The 'In' Things

I had a time with my old friends today. We had plans of bigger things but we ended up with 'shawarma' and 'haleem'. I reached home after 11:30 pm after leaving at 8:15 pm. It was sad that we couldn't go out to any restaurant. I was at a friend's house most of the time.

I am thinking of not writing this Sunday's mock test. I will stay home study and have a bigger hope on the next Sunday's. After scoring 81.51 percentile in the previous one I realized that the way I am going right now needs to be rechecked. This test had multiple correct options for each question and my accuracy was 33%. The last time though it was above 50% my percentile was a bit less. I have to break into 90s to stay in the game. It's a failure in CAT if one can't score above 90 percentile.

On Wednesday there was a lovely 'iftaar' and dinner party at a friend's house. Unfortunately two of our friends weren't present there. We had a good time right from afternoon till 9:15 pm. It was a wonderful evening spent with friends. I know there are less than eight months for us to be together. It's all over after that. We will be on our own ways with only the memories of four fantastic years spent in the college.

Code Green

I had a lovely chat with a college friend just now. We don't talk much but whenever I meet him in the college I know he is not mediocre. He has something different in him that makes me like him. He is applying for MS and has to frame a Statement Of Purpose (SOP) for that. I hoped to help him directly but because I had no idea how exactly an SOP looked like, I went on to explain him the importance of having a purpose in life. I wished I could be of more help to him. I told him how easy it is to have a purpose and write about it when we have clear images of what we are from inside.

I once discussed with a friend about a quote he said - "anything worth learning can never be taught". I remembered reading something like - "you have sit alone; in the corner of a room; think, understand and learn". These things can never be explained to everybody. Not all understand how important it is to spend time sitting in the corner of a room. Not all realize the importance of logical soliloquy. More than half of my day goes in that. And before I head to bed in the nights, I spend time talking positivity with myself.

I had a party to attend in the evening. An old friend invited me for 'iftaar' and dinner. He will be doing his project in Indo-American Cancer Institute and he was telling me how excited he was. He is a student of Bio-Technology. He gave me home-grown mangoes to take home.

Nothing Motivates Like An Insult

When India's cricket match with Pakistan was drifting towards Pakistan, my mother on seeing me very tensed asked me to pray for our victory. I asked her if there was something I can get if my country wins. She replied "happiness". I said that I would rather pray for happiness than a victory. It's the desire and not the object.

I wanted not to react to the comment by Ms. Eloquence. And I am sure it is a 'Ms.'. But having read another comment, from a dear friend this time, I think I should get to some serious writing. He spoke in my defense and he almost got me into tears. He has been one of those who tell you if there is anything wrong you are doing but will stay with you no matter what happens because you are his friend. And I am blessed. The comments are on my post "My Keyboard Is Mightier". http://xubayr4.blogspot.com/2007/09/my-keyboard-is-mightier.html#comments

I don't like eating many vegetables; I don't like so many milk products; I hate curds. Perhaps Ms. Eloquence thought that I would eat her if she faced me directly. Ask any person who has spoken to me, I have never eaten anybody till now. I can write several words here, start a fight, ask many people to talk, but that won't be a part of my objective. If she could come and talk to me directly, I would use all my facial expression, integrate soft smiles, a few laughs and of course some sweet words to let her know that I don't eat human beings. And especially because she is a girl, I would never even think of raising my voice.

The accusation was that I am defaming a girl. I hope I am appropriate in using the word 'defaming'; I don't want anybody to tell me "hey, how can you take up words by yourself? she never said you were defaming anybody."I won't care for such people. I wonder how that girl about whom I have written so much would feel after reading all this; especially after reading that she is being supported by an eloquent person. If I were in this girl's place, I would have done so much. But she is sweet, intelligent and sensible. She hasn't reacted yet.

Some months back - I think it's almost a year now - I wrote a lengthy post blasting at a close friend. I wrote so much about him. He replied with a short comment. He just showed me how much he cared for me and how we are always going to be friends. We never fought. It was a step towards a stronger relationship. I once wrote about another friend too. But we still are friends. We are friends because we respect each other and we know what each of us is. We have spent hours together - in every mood possible. We know we are going to stand for each other. If Ms. Eloquence is playing some proxy with me, I am glad that girl has a good friend to support.

Coming to the support idea - even my friends support that girl. I say that with a smile and a chuckle. Why will I not? I know I have been a lot unreasonable than anything else. But I didn't do anything bad. I just got the first impressions wrong. And they were so wrong that they never let me have more chances. I appreciate the way she took everything. Just that she could have been more straight forward. No matter what I write about her, I respect her. I won't use the word 'love' because I am sure even Ms. Eloquence must have shouted at people she loves in her life. I respect that. Not all of us understand love. Great poets have died trying to put love in comprehension.

When I read the comment first, I wanted to reply with the teasing smiley ( :P ). Then I thought that would make her angry. And I feared that I would loose a reader. I also considered writing "did your mamma not tell you that cowardice is unIslamic?" Then I thought it would sound like a personal comment. I can't make personal comments on people who are good. I should rather go for what they have written.

For long we have read our syllabus books and many others too and all of them have dictated facts on us. We had to accept them and reproduce them. We had to take them as knowledge and learn from them. So, maybe when somebody sits to read my blogs, he/she might think that this is some script that is being enforced on him/her. She would simply fail to understand that they are all perceptions, private words, opinions, emotions - they can never be enforced. I am not writing doctrines here. Neither am I writing lyrics for songs or scripts for any television series.

"Dear young lady, I despised myself because I had to write a truth which was not going to be easy on some throats. I despised myself because I knew I could make somebody feel something wrong. I despised myself because I still respect her. Do you want me to write poems and stories in her praise? If you had known me, you could have read all that. I don't know you but I still respect you. Because I know that like me, even you love (!) your parents, you like good food, you like to spend time with your friends and you too believe in the beauty of future. I respect you for the comment you have left."

Ms. Eloquence spoke about religion. It irks me a lot when anybody hits on the faith in me. I know even I have no idea how much faith I have in me. Allah knows it better. Because I am a Muslim, I took a route through my parents and laid everything in front of them. But yes of course, I should believe in the verse of the Holy Quran "lakum deenukum wali ya deen". I gets translated as "to you your religion and to me my religion". The verse might not be precise on the context but I know it explains what I am trying to tell.

I felt bad when Ms. Eloquence said she was possibly wasting her time and energy when she thought I won't accept her comment. She wanted to tell me something and even if I don't accept the comment, I would in any case read it. Did she want it to be public? It was her decision to write that. Perhaps she was angry at me. I take it as inherently justified.

That last word 'sad' spoke more than just sadness. The last time there was no limit to my sense of humor was around a year back when I was playing even with brickbats. One of my friends always says that my name should have been 'joker'. Now I know reading all this can make her wonder if she can use this to strike at me. I just write this to show that I am not as serious as I look or my blogs look. At home I am called 'junglee', 'devdas', 'strange', and so much. I enjoy that. I couldn't enjoy that 'sad'. I couldn't understand what made HER so sad.

Girls are sweet. They are nice. They are caring. They are hardworking. They are more matured than guys of their age. I often trust their wisdom. I have five of them as very close friends of mine and they have taught me a lot. I have taken their advice all through. Just because I accept their superiority. I am not a chick just saying 'quack, quack' on my blog. I am not laying eggs here. I am putting in words what I feel. If I start writing everything I think, I am sure I will have to bring in bigger animals as examples.

But I don't have any girlfriends. My parents tell me that even if I have a girlfriend I should be proud of that and keep it an open secret. I don't know how much they mean it when they say that, I am never going to to have a girlfriend. That word sounds good but I don't like the idea. Girlfriend. 'yuk'! I have a big smile on my face right now with teeth visible to the computer screen. I have friends and I love them.

I know what it means when we say 'a girl's respect'. I know it means more than 'a guy's respect'. Because we all know and take it for granted that guys are shameless. Now, don't ask me why it is taken for granted. Maybe because they can remove their shirts and behave like Salman khan even when they are no good than Abhishek Bachchan. But I am Syed Zubair Hasan. I can be infinitely boring. But I am not self-centered in the way it was referred in the comment. I wouldn't be writing any blogs if I were self-centered. If I am confronted with, I can show a childish face, give the sweetest possible smile I can make and explain with the tone of my voice that I am not like how Ms. Eloquence perceived me to be.

Wrong From Right

My mother has been planning for a trip to Mecca to perform a pilgrimage since over two years. She got close to even deciding the dates but Allah's wish being the supreme force behind every single event, she is just hoping that someday she makes it there. She has January in her mind, but it's He who decides. It has become a tiring wait for me. I wanted to go there before the end of this year and was hoping to got here with my uncle. The time still has to come. It's verily an affirmation that money is not the only criteria that helps us with everything.

Today I had serious discussion with a friend on my way back home. We were trying to analyse how people tend to think under the influence of their family and how the psychology of parents effects their children. We found interesting things. Perhaps everybody know and understand the fine points but having a talk on them makes things more clear. There was some ideas I couldn't think of but my friend helped me know them. Maybe there were things he came to know because of me of started thinking on them because of me. It pays to have intelligent people around.

Intellect, wisdom, levels of maturity are never quantifiable. But the harsh part is that we don't have any absolute metric to measure them. The interesting point is that they keep fluctuating. I am no exception this. No doubt why we sometimes wonder how even the people we once considered wise behave illogically. It should be perfectly acceptable. But for me it teaches that I should be an exception to it. This is only one of several teachers I hate to learn from. But it teaches important things.

Shine!

When my father asked me if I wanted to have pizza standing outside a mall, I said I would prefer having homemade food. He asked me to have pizza as a snack but after I reached home I understood how three slices can cut my dinner into half. I had a heavy tea after dinner, my nose is blocked right now, my head is aching, and the only thing that keeps me up is the fear of sleep.

I took around an hour to decide the clothes I had to buy, my brother took half of that time. My mother insisted that I take a plain black shirt and a plain white shirt. I took the third one of my choice. When I asked my father for some advice on the trousers, he said he can never do that. But it was he who gave the final words. He also decided the five pairs of socks for me.

I have missed quite a lot of classes in the college and I am afraid if that it can create some problem by the end of the semester. There has hardly been a day in the semester till now that I attended all the classes in both the sessions of a single day. The only best thing is that there are many people with a similar absenteeism. Someday very soon I will have a talk with some lecturers and see if they can help me. A few days back one of them scolded the who class asking us not to attend if we were attending only for attendance. She said she will give it herself.

One of my cousins who is pursuing his medicine from Bishkek left Hyderabad after a long vocation. In the days to come he would be making a trip to Europe where he will spend some time in Amsterdam to attend a meeting on child psychology. He will also make a visit to Paris to meet my uncle there. This uncle who happens to be my father's eldest is the little known part of my family. He has not seen India for more than 28 years now. Telephone has been the only medium between us. Whenever he is asked to come here, he does the same thing with us - he invites us to his house in some place called as Poitiers. Few of us did heed to that.

Another cousin of mine who live in Houston left for West Indies a few days back. He is there to pursue his medicine. He has completed his pre-medicine in US itself and now he has moved a little down towards the equator. The last time we met was 2002. I can never forget 'The Scorpion King' I saw with him. There was also a Hindi movie too we watched together in a theatre at Mehdipatnam and I seriously hope to forget that experience - there was no movement in air when we were in front of the screen.

My World Is Good

Every time I write a mock test I learn something but I never get a chance to put into use what I learn because every mock has something different in it. I have never seen a CAT's paper easier than the one of 2006. I could without any preparation answer more than 70% of the quantitative part. But these mocks tell me that I am a fool thinking of writing CAT.

I can name at least 8 people from my college who once seemed very serious about CAT but now have left all the hopes of making it good. Though I am not scoring well, I am still positive and believe that if I finish all the study-material in time, I can get a good percentile. What confuses me is whether I am a fool in thinking so or these people are taking an easy way out. I will in any case give in all that I can and if possible more. My target is to finish all the 12 Full Length Tests before November 18th. For that I need to finish all the practice exercises, sprints and take offs. I am already into the take offs of English and DI. I won't have any regrets even if I fail to deliver once I am done with these.

My parents are planning to go out for shopping in the evening today. I like shopping but today I am not in a mood for it. My brother gets his clothes stitched and he has to get it done immediately. If I don't go today, then I will have to shop for myself later. I have done that before. This time I don't have time.

Right On The Target

I began to feel so weak after 3 pm today. I just couldn't keep myself up in front of the book. I had not strength to even talk and I had to sleep. Though I am satisfied with how I studied today, I am not happy about the quantity I could make up for. I still have to start with quantitative sections. I am sailing good with English and Data Interpretation. The next mock will decide if I am sailing in the right direction.

My father today asked me to apply gel to my hair and style them. He even commented positively on my extra-grown beard. I am anyways going to shave it in a day or two but I don't know when the hair can be trimmed. The only problem with them being long is the time taken to proper them in the mornings. It must be amusing for any person to know that I comb my hair every night before sleeping. That makes me feel good before I go ahead with the most dreaded part of my day.

I have three dates to take care of now - November 18th, December 16th and January 6th. They bring to me CAT, IBSAT and XAT in that order. They will decide the college in which I will pursue my MBA. But yes of course quite on the contrary, it will be me who has to decide, just that my performance in these will be non-trivial. It doesn't depend on my health, it doesn't depend on my parents, it depends on only me. If I don't make it into a very good institution, three to four years after doing a job I will look out for a one-year diploma in Business Administration from any top college abroad. It will just delay some achievements but I have to be on the target. It's Allah who decides.

Peace, Calm, Serenity

All it took me to get out of the bed today was will power. I wanted to be there - hidden under the blanket and keep my eyes closed. Darkness seemed to sooth me. The morning has been a little colder compared to previous, or perhaps it was just my tardiness that made it seem so. But I am up now. I had a shower and I have a complete day to go before I write mock CAT tomorrow. It's getting me tensed already.

On Thursday a friend of mine met with an accident. He was on his bike when this happened and he had multiple injuries. There were several scratches on his palms and knees. He got his shoulder injured too. Instead of going to a doctor directly, this guy came to the college to meet his friends. He had bandage on both his palms and knee when he left the college. He allowed nobody to help him reach home.

In a short while I will leave for my uncle's house. I will send the rest of the day there and study. Yesterday night around 11:05 pm, just when I started taking the 6th test in the 1st book of Take offs, I received a call from a friend who asked me to come online. Today he has a test to write and he wanted some help solving a few mathematical problems. It was 2:30 am by the time I went to bed and I woke up again after 4:30 am. I still have sleep in my eyes. I can keep it there as long as I am determined to finish some big tests today. I have a heavy way ahead.

My Keyboard Is Mightier

Some months back six boys were suspended from my college. I don't have the knowledge of what followed after their suspension and the number of days they were out. But there was one person who was made very famous (if famous is the right description to give) - the girl who got those guys suspended. Her complain was that those guys 'approached' her; whatever that was supposed to mean!

Everybody was pointing at her whenever she passed by. Nobody asked for those six guys. But this girl became well-known. I didn't see her and so I can't recognise her if she comes in front of me now, but I can talk about several people who know a lot more about her. I really can't say what perception they would have of her.

Some days back I came to know that there was a person who had considered complaining about me and getting me suspended too. The point in mentioning the above incidence is that I don't know what kind of guys those six people were. I also don't know if what they did was punishable. I don't know if there was any enquiry made by the college's management into what exactly had happened. And because of this lack of knowledge, I can't comment anything about that girl. All I can say is that she lost her respect. Whatever the facts said, the truth was her image. Nobody knows the six guys.

Yesterday I was with four of my friends at a restaurant after 'iftaar' and for almost 30 minutes we discussed my suspension from the college which never really took place. Though I heard from my friends things I couldn't contemplate - the opinions were varied - I returned home and spent time on understanding. I even prayed for wisdom.

I compared several possibilities. I could fight it myself but girls are always trusted in the society I come from. A girl is always right. Someday if I go and complain that some girl is causing trouble to me, I would invite trouble for myself. But when a girl complains, nobody would try finding the truth; they will punish the guy. Here is where parents will come in. The focus should be on the truth that they would be my parents and not of college or that girl. They will be with me. I know how to shout. I know how to hide secrets and spin the truth. And yes of course, I remember the dialogue from the movie 'Thank You For Smoking', "when you are arguing right nobody can prove your wrong".

I know I was never wrong. Maybe I was unreasonable, but I never went against any rule. I never teased anybody, I never tortured anybody, I never ragged, I never caused any physical harm. I never spoke to that person as well. I wonder what case she would have presented against me. Was she going to show some papers to the college management telling that I have given them to her? Did she think they won't read it? And as a reminder, there was no name written on those three sheets of paper.

In his book, 'How to Win Friends and Influence people', Dale Carnegie says that an argument can never make me win over the other person. And by the ethics I intend to keep, I would have never tried to spin any truth, but I would have rather presented more facts. People don't understand truth. When truth is spoken, they get divided. They start having their own views. It would be a separate thing to mention here that that girl never had the courage to talk to me directly face to face. She can get support, sympathy and empathy from any number of people, but nobody can prove me wrong or bad. I don't understand why people forget God. Don't they think before they open this mouths?

'Facts - Truth' has been the theme of my posts in the recent days. I kept dissolving that unpublished post in these posts and I suppose I have done it well. I stand for all I have written. Anybody interested is welcome to start ihatezubair.blogspot.com if they will. I never asked anybody to become my girlfriend. I spoke about commitments; I spoke about responsibilities; I spoke about respect; I spoke about what was perfectly legal. I did this through my parents in the best respectable manner it could be done. I didn't do any 'shit'.

If some people don't know me, don't know what all I have done, I find no reason why they should take sides and support anybody. Yesterday one of my friends said something he had told me once more than two years back - he said something about my taste. He even said that if I had been successful in what I tried for, it wouldn't have been worth all that. I asked him if he could say this in front of everybody. I don't know if he didn't hear my question or if he avoided answering it.

Whenever I think of such things, I am reminded of the fox who termed the grapes as sour when he couldn't get them! I am not like that. I can always write my victories and defeats here. And I can present them well - as the title says.

I can never hate a person for more than a day. I tried that several times. I couldn't keep myself with a grudge for any person for more than 24 hours, I could just preserve some words and reproduce them. And if I talk of hatred, it would take away from me the right of talking about love. It's love that erases the hatred from me. It's not in me to cause to hurt anybody. If somebody thinks that he or she is getting insulted or defamed because of what all I am writing here, the person is free o talk to me. Directly - face to face.

I know I had intentions of desecration, but I never executed them. I dissolved my anger in my words. I just wrote what I could opine and perceive of. That's the objective of my blogs. I can as well write all this in a personal diary, but I am not a person who is too shy to hide himself in a shelf. Even if I write very bad about a person, it should be noted that I am the one who wrote that letter and "This Is Madness". I wish I could live it all my life. But it's time to face the truth.

I know how divided people can be. How even my closest people can think that what I have done was not right but still be with me just because they have been with me always. I know how I myself do it several times. I also know how wonderful it feels to see that there are people who stand by me. But I don't understand how people can think that I am wrong when there are more people who think that I was never wrong. Is it that these people supporting me are fools? Or is it that considering suspending me was wise? If considering it was wise, then what would doing it be?

I wish I never had to write all these things here. But my blog is the only thing that would listen and be with me. I need to let things out. I am driven by my ego. I love myself the most. The problem only came in once. And it won't happen again. I am living for my dreams now and I am not worried about the time they are going to take. I am my only responsibility. I don't work now to make my parents proud. I am here for myself.

I apologise if I was in bad taste anytime but I don't regret it. I did what had to be done. And I will do what needs to be done. No matter how long it takes. I am learning what money is. I am learning what love is. I am learning how they can go together. I seek wisdom from Allah. I know how terribly wrong I can be.

They See Money, Not Hearts. Because They Can't

So, this is the 350th post - the fact. Yesterday's post was 350th in true sense. I mention this in case there is anybody who doesn't understand the point I take as a difference when I mention truth and facts as different entities. Facts are the objects that can verily be used to obscure any idea or event. Statistics too are of similar category. Facts hide the truth. Facts prolong judgement. Facts prevent clear understanding of the truth. An intelligent person knows how to use facts to prove any fallacy as acceptable. But truth stands alone - it needs no facts to be proven correct. A truth itself is an ultimatum that is bound to prevail and succeed.

Today I got XAT's form. This will be the end of deciding what tests to take. The next idea is to decide on the colleges I must apply for, and that largely depends on my preparation. I will wait for a few more mocks before I finalise the list of the colleges I will try for and until then it's just sit and study. I simply have no other option. I didn't do anything substantial today apart from getting the form. It took me more than 2 hours to reach home in the evening given the heavy, slow-moving traffic. It was my turn today to get the snacks and even after being very tired, I had to do my work. I slept for an hour immediately after the 'iftaar'. I reached home around 9:45 pm after the prayers.

I am hoping to crash out by 12:30 am. Yesterday it was almost 1:30 am, and the night before it was 2 am. The whole sleeping sequence has been turned upside down. Perhaps that's how I learn things - letting things go up side down then salvage from them. Engineers are expected to work in shifts; I have seen that when I was in Genpact. Being there was a wonderful experience - I learnt by shear observation. The way people work, their psychology, the corporate working, the money behind it, the money spent on petty things just to keep up with some principle decided by the corporate, the management of thousands of people, the management of the system - it was all an experience for me. But nothing was up side down there except for the shifts which seemed to be.

But when I do a job I would not like myself to be there as an engineer. If I end up at Infosys, I would feel exactly how Howard Roark felt when he had to work at Peter Keating's firm. I have related myself to this experience of Howard Roark from the novel 'Fountainhead'. Though it can all sound absurd that I put it this way, it helps me define things. I cannot put all my thoughts into words, and so, using a language of this sort helps. Books and ideas do teach us different languages which become far more complex than the ones we use for general conversation. They work at an emotional level as if triggering some critical corners of the brain and explaining us perceptions which couldn't have been made more lucid in any other way. The book that made me aware of such languages, though I had been already using them, was 'Who Moved My Cheese'.

Today, another thought that passed by me gave a little unrequited pain. The thought was rather a reminder of a fact that things still remain in me and I need to blow every bit of them out of my heart. It will be like cleaning every corner of a box using a blower, and making it void of even a single particle of dust. The blowing for this purpose must be done regularly until there is nothing more left to be targeted - and it can't be done in a single go. Even a single bit can later cause to become a hindrance. Every corner must be checked. I was reminded how I used to pray for the well being of some person and how I was termed as 'shit' in return.

I am still the truth. The facts argue I am not

This could have been the 350th post on this blog if I had not kept one still as a saved draft. But I suppose putting that here without showing the reason would make no sense. There is a chat showed to me by a friend, which he once had with a friend of his, that had prompted me to write it. He showed that chat to me probably to justify what he did; but I don't still understand him and his intentions.

I was with my parents for two days continuously - morning to evening. Yesterday in the evening we all sat at the dining table to have the 'iftaar' and I began to wonder when it was the last time there was such an occasion we four were dining together at home this way. Of course we sit together when there are guests at home, but everyday for dinner the time is spent in front of the television.

My chats with my friends have been revolving around only three things these days. The first thing: 'iftaar' parties. Second: about that chat and my unpublished post. Third: I can't write that here! I thought about that chat, that post and the implied facts and truths; everything I could: I did the things right, but I didn't do the right thing. She didn't do the things right, but she did the right thing. The wrong thing I did was taking a start. I can justify all I did after that. But I won't; I would look naive. What she did shouldn't be discussed. Because it was discussed in that unpublished post, it has remained unpublished. A girl's respect is more valuable. And I am not a girl.

So why does your pride make you run and hide?

I turned on the computer after 10:20 pm today and I had to heed to my parents' call for dinner immediately. My mother came home late in the evening today from Warangal. She was there for two days and will leave again tomorrow morning only to return in the evening. That will be the final day of her work there. She spent the night yesterday at her uncle's place who lives there. He happens to be my maternal grandfather's elder brother.

I spent good time with books today. It was needed and I feel much better now having finished so many tests. It feels great to complete a book, write on it's cover page that I have taken all the tests from it, and return it to the table. I have done that to two books till now and in a couple of days I will take care of two more books. There are loads more to come.

This week I don't have any mock test and I am planning to spend time with my cousins. It's been long since I have met any of them. This Saturday I have to attend a day-long workshop on quantitative part of CAT. I am still waiting for more information about it from the student advisor of CL. From that last mock's effiency of 33% I moved to 51% this Sunday. And today I clocked 380+ words per minute as my reading speed. I find it more in tune with my moods.

Can I schedule an outrage?

Yesterday I had written a 15 paragraph post which still remains as an unpublished draft. I had written it with utmost care not letting even a single emotion escape the comprehension. My objective was to retaliate; to pacify the outrage that had built up within me after I read how my blog and I were termed 'shit'. There were umpteen number of reasons that coerced me to put up a blatant show of the emphatic ripples that were initialized in the ocean of my irrefutable heart. The publishing of all that in this public space could perhaps entail me to have myself surrounded with pressure and verbal infliction which would perchance make me a serious warrior! At least for the time being, I will refrain.

That all, I guess, should be enough to show what I had written could not be explained here taken that it can end up forcing serious implications on some good number of people including me. It could make any reader tell that I was trying to desecrate a person. An objective of mine that surely was. Two of my friends, from whom I took intellectual help, insisted that I keep the 15 paragraphs to myself.

Tomorrow my mother is leaving for Warangal for an official inspection of the District Co-operative Central bank of that district. Her presence there is imperative for the procedures to take place and so, she will spend three days on it. Our servant maid has not turned up for three days now and if she continues the absence, I will be compelled to take care of the cleaning of the house and the kitchen work. I am looking ahead to the experience.

After taking four tests on philosophy and management topics as reading-comprehension passages, I confirmed my reading speed to be around 330 words per minute with a satisfactory comprehension. With no immediate contempt towards my reading ability, I understand that I need to move myself to an invariable speed of 450+ words per minute. The satisfaction I could then obtain would be more profound. I shall do it when Allah wills.

I talk big. I dream big. I write big. I am of a belief that a person need not already be practicing an act to preach it. Because if that becomes an aphorism, all talkof goodness will cease to exist. Provided that no person can be perfect, no person should be prevented from talking about perfection. If we are not allowed to tell others what is good if we happen not to be ardent practitioners of that good, then it is a pity that the good will be buried under the severity of the absurdness.

Allah knows the faith in me; and the intensity of that faith. Any person who has a view of my behavior from far can never talk about my faith; neither can I when I myself am not in a state to give a judgement of me. If I take the shadow of my religion to commit sin, then I am the one to suffer. If a person critiques me of having done such an act, then that person be damned for she has no knowledge of herself and her faith; let alone of me. Of all blessed by Allah I know, I am the most blessed.

A mistake committed by a friend of mine with no intention of doing it, but in fact with a consideration of possible pain to me, has caused an embarrassment to me which I shall never forget all my life. The embarrassment will keep reminding me of itself should I ever tend to forget it as a practice of enforced will which in principle should be implemented. I appreciated the content I spilled using the keyboard yesterday after having read it for I wanted to remind myself of the factual emotions I had mustered. How much I wish to have it published here and read. It would be called profanation. Wouldn't that be a sight?

I want what all men want, I just want it more

Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity; and so we ask ourselves: Will our actions echo across the centuries? Will strangers hear our names long after we are gone, and wonder who we were, how bravely we fought, how fiercely we loved?

I had a chat with an old friend yesterday night when he told me that we would be meeting at least three times during Ramzaan to have some some parties. He mentioned about a trip we should make to Pizza Hut and maybe some other places too. I just told him that the day before I had slept at 4 am in the morning after working for the presentation of a project in college, and I told him that I have a mock test to write on Sunday. I just wanted to show him that I was busy and might not be able to commit on my presence whenever he goes out with rest of the friends in Ramzaan.

I have already began to feel an aversion towards the 'Iftaar meal' Pizza Hut offers during the holy month - it gives an option between two varieties: a chicken flavor and a vegetarian one; the crusts of both of which taste like compressed marie biscuit moistened with water. The last year I had this four times - once for myself, and the rest of the times for my friends. This time, I will try to keep that number at zero.

Yesterday along with two of my friends I gave our final year's project's seminar. I enjoyed the time I spent on making the slides; even after keeping myself busy and concentrated on one thing for 5 continuous hours in front of the computer I didn't get even a slight feeling of doing any hardwork. But I wasn't satisfied with the way I gave the presentation. The first two minutes during the talk I found myself tensed; and when I began to feel comfortable, my mouth tried up and I was not able to talk fluently. Due to the dryness my tongue was getting glued to the upper palate in the mouth. Alhamdulillah I could manage.

We have been asked to submit a report on the seminar and I am in no mood right now to give a thinking to it. Maybe tomorrow, when I feel like, I will do it. When I went to bed at 4 am on Friday, the only worry I had was about the presentation slides - I was worried what would happen if my computer crashed. Unlike how I save my all my important files on GooglePages, I had not saved the presentation. Alhamdulillah it was safe when I woke up. I spent an hour more in the morning.

I think I would be obliged if the presentations could come of any help to anybody. The links are
http://xubayr.z.googlepages.com/ElectronicBankingUsingScrambledData.ppt
http://xubayr.z.googlepages.com/rijndael_ingles20041.swf
I created a copy of all my bookmarks on the Internet and saved copy of it as an HTML file. Here it is. http://xubayr.z.googlepages.com/all_bookmarks.html

Is It Really Madness?

Yesterday I wrote three poems. I badly wanted to write something unlike what I do for this blog. I wrote several lines and deleted them before I could write a poem that hardly rhymed. But I felt nice after having published it on Gridlocked (xubayr2.blogspot.com). I composed it using Google documents and posted it directly from there. I got a further urge to type and I ended up writing two more on same ideas but contradicting perspectives. I wanted to play with lines this time. I smiled at what I did.

I have blocked Gridlocked from public viewing and only my friends who received the invitation can read it. I have some poems and posts on it I don't want everybody to read them. But I wanted these three things I wrote yesterday to be kept open and also available on search engines. And so, I created a web page using Microsoft Publisher, created an account on www.6te.net and uploaded that page to get it hosted on the Internet. I knew this as a possibility to host such pages but I have tried it myself for the first time. It took some time but I can do it anytime now again. The link to the page and of course those poems is http://xubayr.6te.net.

In the evening today we went out for dinner. It was only vegetarian. I had a heavy fruit juice after that. It was after a long time that I tasted this type of food. Earlier in the afternoon I had vegetarian again with fried ladies finger which was cooked by me. My mother had left the vegetable cut in the morning and I just had to fry it. It took me a good 15 minute exercise with the pan before I could get the ladies finger in a good color. Though I used right amounts of salt and oil, it didn't taste like how my mother cooks.

A few days back I read some of my old posts, I went across a letter, and an article I had named as "This Is Madness". I read the last paragraph first and started laughing. I called myself mad. When I read that letter I felt rather embarrassed thinking about the number of people who might have read it without my knowledge. Perhaps it was my mistake. Or perhaps it was just a necessity. Whatever it was, it wasn't understood well. There were two replies from my friends to that letter and I read one of them. I felt better after that.

The paragraph which I read was: "You like being called mad and you love to be mad. You wish even ~ calls you mad. You are mad for ~. And you are proud to be so. You even know that the person reading this is going to term you as a mad. You want that to happen because you are mad. This, of all things, is madness." To many it looked fiction. For me it was a thanksgiving to myself.

When Something Becomes Irreplaceable

A few back I downloaded some songs I found in the "top 100" at billboard.com. I had done this last just a few days before my hard-drive crashed earlier this year. I had kept my collection updated till then, but after the 'catastrophe' I never minded old music ringing in my ears. Among the new ones there are two I liked a lot - "Hey there Delilah" and "Big girls don't cry". I also have a collection of video songs exceeding 4.6 Gb in space. It's been too long since I have updated it.

After attending the mock CAT in the morning today, I went to Hari Hara Kala Bhavan to attend a promotional meeting of eBiz. I don't mean to join that business group, I just wanted to know how they work. And as always, any such kind of meeting teaches tons of new ideas and makes us think beyond what we thought we previously could. eBiz is typically a networking marketing business. I somehow found that the people speaking there were doing just what I had read in all the books on business and money I had been through till now.

"Get A Life", which I finished a few days back was specifically targeted at the readers to teach them every basic of network marketing. Today's meeting just showed me how such ideas are put into work - though I felt things could have been much better and more professional - and how the people who have a peculiar Telugu accent and a similar mind-frame perform when they are put into this "people's" business. I am not a racist, but there are things that pinch me; I hate people who talk English without knowing how idiotic and foolish they appear. They forget that they need to learn grammar and teach themselves how to avoid using their mother-tongue-accent.

Yesterday evening when I reached home after 8 pm an old school friend turned up at my house. He lives in Amravati and was here just to attend this meeting. It was he who invited me to it. I took it as an opportunity to spend some time with him and also have myself get some more wisdom. I have always wanted to get along with my uncle who works with Amway's and attend his weekly meetings which are usually on Fridays and Saturdays. I never got a chance. I have read quiet a few books he gave me about his business and I enjoyed all of them. I find the products sold by Amway's more interesting. No other brand can compare the quality of their products with Amway's and no other brand can dare have such high prices!

Earlier yesterday, in the afternoon, I was out with my mother to purchase a new refrigerator. A couple of weeks back some part in our old one cracked and water began to leak. I am sure the company's technician would have fixed it for less than 300 bucks but my mother felt she should have a new machine. She told me that she was tired of seeing the old thing and that it has been in the house for more than eight years now. I simply said to myself "Oh! She is attaching emotions to the purchase". I always welcome anything new and I love seeing how my house is a home and keeps becoming much better.

I have a reason why I mention about this purchase: after having the machine installed and working yesterday late in the night, I stood in front of me to see that it was taller then me. I couldn't see it's top surface. Some months back I had a dream in which I saw a similar scene. In it I remember myself standing in front of a tall blue refrigerator with "Kelvinator" written on it. The one that stands in the kitchen now is tall but metallic grey in color, and has Samsung written on it. If Allah wants we can even fulfil the dreams we see in sleep.

On Wednesday my mother called me "haara hua aashiq" (failed lover). My beard had grown a little beyond the level of comprehension I can have here now, and even my brother had started teasing me. He called me "Devdas". He has done that several times before. I never gave any seriousness to it until this Wednesday.

People sometimes talk and then think about what they had spoken. Sometimes they think and then talk. The pity is when there is no thinking - neither before, nor after. They don't know what they are saying and they never desire to have a realization of that anytime. That was exactly how my mother was on Wednesday. I left the room soon after she said that. Everybody was laughing taking it as a joke and I smiled too. I don't expect any contemplation on this from anybody but somethings go beyond the necessary endurance levels. And this is when I understand that I need to learn more. That I need to learn to hear and see things which I don't want to have being said or done. I could have well understood this without an example of such intensity. That was definitely a Wednesday to remember!

A few days after I posted the update "Here Is A Challenge", one of my friends told me that I shouldn't have written all that when we miss so many prayers and listen to so much music (the starting paragraph of this post makes it apparent). He somehow failed to understand what I was writing. He related skipping of prayers as an act that would make me 'bad' or a 'person with bad character'. But I somehow felt that he had taken up that challenge! He never understood it.

Everyday when I go to sleep, before laying myself on the bed, after brushing my teeth, I sit and pray for sometime. There are several verses of the Holy Quran I recite to myself and all this takes around 15 minutes and sometimes more. But there is one part that makes it more satisfying for me. I recollect the names of as many people I can who matter to me and pray for their well being - many names taken and prayed for individually. I have been doing this for several years now and I pray for myself in the end.

There is again a specific reason why I have written it here even when there are hardly any people who know I do such a thing. Even my parents don't know it. Ever since the day my grandfather expired in February, I have been finding it difficult to skip his name when his turn comes in the order. I, so many times tend to pray for him too when I am supposed to pray for peace to be with him in his grave. I remember him daily and feel his presence around me for sometime. I don't know for how long this is going to continue. How much I wish he was still here with me in this world. How much I wish I could tell him how much I love him.

When I go further in the order, just before my name, there used to another name which I had to remove on purpose. That was a task. It makes me feel terrible everyday when I ardently and intentionally try my best to keep away from that name. It hurts me even more recollecting the days when I would pray so much for that person, and comparing those days with the times I had now. Those days had hopes in them. It's all a blank space now. People only tease me in every way they can.

On Thursday I gave a photo copy of my passport to my mother. She said the bank authorities wanted a proof of my address to keep my bank account running. It was a frustrating behavior of the bank again. This same bank account is the one I had used as a proof of address to obtain my passport and now I am using that very passport to help keep the account active and operational. It's so ironic they keep the regulations and rules in such an irregular and irresponsible way. Some say it's the system that must be blamed. But why blame some mechanism that has no life in it? It's the people who made this system who should be put to blame and the people who run it who must be punished. It's Allah who decides.