In the dusky path of a dream

I went to seek the love who was mine in a former life.
Her house stood at the end of a desolate street.
In the evening breeze her pet peacock sat drowsing on its perch,
and the pigeons were silent in their corner.

 

She set her lamp down by the portal and stood before me.
She raised her large eyes to my face and mutely asked, "Are you well, my friend?"
I tried to answer, but our language had been lost and forgotten.
I thought and thought; our names would not come to my mind.
Tears shone in her eyes. She held up her right hand to me. I took it and stood silent.
Our lamp had flickered in the evening breeze and died.

 

–Rabindernath Tagore

God Bless her soul.

Her sad demise at this young age is just a faint reminder that IT business (especially programming) is a game for big boys only. You have to go through a living hell everyday. Its about time the world starts appreciating the sacrifices that we seasoned IT guys have made and the strong nerves that are required to bear these ever-changing technologies.

My Message for Parents: Dont put your kids in the IT field till their minds are strong enough to bear the pressure cooker environment.

PS: The comments above are just sarcastic. Nothing serious here, except the condolence.

In a bigger picture, most of my plans eventually met their happy endings with the exception of a few “unmentionable” glitches whose remnants might stick around for a long long time to come.

So, lets quickly wrap up a reivew of my resolutions for 2011:

1 – Buy a car:

Oh yeah! finally the wait is over. I bought a used car, and learnt to drive it… at last!
Took me a while to figure out what i needed but in the end budget constraints let me stick to an old khyber. So, plans are to use this car and get it repaired till it gets into a decent shape.

2 – Pass a Certification Exam:

This has been a good year in terms of education. This was the year i picked up books, and i passed 5 certification exams. Certified DB2 professional, MCTS. The story doesn’t end here, I was also one of the proud participant of the infamous AI-Class and eventually passed it just before the year came to an end.
Appearing in company’s own certification exams got me introduced to yet another world: the world of mentoring. After learning a relatively new technology i jumped the trainers’ bandwagon and have been conducting courses on DB2 as a part of IBM’s DB2 Academic Initiative. Three courses so far, quite a few more to come hopefully.

3 – Change my goddamn cellphone:

If i had to sum it up, i have fulfilled this wish too. I bought my much prized blackberry, but my companionship with that phone lasted merely four months. Since that devastating moment, I have never really mustered up enough courage to get a good phone. Perhaps when i move to a new city in the coming months, I might start over and things might be a bit different.

4 – Hit a Gym and get in some decent shape:

“Decent Shape”. hah! can’t believe i said it. Was I high when i wrote it? dont you all think ‘round’ is a decent shape? of course its the most stable shape you can ever get… so i am sticking to this shape.
Well, I did go to gym… but that routine is interrupted every now and then. Still i manage to attend the gym once a week and out of my current schedule i am grateful that i can do this.

5 – Feed one hungry a day (at the least)

Yes! One thing that I have been very punctual about.  Hopefully the good trend is likely to continue. 

6 – Learn something new – non techy thingy

I bought a guitar early this year and started some classes to learn it. Been around six months now and my progress is just slow (if not pathetic). I can manage to hold chords but struggling a bit in switching from one chord to other. Hopefully this will be overcome with some practice. 

7 – Spend some time with family.

I tried, but that area needs improvement. Perhaps the family might tell me how seriously i try in this area. 

8 – For the love of god, solve this Rubick cube of mine

Nah! Never even touched the damn thing.

9 – Recurring tasks

Got acquainted with new people, been a cinema goer regularly, have explored new eating places, Watched new movies, new TV shows,  explored new music genres, banged my head hard listening to heavy metal, read more books, dreamt about more $$$, kept blogging, kept tweeting…. etc 

As years pile on, the terrain gets more uneven, these legs get weaker and ambitions (mostly pending for years) seem like mountains that seem to become unachievable with every passing year until the traveler calls it a quit and bows out… that time for me has NOT arrived!  fun times await.

Tomorrow i am starting my third full fledged workshop at a university, and its going to be the biggest one i conducted.

Fun times await

For us Karachiites,  a time duration comprising of three consecutive no-sweat afternoons is equivalent to spending a month in Siberia. (Ok, I have been exaggerating here)

But its good to be utilizing your blankets, jackets, cold tablets and consuming extra tea and coffee in the name of winters.

Right now, i am cuddled in my blanket on my bed, typing off while a gigantic mug of coffee steams on the side table. Dad was having peanuts while watching TV (another activity to spend a wintery evening) and on every bed, every chair in the living room you can find a shawl, a hoodie or a cap.

Winter is here…. no matter for how little time, but its here any ways.

and I am gonna leave you a wintery song… none other than one of my favorite bands…. Anathema.

This is the question, we over-worked, entertainment deprived corporate slaves ask ourselves and each others.

as expected, most of the people whom i asked this question strongly desired to quit their jobs, wave a middle finger to the management and spend the rest of the day (read: remaining time alive) with families or go bowling etc.

Although this choice seems to be the most rational one, i sometimes wonder why would they opt for this? why spend the whole day idling with family and friends? wouldn’t this unexpected behavior freak themselves and their family out?

Frankly speaking, I might as well take the same path but the non-conformist inside of me argues. just listen to what it says:

If you have forced yourself into slavery so that your family can have a better life, then why break free from it for one day? Since working each day promises a monetary return, you should consider working your ass off for this last day too so that once you disintegrate into oblivion, your family could cherish whatever meager additional income comes their way. Although they would mercilessly consume this money, and would call you a workaholic who never cared enough for them… your rotting carcass, your scarred soul would have a winning smile because you know why you took those actions.

But, since we never really know when our time would end (unless you have planned to jump off a building after reading this) we continue with our business-as-usual and even the most caring types – who would do anything to have some last memories with their loved ones – end up in the same fate as the ones described by the other side of me… and this is how the wheel of time continues to turn.

P.S: After writing and reviewing this post, i dont know why the f**k i wrote it. I am not trying to make a point here at all… i somehow lost the whole concept.

Taking part in this course has been one of the rare attempts from my side to dedicate a few hours of day to educational purposes. To be frank, I am not extremely satisfied with my performance in this course. I have been struggling most of the time and have to listen to lectures more than twice to be able to figure out the assignment solutions. The results of assignments are just about passing score. The mid term was however relatively easier and i scored better than the class average (83%). But i am still hanging on and am hopeful that i might as well come out victorious… and its the final accomplishment certificate that matters.

Well, the course is not over yet, the final exam is yet to happen and i dont know what is going to happen in that. I will update this space once i get my final results.

Meanwhile, Stanford has launched a number of upcoming courses that start from next year.. and i totally want to be a part of all of them… but time constraints prohibit me. Lets hope i get a chance to appear in one or two of them.

Finally, if you ask my opinion about the course and the value it brings… i would say its totally worth it. the learning is immense, the professors are not boring and you get a chance to be a part of a totally global class. Good going Stanford!

This incident, and countless prior such incidents that occur due to growing mistrust among the two countries results in quite a strong reaction among the people and they expect their representatives (and by representatives, i intend to say ‘government’) to convey this anger and grief to the invading forces. But the government stays mum.

Conspiracy Theorists are adamant that government in under agreement not to escalate the matter to any higher forum nor to retaliate, but in order to explain this silence from the Pakistani side, I would like you to ponder over an alternate point of view – The point of view that involves knowledge of local culture and religious beliefs.

Since religion has a strong impact on most of the dwellers in the country, the religion emphasizes on respecting your elders especially parents. Apart from religion, we cannot break free from our cultural values as well where parents and elders are valued and their advise is followed as if its a religious instruction. As we Pakistanis are totally dependent upon foreign aid we consider them as our parents and religion tells us not to express dissatisfaction towards your parents when you get beaten up by them.

So, staying quiet when we get attacked by foreign forces is not a sign of weakness, its a sign of respect towards our parents. We are not weak, we are just trying to be an obedient kid. After all, no body within us can point fingers at us for being religious.

WTF??? A UNICORN???  I couldn’t believe my eyes and pinched myself, thinking that i was still dreaming. but there it was, the unicorn flying away from me.

“Where am I? Am I Alive?”

“Heaven” came a reply from a tree.

“whoa!”, i somehow had forgotten the ability to think.

It didnt take me long enough to realize that this is “The Heaven” our ancestors talked about. the mulla in his weekly sermon talked about… and despite all my sinful activities, I had somehow managed to end up there.

“If this is Heaven?  Where are my 72 virgins?”, My eyes had finally lit-up realizing that my wildest fantasies were about to be fulfilled.

The statue of Sphinx which had been lifeless till that moment suddenly stirred and interrupted my thought process. The Sphinx spoke only once, and in a booming voice it said, "Naaa Bacha! This is Gul Khan’s Heaven, and YOU are No. 72…… and now let us all be silent again."
I heard it, but I did not understand….

until Gul Khan was unleashed.