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I am not sure why I opened this tonight. Maybe its because I cant sleep, or maybe I don't want to.
Why?
I don't know.

The cursor keeps blinking.

This blog has not been a personal one. I don't come here to express my emotions. I have been told I don't express my emotions anyway.
"You don't have to suppress how you feel".
Brings me back to the question of why this browser tab is open?
Do i have anything noteworthy to say today? A story, maybe? Something inspirational?

The cursor keeps blinking.

The Teaching Doughnut

There are a few days that are going along on this weird kind of bumpy road. You are happy and satisfied one moment and suddenly you get frustrated. There are only two possible endings to such a day. You either go home, sleep peacefully or you take a grumpy face to bed, stare at the ceiling all night.

I was driving on the same bumpy road today and something (not important at all) happened that created the illusion of the road leading to a dead end. While this analogy is very poor, it conveys the fact that I wasn’t really jumping up and down with happiness on my way back home. I stopped at a bakery to get bread.

You see, I, like most of the people out there, succumb to the whispers of the pastries, the lemon tarts and the creampuffs etc. Usually I tell the shopkeeper “one of this, two of that and on and on”. Everyone at home likes all these sweet items. Its always nice when me and my sister divide different pastries into halves so we can eat all the different ones without getting full. It is all fun and bubbles you see.

But since I was having this not-so-happy day, I decided no. Not today. No happiness from me for anyone. Not today.

I mentioned I like almost all things on the bakery counter but doughnuts to me are like average. I eat them if anyone offers one and I like them. But I have never really craved one. Today however this one doughnut caught my eye. It looked like the sweetest thing in the whole shop.  For some reason or the other I bought one. Just one. I decided to eat it in the car. I had it all planned. I would eat it before I reached home, throw the box in the garbage can outside the house and no one will ever know about it.

Anyway. I sat down and ate it. To this date, I have never eaten such a bad doughnut. The only doughnut that I craved for turned out to be a letdown. This really confused me but then I realized that the taste had nothing to do with the fact that I wasn’t enjoying it. Not having anyone to share it with, made the whole thing pointless.

I am a firm believer of the theory that happiness is happiness shared; otherwise it is just a passing emotion with no real meaning at all. This bad doughnut reminded me just that. I kept smiling all the way home, laughing at my own thoughts.  

P.S if anyone at home is reading this, I am sorry. I think I got what I deserved but I will make it up to you :)

P.P.S. Doughnut. Weird spellings. No?  I started the article with “dohnut” but that didn’t make sense. ‘Dough’ is clear but I don’t really understand the ‘nut’ part. 

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.