GeoTV: A venture inspired by 'tomorrow never dies'.

During childhood, we often heard our elders, discussing with each other that children should be kept away from watching movies because the violence shown and complicated stories could leave a bad impact on their minds for the rest of their lives.

Today, when I see so much of violence and terrorism in the world, I do wonder if those predictions were correct. There are many captivating movies, which were brought to the silver screen as riveting ideas but lead to disastrous happenings around the world.

And it is not just terrorism or violence, even scientific ideas of cloning, space travel etc, were introduced in either some novels and then pursued as movies.

Contemplating over it, I was reminded of some of the English movies, seen years ago. ( I say English because British movies are included, not just Hollywood).

For example: Arnold Schwarzenegger's, 'True Lies'. A fascinating movie which came out in 1994.

Through that, for the first time, the modern world witnessed emergence of a new profligate in Hollywood movies, announcing 'Crimson Jihad'. Harbinger of a divorce to Russians as former favourite miscreants, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, replaced by Muslims. 

The historic tragedy of 9/11 reminded many people of the scene from this movie, in which Arnold Schwarzenegger gets on an aircraft and strikes it in the building in order to destroy it. The plot and characters of 9/11 seemed familiar to many, who had seen this movie. It was just that the destruction was caused by the bad guys, instead of the hero of any movie.

In my opinion, whoever the perpetrators were of the incident, must have grasped the idea of this massive destruction from the movie 'True Lies'. I find myself ignorant of any reference, if a similarity was drawn of the events in media or press. As a Tsunami of stories followed  that mammoth tragedy. When I try to look back at it, fact and fiction, all gets mixed up.

Another movie, which I have never been able to forget was ' Conspiracy theory'. An American thriller about Jerry Fletcher (Mel Gibson), a conspiracy-theory obsessed New York City taxi driver, who continually expounds his ideas to different passengers whom he carries around to different places.

The most intriguing part of the story for me was, how Jerry was capable of brining different news articles and ideas together, giving birth to something totally irrelevant, which later proved to be true.

It is something which I personally relate to as well since childhood. Though, I consider it more of psychological analysis, reason  being capable of doing so, than product of a conspiring mind. As the movie discloses by the end that Jerry was actually technically trained by CIA for that (but there is no such twist in my real life story). Yet still, I do bring different stories together, which prove to be true in an alarming way.

 'Tomorrow never dies' (1997) a British spy film, 18th in the James Bond series, and the second to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional 007 agent. The story of the movie revolved around a series of destructions caused by a power-mad media mogul who intends to initiate World War III. 

In this story, 'a media baron, Elliot Carver, head of the Carver Media Group Network (CMGN), begins his plans to use an encoder to provoke war between China and the United Kingdom, which would replace the Chinese government with one more supportive to Carver's plans of exclusive broadcast rights.''

Does this ring a bell already? Have you been able to draw a parallel, where I am trying to lead you? 

Yes! My reference is to Geo TV. If nothing else, the lust for power and the appetite for playing with the governments are similar and quite evident.

And what I found even more exciting. We all know, Geo Television was established in May 2002 and a little bit of research about terrorism in Pakistan, revealed to me that the current wave of terrorist activities prevailing in our country started in 2003. 

Now, I am not accusing this TV channel but is not strange that 9/11 incident occurred and triggered its consequences in 2001. But nothing directly effected Pakistan, till the breaking news culture introduced by this channel hit this country.

Going back to above mentioned Bond movie. The spy hero, 007 is sent to investigate Carver, after Carver Media releases news with critical details, of some events, hours before they become known to rest of the world. And towards the end of the movie, the confession comes from the media-mogul himself that, his plans were behind all the terrorist activities going around. Therefore, the most detailed breaking news appeared, only on his channels and network.

This also reminds me of the innumerable claims by this Geo TV that they were first to break the news stories. Its selected anchors, representatives, found at the most important events in contemporary history. All this reminds me of the ambitions of the media mogul in 'tomorrow never dies'. And if nothing else, at least the inspiration of the movie, definitely worked behind this channel.

And they use religion as their masks...

Recently, I came across a status-update, at facebook, by a young girl named, Kiran Ashraf from Karachi. I seriously admire this girl, who went on to challenge, an all male crowd, despite being vulnurable. But this incident also provides, some points to ponder about our society. Here is an edited version of her story, as some of the sentences used, were in Urdu:

Kiran:  ''Among a crowd I saw a man today with a rope tightened around his neck and hands joined together begging for mercy. I couldn't see clearly but I saw another man standing really close. A bearded man of age with a prayer mark on his forehead, wearing decent clothes and uttering something. The first thought in my mind was that atleast there is, this respectable looking person present, who must be helping in sorting out the issue.

But out of my curiosity I went a little closer and to my utter horror, I saw the same pious looking man holding the end of the rope in his hands, gripping it tightly telling the man to move his shop out of the way because it was his space, his area. And the crowd, as always, was standing dumb doing nothing!! When I started to raise my voice against the brutality, I was told to mind my own business, as it was not something that a woman should interfere. Also, few people from the crowd declared, that the old man (perpetrator of the inhuman act) was more of a saint and an extremely respectable person. He had the right to teach a lesson to those, who created problems for him.       
And I was like, what kind of pious, religious man is he? What kind of message is he giving out that, if he appeared religious, he could treat a man like an animal? Even if that man on ground was at mistake, the other guy could have handled it in the right manner. Doesn't Islam teach tolerance? What would it take us to realize that?''
                                                                      ---------- 
This is not a story of  Talibaan struck, remote village from the Northern areas of Pakistan. But a tale, right of the biggest city - the only metropolis of our country - Karachi.

Again, many of you would say, this is nothing as compared to terrorism, torture and torment, the entire city of Karachi suffers from.

Let me be more specific, why this story held my attention. It made me visualize, how our entire nation suffers at the hands of such, so called religious people.

That one person, who had the rope around his neck was not just one man - but he represented our entire nation. How we are being held by our necks, by these Pharaohs, who walk on earth, as if they are gods. Only because they believe, they are practising their religion. Is religion not a personal thing between Almighty and a believer?  Is pride not a sin?

Our entire nation is suffering because of these pseudo religious people. Who distort, deform Islam for their personal motives. Who paint a wrong image our peaceful and respectable religion. They only use religion to as masks to unleash the beasts within their souls.

Note: And when I say Pseudo religious people, I do no intend to include maulanas / molvis or the real religious people or honest preachers of Islam. I respect them with all my heart. They are also victims of the kind of hypocrites, I refer to.

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
William Shakespeare
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/william_shakespeare.html#dkPwU4sWqqeT6Afe.99

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
William Shakespeare
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/william_shakespeare.html#dkPwU4sWqqeT6Afe.9

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
William Shakespeare
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/william_shakespeare.html#dkPwU4sWqqeT6A

A living legend called Hammad Siddiqui.

If you are a blogger or a social media person, particularly a Pakistani one. But are not aware of, who Hammad Siddiqui is, then you are fishing in a plastic tub. It is enough to prove your limited knowledge and lack of experience, in this field.

In simple words, Mr. Hammad Siddiqui is the 'the greatest GURU of blogging in Pakistan' and a big gun in the world of social media. It was my good fortune, which brought me to know him.

Allow me to narrate the story. I had created a blog, back in 2008. But till 2012, could not even think of what to write about. So, it remained almost forgotten.

A very dear friend of mine, Masooma Sibtain, who is always full of ideas, motivating others to do something; noticed my habit of writing lengthy stories as my status updates at facebook and suggested me to use this talent for writing blogs. I opened blogspot.com just to check the possibilities and was surprised to rediscover the blog, I had created few years ago.

During the days, I was pondering, what to write about. At a gathering of friends, ladies started admiring my habit of taking pictures at the parties and uploading them on facebook. And started demanding that I should tag them.
 
One day, after a lunch by a dear friend Hania Shahid. When all the guests left. Only few of the friends were sitting in her lounge and discussing the popularity of my activities. Another lovely friend, Mahnaz Fareed Sheikh suggested that I should go ahead and do it, on a professional level. Her admiration and suggestions puffed me up. It was exactly the time, when I decided, what I was to do with my blog. A social butterfly that I was believed to be, there was nothing more convenient for me but to write about the social life of my city, Multan. As Mahnaz had also called me, ''our own version of GT (good times magazine)''. I decided to name my blog  FarihaMunirShahTimes. This is how, it all started.

Masooma was pleased to see me, coming up with this different kind of blogging idea. But could sense, I required proper guiding. For that, she suggested me to add Mr. Hammad Siddiqui on FB. That was a time, when I was extremely strict about not adding people, I knew nothing of in real life. So, I started observing his blogs at http://hammadsiddiquiblog.com instead of adding him. And believe me, it was an enchanting new world of learning for me. All of a sudden, I was reading, extremely motivating, exciting success stories of entrepreneurs. Tips about marketing, branding, etc, etc. I felt like a student of business studies, who was totally smitten by the subject. There, on the blog I noticed, link to Hammad's Twitter account and started following him. To my amazement, he followed back. But still, I could not gather courage to talk to him. One day, he asked his followers about, some auto-unfollow and I feared he may unfollow me as well. So I dared to speak to him and told him, Masooma had suggested me to seek help from him. He responded like a thorough gentleman, politely, respectfully. And immediately added me, among his list of pupils and started guiding me. Also, invited me to the blogging workshops, he conducted in Lahore, which further polished my skills and increased my knowledge as a blogger.

Ever since then, he is playing the role of a guide, a teacher, a mentor for me. It gives me immense joy, when people, who attend his workshops tell me, he uses my blog as an example (though, it is mainly to point out the flaws). Yet, I am so proud of it and thankful too.

It has been more than an year and a half of my contact with him through this social media. And the learning never stops in his company. He is an epitome of knowledge. An inspiration for many (young and old alike). Always ready and willing to help others. A wonderful friend. Extremely down to earth and decent man, who lives his life according to the religious values. But still, his good humored nature remains unharmed.

Now, after years of blogging and thousands of writings, he has finally moved on to getting his own book published.  Bootstrapping Your Career by Hammad Siddiqui, will be soon available in the market. Every day, renowned, national and international scholars are posting brilliant reviews about the book. Though, I do not stand on a pedestal, as high as others. But this is my humble effort to salute a gentleman, I hold great regards for.

Going through, the excerpts which are being posted on the facebook page of his book. I would like to comment that, though this book is believed to be useful for the professionals only. But actually, it has universal appeal.

Like the phrase quoted by Mr. Hammad Siddiqui, 'You pay peanuts, you get monkeys!', is not just applicable to the professional staff, of the corporate sector only. Even ordinary housewives, can get help from such tips, while hiring servants and maids.

At another point, he mentions. ''Do you know that Freelancing and working from home is becoming a career option now. You can choose from a wide variety of opportunities from content writing, receptionist for a doctor's clinic, order booking, telemarketing etc.'' 

Is it not something, we all like to know?..... And at the end, just to let u know, the flavor of his writing, I am adding another of his quotes,

'If you are employed and doing well, you may think you don’t need career advice, but most people need to grow fast and progress quickly. I am one of them and I want others to grow fast too. In most cases, greater growth is due to high level contacts and networking''.

So, my suggestion to all, who aspire to get to great heights in their lives, grab a copy of this book. Whether you wear boots, high heels or plain slippers, this book will definitely, guide you to jump into better shoes.