Zahra speaks

Finally, 2018 is coming to an end. Like every year, this year was also filled with happiness and disappointments, success and failure, new relationships and breakups. It has been another year packed with experiences that help us grow and learn. With every upcoming year, we receive 365 days of opportunities to discover and improve. Life is going to throw you down and you are going to have both positive and negative experiences but everything teaches us something, focus on the thing that you extract out of it. You may have had some unfavourable experiences throughout the year and they are a part of your story, embrace them! We all are living a story, we will have the ups and downs, there will be villains to create difficulties for you but there will also be the heroes who will reach to rescue and if the hero doesn't arrive then be the hero yourself, anyhow always try to make your story worth a while. Again, all of these would just be words if you don't think about it. It...

One of the most important relationships in a human's life is friendship. Friends are considered to be a family that a person chooses for him or her self. The unique love between friends cannot be defined in words, however, recently, I heard a real-life story that illuminated the significance of friendship in a person's life no matter what they are going through themselves, the friends will always want the best for each other. Image Courtesy: VideoBlocks Ashfaq and Altaf were best friends since childhood but as they grew up, the professional priorities tore them apart. Altaf had to go to another city for work purposes and Ashfaq stayed back in the home city. Many years passed by and they were not in contact anymore but they missed each other immensely. Altaf got married and had a family, he would narrate the stories of his friend to the kids. Ashfaq, on the other hand, could not find a stable job but got married and had kids as well. Life went on and the friendship rema...

The Christmas season always makes me very nostalgic for various reasons. I have studied in coeducation and missionary school, Saint Peter's High School, Lahore. That building, the hallways, the cafeteria and the basketball ground, each and every place is clearly pictured in my head. As I write about it, I can clearly remember each and every place of that building. I feel extremely lucky to be a part of such an amazing institution, the time that I have spent there has played a very huge role in my life. The school is always very special for everyone, every child spends the best of his or her time in school. I have heard people dreaming about their school premises even after leaving it, even I have been to my school on several occasions in my dreams. November - December used to be the most fun-filled and busy time of the year. The annual Christmas play assortments used to commence in November, I was picked as an angel three times consecutively. Honestly, it felt conspicuously h...

Weddings, a time of joy for the couple and the families. This month, December is extremely popular for two reasons: Christmas and the weddings. Like every year, this year as well, there was some splendid weddings. The celebrity weddings especially garner a lot of attention because of their media presence and influence on their fans. Many people around the globe keep a very strong look at the wedding festivities and try to gain pictures and videos of the events. It is fair to say that these celebrities work very hard to create a fanbase and they deserve all the attention. This year many popular celebrities got married and the month of December proved to be the most phenomenal in terms of wedding “festivities.” Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone. This couple is extremely popular among the masses. Both the individuals have obtained a lot of fame and success with their powerfully impactful performances. This year a very phenomenal movie called Padmavat was released starring...

She was wearing a red salwar kameez and a pair of earrings that he had gifted her. Her heart was filled with questions and haunting memories of the time that they had spent together. The chowk was packed as she waited for him on the footpath near a traffic signal. She scanned every car that went by, looking to ascertain him, her first love, the man who made her realize the bliss of being loved. Finally, after 5 to 10 minutes, she saw him in a car. They were meeting after a year, 365 days of not looking at his face, not listening to his voice, not thinking about him all the time. His face was emotionless and expressionless. She sat in the car without even glancing at his face, trying to look away from the past. They did not look at each other for another 5 minutes, there was silence in the car. No words were spoken but the hearts were shrieking. She finally broke the silence, “How are you?” He accelerated the car. There was a clear aggressiveness in his attitude. “I am alive, wit...

There are plenty of differently abled people in Pakistan who are doing an amazing job in portraying a positive image of the country to the world. Many people are unaware of some of these splendid individuals. They are the unsung heroes of the nation who have worked tirelessly, despite their disabilities, and forged a name for themselves. It is not an easy task to create your own place in a society where there is an evident inequality in terms of opportunities, it is even more difficult if you are a woman. I have personally met some of the most courageous people with disabilities who have achieved brilliantly in their careers and are transforming their disabilities into abilities. I don't think anyone is disabled, they are just differently abled as compared to everyone else. It is the skill that counts not the physical characteristics. However, it is very true that the society judges on the physical attributes more than mental capabilities but this mindset must change. ...

One of the many things that we like to waste is our feelings. Just like food, water and natural resources, feelings are another thing that we waste every day, knowingly or unknowingly. Nowadays, most of the problems arise when we invest our feelings into the wrong people. Feelings are also an asset, we need to preserve and protect them for the right people. In our daily life, we meet hundreds of people but how can we be so sure about who are the right people? When we invest in anything, we are basically looking for profits hence eventually your own benefit. How can we imply the mutual benefits theory into our relationships? The world is filled with various relationships and most of them rely on mutual benefits. If you keep on investing your feelings and don't get anything in return then the deal is not going in your favour. The deal is fair when you give a 10% and receive 10% in return, even expecting more can be perilous to the relationships because the balance gets disordered....