Turn in Life - Turn in Blogging!

Okay. I have been so lazy with this blog that it is almost … lazy? :P Too lazy to even think of a synonym for lazy, hah!

I guess the lazy blogger syndrome comes from the fact that my lifestyle has taken a turn. And the things I have been blogging about such as religion, politics, life, etc. though still relevant, don’t occupy my head as much as they used to before. Thanks to things that take up most of my time these days – work, travelling and going out.

So why not blog about things that I am actually doing – a little bit of shopping, eating, going out, etc. The little delights of a very ordinary person, delights that make life good. Life in Dubai. Life of a single girl living alone in this city extraordinaire.

Next blog post: How a Cheesecake Made My Day.

Heart : A Peephole to Your Future

Ever dreamt a dream that was all about things you were going through? And the fears, joys, tension, hopes, etc. of your real life, all followed you in that dream?

Our dreams are like a mirror to our real life. They tell us what awaits us when we wake up.

Similarly, this world is a Dream too. And somehow it is a clear mirror of what awaits us when we will wake up on the Day of Judgement. So what is it exactly that indicates what awaits us on the Big day?

Our heart.

Here is what Allah has to say:

“It is He who sent down tranquility into the hearts of the believers that they would increase in faith along with their [present] faith. And to Allah belong the soldiers of the heavens and the earth, and ever is Allah Knowing and Wise.”

Surah Fath - (48:4)

The pious, the blessed ones, the ones loved by Allah are bestowed upon by golden gift of Faith. And the verse clearly says that those with Faith have hearts filled with tranquility. This tranquility further strengthens Faith.

SubhanAllah! Such are the hearts of those who will be among the successful ones on the Day of Judgement.

To get an idea of what awaits us in the future, let's ask : does my heart feel tranquil? Does it feel tranquil in sadness? Forget sadness, does it even flow with peace when I am doing the happiest of activities such as dining out, shopping or talking to a friend? Is the peace we feel even a shadow of the sort of peace that Allah bestows upon His loved ones?

The answer certainly determines what awaits us in the future.

The rest, I shall leave on the All-knowing and Wise who is also very Merciful.

5 Perils of Living On Your Own

Okay so if you are living that big city life on your own, you have all the independence you can dream of. So much independence, that it is not even all that cool any more. And on the other hand there are certain perils that you can get into given that you are such a lone soul in a big big city. May be peril is not the word but I’ll just use it any way :P

So here we go. Here are some of the things that can go wrong wrong wrong when you are t-o-t-a-l-l-y on your own.

i.                     The air conditioner has chilled the room sooo much throughout the night, that you just can’t come out of your blanket in the morning. It is like stepping out from a tub full of hot water into freezing rain somewhere in North Pole. Okay, not that extreme but you get it. And of course, there is no mommy dearest to switch the AC off for you.

In such a situation, you will either run the peril of feeling extremely uncomfortable – or of going back to sleep and missing/ getting late for work and facing horrible consequences.

ii.                   You are out of cash. Your friends are out of cash (read: you are out of friends). The only money you have is to travel to work. In such cases you might just die of hunger. Or on a less severe note, resort to shoplifting so that you can get caught and the police can feed you something in the lock up for a few days. No matter what you do, this situation is full of perils.

iii.                  You locked your room at night and tossed the keys. In the morning you can’t find them. Now you are imprisoned in the room. You can’t go to work or even get a key maker. Also your DSL is not working and phone has no money. Also you have no window in your room. Also, you have no attached bathroom. Imagine.

iv.                 You are sick. Probably have diabetes or you just got stomach flu. Too weak to move. Too weak to get essential help like a sweet or gripe water. You’ll probably just die.

v.                   You take a week off from work to relax. And then you die somehow in your house. Like a natural death, accidental or may be a murder. Well then sorry, but your body won’t be discovered until at least a week. Wait, that is not really a peril for you as a living person, but it might be for your soul. Like if your body remained unburied for a week, that would probably be perilous for your soul no?

Pleasure Centered?

Yes, it’s been almost a year since I last posted on the blog. Reason? Well like I mentioned earlier, blogging is more like a way of relieving myself from mental stress. Having graduated from school and working nine to five doesn’t let me be in that situation any more. It feels numb rather than stressful. And this numbness apparently feels cured only with a bit of ‘entertainment’ on Sundays. The more entertainment one indulges in, the more bearable corporate numbness feels. Or so it was until I came across this paragraph in Stephen Covey’s book a moment ago that I am going to discuss below.
He speaks about factors that determine our life – wisdom, security, guidance and power. Covey explains how these life-support factors and the lives of people often revolve around certain centers. Some of the centers that most people let their wisdom, security, guidance and power depend on include spouses, families, money, work, possession and – it was rather surprising when I came across – pleasure.
The surprise was partly because pleasure centeredness is something that I feel guilty of being a victim of and that too unsuspectingly (which is even worse). So without further ado, I’ll share the paragraph that speaks of Pleasure Centeredness in Stephen Covey’s book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

‘Another common center, closely allied with possessions, is that of fun and pleasure. We live in a world when instant gratification is available and encouraged. Television and movies are major influences in increasing people’s expectations. They graphically portray what other people have and can do in living the life of ease and ‘’fun’’.
But while the glitter of pleasure-centered lifestyles is graphically portrayed, the natural result of such lifestyles – the impact on the inner person, on productivity, on relationships – is seldom accurately seen.
Innocent pleasures in moderation can provide relaxation for the body and mind and can foster family and other relationships. But pleasure, per se, offers no deep, lasting satisfaction or sense of fulfillment. The pleasure-centered person, too soon bored with each succeeding level of ‘’fun’’, constantly cries for more and more. So the next new pleasure has to be bigger and better, more exciting, with a bigger ‘’high’’.
.
.
Malcolm Muggeridge writes ‘’ Twentieth-Century Testimony’’
When I look back on my life nowadays, which I sometimes do, what strikes me most forcibly about it is that what seemed at the time most significant and seductive, seems now most futile and absurd. For instance, success in all of its various guises; being known for and being praised; ostensible pleasures, like acquiring money or seducing women, or traveling, going to and fro in the world and up and down in it like Satan, explaining and experiencing whatever Vanity Fair has to offer.
In retrospect all these exercises in self-gratification seem pure fantasy, what Pascal called, ‘’licking the earth’’.’


Given my current state of affairs, I can’t agree with this excerpt more. May be instant gratification has become necessary for those trapped in money-churning lifestyles to prevent them from becoming robots, to let them remember that they are humans. Perhaps it is an extreme that has evolved to cure another. But is the cure permanent? I wonder if I will have thoughts at the end of my life similar to those of Malcolm Muggeridge.

Men of Today and Yesterday - A Summary

If one wishes to speak to one's Lord, one prays to Him and if one wishes to hear one's Lord, Quran speaks out and so vividly it does so that a heart which has even one tiny shred of Emaan softens, and wishes to do nothing else but submit to the All Merciful, All Forgiving.

I happened to re-read Surah Al Fajr and it has become my third favourite Surah after Surah Ikhlaas and Surah Al Asr. It is as succinct and wholesome as a summary can get, a summary of what Man has done on Earth and what Man shall get right at the end - each one, his due share.

Here is the translation of Surah 89: Al Fajr by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. I typed it out from my own copy of Quran, so there is no error.

By the Dawn

By the ten Nights

By the Even and Odd (contrasted)

And by the Night when it passeth away;-

Is there (not) in these an adjuration (or evidence) for those who understand?

Seest thou not how thy Lord dealth with the ‘Ad (people). –

Of the (city of) Iram, with lofty pillars

The like of which were not produced in (all) the land?

And with the Thamud (people) who cut out (huge) rocks in the valley? –

And with Pharoah, lord of Stakes?

(All) these transgressed beyond bounds in the lands.

And heaped therein mischief (on mischief).

Therefore did thy Lord pour on them a scourge of diverse chastisements:

For thy Lord is watchful.

Now, as for man, when his Lord trieth him, giving him honour and gifts, then saith he, (puffed up), “My Lord hath honoured me.”

But when He trieth him, restricting his subsistence from him, then saith he (in despair), “My Lord hath humiliated me!”

Nay, nay! But ye honour not the orphans!

Nor do ye encourage one another to feed the poor! –

And thy Lord cometh, and His angels, rank upon rank,

And Hell, - that Day, is brought (face to face), on that Day will man remember, but how will that remembrance profit him?

He will say: “Ah! Would that I had sent forth (Good Deeds) for (this) my (Future) Life!”

For, that Day His Chastisement will be such as none else can inflict,

And His bonds will be such as none (other) can bind.

(To the righteous soul will be said:) “O (thou) soul, in (complete) rest and satisfaction!

“Come back thou to thy Lord, - well pleased (thyself), and well-pleasing unto Him!

“Enter thou, then, among My Devotees!

“Yea, enter thou My Heaven!”

Weren’t we already expecting Bombs today?

One of the most frequent tragic causes of headlines on Pakistani news channels is bombs. Bombs in the mosques, bombs at religious or political processions, bombs at other gatherings and even hospitals…

What is the common thing among them all?

Doesn’t take a second to get it – all these situations are heavily populated.

Here, a few e-clippings illustrate my point.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7181042.stm

http://www.newstatesman.com/2010/03/suicide-attacks-busy-city

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/01/pakistan-lahore-bomb-blasts

http://www.samaa.tv/News24920-YaumeAli_procession_ambushed_several_injured_.aspx

Today, I was feeling absolutely fine, yet I didn’t go to office. Simply because I was warned by my family and of course my own memory that today being 22^nd of Ramadan wouldn’t be safe day. There is nothing wrong with 22^nd of Ramadan absolutely of course, except that on this date, a culture to take out a religious procession prevails in Pakistan.

Since, the increase in frequency of bomb blasts in Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad and even in the northern cities of Pakistan for the past three, four years, quite many a sensible people have started avoiding initiating or attending large gatherings. Avoiding such events isn’t a sign of cowardice, but as a way of protecting life, which is an asset from God, something we are bound to protect.

Given the situation of our country, I wonder what logic drives people to still plunge into processions, that too of the ritualistic sort, and jeopardize their own lives and their families’ future.

Billee-Love

My mom never liked animals of any sort. She, like all other moms is that ultra-clean being who shrieks on just the minutest of dirt particles and can not bare even a couple of objects in a room in disorder...

My dad, one the other hand,  like a typical man, is the adventurous, rough & tough and bold one in the family. Now, although I grew up to be straightforward, independent, etc like my dad, I never developed any taste in animals which my brothers very conveniently inherited from him. The whole the-germs-are-going-to-get-you theory suits my taste very well (that's why I wash my hands more than  a couple of dozen times in a day... potential OCD? probably).

BUT...

Recently my brothers, taking advantage of the favourable situation at our home, turned it into a mini zoo...They adopted that starving neighbourhood cat and bought four ducklings AND one baby FALCON from the animal bazaar near Empress Market in Saddar.

Let me not speak of the ducklings and the Falcon for I shall not be able to stop. Getting to that starving cat is of key importance here... The recently turned into a leopard-resembling-creature that I now lovingly call Billaa (Urdu for 'male cat')evolved from a skeletal, weak little thing to a mota taaza ( fat and healthy ) real Billaa haha!

But the one person who is to be thanked for its whole evolution is my mom... She, Allah knows how, over came her disgust of fur and the dirt (and thereby germs attached to it) that feline animals have and fed the Billaa with Chicken all the time! Yes, because it refused to have roti, milk or even fish beyond a certain quantity, all my mom could do was give him chicken that was not fit for us to be consumed such as long forgotten pieces of frozen chicken or especially bought chicken feet (which are usually used to get chicken stock from).

The Bottom Line...

... is that now, in a conscious attempt to not fear germs and to be more humane towards non-human creatures, I have actually discovered cats to just addoooraablle. Although I admit there are the complete opposite of dogs, meaning they are selfish, attention-seekers, self-obsessed, least bothered to please their masters... However, yet they are just adorable. Its as if Allah has put life into balls of fur haha.. MashaAllah!

And today I befriended two new cats!!! :D I found them in my grandmother's garden. Took me less than five minutes to start patting them withing the first eye-contact... Here's a video and some pictures. You'll definitely enjoy if you are a cat lover! :)

Cleopatra animalofied ... 

This kitten is such a Jaaanuu! She literally played hide-and-seek with me! 

The Cat-eyed pose - by a cat hahaha..

WATCH These Cats in ACTION with meee !! :D

Its my right hand playing with the cats, while the left hand was shooting the show :P

That's all for today! :)

Dear Death Awaits Me

Imagine living in this world for ever, knowing you will never die. Not such a pleasant thought for me. For without death awaiting you, what good is life?

A kid is thrilled by the slightest of newness in his surroundings. A new kind of toy, a new book, a new place, a new feel… As this kid grows older he is less and less pleased. He gradually experiences it all. He masters his small irrational fears, doesn’t rejoice on his insignificant achievements, is hardly surprised by little discoveries… in short, he gets de-sensitized gradually, grows numb and number day by day…

Since I was a kid, I was never afraid of death. To me death has never meant the end of my soul or of my existence or the event of my dead body being eaten up by ants in my grave. It has meant totally something else. Death to me is the gate to eternity, the road to a long awaited event, a long pending meeting with my Creator, the hope of seeing Him and of course a lot more.

As the character of Achilles in the movie Troy said

“Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now, and we will never be here again”

Personally speaking, I have since forever felt that I’d die very young. At 12 I felt I’d die by 16, at 16 I thought I wouldn’t live my 19^th year, and at 20 today I still feel I might live up to just 24 years of age. I don’t really know why but I have always felt this way… Yes, I might die young. How young, I don’t really know. But this whole expectation of dying tomorrow adds joy to each and every thing I experience today.

Hey! Who Put My Mineral Water in the Commode?

EACH and EVERY time I flush my commode and see gallons of fresh water mixing up with the dirt and draining down, my heart feels extremely sorry!!!

See this picture …

My friend, Tehmina, went to Kharo Chan, a small district in Sindh. It was a prosperous city in the 1950’s and is now in absolute ruins because of lack of water for survival of its inhabitants! Most of the population has migrated to urban areas, rather to the slums of urban areas which are no better than their old city. Why?

Water!

Contrary to what we are taught at school in social studies, development economics, etc, I believe that no matter how much population exists on the earth’s surface, there are enough resources for our survival both for the current inhabitants and the ones to come. However, today thousands and thousands of people die each year, not because there isn’t enough food or medicine in the world, No! it is because there is a flaw in the way we manage and consume resources!

Yes, taking fresh water for example. We all know of the water cycle on earth. The water in the rivers and streams are enough for us … But only if we use it well…

Now getting back to the subject of commodes… Here, in Pakistan, we are lucky enough to have natural water for consumption; water that has come down from the skies, trickled down the mountains and flowed in the streams. This kind of water has a natural combination of minerals which no human method of purification and mineralization can replicate. And I think it is simply FOLLY to use this precious gift of nature to wash your commodes!

So how do we do it then?

Well, this may sound far fetched but if I find a way of making this happen I shall do it at all costs.

This shank in my restroom (I opened to see how it contained water in itself), contains more than five litres of Fresh water! Just because this water is in here, it feels disgusting to some perhaps but people in many places of Pakistan yearn for even the kind of water shown in the first picture!

So here is my idea… we should use used up water to fill this shank up. When we wash our faces, the water that goes down the basin’s drain is clean enough for this. So, if I could I shall make a system through which my basin’s drain gets connected to this shank and directs water to it whenever I turn on the knob! :) Simple!

I just hope I engineer this kind of system soon because I really care for each and every drop of water that I have access too. The effort might just be a drop in the ocean, but sometimes, for some, even a drop is a life-saver.

PS : the water from our Wudhu too is pretty clear to serve the shank!

Accidental Life

When I was a kid, in my science class they told me how my forefathers were apes and the world had seemed to grow dark. I always thought of my past as bleak. Now as life moves on, the present seems even worse.

They tell me everything is a product of an accident. A bang echoed in the universe, the earth sprang up. Then came water and with it popped microbes. Microbes evolved into bigger and more intelligent species. The apes entered the scene. And then there came a time when apes turned into human beings one day. And yes, I am one of the grand-grand-grand-daughters of one of these apes who used to pick lice from her daughter’s hair and eat it up. No wonder I get lice in my hair too sometimes…

The thing that has driven me to pen down my feelings is the evilness of this world. Yes, this world, this accidental life that we have is wicked to its core.

Look at me for example. I am obese and mentally slow. My father left my mother when I was 10. The cherry on top of the cake; my mother now has leukaemia; I’ll practically be an orphan in a couple of years. Imagine my emotional and financial future.

Let’s look at another example. It’s this girl in my class, Hania. People think she is hot and she gets the golden academic trophy every year. She has a perfect little family which goes to Europefor vacations twice every year. The cherry on top of the cake; she is ultra rich and will head her father’s textile company pretty soon so she doesn’t have a care in the world about money.

Click on the picture to enlarge it

So, cruel accidental life happened to both of us and for some reason liked her more than me. In the end we will both die and ants will eat our bodies up. Where’s the justice? What? C’mon don’t tell me justice does happen eventually. What about those serial killers who kill hundreds and get to die only once? That’s not justice. What about the great pharaohs who lived on a ‘heaven-on-earth’ by savagely enslaving their people and using them brutally? What about me and Hania? Will I ever be compensated for what I did not have, something Hania had out of no effort of her own?

I feel so pathetic, so sorry for myself and all those to whom accidental life has been cruel. I think the couple of classmates who told me I seemed suicidal were right. I think I am going to escape this unrewarding existence today, why procrastinate? May be I can help a few others in my part of the world too before I go. Hmm… stabbing can be a mess, I don’t think strangling will be easy for me… Ya, I think a bit of chloroform and a pillow to suffocate are the best ingredients. As for me I think I’ll go for slashing of my wrists; hope the pain will cloud my hatred for this horror world as this accidental life of mine drains out of my body.