Help Me Pls

Returning to this empty word template after a long time. This feels strange. Anyway.

“Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it” – Albus Dumbledore

This particular line keeps coming to my head from time to time and so I thought I would write a little bit on this.

Every day three out of seven people complain. They whine about how something or the other needs to be changed, why their life is a mess, or how they can’t survive the extremities of this world. While this stat is made up, it might be real close to the truth. Everyone faces problems. Some talk about them openly and some keep it quiet but nothing gets resolved on its own. If you are facing a problem then seek out the associated people and ask for help. Yes just ask for it.

This Smartphone era has made people really self reliant. It is so easy to Google something and bam there you are, problem solved. People have forgotten the art of asking people for help. At times one thinks “am I asking too much”, “I should be able to do this on my own”,  “I might appear vulnerable” etc. and thus instead of asking for help we end up taking the easier route of complaining.

I thought of a doctor-patient analogy that might fit here but ended up erasing it.     :p

People like helping others. It’s like this weird default feature in everyone. Even if you go ask a murderer for help with something that he is good at he will end up helping you, provided you make the request politely. It feels so good when someone asks you for help. Asking for help is like saying “you are good at this” indirectly and everyone likes to be appreciated.

I am a day scholar at my university. The distances between departments are huge and I have the blessing of a car. Often I find myself driving inside the university and the students walking on the footpaths staring at me. They stare and stare endlessly. When people did this, I used to stop and ask if they needed a lift. Most of the times, “Oh thank you so much, we really needed that” used to be the response. Every time that happened, I wondered why they refused to put their hand out to signal that they needed a lift. Why is it so hard to ask for help in such small matters? One can’t expect help to land itself from the skies above magically. You have to atleast try and ask for it.

This part is off topic. Sometimes however people used to tell me that they didn’t need a lift. ‘Then why were you staring at me, creep’. Therefore I eventually stopped stopping the car. I end up waving instead when someone stares me. Smile and Wave.

Ego. This negative negative word often gets in the way of people approaching others for help. Trust me its not important. Let it go.

 I am not a huge Spiderman fan but

“Everybody needs help sometimes Peter, even Spiderman” - Mary Jane

PS. This might not have been as good as my previous articles but its been a long time, so, sorry about that. 

Actors and Their Demise

Recently a famous actor who featured in the Fast and Furious series passed away. Taking the social media by storm, Paul Walker’s death triggered different kinds of responses. You could see R.I.P. everywhere. Some people were trying to make puns at his expense while some were clearly annoyed by the importance being given to him. I kept wondering why this was happening and jotted down a few reasons.

Note: This is not a rant. If it is possible then please read till the end.

·    News channels try desperately to get you any possible alarming news before their counterparts. This race now features on Facebook as well. Some people cannot resist the impulse to get any such news across to their friends, first.

·    Fitting in. When you open your home page and you see that 50 to 60 percent of your friends are sharing a post it gets difficult to not do the same. “If so many people are doing it, then I must too” whispers a tiny voice in your head.

·    Complete and utter boredom

·   A few likes maybe. Getting “likes” on Facebook is becoming a daily necessity for the regular social media users. So why not use someone else’s (an actor in this case) popularity to your advantage?

·   Looking cool. Oh my gawwwdd. I watch such coolsss moviexx you knowxs. He wax my b3st frand.

However, I think there is a very genuine reason why people share such stories. Bear with me please. 

·    An actor, singer, sportsman or anyone who gets famous affects us in a way. We are not related to them. They usually don’t even know that we exist. But somehow or the other they have made us smile. A movie scene that we really liked, a football goal, a brilliant song. A song can comfort us, put us in a good mood. likewise a movie can reflect on our lives, at times teach us a few lessons, or just be the source of good entertainment. This connection between someone and a character (fictional at times) is not meaningless. 

Brian’s real name Paul was not known to many while he lived. But those who had seen his movies had developed a connection with him. For me this is a reminder as to how you can affect someone’s life without even knowing they exist. It also raises one important question.

How often do we make an effort to make strangers smile?

Why did you start to write?

I started writing in my O’ levels. Every day in class I would get the lowest grade on my essays. My mother would give me hour long lectures; my friends would look at my English notebook with disgust and me with pity. To be honest I am making it sound much more dramatic than it actually was but anyway my writing was depressing; poor grammar, bad spellings and the horrible horrible handwriting.

So yes back to what I was saying. I started writing in this rough notebook at home. It wasn’t a journal it wasn’t a diary. It didn’t have stories. Just random thoughts - long chain of weird random thoughts - about clouds, religion, people, how a bulb functions etc. Thoughts cannot be rethunked (I know its not a word :p), which is why I never read those articles after writing them.

With my O levels cleared the writing part came to a halt. This resulted in my thoughts going up as Facebook status. Seeing the same name in ones news-feed again and again can be annoying. My friends, especially Naseer ud din sahib, pointed this fact out to me several times.

That said, I would also like to mention that a few people said in the past that “you have nice ideas in your head and that you should try and express them”. By that time I thought I was okay enough as a writer. Quiet passionate about the current affairs (not so much anymore), I applied for a writing job at a newspaper agency. They were kind enough to send me a reply which said very very politely that I should try out something else.

 Last year I spent one semester as a hostelite. My roommate, Idrees, was the head of publications in a few societies and would sometimes ask me to comment on articles and reports. I started enjoying that kind of work. With his help, I wrote a few articles for the department’s newsletter and received encouraging response.

This summer when I had some time off, and I thought I have a few good ideas and stories to share, I decided to make a blog. Aaminah (weird spellings but she is doesn’t like it if you spell it differently) helped me out with all the small things “Farrae bhai you can make a blog by registering to blogspot.com” ”you will have to make a template” “this is how you can draft a post on it” etc. More importantly though, she encouraged me consistently.

This is not an article that famous people write after they become millionaires and then reflect on their past. This is just an answer to a good question. Why did you start to write?

(question credits: Maham) :p

Driving techniques that you might not find anywhere else.

All the regular drivers out there know that the road is a very unfriendly, scary place. Here are a few things you can do to make it a bit happier, a little less menacing.  

Note: All of the following are to be done with a smile on your face. Otherwise there is a chance you might seriously offend someone and ultimately get beaten.

1.Don’t you hate it when someone cuts you off?

Give them a hand gesture that says ‘you go ahead sir’.  This will make them think that this is a very nice world where people let others pass.

2.Did you ever get that angry stare when you cut across someone?

Raise your hand in a thank you style. This will make them feel very generous as if they let you pass willingly. Who doesn't like being thanked anyway?

3.For car enthusiast.

When you see a fancy car by your side, give the driver a thumbs up and then see them show off their car. Everyone wants appreciation, no?

4.The random kid with the face plastered to the window.

If you see a small kid in a car next to you, ALWAYS make a twisted face at him/her. Make sure that you pull your tongue out and/or take your hands to your ears and wave frantically.

5.Random people staring at you.

If you see people staring at you constantly from a car nearby, pretend you are listening to a song. Start by nodding your head slowly. Increase your tempo. Start banging imaginary drums with your hands or play an air guitar if it suits you. Make eye contact, act shocked. Smile and look away.

6.For passengers.

Wave and smile at everyone. Drivers must not do this unless the car is stationary. 

Stay happy. Make others happy :)

Malala and Opinions

At the end of any pointless argument people end up saying “you are entitled to your own opinion and I am to mine”. Why then  would you like to waste three hours of your life trying to impose your opinion on someone else  or even bothering to ask what they think about the issue? The reason is simple. Sometimes these discussions are actually beneficial. A well drawn conclusion can help solve a few problems. However, usually arguments just lead to a bad throat.  Nowadays people argue for the sake of having an argument.

I was having a debate with a friend a couple of months ago. The discussion was heating up fast and getting a bit personal. I thought it would be best to drop the argument there and then but my friend refused and I quote “let’s continue. In the end one of us will win and the other will lose”. I might be naïve but I don’t think the point of having a discussion is to declare someone victorious based on how great his or her opinion is on a particular topic.

So yeah anyway. I am not against discussions. I am against having an opinion. At this some of you might think that I have gone completely bonkers. Even though that’s entirely true, I think I have a point. Bear with me if you like…. or can. Nowadays the media bombards us with information here and there. Whether it be printed news, tv channels or even social media, the information pool that we have access to is huuuuge. While this may be very nice in a way, it also creates problems. First of all we never get the complete picture. Secondly we cant really know what the truth is.

What my sister’s friend told me about her maid’s previous owner’s daughter might be as accurate as what JEO TV plays every hour on its stupid channel. If anyone of you is associated with the channel, my apologies but I just hate they way they announce news with the dadhaan and dashhh sounds.

My point being that we might think we have loads and loads of knowledge on a subject of current affairs but I think the truth of the matter, in most cases, never reaches our eyes and ears. And thus based on incomplete and at times, fake facts, forming opinions and defending them against that of others as if one’s existence was on the line, seems pointless to me.

Recently a friend of mine, who has a great blog by the way check it out at  http://hellodogthisismyblog.blogspot.com/, asked me what my opinion was on the whole “Malala controversy”. Truth be told, I never bothered to make an opinion on it. I never tried to hunt people down with a different opinion and then blow them to bits by my points and facts.

This however is what I do know.

Malala is a very little girl by age but has had experiences that I might never have. Not many people take a bullet to the head, survive and go on to become a world symbol. I know for a fact that she did speak for her rights and her education. She might not have initially been that selfless but from what I have seen of her in her interviews she is trying to promote education along with child and women rights globally. Anyone who says these things deserves credit. Whether or not this is a publicity stunt, I don’t know. But at least she is saying all the right things that make sense.

Some people blame her for spreading a bad image of Pakistan. I disagree. I think she helped focus a lot of eyes on Pakistan and that automatically showed the world whats going on here. Was the projected image exaggerated? Yes maybe, but my background differs greatly from hers and our perspective is thus subjective. It is also true that people abroad only got to see one side of Pakistan because of Malala. The bad side, with the terrorism and no women rights etc. I guess we are the ones who should be blamed for not highlighting the positive aspects of Pakistan. No?

As far as; who is behind her, or who is benefiting from her campaign, or whether she is an international agent or not. These things I believe fall into the category of pointless discussions because even if she were a CIA agent as some people call her we will never actually find a signed contract or something saying ”I solemnly swear…”.

Why do people hate her? Maybe its because she got an honorary MS degree from a pretty good university while some of us are having trouble in getting our bachelors done. Maybe its because of the Canadian citizenship, the world tour or her tea parties with the leaders of the world.

So based on the things that I do know, I wish that Malala succeeds in her covert mission of spreading education. No pun intended.

End.

PS. This is the longest I have written in a while. I am sure I would have made grammatical and spellings and all other possible errors. My apologies for that.  

Someone who met me for the first time last week said “when you start talking it seems like you will say something really important but by the end one realizes that it’s not true”. Let me know if you agree with her.

My 7 years old Sony Ericson W 8-10i Walkman Phone

So this post is purely for myself. I wont share it on Facebook or anywhere else as i don't think it would matter to anyone :) I strongly recommend you to not read this if you value your time. For me however my phone is a big deal and i really want to write about it.
I bought the phone when i was in 8th grade for 15 600 Rs. 200 for cover. 100 for a strap. My mother was furious at me but more at my father for "allowing me to spend so much money on something so useless" :)
At that time there were no smart phones. This was a head turner and I used to treat it like a priceless jewel. Its amazing though how new cellphones get released everyday. It took almost one year for the Nokia Symbian phones to flood the market. My innocent cheap cellphone got lost in the midst of all the technological advancements. The smart phones later wiped cellphones like mine off the market.
Its funny how when people meet me they pay more attention to my phone then to me.
A few of the remarks that I get are:
"Phone change kar ley yaaaar" (Please change your phone)
"Is that W 8-10i. can i see it. This was an amazing phone maaaan"
"You had this phone when i last met you three years ago"
"you still have this phone???"
Any way.
The camera doesn't work now. The strap broke. The strap holder broke. The flash stopped functioning this year. I had to reset the software last year. The buttons on the keypad aren't visible. The screen, the memory card and the battery cover come off every-time it falls and it falls nearly once everyday :). Oh and the phone shuts down sometimes when i am trying to make a call.
Buttttt
I have no idea why I still love it. The excuses I present to people are that its battery life is still 3 days, sends messages just fine, can even play a few songs and there aren't any good phones that i like out there. bla bla
If I remember correctly i got the phone as a gift right after my birthday. So this is me saying happy belated 7th birthday to my phone

I hate myself for not taking the time out to write a blog-post for such a long time. Will be back soon. :) 

War against chemical weapons

"If you kill one person unjustly it is as if you killed the whole humanity, and if you saved once person it is as if you saved the whole humanity." (Quran Surah 5 Verse No 32) 

In Islam or any other religion that I have come across, killing someone is considered a very serious issue and is allowed only as punishments to the worst of crimes. I think we can all agree that killing someone without reason is unacceptable. What I don't understand is how we can justify bullets and bombs but chemical weapons are tabooed. I am completely against the use of chemical weapons but equally so of a gun, sword, dagger, poison or any other weapon that ends someones life. If innocent people are being killed anywhere in the world their deaths should be condemned because they were killed unjustly not because they were killed improperly. 

On a side note, with today's media being so untrustworthy, one can never distinguish news from propaganda. I am not sure whether the people of Syria want a better govt or if they are content with what they have. Is the govt actually using chemical bombs or if this just some "misunderstanding". Either way waging a war against a country can't solve it's problems. A war will just lead to the death of more and more people, economic decline, and the resulting govt may or may not be what the people like. 

“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”  (Gandhi)

Please no more wars.


(My knowledge on this topic very limited. Please forgive me for not quoting exact facts about the whole issue.)

Smileeeeee

IF you are travelling by car, wave and smile at the people on the bus. When you are on the bus, do the same for people in cars.
I am sorry I was gone for so long. Actually I had nothing to do and not doing anything productive puts me in a really negative mood and I just sink into a stupid hole. But this friend, just now, made me smile by saying a few random things on Facebook and so I thought I would write about the importance of smiling and making people smile.
You must have heard this quiet a few times in movies etc. "A smile can change the world". I think that dramatizing something renders it meaningless but I still agree with the statement. Its not about changing the world, its about making it a better place and for that you need to change one life at a time. The easiest way to do that is by giving people a reason to smile. I don't have to quote any scientific research here about how even a forced smile can make ones brain release chemicals that tell him or her that he or she is happy.
I personally enjoy making faces at random babies or waving my hand at strangers until they smile or wave back. All this at the cost of being labeled crazy. I don't mind though. If it takes me trying to balance a water bottle on my head or a spoon on my nose to amuse someone, then be it. I get amused too when I do these idiotic things but I love it when someone smiles.
I just realized that this is not a well structured post but I have a headache right now and I cant write well but I still want to get the message across even if it makes me sound like a beggar.
PLEASE PLEASE SMILEEEE whenever where ever you get the chance, or even if you don't :)

I hope this made you smile :)

Family

Currently I am feeling ill. Fever, Flue Etc. but there is no other place I would rather be other than home. My mother keeps fussing over what I am eating, my sister keeps on cracking jokes saying I am faking it and my father makes me eat a thousand medicines. Family, they take care of you.
By family I don't just mean parents and siblings, I mean cousins, aunts, uncles, grand parents and all. Nature has programmed them to take care of you. I know some families have a few evil conspirators but apart from them your relatives just want to help you and see you succeed in life. We sometimes take families for granted.
I heard this story a few months ago. A father, mother and one child were in Saudi Arab. They got in a car crash and all died unfortunately. Two days later the son back home found out that three of his family members have died. He immediately wanted to reach Saudia to take care of burial and everything but there was a problem with his Visa and he couldn't get there in time. Ultimately the three people had to be buried by strangers without their family being able to even see them.
I was shocked to hear this and I got to the conclusion that without family one is nothing.
Give your friends and family a call sometimes. Let them know you care about them as much as they care about you. Tell them they are awesome. Visit their homes if you get the time. Don't slip away from them. Having a family is an awesome blessing. We need to realize this. 

Faith in humanity -- Always there

There are lots of pictures and articles online that are captioned as "faith in humanity restored". My question is why does this faith lesson over time and why is there a need for it to be restored? Cant we see the countless small good things that people do for us and others everyday? Try for once to see what your parents do for you day in and day out without ever asking anything in return and your faith will never falter.

However, sometimes people go an extra mile for the welfare of others. I have one such story of a friend who requested to not be named ("But when you do merciful deeds, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand does"). I will call him X (cliche. I know)

We were at a mall in Bangkok. This mall was on the riverside (Asiatique) and was unlike any other. The best one in my opinion in the city. Our group of about 15 people divided into small groups of three and four and we set out to explore the mall. We had 40 minutes before rendezvous. The time seemed much less than what one might need to see the place properly. The three of us had just set out when we saw a woman with an obviously swollen ankle limping and a very panicked guy, maybe her husband, trying to support her to walk. While everyone in the mall continued to give a sympathetic glance and walk away, X slowed his pace down and stayed behind the couple. We followed his lead. It became obvious that the guy trying to help her had no idea what he was doing. The girl kept planting her swollen, bent foot (possibly fractured) on the floor, grimacing every time.
We could see that X had forgotten all about the mall and just wanted to help out the girl. While we tried to stop at a few shops and ask for prices, X continued to follow the couple and instruct her friend on how to support her. The guy was still too panicky and couldn't do it so X offered his shoulder and carried the girl to a chair.
The language barrier was a problem and he couldn't explain properly to the guy that the girl cannot walk. Eventually X managed to explain it to him that he needs to arrange a taxi and that he and X will carry her in a sitting position to the taxi. While her friend went out to look for a taxi X sat there with the foot of the girl elevated by holding it in his hands so that less blood would flow and the pain would lesson.
X kept on making funny faces at her and patted her leg gently until she smiled, stopped crying and her leg stopped shivering. Twenty odd minutes passed like this.
The guy eventually came back with a wheelchair. They couldn't stop thanking X. X smiled, made sure she was okay and then joined us. The 40 minutes were over.  

Pakistan's cultural image to the world

Hey guys. I am new at this and I don't know how often I am supposed to update the blog. So here I am.

This is not as great a story as the last one. This infact is a sad post.

My days in Thailand are almost about to end so I thought I would give a short presentation about Pakistan to the students. Thai students don't know much English. Which meant I could not tell them about the cool facts about Pakistan eg.

• Pakistan has the biggest irrigation system
• Pakistan has the worlds largest NGO
• Second Largest Salt mine in the world
• 7th Nuclear power 

Etc.
I decided to show instead a few videos and pictures. I wanted to cover the currency, the marriage, people, food fruits, cricket, religion and beautiful places. The best source for all of this should be a website about Pakistan's tourism or culture. Right? Wrong.
This is the website that is supposed to tell the world all the good things about Pakistan and attract tourists  http://www.tourism.gov.pk/
Just for comparison http://www.tourismthailand.org/Thailand
So yeah that didn't work out. I decided to search on my own.

For Pakistan "culture and dress-up" I only got models posing in sleeveless or backless clothes. I am not saying whether its right or wrong but it doesn't really represent our true culture.
Google search for "Pakistani People" leads to the picture of Asif Ali Zardari and all the other amazing PPP's leaders.
Google images search for "Pakistani currency/Banknotes" makes you search and search until you get an okay picture that has the right bank notes.
Trying to find videos of marriages on Youtube leads to links like "bla bla's mehndi  hot dance".
The videos of "beautiful places in Pakistan" did not have high quality pictures at all.

I noticed that we have a bad image all over the world not just because of all the bad things that happen here. I think we ourselves have averted the eyes of the world and hidden our amazing culture from it.
This post however is not just a complain. I have a few ideas.

There is a need for compilation of different videos and pictures about all the aforementioned topics in good quality. After being compiled they need to be marketed to the world in the form of a website maybe, or even a Facebook page.

Kindly let me know if anyone is already working on this issue. If yes then i would like to join your efforts.
Also put your suggestions in the comments section below.
So many great things happen in out country everyday but we need to show it to the world instead of just complaining.

The Mr Bean

Mr Bean was one of my favorite shows while I was growing up. I still watch it whenever I can.

I am currently in Thailand on an internship teaching English to Thai students. I visited Bangkok two weeks ago. There were lots of homeless and poor people out on the streets begging for money. I would pass all of them feeling a bit sad but this one little girl in her School Uniform sitting outside a BTS (Sky train) station made me stop and search my pockets.
I didnt have any change.

Some of you might remember this one episode in which Mr Bean dances to the music being played by a blind beggar, collects coins, then gives them to the blind man, smiles and goes away.

So I pulled a Mr Bean.

It was drizzling. I spread out a shopping bag in-front of me and sat on the footpath, cross-legged, head bent down, eyes focused on the shoes of the passerbys and sang.
I sang Indian songs, Pakistani, English, anything that came to my mind. In the start I was a bit nervous and my voice was low but later I went loud and then the coins started coming. In about 25 mins I had collected Exactly 22 bath. (about 66 Rs).

I was about to get up when I saw the feet of a girl come close and stop. They stood there for a few seconds. Moved forward. Stopped. Back trekked. Stopped in-front of me and a coin dropped onto my shopping bag. I thought 23 Baath was good enough. I got up and looked around for the girl but she wasn't sitting where she was a while ago. She was walking away having given away a coin to a singer sitting in the rain. 

The experience left me shell-shocked. I was humbled. I later gave the money I had collected to other beggars I found on the road. 
Let me know what you think about the whole story in the comments section please :) This is my first official blog post. I hope I will continue to bring interesting stories like this to you guys. 

The beginning

Ah.
Its strange that one can have so many thoughts in his mind but when he tries to put them in words they all jumble up. So instead of writing about any of those things, at the moment I would like to thank Aaminah Tirmizi. I dont know why i cant tag her here. (Aaminah Tirmizi) Any way thank you for encouraging me to start a blog. I know you will have fits of laughter every time you read my English and maybe that is the reason why you put me up to this in the first place. :) Also i am great full for the tips you gave me. Lets see if i follow them or not :)

Since i dont know what else to put in my first blog post i will try and describe myself a little bit and then what this blog will be like in the future.

Yeah. About me.
If I go to a friends place and find it messy, I try and arrange the things. That's me. Trying to meddle into other peoples businesses giving them suggestions on everything. I am an opinionated person. But i am growing up and trying to see different perspectives, maybe heading towards mental maturity.
Other than that, I am a mech eng student. i like to travel alot. I am a sportsman. the basketball court is my third home (second one being a tent pitched on any mountain). I am a Facebook addict. I might have checked facebook about twenty times while writing this. When sitting in the car i wave at everyone I see hoping that someone would wave back and smile in the process. I dont mind looking like a complete fool as long as someone ends up smiling. I often go overboard.

And. About the blog.
here will posts about different places I visit or the ones I have visited. Maybe stories about my travels. A few angry posts about the govt, army or politicians or the way people think. I have bad English. So anyone who corrects me, I will be grateful as i want to improve it.

See you soon.