What black?

8 baras pehle main Newyork ke airport pe apne aik cousin ke phone # ke aasre pe utri. December ki sardiyaN zoro pe thi. Main immigration se bahir aai to sham ke 4 baj rahe the. Main ne public phone se use phone kiya to usne kaha: "Ye Christmas ka time hai....You have to wait till I come."

Mere paas koi chara nahi tha. Main wahin thand main beth gai...9 baje, 10 baje, 11 baje, 12 baje magar mera cousin nahi aaya. Ab to lagta tha airport bhi band hone laga hai. Ab mera cousin phone bhi nahi utha raha tha. Itne main aik bohat hi lamba aur itna kaala ke main ne zindagi main pehle nahi dekha tha, aik Habshi (black guy) mere paas aaya aur kaha: "I am seeing for last many hours, you are sitting here. I work here at airport. I am going home but its too cold and I am not sure, you may need help".

Meri to angrezi bhi tooti phooti thi. Main ne jese tese bataya ke meri bag ke andar address hai. Habshi ne kaha: "let me take you to this address and in case if it turns out to be a fake address, I will drop you to any hotel". Main akeli 25 saal ki Pakistani larki wese hi dari hui thi. Kuch samjah nahi aaya aur najane kiun us kaale pe bharosa ker liya. Woh mujeh address tuk le gaya. Woh building ke neeche wait kerta raha (note: he could have run away with my bags). Raat ke 2 baj rahe the. Shukar hai woh mere cousin ka hi address tha. Habshi ne mere cousin ko khub bura bhala kaha ke "How dare you left her alone at airport" ....

....Woh waqt guzar gaya....But in 8 years, I could not figure out why we desis always speak negative of blacks....... jubke mere liye to aik kala habshi hi Allah ka farishta ban ker nazil huwa...

....Aur main Pakistan tuk khandan main aaj bhi badnaam hun ke "Is ne to aate hi pehle din se kalle se chakkar chalana shuru ker diya tha"....

Ilm-o-Hunr

When we were in school, there was a chapter in Urdu text book of grade 5 or 6 with title, ilm-o-hunr (Knowledge vs Skill). I think, that was an important chapter but none of the teachers knew, what it was all about. Knowledge and Skill are 2 different sets of Education and serve 2 complete different purposes in life!

Knowledge is something, you contantly learn to earn your values and character - till death. Skill is something you learn over a given time period to earn your livelihood to run everyday life - making it better with experience.

You may have seen a simple plumber or a gardener or an auto-machanic, true to his value of not charging a single extra dime beside his worth of work but you may have seen many doctors, PHDs, harvard gone politicians or even teachers who are full morons.

In this new era of professional and corporate world, I am afraid - we have lost that distinction of earning knowledge and learning skills. 

The Catcher in the Rye

Nowadays, I am reading the famous novel The Catcher in the Rye" (hopefully, I will write a post once finished). Still, it constantly reminded me of one of my class-fellow who had immense dry humor, sarcasm, psychological dyslexia, "cheeni kum," but was simultaneously extremely funny. I miss you, man !! 

His famous Quote: "Meri aadhi batoN ka koi matlab nahi hota, magar un aadhi batoN ko - jin ka matlab hota hai - ko samjhane ke liye - un batoN ka janna zaroori hai - jin ka koi matlab nahi hota - Isliye zaroori hai - tum meri har bakwas pe dhiyan do"! 

My friend Arif Iqbal - now as a physician, I am sure you turned out to be one heck of a Catcher in the Rye!

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Khush-naseeb insaan

Mujeh Hazrat Ali ke is qol ki gheraii ko samjhne main aadhi umar lag gai:

"Khush-naseeb hai woh shaks jo poora din mehnat kerne ke baad, raat ko apni biwi se ham-bistar ho kar kharratte (snore) le kar so jaata hai"

(Fortunate is a man, who after daylong hard work, sleeps snoring with his wife)

Meri aik Nazam GAZA ke naam

Gaza main jo bapi hai aaj qayamate sugra
kaanp gayi dharti, aasmaan sarak gaya

"Qatle Hussain asal main hai marge yazeed"
Islam phir zinda hoga ke hua phir karbala

Ye to taalim-e-torah ho nahi sakti kisi tarah
beh'ta khun, jalti aag, har taraf badal siyaa(h)

Ibne-maryam ko dhund ke lao kahin se yaaro
ke insaanoN ko bachaye, woh suli ka meseeha

Mujrim woh hai jo zulm dha raha hai, magar
Khamosh jo haakim hain, banao unka katehra

"sabbath' ke roz maut, khauf aur khun ki holi ?
"das aehkam" ye to na the, ke manao aashura

Barood se qaumaiN mitti nahin, batao nadaN ko
werna aaj bhi hota arz pe namrood ka basera

Duaa kerte raho dil main apne, agar majboor ho
yaqeen rakho ke raat ke baad aata hai sawera

On age 50

"You're just the romantic age, Fifty. Twenty-five is too worldly-wise; thirty is apt to be pale from overwork; forty is the age of long stories that take a whole cigar to tell; sixty is - oh, sixty is too near seventy; but fifty is the mellow age. I love fifty."

Pretty Hildegarde to Benjamin Button thinking he is 50 years old - Chapter 5, `The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' by F. Scott Fitzgerald, first published in 1922

P.S: No, I am not fifty ! , neither F. Scott Fitzgerald was. He died young.

Afraid of failure?

Princess and the Monster-2

"I bumped your blog by accident and read your post 'Princess and the Monster'. This is very true. At
least I had monsters in my castle. I was born in Lahore. I was princess of my daddy (abbu) too. I was molested many times by my elder brother's friend at age 7 and than again by another friend at age 8. My parents move to UK when I was 11. There, I was molested by my brother-in-law who was 20 years older than me. At age 14, I was lured to bed by another guy, nothing but to loose my virginity.

When I was 15, one day my other brother-in-law asked me to meet him outside school. He threatened me, that if I will not sleep with him - he will divorce my sister. I was confuse. To save my sister, I slept with him. When I got married - I told my husband about my past. He found it a good justification to beat me for 20 years as a 'slut woman'.

I am now 45, sitting here, reading your blog. My dad is 80 years old and on wheelchair. I am still her princess but I want to tell him: "You don't know daddy. There are always monsters hiding inside princess castle".

Kaun bikta nahi zamane main - 2 (update)

Is blog pe main ne, Karachi main, apne us waqiye ka zikar kiya tha - jub hum gulshan-e-iqbal ke ilaqe main 'gana' sunne jaya kerte the - aur wahan aik larki mujh pe aashiq ho gayi thi (here). Us larki ka naam Gul-Shireen tha magar hum use Gul bulate the.

Main koi saal pehle Karachi gaya to Gul ko phir dhundhne 'bazare-husn' ke chakkar kaate magar woh nahi mili. Kuch dinoN pehle mera aik dost Karachi se wapas aaya to kisi tarah Gul ki khabar laya.....Gul khubsurat to thi hi, so wahin 'bangle' pe aane wale kisi shaks ne aashiq ho ker gul se shadi ker li. Ab uske do bachhe hain aur woh aik sharifana zindagi basar ker rahi hai.

Mujhe Gul ka 'mobile #' bhi mila. Main kafi dinoN is makhmase (confusion) main raha ke mujhe Gul ko phone kerna chahiye ya nahi? Mujhe ye dar tha ke kahin mere phone se uski bani banai zindagi main koi talatum (storm) paida na ho jaaye - magar aakhri mulaqat ka 'ghao' itna ghera tha ke main ne majboor ho ker Gul ko phone ker hi diya.

Mere phone dial kerne pe jub Gul ne hello kaha to mujhe koi aur baat nahi sujhi aur main ne kaha: "is waqt baat ker sakti ho?"

"Tum !! ....15 baras baad meri yaad kese aa gai"

"Hairat hai! itne saaloN baad bhi tum ne foran meri awaz pehchan li"

"Tumhari awaz to main lakhon main pehchan leti"

(Is ke baad bus rasmi 2/4 batain hi huiN thi- ke uska beta school se wapas aa gaya)

Koi kisi se itni mohabbat kese ker sakta hai. Koi kisi ko itna kese yaad rakh sakta hai. Gul jis 'profession' main thi, wahan aik se aik turram khan haazir hota tha. Main to bohat hi average sa, patla dubla lurka tha. Magar na jaane woh kiun aur kese, yun dil de bethi ke aaj tuk mujhe bhula na paai. Kaash main ne phone nahi kiya hota - Woh mujh per pehli mulaqat se bhi gehra ghao chor gai....

Ye dil saala bara harami hai !!


Addendum: I should have added this in post above but realized after reading uncle saugoree's comment. "...I think, more than loving me, she remembered me because 15 years ago my comment hurted her very much.....Zaban ka ghao talwar se ghera hota hai......"

Pussy Generation

I am posting this quote from my very favourite Clint Eastwood (Dirty Harry) latest interview -without comments:

"My father had a couple of kids at the beginning of the Depression. There was not much employment. Not much welfare. People barely got by. People were tougher then.We live in more of a pussy generation now, where everybody's become used to saying, "Well, how do we handle it psychologically?" In those days, you just punched the bully back and duked it out. Even if the guy was older and could push you around, at least you were respected for fighting back, and you'd be left alone from then on........I don't know if I can tell you exactly when the pussy generation started. Maybe when people started asking about the meaning of life......You wonder sometimes. What will we do if something really big happens?

I remember going to a huge waterfall on a glacier in Iceland. People were there on a rock-platform overlook to see it. They had their kids. There was a place that wasn't sealed off, but it had a cable that stopped anybody from going past a certain point. I said to myself, You know, in the States they'd have that hurricane-fenced off, because they're afraid somebody's gonna fall and some lawyer's going to appear! ......

You can't stop everything from happening. But we've gotten to a point where we're certainly trying. If a car doesn't have four hundred air bags in it, then it's no good.

My father died very suddenly at sixty-three. Just dropped dead. For a long time afterward, I'd ask myself, Why didn't I ask him to play golf more? Why didn't I spend more time with him? But when you're off trying to get the brass ring, you forget and overlook those little things. It gives you a certain amount of regret later on, but there's nothing you can do about it. So you just forge on.

Smaller details are less important. Let's get on with the important stuff."


Full interview here

Qabooliat ki ghari

Agar aap ko yaad ho to is blog pe main ne ‘parapsychology’, ‘meta-physics’, ‘spiritualism’, ‘new age’ wagera wagera se apni dilchaspi ka zikar kiya tha (here). Us ki asas (origin) zindagi ka aik aesa waqiya tha jo meri zindagi ki awwal awwal yadoN main se aik hai. Us waqt meri umar koi 6 baras hogi.

Amma hame magrib ke waqt masjid main darse-quran ke liya bheja kertiN. Sabaq se pehle hum masjid ki peechli sirhiyoN se masjid ki chat(roof) pe bhaga kerte. Un sirhiyoN ke neeche mayyat le jaane ke liye lakri ka aik khubsurat janaza parha rehta. Hum masjid ki peechli sirhiyoN pe charte huwe us janaze ko dekha kerte. Kabhi kabhi use dekh ke aik hulka sa dar bhi lagta. Aik roz kehlte huwe hamare saath ke aik bachhe ne kaha, ‘main marne ki acting kerta hun, tum log mera janaza banao’..hum sab ‘janaza janaza’ kehlne lage aur woh bachha lakri ke us khubsurat taboot main mayyat ban ke so gaya. Kuch der baad maulvi saab ne hum sab ko wahan se daant ke bhaga diya.

Dusre din woh larka mar gaya!

School se ghar aa ke woh bistar pe leta aur phir wapas nahi uttha!

Us waqiyeh ne mere andar maut ka aik ajeeb khauf bitha diya. Main taayi amma ke ghar therne jata to unke ghar raat ko ghup andhera rehta aur main para para sochta rehta ke, kiya qabar ke andar bhi itna andhera hota hoga…Is dar se nikalte nikalte mujhe bohat waqt lag gaya aur phir jesa ke main ne likha tha ke zindagi ka aik beshtar hissa main ne is dasht ki sayyahi main guzara! …

Hamari dadi kehti thin ke….. magrib ke waqt aik ghari qabooliyat ki aati hai. Us ghari dil ya zaban se nikli koi baat poori ho jaati hai.

Us bachhe ki maut aik ittafaq thi ya phir dadi amma ki baat sahi thi ke, qabooliyat ki ghari, us bachhe ke dil se nikli maut ki aarzoo poori ho gai

Allah behtar jaanta hai….

Umar's take on Hajj

Umar's parents are from Pakistan but he is born and raised in USA. He is a very handsome chap and a very smart surgeon. Certainly, one of the most eligible bachelor! Umar and I always communicate in English. Even, if I speak urdu he replies in english. I always thought that his urdu may not be good as he is Pakka ABCD.

Aaj sham main hospital ki elevator main daakhil hua to.... umar was standing there. His head was shaved....Main ne kaha: "are ye kiya ho gaya? tumhari 'tind' kiun nikal aayi"...He informed me that he is just back from Hajj.

Main ne kaha: "Yaar Umar! aik baat batao. Is it true that Hajj is really such a spiritual experience that you can't describe in words or is it just something hyped and exaggerated by muslims"

Umar replied: "Its very true. The impact of spiritual enlightment can't be described. I was like in outer world watching my whole life in a single glance. Money and career, even family seems like a bubble to me....."And than very first time in 2 years, he spoke to me in very clear urdu: "Hajj ke baad aadmi apna nahi rehta".

Main ne poocha: " Agar main tum se poochun ke, sirf aik lafz main batao ke Hajj se tumhe kiya mila to kiya kaho ge?"

Umar ne jawab diya: "Sabar. Manasike Hajj kuch aese hain aur phir duniya ki aarzi zindagi ka aehsas kuch itna ziyada hota hai ke wapas aa kar bari jaldi sabar aa jata hai. Woh aik lafz hai sabar"

Man who was not the father

From one of my favourite blogger karrvakarela

".....Or the man who, even when he found out at the time of transplant that he wasn't the father of his daughter, still took care of her. Her own mother abandoned the child but this man stayed with her, steadfast until the very end. The girl died in his arms..."

Read full post here

Crowd Psychology - Group Sex

(The following post may carry offensive content, though I tried not to be graphic)

What shocked me most was the presence of Fang in that house!

Crowd psychology is one of the most vital phenomena in any human society. Once a crowd starts walking on a single thinking path, it creates such a powerful energy that it can move mountains. This is the same crowd psychology that brings revolutions. It is like a Vaccum, which sucks in people's minds, and they lose their power to have objective thinking. It is a most extreme and collective form of conscious hypnotism. A similar thing rolls out from stereotyping to most brutal ethnic genocides!...

One of our fellow residents was getting married to a fellow resident girl. A Bachelor party was planned for guys at a nude bar, and girls gathered at one of the girl's houses. Guys joined girls after their party. They all were drunk, and one person's idea of Tom Cruise's 'eyes wide shut mask' led to group sex thingy. These were wild people, but when I saw Fang taking the black fold off her eyes as she received a cell phone call from her mother, I was shocked to find her there - rising from an act of sin. Fang was Chinese and was one of the most pretty, graceful, reserved, and, I thought, a very conservative breed. I guess under crowd psychology, she was carried away in the storm of sex, sin, and alcohol.

Keeping senses sane in the middle of the madding crowd is one of the hardest things, and may Almighty protect all of us from it!

P.S. The above was not a pleasurable memory but very disgusting. I do not find the idea of group sex appealing anymore.

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Sir Jazakallah!

Jab hum aathween (8th class) main the to hamare islamiyat ke aik ustad dusri school se transfer ho ker aaye. Naam to unka Sir Manzar tha magar jald hi woh school main Sir Jazakallah ke naam se mashoor ho gaye, kiunke woh har baat pe Jazakallah kehte the. Aik din main period ke beech main bathroom se aa raha tha ke unhon ne mujhe rok ke poocha: "Mian barkhurdar! ye period ke beech main kahan ghum rahe ho?" 

Main ne kaha: "Sir bathroom se aa raha hun" Woh bole: "Jazakallah" 

Main ne class main aa ker ye baat dostoN ko sunayi aur hum poora din unka mazaq urate rahe aur baat be baat pe aik dusre ko jazakallah bol bol ke haste rahe. Mere bare bhai cricket gazab ki khelte the. Itni shandar batting kerte the ke mohalle main 'Clive Lloyd' ke naam se mashoor the. Unke saath main bhi poora din jhulsa dene wali garmi main cricket khelne ghumta rehta. Aik aesi hi garmi ki dophar main shadeed dehydration ke baais mujhe 'kidney stone' ka aesa dard uttha ke nani yaad aa gai. Jub bhi peeshab kerne jaata aesa azar hota ke Allah ki panah! Us din Sir Jazakallah bohut yaad aaye. 

We take life's so many blessings as granted. Even having a healthy excreta is a blessing. Jazakallah!

On 'Bakra' Eid

The following is another controversial piece I received (from another gentleman) on Baqar Eid. Again I am posting here to demonstrate different thinkings people have on different issues.

"For most of the last night I was kept up by the bleating bakra in my neighbor's backyard. Had a fitful nights sleep at best and woke up in the morning to a cascade of children running around the aforementioned bakra. Clearly all these children were entirely excited about the impending gruesome death of the bakra. Gruesome meaning having its throat slit without any care of pain and watching its blood flow out while the poor animal gasps its last breaths. And yes, children standing around enjoying the spectacle. No wonder these children grow up to become adults that enjoy killing. So, why we as Muslims are surprised that our children grow up to be killers that enjoy killing (suicide bombers)?"

A note on Hajj

The following is a forwarded email about one's view on Hajj. This is controversial but I found it very interesting.

"....I would strongly condemn the ban on the non muslim to enter the Haram(kaaba). I think it should be open to everyone. Its beacuse the basic focus of Quran is on An'naas and not Muslaymeen. There are more ayah with 'Ya'ayuhannaso' compared to 'Ya'ayuhal momayneen'........"

A story of a bad marriage

(As described by a friend) 

 Sometimes a lousy marriage is worse than a broken marriage. My parents divorced after 25 years of marriage. It is strange, but I knew that my mother was never happy in this marriage. My father was a 'malang type aadmi.' He was not a very social type. He was not a very presentable person. On the same note, he was not a very expressive or a romantic soul. I am not sure; he even realized that - the woman who lives and sleeps with him is unhappy. My mother wanted love and companionship out of marriage. My father saw the wedding as a family-making event. Unfortunately, they both were blind to each other!

That day, my father was at work. My mother was furious at home. She was packing her stuff to move out to her brother's (my mama) place. She was angry because my father could not behave like other men in a family 'dawat,' and one woman taunted her about my father's appearance. I tried to stop my mother.

I said, "aap khud unko bata ke chali jao."

She said: "Nahi! tumhi unhe bata dena".

Main ne kaha: "Ma! ruk jao. Is tarah to ghar mat toro".

Ma didn't answer. I asked her again, 'Are you sure about leaving Dad?' She said yes, and moved out.

My father was not even able to express any emotions that night. The only thing he said at the table as I warmed the dinner in the microwave was, 'Who will take care of me now?'

I wish my mom had left this relationship when she knew she was unhappy. We are three losers like points of a triangle - still together but living differently. Nothing works if the heart gets a block in marriage and feelings go dead.

Meri Ma ne 25 baras koshish ki ke uska dil maan jaaye, magar ye dil saala bara ziddi aur harami hai - ye kab kisi ki sunta hai. Mere Baap ne 25 baras poori imandari se ghar banane aur chalane ki koshish ki. Apna pet kaat ke hamari khawaishat ki dozakh bharta raha. Woh sochta tha, main kum khauN, kum pehnuN magar mere biwi bachhe khush rahe. Magar woh nadaan kahin se sirf woh 2 lafz nahi la saka jo kisi aurat ke dil ko mom(wax) ker de !

Ye dil ka muamla saala bara harami hai!

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On Health, Diseases & being a Doctor

Being a physician, I learned that there are 2 kind of patients. One, who bring disease to themselves by bad habits like tobacco, alcohol, drugs etc. Others are those unfortunates, who develop disease for known (hereditary, gentic, enviromental etc) or completely unknown reasons.

Meri residency ka third year tha....I was on research elective...is liye.....nobody was expecting me in hospital for regular work...... Chicago main sardiaN urooj pe thin. Mujhe shadeed 'upper respiratory tract infection' huwa huwa tha. Aik subah meri aankh khuli to mujhe aehsas huwa ke....I cannot move my muscles at all. I realized that either I have developed acute myopathy, Guillain-Barré syndrome or somekind of acute polyneuropathy (or may be catatonia).....Main ne haath uthane ki koshish ki magar nahi utha paya. Gardan bhi nahi ghuma paya...Main phir so gaya...yunhi pare pare bimari ki halat main 2 din guzar gaye. Kubhi aankh lag jaati, kubhi raat main khirki se december ki chandni takta rehta aur kubhi samjhta aalme-khawab main hun. Do din baad haaton main kuch jaan mehsoos hui to main ne mattress ke paas pare phone pe speed dial ka button push kiya aur dost ko kamzor awaz main suratehaal bayan ki......To make story short, I remained in hopital for a week, responded to Plasmapheresis, got better and went on with my life.

Magar un do dinoN ne mujhe saari zindagi ke liye ye sikha diya ke aik bimar aadmi jo mahinoN bimari ke alam main bister pe para rehta hai, kis azab se guzarta hai. Ye sach hai ke pehle mujhe patients pe gussa aa jata tha. Us din se nahi aata.

It sounds simple, but health is the highest blessing. Health is for sure the biggest wealth. And there is a reason, at the end of the day - I come home with a sense of pride and satisfaction - ke- I made atleast a little difference in someone's life today!

A note on names

One of my weakness is that: "I am very bad in remembering names" - and I have paid for it many times. This is so basic that every human loves his name and I usually forgets people name unless I have to interact with them on regular basis. I assure you, if you learn to remember and pronounce people's name correctly, pepole will remember you more than you deserve.