The happiest 18 days of my life

Every year I visit my home in Pakistan around december, this year however, I visited a couple of month earlier and experienced the happiest time of my life. It was my brothers wedding. This post is about this time back home and how special it was.

A few months before my 12th birthday I went to a boarding school and a year after that, when I came home for my first long vacation, my brother left for another boarding school. As it turned out, we had our long vacations in different seasons. He had them in winter and I in summer. There were years when we just saw each other twice a year, at the Eids. With cell phones not common and boarding school restrictions we didn't even get to talk much and it was like each of us was a single child of the same parents for so long. Then he joined the military and I left Pakistan for higher studies, which continue till now, only to return once a year. Whenever I visit Pakistan, I only get to meet him for a few days. This time, however, it was special. He was getting married. The person dearest to me on the planet was getting married.

Why so judgemental?

Source: http://thepistachios.weebly.com

A while back I grew a beard just for the lack of not wanting to shave. Someone I know told me I look like son of Osaman Bin Laden. Sometime later, I shaved and someone else I know commented that you "shaved the beard? how un-Islamic!". Some more time later, I grew a French beard like the ones the Arab Sheikhs have and I was told by someone else I know "harami harami lag rehe ho?" (translated as 'why have you put up a bastard look on your face?'). All these people I know are from different countries and different ages. I ask, why so judgemental? Could it not be that I just do with my facial hair what I like?

#PhDProblems

Here are a few of my tweets/posts related to my PhD from the last two years.

First impressions of the city:
its like nathia gali,,, with development like some tourist resort near new york,,, and the weather of karachi plus around 70% humidity, minus winds,,, rain frequency like murree... above all: the English here ;)

The first month:
Loading PhD... 2% loaded...

The tougher times:
have you ever seen a person hundreds of times and never seen him/her smile?

take the square of the magnitude of the Fourier transform of the logarithm of the square of the magnitude of the Fourier transform of the signal and you will have its power cepstrum

Period of self-pity:
you have to take deep breaths and keep pushing,,, literally while delivering a baby,,,, and metaphorically while doing a phd

two phds meet. one with a job, one without a job. the phd without a job says to the phd with a job, "burger and fries please."

Midway through:
loading phd...50% loaded! 2 years of candidature

14 Feb 2012:
valentines day message from Prof. 'lets submit a paper to a conference whose deadline is this friday!' #PhDProblems

London Called

So I'm at Terminal 1 of London Heathrow on my way to Frankfurt. The self check-in machines are an annoying addition to the already hectic airport procedure. The last thing I, being the customer, want to have to do is to enter the data myself and since the person at the desk still has to check that the details match on my documents and thats its actually me traveling on those documents, he might as well do the data entry stuff for me. Anyway, past that at the security check is what's worth a share.

In my carry-on backpack I have my laptop and a few snacks. In its pocket are the chargers for my phone, iPod, laptop, camera and extra batteries. Their wires are always intertwined in a uniquely chaotic manner. There are certain things that, no matter how hard you try, cannot be packed in a sophisticated way. As I take off my jacket and my belt and put my luggage through the x-ray scanning machine, the lady watching the connected computer screens gives it a long stare and calls someone who looks like a superior of hers from among those security personnel who are roaming about. This person attends to the screen and gives me a deep suspicious look. Now, the flight I am taking is LH 911 and although I am not an Osama look-a-like, but I tend to not shave my beard regularly and have a heavy mustache that I would like to think of as fairly cool. This time its been about two weeks since I last trimmed my beard. So this supervisor sort of person asks me if the bag is mine and after an affirmative from me tells me in an authoritative tone that she's going to pass it through the machine again. And suddenly there are three or four security personnel staring at the screen, trying to figure something out.  They are still not satisfied and one of them brings the bag to me and wears the sort of gloves that they use at a crime scene to gather evidence. She says shes going to open my bag and I respond 'sure'. She has some handheld scanning device and she scans every single element in my bag and puts all the chargers and electronic stuff in a tray and informs me that she'll pass them from the machine again. By this time, some people at different stages of the security procedure have started staring at the me; the weird looking person traveling on Lufthansa flight LH 911 who is being inspected. I'm pretty okay with everything as I know there is nothing in there that's worth suspicion. The lady is still not satisfied with something showing up on the screen. She separates each of the wires to see what the hell is showing up on the scanner. She opens the camera cover and takes it out. At the top it says GPS. Well, that's basically it, she shows it to her colleagues and says a smiling thank you and I am off to the lounge.

The language barrier

Source: 3rdculturechildren.files.wordpress.com

Wouldn't it be nice if everybody spoke the same language. I mean, set aside the 'language is the essence of culture' attitude and think for a moment if everybody spoke the same language, how easy would it be to communicate wherever you are. Am not advocating abandoning one's own language but everybody should at least also speak one common language, whichever can be agreed upon. In this context, the following incident that happened to me was a hilarious experience. This narration is not intended to pass any judgements.

So I am in a small town in Saudi Arabia somewhere near Al-Sulaiyl, about a 1000 km south west of Riyadh. It's been a few days since I have been here and I have quite a bit of free time, so I need something to read, something to study. I don't have a copy of Quran with me and I have been using the ones at the mosque after prayers. I want to get one so that I can study at home. A couple of days later I decide to ask someone at the mosque and bring one home from there. After I finish my Isha prayer, I notice that there is only one person left in the mosque other than me and my subordinate. We wait for this man to finish his prayer. As he settled down after prayer for dua and tasbeehat, we approach him and ask him in plain Urdu and he has this expression on his face that means 'What?' and he says something in Arabic that I couldn't understand even in my imagination.

Source: bookhaven.stanford.edu

I look at my colleague and we agree that we need to do better, so we accumulate all the vocabulary of Arabic that we have and mix it up with the Urdu words that we think might be similar in both languages, couple this with gestures which later seemed particularly funny. The response from this Arabic guy is again equally incomprehensible for me and my colleague. As a final attempt, I use more of gestures and less of words to convey what I wanted to say. I gesture towards a copy of the Quran and pull my hands to my chest as if saying that I want to take it, and then gesture with my two fingers as if signalling walking, and at this point I utter the word kamra. I don't know what the hell he understood from it, he sort of angrily exclaimed 'Haraaam, Haraam' a couple of times and we understood that there was no point trying again, we better ask someone else who understands Urdu. 

Now that I think about it, I feel clumsy for not trying to explain it to him in English. I probably thought that Arabic is more similar to Urdu than English, and honestly maybe I also considered unconsciously that why the hell would a Saudi living in a small town far away from any big city know English.

Saving Face?

No, I haven't watched  (not due to lack of interest but merely because I was short of time) 'Saving Face' the documentary that was recently awarded the Academy Award for Best Documentary-Short Subject. However, I've come across enough praise and criticism to push me to pen down my thoughts on the matter.

First of all, many congrats to Ms. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Mr. Daniel Junge for a job well done. As someone rightly pointed out on one of the too many social media networks, I would much rather tag it as Ms. Chinoys achievement than Pakistans achievement.

Secondly, the criticism that it has received is primarily based on the notion that it damages Pakistans reputation or damages Pakistans face. My answer to that is that you guys have been throwing acid at womens faces hence it was shown in the film, had you been showering these faces with flowers, your face would have been saved. In other words, if you were so concerned about your reputation, you should not have allowed this nuisance of acid attacks be a part of your society.  Ms. Chinoy is not to blame for 'your' image being destroyed, 'you' are.

Another thing that I haven't seen pointed out yet is a fatwa on Ms. Chinoys outfit at the awards ceremony. Oh no no, don't label me as a stereotype or a Mumtaz Qadri, I am not judging. Its just that I would have liked and appreciated her more had she worn a better outfit, as she has done at the dinner party later and everywhere else. In any case, since its a personal matter and her choice all I have for her is respect.

This time back home: photographic account of trip to Pakistan

Every year around Christmas, I go home. Here is a glimpse of what I came across this time around.

Starting my trip at Changi Airport, Singapore. I'm there early and its prayer time so I inquire my way to the prayer room. Just next to the ablution area is a board that reads 'Passengers of any religion may use this room for prayer and meditation. Please remove your shoes before entering the prayer and wash area. Please observe silence while in the prayer room'. Apologies for the bad image quality!

 And we are in Islamabad, the beautiful, as the Capital Development Authority calls it.

Spent a lot of time on the road, just to say hi to almost everybody I knew. Fuel availability was a BIG problem for people (besides of course all the other problems such as power outages etc. Pakistan Khappey!). The 'No Naked Lights' part of this sign at a gas station made me LOL which now for some reason doesn't sound very funny though.

On my visit to Faisalabad I am welcomed by a transport strike and road blockages for protest against fuel related crisis.

And then there is this guy who just relieved himself beside the Chenab Club. I wasn't prepared for this (how could anyone be prepared to take such a snap) so couldn't capture the exact moment :P

Okay, so I am at my village and the next morning when I wake up, my car (covered in a plethora of dust, villages are dusty places) that has been parked outside since last night has been serving as somebody's scribbling pad. It says a number of things including 'karaye ke liye khali he' which translates into 'Available for rent' and 'ki Muhammad se wafa tu ne to hum tere hein...'

And then the nightmare experience of passport renewal. I cannot even begin to describe the horror I witnessed there. Abundant corruption is perhaps the first thought that comes to mind. I was so busy going through the process that I could only photograph the business card of a 'senior passport advisor'. Maybe will give a full account of the horrible experience  in a separate post later, of course only if someone wants to hear about it.

Back in Islamabad, this is whats happening. Construction workers transport pipes to a higher floor of an under construction building brilliantly.

And this relatively newly constructed road has power transmission towers right in the middle of the road.

And how could I not share this Urdu Punjabi advertisement painted on a wall.

The perfect reason to get married: prawns

Source: askmen.com

The directors at my office have officially invited us; the employees, to lunch at a fancy restaurant for celebrating Chinese new year. At the table for ten I am sitting next to a Vietnamese guy who has not been formally introduced to me but we've seen each other around at the workspace and the usual hi-hello takes place in passing encounters. Everybody indulges into some form of small talk with each other, so I too talk to this guy about some tech stuff related to work. Meanwhile, a number of dishes; nine to be precise, are being served one after the other in a specified sequence. For each round of food, I being a Muslim am provided with a Halal version of the dish being served. Its the fifth round I believe and my version, the Halal version, of the 'Fried Prawn with Foie Gras Sauce' has two whole prawns.

Source: wikia.com

I am not a big fan of Chinese or Thai; or any food other than Pakistani cuisine for that matter. I offer him my dish as I am not about to eat it. Upon being asked I explain that I do eat prawns but not as whole pieces, I only like the frozen ones which has the nice middle part with the 'leggy' things and the head removed. He inquires if I am married. Somewhat surprised by the sudden change of subject I say 'No, I am not'. He then advises me to get married. I ask why. And then he gives me this perfect reason to get married, 'She will cut the leggy things off prawns for you to eat the nice part'.