Long time back, I was having an informal conversation with a professor of mine during tea break. He was UK qualified and had seen Europe. He said he was curious how much have I traveled abroad. He was taken aback when I told him that I haven’t even seen Pakistan in good detail ?! ‘What? Then how on earth do you know so much about the global map?’ ‘Hahah… as a pastime I sometimes grabbed the geography atlas from my nephews’ school bags and felt deeply interested exploring the map and then fetched further information from other sources’ ‘wow… great… in that case you do deserve to travel the globe in reality’…
Many years passed by… I became an untravelled, loveless dud again.
Then one day I touched the application of Google Maps on Android screen! And the love affair started once again! But…
I loved to surf the planet as a rare natural bounty… its curvy crust with hills, oceans, plains, volcanoes, snowy things. Dark and fearsome forests, effects of climate on people, cultures and places… The man-made magics…
The towns, cities and villages… And, above all the people! Their expressions, pains and… and the political affairs around their problems! This was not there for me in my new lovable finding. Photo of people: Privacy concerns etc.
Real reviews: Please exclude comments hinting to political matters, Maps wants you to stay clear of the geopolitical issues, don’t generate controversy. Maps: Stay clean! Me: Big shit! How can one with a large bowel stay clean ?! Maps: Hey! Instead of roaming around water bodies, mountains, deserts, missing villages; come to the places where general public wants to go… & all… Me: Thinking ??.
This, initially kind of perturbed me, it was not my cup of tea… I thought… I looked around and found out that Karachi is a concrete jungle, mainly made up of (often unplanned) residential buildings!
How much new or exciting shall I be able to bring about by reviewing and photographing similar grey and squarish buildings and places? I just pondered…
However, as I continued working more and more, I started understanding the need and importance of what Google Maps wants from me. I started to understand that it is a service to common (& even hifi) people. Similar looking buildings in Karachi or elsewhere started looking like cakes & cookies with different flavors ?
For adding some life to the photos, I tried to include some colorful stuff, some vehicle in foreground of the photos. Sometimes broke the rules by adding some people and expressions…
And I started loving the work. So the conclusion is that: Now apart from other urban structures
I am generally posting about Miscellaneous items & eatables
Shopping related material
But major chunk of my contributions from Karachi are related to residential buildings and projects. I take photos and try to review them. In addition to other general information, I look for accessibility levels which is almost none in old buildings & at different levels in newly built ones. Particularly, Wheelchair parking is an uncommon feature. I also add hash tags in reviews, to indicate about accessibility facilities.
Moreover, occasionally I can’t keep myself from hinting (by very ? intelligent guess) about the legal status of the land used, although due to fears I often try to avoid this.
And this way my cute affair with the Maps is going on naughtily ? @PaulPavlinovich @ermest @TravellerG @OmerAli @KashifMisidia #NoWheelchairAccessiblility #KarachiApartments