchen and Crockery. Here you won't have trouble looking for options, starting at Walmart and going up to the classiest stores - you'll find good crockery and cooking ware, all price ranges and qualities. My favourite are:

 - Corelle
 - Benix 
 - Home Outfitters

4. Ok done with all the necessary stuff? Now comes the fun part - Home Decor.  Here again you'll find many options but what you must check on your shopping trip are:

- Home Sense
- Home Outfitters
- Pier One (on the expensive side)
- Bouclair (on the expensive side)
- Do NOT shop at IKEA for decor before checking the above out, chances are you're going to regret!

5. Now you're wondering, that's a bunch load of places to visit. So let me give you some good news. There is an outlet store area where you can find almost all of the above stores. This shoppers' heaven is called 'HeartLand' - your ultimate destination for cheaper prices on ALL brands - home or clothing or accessories.

Good Luck Shopping & Settling in :) 

Toronto Diaries - Arts & Culture

I'm going to start a series of posts titled 'Toronto Diaries' which will talk about my experiences in this new city. It seems like 'Google' isn't always a great help when you're searching for the right stuff in a new city. What helps more is word of mouth and that's also hard to find in a city you're new to. 

So I'm hoping information in my posts would help anyone who's new to Toronto (or Mississauga) and for the rest, perhaps you can just enjoy the read !

Well if you're new in Mississauga and do not want to travel to downtown very often for something artsy - whether its an art class, theater show, musical or concerts, one place you'd like to keep a tap on is 'Living Arts Centre'.  Living Arts is conveniently located in the center of the city of Mississauga, very close to the shopping mall 'Square One'   Living Arts is an amazing place where cultural, community and art activities taking place all year round. Currently they are holding a range of workshops and courses including, Theater Classes, Pottery, Hot Glass Sculpting, Wood Sculpting, Oil Painting, Drawing, Dance and Creative Writing. 

They have exclusive studios for each of these courses; the studios are fully equipped with all kinds of tools and machinery required for the craft. Class sizes are usually small (12-15 persons) so individual attention is given to each learner. All class times and fees can be found on their website! I'm attending the oil painting class and loving it so far!  Living Arts also stages musicals, so Mama Mia is coming up in November. Recently they staged an amateur theater, Anarkali - so you can expect ethnic performances as well. Last month one evening was dedicated to Mehdi Hassan, where one of his trained pupils from Pakistan performed Mehdi Hasan's popular ghazal songs. 

Another place you might like to check out for Art courses is Visual Arts Mississauga; they have a similar course offering and slightly less expensive fee structure.