جستجو رہی ولی ہونے کی
آدمی مگر انسان نہ ہوا

The English translation of above poetic verse is – ‘my ambition to become a saint was a cry for moon, that was so much, could not become even a simple human…

‘The poetry of Earth is never dead.’

‘ Candle in the wind ‘ – My digital exposure.

The violent procession was almost raged with powerful mob like intentions. They had disrupted and blocked the entire traffic and life was stand still. Loud speakers were instigating the own lookers to join them. It was a religiously motivated movement against Jews and Americans. For a moment, I felt joining them, which I didn’t. By the time I reach the tail of huge procession, the taste of it look like a funfair. Young boys were having jolly good time chanting slogans against a particular political party and were not knowing why the procession was marching towards the parliament buildings.

It was against a so called insulting and blasphemous YouTube clip against a particular religion that I am wilfully not mentioning. Anyway, I learnt even YouTube did not accept a request from Mr Obama for the removal of the clip. All those suggesting very forcefully to boycott all products and services manufactured in the US and West could actually apply for employment visas to same places. Simple things become complicated when we expect too much out of them. No government can be so naive and ridiculous banning imports from these countries. It has happened number of times before also. Ring leaders of this procession could also be found lingering in streets of America or West a little later this procession ends. If not them their siblings of family members or children could be found standing outside the embassies.

Nothing unusual, call it such protests funded by RAW or Afghan Intelligence agencies, I have nothing to observe and act on such activities. As on my part, I felt worst victim of such hate movement when I found the YouTube banned in my country for last three and half years. This was the only measure government took that backfired on all YouTube users. Think twice before you touch a red hot milk pot on the oven. By the way before hating or reacting against the Americans or America we should consider reasons why it is most powerful country on the planet and sometimes a land of opportunity too. One achievement I can remember at this instant is invention of light bulb by Edison, it is better to light a candle then to curse the darkness: some others I Googled, are presented (other than MacDonald’s and KFC) here with entire confidence on the next would be President of the United States of America.

. Internet, Communication Satellite, Cordless Phones, Television, Artificial Heart, Jet Injector, Photocopier, Jukebox, Parking Meter, Washing Machine, Radar Gun, Refrigerator, Remote Control, Solar cell, Digital Camera and so on…

For my humble tribute to Edison, my digital photography highlighting a light bulb is also pasted above.

Stand for what is right, even if you have to stand alone.

Enjoy the joy…

مچھلی کا بچا
انڈے سے نکلا
پانی میں پھسلا
ابّو نے پکڑا
بھییا نے کاٹا
مما نے پکایا
سب نے مل کے کھایا
بڑا مزہ آیا

The translation of above urdu poetry is : … baby off spring of fish took birth from an egg, my Papa caught it, my big brother dressed it, my mom cooked it, we all ate it and we loved the feast…

A fishing rod was a stick with a hook at the one end and a fool at the other. – Samuel Johnson

All images below have been taken by my cellphone.

‘ It’s a boy’ , the nurse announced the final decision which came out from a long session of a c section operation in the maternity operation theatre. The large grin and glowing face of the father became so visible he almost forgot to ask how was his wife. This was his first child after many years of waiting and going to doctors for fertilisation help. I wonder how he would have reacted if it was a girl. I was there as the man is closely related to me. Everyone gave usual congratulations to him and from no where a big box of sweets arrived and reluctantly, I despite my non-craving towards sweets stuff, I too consumed some.

After few months of birth, I visited them and found the baby boy was extremely healthy and was rather swollen all around. Mother and particularly grandmother of the child fed him with all sorts of rich and fatty ingredients. Now, the boy is about 10 years and most visibly is overweight. He is a true specimen of a couch potato that hardly says no to anything kept in kitchen for cooking. As the age grows one has to be very careful about one’s eating habits. Diseases do occur and play important role in our body growth but sometimes it becomes unavoidable factor to resist food habits.

Meat creates uric acid, fat brings high bad cholesterol levels, sugar brings diabetes, milk causes gastro related disorders, salt is source of high blood pressure and so on. Best possible solution could be tasty fresh fish. I am eating a lot of fish in this winter and enjoying photographing my fish purchases also. I can’t hide my feelings when a good lot of fish that I buy is photographed. I see it, I say it and I photograph it. The man who sells it, he too shows his happiness selling it to me. The benefits of fish eating are endless provided it is cooked or fried the way you want to eat. One of my friends will eat all fries with fish and hardly any fish though. By the way fish of Lahore in winters is popular all over the world, must try some in your next visit to Lahore.

We have here other fish to fry. – Rabelais, Works

Enjoy the joy…

خود بھی روشن ہیں زمانہ بھی ہے جن سے روشن
کوئی دیکھے تو چراغوں  کا فروزاں  ہونا

The translation of above urdu verse is : … giving a bright glow all around, as bright they are themselves,

Watch those beacon lights stay radiating…

You are born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life.

Wheels of human struggle – my cell phone photograph

Spending 3% of our national annual budget on education we have been planning to change the destiny and prosperity of youth in particular. In presence of ghosts schools, teachers and infrastructure it is a pathetic story. I had attended a modest government run school in Lahore where the monthly fees was few cents at that time. The school was reminisce of British Raj. The magnificent edifice and massive play ground including a proper hostel was clearly showing the honest intensions of the educational policy planners in late 18^th century. No class had more than 35 boys. The teacher did prepare their lesson plans and had knew family background of each student. Homework was regularly given and was as regularly checked. Culprits, not presenting the homework next day were punished appropriately, including harsh physical encounters.

OK, I admit I am being a nostalgic, exaggerating portraying my school life. While West was switching to extreme liberal educational system we were still enforcing strict discipline in schools both in academic performance and personality construction – disappeared now. Our books and notebooks were kept extremely tidy and each page was considered almost as divine as the faith itself.

We are already at stage where all the bridges have been burnt either by visionless bureaucrats and corrupt politicians, particularly in the education sector. Matters are not very different in other areas too. Anyway, this reminds me of the brain drain in human resource that is so frustratingly happening for last many decades. If you ask the present youth, almost all would prefer leaving the country willing for even hard labour abroad. Directionless education and academic achievement is senseless and leads to depression in youth.

The other side of the fence tells us a lack of self confidence, motivation and courage in youth also. Bickering and complaining everything on society has a part to play in road to failure. Opportunities are available for people who struggle to attempt ordinary efforts. A success story is quoted here when I visited a machinist shop today for a minor project getting my camera stand modified.

A young man in decent clothes performed this job with efficiency and with a sense of creativity. This man is in his final year of his masters in English and ignoring his educational achievements doing technical work until he finds a carrier job. Great acts are made up of small deeds. This man permitted me to take pictures of his boss’s workshop with a condition* not to mention his name and post his picture in this blog. Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. This man finding joy in this ordinary input and supporting his family at the same time; not waiting for a ‘perfect’ opportunity. He narrated few of his fellows facing onset of depression and stress remaining all day in home indulging in unhealthy computer crap. He also remarked, ‘ behind my smile, there is a story you would never understand ’. I could learn a precious lesson from this young man – sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. For the moment, enjoy some pictures of this workshop I took from my cell phone. Mechanical creativity of human effort is possible with physical effort.

Seek respect and not attention, it lasts longer.

*The young man mentioned in this story is not visible in this photograph.

Enjoy the joy…

رہتے تھے کبھی ان کے دل میں ہم جان سے بھی پیاروں کی ترہا
بیٹھے ہیں ان ہی  کے کوچے میں ہم ان کے گنہگاروں کی ترہا

The English translation of above Urdu verse is: … those moments and days are no more when I was settled in your heart your dearest and closest,

… now, how sad, I am sitting detached from you, almost being a sinner of yours…

The grace and the man – my cellphone picture.

I’m not giving up, I’m just starting over.

The story of starting conversation that I wrote in one of my previous blog posts was not so impressive that needs to be referred again. That was a conversation between a young man and I, who were travelling in the metro. If you have time and patience, please search my previous stories and find out what happened. Briefly, I was going to Rawalpindi from Islamabad for repairs of my vintage film camera whereas I posed going to sell my digital one. The lie I uttered was to salvage myself esteem before a young fellow passenger.

Now that I have acquired or let say borrowed an actual digital camera, I may not be considered as a liar and actually I am also not feeling guilty. The picture posted above is not at all from this mentioned digital camera, in fact, it is from my cell phone. I am not usually inclined taking photos from my cell phone but the instance was so compelling and touching, I made use of this technological marvel. By the way, the epidemic of taking selfies has chronically reached to limits.

Unlike the present young generation who act rather careless and irresponsible looking after their gadgets and electronic devices, I tend to preserve and use them with obsessive care. Forgive me using two adverse adjectives above giving opinion about teenagers. For my part, I attach a string from my cell phone fixed into my waste belt and always keep my cell phone into a pouch that is securely hanging through my west belt. The reason for this unusual and odd habit may be lack of funds or it could be categorized as sign of dementia. That is the way I am. I am so fearful of losing my stuff, to a point I am apprehensive taking my electronic devices out of my home.

Following my instincts, I decided to repair my used camera bag. I attempted to carry out repairs myself but failed. To accomplish this feat I went to the cobbler who knows the kind of work I am giving to him, for example, last assignment was to reinforce straps to my old chair. Another one, was modifying a used bag into a laptop cover. The cobbler had just arrived from his village, I had confirmed it giving a phone call and he was sitting under a thick shaded tree that has become his permanent location. Although, as most cobblers in this country, do not pay rent for the space they run their business on but their services are pretty useful for the neighbourhood. It is customary for me to order a cup of tea for both of us, I pay the bill and with this gesture I assume he would pay enhanced attention to the projects I bring to him.

His name is Gul. Gul maintains dyed jet black huge moustaches that gives impression him being master of his trade. He is kind enough to attempt fulfil my unusual work. I sit with him on ground and exchange gossip during the time I supervise. This camera cover job was to stitch Velcro on my camera bag. I guided him marking the required measurement on the bag and he did it with excellence. He was so kind he postponed couple of clients and lost some money. I compensated paying him additional fifty rupees keeping my interest ahead of his.

Even after serving him a cup of tea, ordered from nearby tea stall, Gul seemed pulled down and silent, both in his body language and reflexes. I felt a bit embarrassed, if I had interrupted his sales opportunities. Meanwhile, another customer arrived and expressed sorrow and grief while the customer hugged him. Gul got up and returned the gesture thanking him. This was extremely painful disposition for me. That customer informed me Gul’s young son died in a motorcycle accident two weeks ago. Reluctantly inquiring about the sad incident from Gul, I was told his twenty years son suffered minor inquiries and was hospitalised after the accident few streets from his so called shop arranged on ground. Apparently the boy was on the recovery and died later. Boy’s marriage was arranged already and Gul prepared this forthcoming marriage proudly. Controlling his abrupt emotions and tears, he took a length of time showing me a selfie of his deceased son preserved in his cell phone.

Gul is back manning his livelihood and planning marriage of his other son. I paid him money and left the place leaving Gul in agony.

Sometimes when things are falling apart, they may actually be joining together.

  Enjoy the joy…

یہ دولت بھی لے لو یہ شہرت بھی لے لو
بھلے چھین لو مجھسے میری جوانی

Never get too busy making living that you forget to make a life.

‘Penniless’ – My digital photography

Making calls from mobile phone is very convenient. Do you also recall, sometimes, booking a long distance call from that black Siemens rotary telephone sets. Waiting many hours and the call was finally  through, just for two or three minutes. Before the time was up, the operator gave warning to say concluding words. The voice quality was incredibly inferior not to mention the heavy billing. Now since the cellular technology is part of every household, wish you respect and value the technology and your mobile phones.

Recently, I have started doubting the charges of my mobile calls. My friend’s son, working in mobile network company revealed the so called secret of such companies over charging few pennies or cents randomly after few calls. I have no serious objections on this overcharging as it is impossible to trace and prove such thefts and breach of consumers’ trust. Same pattern is a usual practice in ATM card operation, which is very difficult to establish. Since I have hardly any money in the bank, therefore, my ATM usage is near to zero. But people who hold the status of nearly rich people can find out the difference in their accumulated withdraws if they are really interested.

The word ‘scam’ may sound little harsh particularly when digital technology is overriding our traditional old school life styles. It is not Astronomy or Astrology controlling this world or universe but the big global corporations and banks. I have heard in nut shell, American president is ultimately elected through the powerful financial indications of these banks. Whether true or false, at least, I can only raise my eye brows on this. Certainly being non communist, I am part of this capitalist culture, indirectly

For last few months, my wifi broadband internet is so slow and inconsistent, I almost daily register a complaint to the provider company. Obviously, I am not naming it but readers living in Pakistan must have guessed the probable name. Six months ago a massive hype was created from telecommunication system and operation was upgraded from copper to fibber optics. I have observed, spending few million dollars on this up gradation the end user suffered more and more. From telecom provider company to end user, there are few multinational contractors play their part, actively.

The irony is there is a parallel private company which buys bandwidth from the public sector provider company and supplies excellent, uninterrupted and premium broadband services to end users. It is hard to logically understand this inefficiency of the seller company providing inferior services. Are they promoting, unofficially, being prime vendors the financial gain and interest of the purchaser company? This weird analysis is weird and valid at the same time. Weird because on the face of it the public sector company laughs at this unassuming deduction of mine and valid because no end consumer pays any solid attention to this dishonesty, seriously. However, I am in the possibility to be revenged and victimised if the harsh hands of my wifi provider public company reads this story. If you don’t find any further story in my blog for coming weeks, come to my rescue.

In the end, public health sector scams cannot be ignored or over looked. For example, in almost all public sector hospitals the approved medicines are tendered and supplied when the medical superintendents and federal and provisional health secretaries greased all over by the multinational and national pharmaceutical companies whose profit goes into billions of dollars. Imagine the plight of end user of these medicines, the patients.

I am sure you all had enjoyed the Christmas season holidays and like me you also, now, hate Mondays. Happy New Year.

A lack of boundaries invite a lack of respect.

Enjoy the joy…

نہ تو زمین کے لئے  ہے نہ آسمان کے لئے 
تیرا وجود ہے بس صرف داستان کے لئے 

My cell phone picture on 24th December 2015 ( yesterday ) 

The English translation of above verse is: …you are not made for this earth, nor you belong to the skies, you are left to exist and survive only in stories…

‘We rise by lifting others’

In my school days, we witnessed the circus of changing weekly holiday from Friday to Sunday repeatedly. Friday because we are Muslims and the Jummah prayers is mandatory. And time of this prayer congregation is averaged at 1 p.m Friday, presently, Sunday is a weekly holiday. This logic did not sustain for long term policy and the nation was confused as were the political leaders. This is a complicated and sensitive issue; I pray the fundamentalists may not read this.

Since today is Christmas day, first of all Merry Christmas to all my Christen friends and to the whole Christen community. I have heard my ancestors, who migrated from Amritsar India and Srinagar Jammu India; they celebrated each others’ religious celebrations like one family. Consider me equally a part of Christmas celebrations even though I am Muslim. This day consists the birth day of our father of the nation Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Nonetheless, we have lost to avail another day off if the latter date was different.

Talking of holidays, we have them in abundance. Half working day on Friday and Saturday Sunday is closed for work. Talking of work, Mr Nawaz Sharif being Prime Minister in mid 90s predicted we would become Asian tigers: ironically his party’s symbol is Lion and not a tiger. Many common public hardly differentiate the difference.  Back to work potential. Even when there are no holidays the culture in offices particularly government departments is almost as, it’s a joy ride fun. Everyone is calling for a cup of tea after every five minutes and rest is pretended in mutual casual and carefree chatter box habits.

Our religious festival Eid comes twice a year. Before first Eid that is Eid-ul-Fitar, the month of Holy Ramadan commences for one month. In this month of fasting, the work is usually is slow and offices tend to close at noon. To be very honest, the Eid brings ten days of average holidays. Rejoining after these holidays is pure ‘hangover’. Then the second Eid follows ( Eid-ul-Azha ), when Hajj is performed in Saudi Arabia. Few holidays for Hajj and another almost fifteen days for the second Eid. Then Muharram a very sombre and rather sad month of mourning arrives, this also contains holidays. The list goes on and on. Let me mention 14^th August our Independence day, 6^th September the defence day for our nation and 9^th November birthday of our national poet Allama Muhammad Iqbal.

Please rejoice the occasion of Christmas, I am, therefore, abruptly ending this blogs story to let you focus and enjoy the Christmas. But before ‘signing out’ kindly pay attention to picture pasted above and below. The Christen in this country, generally, may only get Christmas day as holiday,and the class in question might get one day off in whole year against influx of repeated holidays all year for others. Hypocrisy and duplicity ruthless prejudice and bias is so crushing. It is beyond my sense of reasoning if the constitutional rights of equality and existence of human rights for minorities here are only found either in speeches or in papers.  These pictures were shot yesterday that is 24^th of December in Islamabad (the capital of Pakistan). I am num with a seizure of shame and embarrassment. Here, I can’t fix problems I can only fix my thinking and problem fix themselves. Merry Christmas again.

If God brings you to it, He will take you through it. – Bible

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دنیا نے تیری یاد سے بیگانہ کر دیا
تجھ سے بھی دلفریب ہیں گم روزگار کے

The English translation of above verse is: ‘world has deprived me of your remembrance, as such very miserable are the crisis of earning and employment’.

The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense. – Shakespeare.

My vintage print film camera exposure.

After attaining the age of puberty, other than physical alterations, a stage comes when the person as a subject sooner or later will get married. The whole vicious cycle goes round and round; children are produced and eventually they will also undergo matrimonial rituals. Nothing new about this phase. In this part of the world definition of ‘Youth’ somehow starts from the pubic hair growth and remains until an employment or a job is successfully secured.

Statically, youth age can be roughly defined from sixteen to thirty five in this country. At thirty five Steve Jobs, Churchill, Gandhi and Bill Gates were more than billionaires. Never mind the age bracket of youth, all I am describing is a trauma that is still quite existing. I went to a government funded school in Lahore, nonetheless, produced famous people but not celebrities. Achieving high grades has always been important. The desire, aptitude and choice of a student has no influence what ultimately student qualifies for. I failed in Math’s but secured substantial creative abilities. A friend of mine from junior school excelled in sports but became an accountant. This is categorized as human resource going to dogs. Even after seventy years of our independence we perhaps have not gone beyond ‘puberty’ in governance policies. The system stands in way of our youth.

Those who sit in gallery rattle their jewelry, people sitting in cheaper seats clap; those youth getting top grades are made to choose medicine, engineering or MBAs. Virtue, value and knowledge is compromised by so called wishes of parents and family. Old ways won’t open new doors.

Top graders start earning the livelihood and tend to remain in stresses and self conflict. In addition, this class remains most afraid throughout until retirement. They are controlled by people who perform lesser in their grades and became administrators. The former class lacks courage and wouldn’t face any challenges, thus, are just pawns in the hands of the administrators, their now or never dream shatters.

There is another class, call it the third class. This class is long behind in the queue of showing any mentionable academic performance not even visibly smart in their educational institutions, ironically become politicians. These ‘wise men’ become ministers and are powerful people to control the two classes who performed much better in their schools.

 Very ordinary people, I don’t want to use word failures, are the most successful in this rat race. This segment usually are the underworld mafias and are the real men who matter. Evidently,  dear friends, I am not privileged enough to have become part of this ‘elite’ but no regrets.

Hard work won’t kill you but why take a risk. Frankly, I hardly worked and was not hard working either. Think of those who went the grind and were milled to the point of being milked, were those toppers and became the back benchers of community in the end. All those lazy, small and irresponsible needed no education at the first place. One doesn’t have to attend Harvard or MIT to figure out this very visible irony in existence. This last class shout slogans to lift the nation up and promise to provide us bed of roses. Draw your own conclusions. I am not anti-social but may be I am anti-bullshit, deliberately I am not mentioning what education is offered to start with. All the talent, if any is buried in the sand or they are building sand castles.

It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. – Eleanor Roosevelt