Wall chalking

Wall chalking is a common practice in Pakistan, especially in Karachi, where you can notice everywhere walls chalked with political slogans and advertisements of ‘not-so-well-known’ products and services including those of black magicians who claim to solve people’s problems in just a few hours. Graffiti and wall chalking give an ugly look to our city and I request all those who ruin the beauty of our country to refrain from doing so. Naseer Hashmi, Karachi Work hard to succeed

Most of us are careless and tend to waste our precious time. We also try to find easier ways to become successful. We must realise that in order to live a successful and organised life, hard work is required. Without putting in efforts, we can’t expect to achieve success. Abdullah Gulab, Islamabad Career counselling

Students in Pakistan face problems when it comes to choosing between their passion and profession. Most of us are not so lucky to pursue our passion because in many cases following one’s passion doesn’t guarantee a reasonable income. For example, one who has a passion for painting is discouraged by his parents because not every painter can have a regular income. On the other hand, professions like banking, engineering and medicine offer lucrative opportunities and students are forced by their parents and guardians to take up any such profession to have a financially secured future. And thus, in the rat race, the passion is lost somewhere. In this case, people belonging to the financially privileged background are lucky as they are not burdened to fulfil their family’s monetary needs and thus they can pursue their passions without any hassle. Lack of proper student counselling is another issue which leads to students choosing professions that doesnot suit them. Therefore, I request the colleges’ management to conduct regular career counselling sessions so that students can choose the right field. Umair Tanveer, Karachi Libraries

Libraries play a vital role in a society’s intellectual development. But people these days are no more interested in reading. Media too is responsible for this. Our younger generation is lured towards useless things like cheap mobile call and texting packages and consumerism in general. No advertisement on TV and billboards is seen that urges the young ones to ‘read’. Some people’s efforts, however, in this regard are praiseworthy who organise literary seminars and events but this is not enough where the entire generation disregards the value of reading. Media, corporate sector, government as well as NGOs should make efforts to spread the culture of reading in our country so that we too, can count ourselves among the ‘truly’ literate nations. Anne Ahmad, Karachi Young World, my inspiration

I used to read Young World when I was younger. The stories in the magazine used to inspire me to do good deeds, particularly because of the ‘lesson to be learned’ in the end of each story. Asad, Lahore