I moved 1,392 KM North

I’ve wanted to write this blog post ever since I made the move but had to soak up the decision and live through it before I could pen down my experience and motivation behind the move.

YES if anyone still doesn’t know, I made a drastic life-changing decision to move from a city I have a love-hate relationship which is KARACHI (7th largest urban agglomeration and the largest city in the Muslim world) and that’d be another blog in itself. Still, the focus is on where I moved and why I moved.

Anyone who knows even a little bit about me knows how big of a craving I have to wander in nature, deep into the mountains, or go above the clouds (I flew a Cessna last year and it was fantastic – read more about that here).

So before I dive into my motivations the above picture should suffice to say that I was looking to take on a much more fresh approach to growth, get out of my comfort zone and step into the unknown whilst also pursuing my goal of moving closer to nature. So all in all my move was 80% the mountains calling me and 20% everything else.

20% of reasons are as follows

1- Load shedding (for the uninitiated here’s the dictionary.com definition “the deliberate shutdown of electric power in a part or parts of a power-distribution system, generally to prevent the failure of the entire system when the demand strains the capacity of the system.”)

2- The continuous upward trend of street crime to a point where it seems that every day you step out and reach safely back is a blessing itself (I know I am exaggerating it but once you feel the GUN pointed to your head, maybe you’d rethink the perspective about life and priorities)

3- Less DRAMA, oh this one is surely gonna be SPICY detail, but yes I would always secluded environment where I am away from any DRAMA be it for any reason at all

4- The freelance community eco-system is so much more mature in the twin cities in comparison to Karachi, it’s a sad reality but so true. The big names of our tech industry and much of the international level events all are held in Islamabad, so I didn’t get as many opportunities to network back in Karachi.

But the 80% of my decision still wouldn’t sound rationale to a lot of folks reading this, because, in all honesty, I was looking for a change that most won’t resonate with. 

Alright back to where did I move to, you may ask? 

Answer: Rawalpindi 

It’s almost the other corner of Pakistan close to China in the north, right next to the capital city Islamabad. 

The map below visualizes just far north I’ve moved

It’s been 105 days today 😂 so I can say with some experience that I’ve explored the city and can say the following without any bias.

Love the stillness here, the culture is very different from Karachi, apart from missing my family, the thing I miss most here from Karachi is the delicious food options, not saying there aren’t any here (there certainly are) being a foodie that’s something that hit hard 😉 but anyway you win some you lose some right? 

What I gained instead was a fresh start, a new city to discover, rainy weather, and most importantly the ability to spend the weekend in the mountains so no regrets. 

So now you may ask hey Ahsan that’s all good but did you venture and traveled far up north to the mountains which were your motivation, to begin with? 

Well glad that you asked, the very same week I came I went to Murree (Murree is a mountain resort town, located in the Galyat region of the Pir Panjal Range, within the Muree District of Punjab, Pakistan. It forms the outskirts of the Islamabad-Rawalpindi metropolitan area and is about 30 km northeast of Islamabad. It has an average altitude of 2,291 meters.)

We stayed over at Roomy Lodge to celebrate my wedding anniversary. YES I hear yall, I’ve not yet blogged about getting married but that’s for another day 😉 lets not get distracted and stay the course.

Then came our journey to Skardu and words cannot justify the beauty of zig-zagging roads cut through the mountains, the rivers flowing, the snow gently covering surfaces, and the rains across our travels. 

I can keep going on for eternity describing it but I’d not do enough to absorb the experience in my words, the feeling of realizing that we are nothing but a speck of dust in the bigger cosmos.