The high flier...



This is Rifat Haye. The Pakistani pilot who flew me from Islamabad to Lahore earlier this month.

It is always a pleasure to be flown by a woman. I have had the pleasure of being on an aircraft with an all-woman crew in India, but this was one woman I had to meet -- after all, she is one of the nine Pakistani pilots in service and perhaps the seniormost too.

After the very smooth landing I made my way to the cockpit hoping there would not be an overreaction because of my nationality.

Haye was a charmer. She spoke to me about her career spanning 20 years and also let me photograph her.

We've got hate mail!

We often get hate mail. We've been called "dogs" and "pigs" several times in the past year. When we blogged about the Taseer sisters being our new poster girls earlier this year we got anonymous messages asking us to leave Pakistan!

And now an ardent Shahida Ahmed fan has called us "Indian bastard" suggesting that we go back to our "poverty stricken fucking country" and blog about that.

Shahida Ahmed is a topline restaurant owner who runs a commercial kitchen from our next door house. In India, we Indians would not have allowed this to happen at an urban address.

1 – 3 of 3

	You mother fucker! How dare you write such insulting posts time and time again about a hard working woman such as Shahida Ahmad! Rather than being a whiney bitch why don't you move out of the neighborhood! Better yet why don't you move back to India, "I am sure you can more than afford it" and I'm sure the cows and pigs residing all over India would make better neighbors for someone like you. You practically are one of them after all! By Anonymous on We are your mehman, Mrs Ahmed! on 7/24/11 Publish | Spam | Delete
	You Indian bastard, go back to your poverty stricken fucking country and blog about that! By Anonymous on Move them out Shahida Ahmed!! on 7/24/11 Publish | Spam | Delete
	Do you honestly have nothing better to do with your time other than crib and complain about her! Or am I sensing the green eyed monster of jealousy coming out! By Anonymous on Move them out Shahida Ahmed!! on 7/24/11

Our rescues and other stories….

Our latest rescue has scabies

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated” – a quote by Mahatma Gandhi (though not attributed to him) adorns the walls of the two vets we often visit with our 12 rescue cats and 2 dogs.

Having known both the vets for over three years, I can safely conclude that the poster means little to them or their well-heeled clientele who feel love only for purebreds. The passion that the vets reserve for purebreds is missing when they examine mongrels – even though the fee charged for both is the same! Pursuing the agenda of breed-worshippers obviously suits them.

Sometime last year I was happy to learn about a Facebook page, floated by two Karachi-based women (henceforth referred to as M&M), for the welfare of animals. I joined the group and like some others posted pictures of our rescues hoping to get them adopted. We never got lucky with adoptions; still I was pleased that M&M were putting in their two cents to create awareness about animal welfare.

Having rescued 12 cats and a pup our hands and home were too full (and pockets quite empty) to entertain the idea of adopting yet another severely infected pup found by our neighbour’s guard last week. Also, with the adoption rate of our rescues being zero we often worry about their fate when we eventually bid Khuda Hafiz to Pakistan.

However, we could not bring ourselves to ignore the two-month old itching and bleeding pup. A trip to the vet confirmed that the pup, just like the one we had rescued two months ago and still under medication, needed long-term treatment. We were also told to keep ourselves and our other rescues away from the pup -- diagnosed with scabies and a severe fungal infection.

We had spent several thousand rupees on the treatment of our first pup (with approximately the same symptoms and more) in the past two months, so on a friend’s suggestion we decided to contact M&M for help.

We were pleased with their instant response. They wanted numbers of Islamabad vets (even though the numbers existed on their website) so that they could get the pup picked up from our home. We were elated.

Two days later, the pup with scabies and fungal infection was still with us. We decided to send M&M a reminder. Their reply brought tears to our eyes. M&M said they would take care of the boarding/vaccination/medication/food costs of the pup (howsoever long that takes), pay a visit to the pup and help him get adopted.

On the fourth day, we were still waiting for M&M to speak to the vet. By now we were already paying for the pup’s daily visits to the vet. We sent another reminder asking M&M to let us know their decision “asap”.

M&M’s reply, 24-hours later, was a shocker. “This is to let you know ASAP that we cannot afford the treatment of the pup…”; asking us to look for another “sponsor”; and with no apologies whatsoever.

The pup’s getting better and is the newest addition to our family. We are glad we could help him before he was shot dead by civic authorities on some neighbour’s complaint. As for M&M, they are busy preaching animal welfare to their “fans” on Facebook!


UPDATE
The pup after six weeks of treatment. We call him Rocco.