The book with two faces

Yes, yet another article on facebook. Yes, yet another article focusing on the atrocities and injustice of this social networking site but also shedding light on the exhibition of extreme imbecile attitude from our side. With too many emails popping up with Facebook in the subject line, yet another article on the same topic seems to be a drag, it's like playing the old, old song everyone has tuned themselves out to. In spite of knowing this, I want to and need to have a say in the matter.



Most of us claim that we cannot imagine life without facebook. You don't have to exercise your imagination cells for this diminutive task as we've all been there done that. There was obviously a time when there was no facebook and I think we all survived that dark age.

We claim that facebook lets us connect with our friends. Well, ever heard of MSN, GTalk. It's not exactly called 'connecting with friends' when you update your status every other second as if the world actually cares about what you do the whole day. It's simply called 'addiction'.



And to connect with who, the friends who lack the sheer decency of calling you up to invite you to their party, instead they prefer to send you an event notification. And the people who can't even remember your birthday and need to be alerted by a system. In order to keep up with such friends we refuse to abandon facebook!

And then, of course, there are our farms to worry about.
"Who would plow my fields if I don't log in after every 14 hours or so?"

And all the photos uploaded by 'friends' without looking at which I am bound to contract a deadly disease. At one hand we keep complaining about the threats to our privacy posed by any social networking site and on the other hand we ignore of all such breaches made by facebook which badly needs to go through quality assurance. I am not going to accentuate the loopholes in their privacy policy nor am I going to highlight the bugs in their system. What I am trying to put forward is a simple statement

"Have we actually become obsessed with a social networking site which has put an end to our social life?"

I though socializing meant meeting a lot of people. Actually meeting, talking face-to-face. But yes, in this busy life of ours we don't find enough time to socialize, yet we find the time to 'relax' in front of the pc and meet people simultaneously. Working in parallel, the need of time.


Why am I against facebook? Why do I advocate quitting facebook. If I don't like it I can quit, why force others to do the same?
I do so because of one simple reason;

"I can't stand being humiliated in front of the whole wide world."

I am not going to quote any Quranic verses or Hadiths because to be honest I don't find myself knowledgeable enough to do so. Yeah, shame on me to talk about something I don't have a clue of. But what I speak here is, to the best of my understanding, pure logic based on a simple enough postulate;

"You defend what you claim to belong to."

We cater to our egos at all the wrong times. Now when there is a need for our so-called ego to come in and play it's part we sing a lullaby of our social needs and put it to sleep. The time when our reputation is at stake we choose to hide behind the veils of internet, because who would know if a Muslim logs in or not. They keep insulting our religion and we keep pretending we didn't hear a thing. From all the books they could have burnt they chose to celebrate a day to burn OUR book. And all we have to say is

"they are not actually burning it they have just put an event."

If all it is is an event then why not "Burn all books day".

We keep fooling ourselves with excuses that sound lame even to ourselves. We try to evade the truth by weaving reasons, such as:

"We are not visiting that page"

Would you keep going to a building where there is only one room where you are treated like dirt, like you are made of stone and nothing hurts you?

"In fact we have joined the community against celebrating such events."

Really!? How's that coming along? Has it brought any betterment yet?

"This is exactly why Muslims have been labeled extremists. Quitting facebook altogether is the intense reaction they are hoping for so they can later make fun of us."

NO. Extremism would be to stop using internet. Who is stopping you from using other social networking sites. There are alternatives for all the facilities they provide.

Socializing	Chatting applications, Email groups (where private conversations are in fact private)
Photo sharing	Picasssa, Flickr etc.

It's not going to put even a dent in their business. They have millions of non-Muslim users.

Its not our intention to make them suffer. It is just our way of saying 'No'.

We keep coming up with ideas of how to participate in the event and defend our religion.

Either come up with an idea strong enough to compel them to quit insulting us or.. quit yourself.

Quitting facebook would be equivalent to shouting out to the world, without even raising our voices one pitch, that

"We are Muslims. And we respect our religion more than anything else."

This of all the places is not where you can apply the theory "Can't fight them, join them." It's a situation where you keep fighting till you win. No one's asking to wage a war against them. Just a request to make them understand that what they are doing is not called freedom, it's just simply wrong. And this post is a request to all Muslims to make them understand that there cannot possibly be any other motive behind these gestures,.. other than the obvious one.

Note:
This goes not just for facebook, though the post has been written in a way that focuses only on Facebook. This goes for all entities which are promoting or participating in such events.

Before and After

“Can’t do this. We just can’t do this.”

“This is just impossible.”

“Remind me, why did we even take up this project. What do we think of ourselves? Extra-ordinary genius?”

These are just some of the feelings and thoughts that every person who is forced to do a project has to deal with.

The hazardous process of making and completing a project can be broken down into the following three stages:

THE BEFORE STAGE:
The before stage starts with happiness, content and life all around but ends with shock, disbelief and despair. This era of misery comes around when during the very first class of a course when you don’t even know the basis of the subject, it is announced that before the start of final examination a project is to be submitted.
Whatever you say at this moment regarding the injustice of the situation doesn’t change anything. What’s done is done. If it’s a project they ask then it’s a project they want.

THE MIDDLE STAGE:
The middle stage starts immediately after the ‘before stage’. Infact they always are so intermingled that it’s hard to decipher when the ‘before stage’ ends and the ‘middle’ starts.
o Making a group:
Almost all the projects require a group. The selection of the people you want in your group and the ones you don’t is I guess the most delicate task which needs extra, extra-attention. Because once you make a group no matter how hard you try to get away from it you amazingly end up with the same group and with the same people, with some rare exceptions.
This is the time when you analyze each and every person in your class, even those who you haven’t noticed up till now. You must have seen this in detective movies when in the start of the movie the bio data of every person is shown for the benefit of the audience. The same is with the person who is trying to select people for his/her group – analyzing and deciding at every step.

o Selecting a subject/topic for the project:
With the group ready the task ahead is of selecting the topic.

“It shouldn’t be too hard, it shouldn’t be too easy.”

“We should do something unique, something no one has ever done before.”

This is the period of dreams and fantasies, when everything seems possible and probable.
The list of “THINGS TO DO” keeps on increasing till the day you actually start working on the project.
o THE PROJECT:
Okay now, the period of fantasies is over people. Get down to business.
This is the time filled with depression and complexes (inferior or superior). Either you think you can’t do anything or you think that you are invincible.
But everyone has their own way of dealing with tensions and failures. I, for one, never take the blame of anything. If something goes wrong it’s the fault of the computer, my internet service or (you won’t believe this one) the electricity of my house which goes out just when I think of working.
It was one of those times, when nothing seemed to be going the way we intended and I, being myself, said out aloud with the voice of a computer-expert ;
“It’s not our fault, you know. We are doing everything right; the computer just doesn’t get it. It has completely gone insane and I don’t think there is any hope of it ever being normal again.”

My friend sarcastically added:
“Yeah, it is never our fault. Anything that goes wrong is not our fault. It’s the inane computer’s fault. And if we do accomplish something, the credit is ours to take.”
But it was one of other friends of mine who finally got me to thinking the ultimate stupidity of this absurd declaration.
This friend of mine soberly said:
“You must have done something wrong. How could it be the computer’s fault which until now had been doing everything you wanted it to?”
But let me tell you I am correct to some extent when I say that things often tend to fail you when you need them the most to work out. Once, two days before the deadline the computers owned by everyone in my group refused to work.
It’s just not my bad luck. This happens every time with everyone. In one project, my friend stayed up for two-three nights to complete all the research work. And when she did all there was to be done, the next morning the computer took its revenge.


o THE DEADLINE:
As the submission date comes near and near, you go far and far from a thing called “sanity”. Nothing seems to make sense. All your efforts to postpone the submission date fail miserably. Amazingly, during this period instead of praying for the project to complete itself miraculously you keep on praying that the date gets extended. But even if the project is really postponed, you waste the extra days in relaxing and catching up on lost sleep and when the new deadline is again approaching you finally wake-up.
If your computer or electricity didn’t let you down until now it’s bound to do so this time.
It seems that “Good luck” doesn’t exist for you anymore. Your friends (who are not your group members) just don’t understand your problems, your group members who do understand your problem (because it’s basically their problem too) get sick and if nothing else, you come down with a cold.
But there are always some people who are helpful, who are willing to help you in an assignment due the next day on which you weren’t working because of the project, or who help you solve problems of your projects.

THE AFTER PHASE:

IF YOU GET GOOD MARKS:
If you pass with flying colors then no one is sweeter than you. You thank all those people who supported you (remember these are the people who you were complaining about all along). And you count the unlimited miracles that happened in the most darkest of times.

IF YOU GET NOT-SO-GOOD MARKS:
Ahh! Tough luck. This time you do the exact opposite of the above. You do count miracles but the ones that didn’t come along, but could have made your life much easier. This phase is dominated by the words “Kaash” or “I wish”.


So people, you have been warned. If you have a project coming up then you better buckle up.


Date Written: Feb-2006

Along came a Lizard

As soon as I stepped into the corridor my sixth sense gave me a red alert. A lot of girls were standing together and all the guys had a secret smile on their face (which they were trying to hide).

I was about to enter the Girls Common Room when one of the girls of my class literally jumped out of the room, with her hands on her ears and shouting so loud that I though I would loose my hearing ability.

Okay, okay, this was nothing but an exaggeration. (Forgive me for any inconvenience this may have caused. The words just flew out of my pen with no one who could stop them).

Back to the situation at hand, the girl (in reality) stepped out of the common room with a horrified expression. For a minute I thought she must have seen a ghost. But then I thought that this can’t be possible. “There is no such thing as ghosts” I tried to convince myself, “and even if there was, why would they choose the girls common room as their resident (maybe it’s a girl ghost) and why not go and haunt class rooms so that we may live in peace, after all you too will be at peace, if you didn’t have to attend classes all day long.”

Thinking about ghosts and smiling at the prospect of ghosts haunting our beloved university, I hesitantly put my hand on the door knob and turned it. (Did it make a squeaking sound? Did it always made a sound or was it just my imagination. And wait a minute why suddenly is there not a single sound in a corridor which seems to be brimming with vocal people all the time. Why is it that when you even think or talk about ghosts the entire world tends to become silent??) As I turned the knob, a ghost popped into my head, followed by another absurd image. And in a millisecond millions of images of what I would see in the room chased each other in my head, each bizarre than the other. But none came close to what I actually saw…… and that was nothing. Yes, nothing. There was simply nothing. I was even prepared to see a lion standing in the middle of the room(excuse me, for this incongruous notion, but I had watched ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ last night) but what I wasn’t ready for was the nothingness that greeted me.

I hurriedly entered the room, all this commotion about ghosts and lions was making me late for my class, I took my books and was about to step out, when I saw a lizard lurking on the floor. “Oh please don’t tell me, this lizard is the pioneer of all this turmoil.” I warned the lizard in clear words “if I get late for my class missy, I’ll kill you. Mark my words.”

In the class too, the hot topic of discussion was none other that the lizard in the common room. “People why don’t you name the lizard, if you love it so much. How about Liz or Lizzie?”

And with this a thick book came crashing down on my head. “How can you joke about such a thing?” was my friend’s remark.

The entire day, girls didn’t even go near the common room. In my two years at this place I had never seen the GCR completely deserted. I started seeing sings of desertion in the room, as it is depicted in the movies. A wilted leave, for instance. It took me a few minutes to realize that the leave belonged to the tree just outside the window.

Even worse then the abandoned common room were the stories that were being exchange among the girls. The girls for some reason had become a little shaky. One of the girls even shrieked when a spider jumped at her copy and decided to stay there until it was forced to leave. Thank God other girls hadn’t lost their composure and the spider found support in the remark of one of my very nice friends “Spider hai, spider man nahin hai” (“It’s a spider. Not spider man”)

I too had a story to share, but was doubtful about the reactions I would get. Of course I didn’t want someone to faint.

It was a few years back when I was a chatting freak. I would stay up all night just to chat with my friends. It was one of these nights when around 3 am I started fighting with my friend (see, I can even have an online fight). I decided it was high time I switched off my computer and went to have a glass of water before going to sleep. I had seen a lizard on the wall near the cooler. And as the first drop of water entered my mouth, the lizard jumped on my head and then jumped again on the counter and then ran away (most probably finding refuge from my unparalleled anger).

I washed my hairs thrice after the event and made up with my friend the very next day. So now you know why I gave up late-night chatting.

Reliving this story in my mind, I decided not to narrate this to any of the girls around me. It wasn’t just about people fainting around me anymore; it was now a matter of my ego. Maybe they would start calling me names like Liz or Lizzie behind my back.

The Age of Innocence

Being the youngest in my family, I longed for a younger sibling whom I could play with, and if not for anything else then a younger sibling just to have the pleasure of bossing around. I envied my friends who had such luxury, and I never failed to mention this to them that they were very fortunate and they never failed to shout it out for me that I was the lucky one.

I loved children (I still do) and I chose to show my affection by pulling their cheeks and they chose to show their detest by slapping me hard across my face or let me have a view of their long tongues and then run like some super hero to their mommys and daddys.

My prayers for a child in house were answered when Allah blessed me with a niece and three years back not only my view-point about children but also my life changed dramatically.

And now I have come to realize that when you get to know kids up close and personal, they are not so innocent after all.

For one thing they taught me to be a little disciplined. In the past, I had this habit of keeping the entire house covered with evidences indicating that 'I' at one point in time had blessed this particular spot by my presence i.e. to say I had decorated my entire house with my things. I used to study on a table in the hall and even if I wasn't around I kept the books open to the last page I was reading (or looking, to be more correct). Not any more, people. Now I have learnt to hide my things from the reach of kids. Because if anything is out there, it sure isn't save. One of my assignments, which I had completed after a week's hard work, was signed by none other than my eldest niece, and that too on every page. All she had to do was to sneak up to my not-so-aware assignment, pull out a marker from my innocently-lying pencil box and put large trademarks of her own existence on each and every page. I am sure she must've gone through it again to make sure that she hasn't left any of the pages 'un-autographed'.

I miss my bus everyday (Author's Note: This is nothing but exaggeration, I always am late, true, but missed it onlyk I guess, twice in four years.) because I have to collect my things spread around the house and hid at the most unusual of places for half-an-hour. (Don't advice me to wake up half hour earlier, that again is not a possibility.)

I have at this very moment four kids in my house. Every few minutes I hear a knock on my door, which is more like a bang; or a cry from one of the kids, which leads to the crying and shouting of all the remaining kids, which leads to their moms shouting over them, which leads to my mom shouting on all six of them, which leads to my sneaking my head from the safety of my room to ask them to keep it down a bit.

Once I had a final paper the next morning and the above scene was being rehearsed right outside my room. Even with the door closed I could hear all of them loud and clear. The third world war initiated when my niece had this instant desire to ride the same bicycle my nephew was riding. We had one bicycle for each kid just to evade the chances of them fighting each other but well it isn't really easy to make human beings content with what they have, is it? Asking them to take their negotiations to another room or even out side turned out to be fruitless, asking them all to shut up was another futile attempt, and putting cotton in my ears was yet another failure. I put my BSB cd in the stereo and played it on full volume, but the Backstreet boys couldn't rescue me from this castle of sonance. For once in my life I longed to go to my university so that I could study in peace in the library.

This is how I gave my finals, so people it's not my fault if I get bad grades, and teachers if you are reading this, please try to empathize, being lillient in checking my answer scripts would be a good way to start.

After my final exams, my vacations should have been all fun, but guess what, that didn't happen. Well, it was fun to play with the kids, but it isn't exactly fun if you can't chat with your school friends just because your nephew requests, in fact, nags you to show him his birthday pictures, which quite amazingly happen to be saved on the computer.

My one-year old niece is just learning to talk and so naturally tries to copy every word she hears. So while she's around you can't say any word which is considered to be illegal for kids.

My nephew considers talking to any person I am talking to over the phone as part of good manners. He has nothing to say, absolutely nothing, so he keeps on repeating the same thing over and over again.

With my new semester already begun, I don't know how I'll be able to study, complete the assignments (I already have two of them) and how in God's name would I be able to complete four projects. It was impossible, even without the kids, but it has become more impossible (is there an actual word for more impossible?) with kids around. I naturally can't call my friends to my place for studying, it would be rude to go to their homes every time, and university….well there are many activities going on there besides studies (for one you can have free internet hours, and café is not so far).

The people who've searched on net many times would know how difficult it can be sometimes to get what you want. And once after surfing the net for half-an-hour I came up with some relevant material, when my niece pressed with her elbow some unknown combination of keys and got me back to a previous page (the key wasn't backspace, I assure you that). In all this fuss about my work being ruined, I forgot that there is a forward-button too at the top if you look closely.

Whenever I sit to study my nephew would come and ask me to give him a star on his hand. Or my niece would come and inquire innocently "Yeh ka hai? Abcd hai?" ("What is this? Abcd?"). The sweetness of her voice would tempt anyone to leave their homework and start talking to her; after all she is not going to stay one-year old.

Studying is not an option, this you must've understood till now, but so is watching television. It seems like we only have cartoon-network tuned on our tv. I have to watch Superman (the cartoon) while a much decent version named 'Smallville' is coming on another channel.

But you know what, it's still fun having kids in your house. Playing with these angelic beings and answering their innocent questions makes up for the number of times they bug you. Their sweet smile would make you forget all worries and tensions. It's good to be greeted like royalty every time you enter the house. My nephew wouldn't let me step in until he asks all his routine questions and then comments "Nice bag, Khala", "Nice watch, Khala" and then promising me that he would buy me a new one provided that it's not too expensive. God knows how his two year old mind came up with that theory when for him 10 rupees is more than enough to buy milk, chocolate, chips and biscuits.

I wouldn't trade my time spent with them for the world.

Top 10 Ways to make people visit your blog

The following is a list of a few tips to make people read your blog or at least visit it.

1. Make your blog address a part of your email signature. Your emails would then resemble those who like to brag about their positions or think that everyone wishes to contact them and thus insert all their landline and cell phone numbers at the end of each mail.

2. Visit other blogs and accidentally leave your blog address in the comments of the latest post of the blog being visited.

3. Make sure that you somehow bring blogs and eventually your personal blog into the conversation with each person you meet, every day, even if it happens to be the first rendezvous.

4. Like people send an email address change notification to their friends and acquaintances, you can send a ‘blog created notification’. After all, the two aren’t that different.

5. Threaten your friends to make them visit you blog every day. Say things like:
“Jab mein mash-hoor blogger ho jaon geen na to tumhein autograph nahi doon geen.”
Translation:
“Don’t expect me to bless you with an autograph when I become an acclaimed blogger.”

6. Try to indulge your friends in blogging. It’s mostly the bloggers who are the blog readers as well.

7. You can also get your friends, who themselves blog, to add you in their blogroll. (Blogroll: A blogger’s favorite blogs.)

8. Thinking of a new nick for MSN. Just put your blog address in the personal message.

9. If you also like to write for magazines, make sure that your next published article has your blog address along with your name. Or, a better option would be to write an article on blogs.

Even if you haven’t been a writer till now, writing just one article for your own benefit won’t hurt.

You can do just one little thing instead of all of the above mentioned tiresome tasks –

10. you can start writing a good blog.