The Ticket

Love works in miracles every day: such as weakening the strong, and stretching the weak; making fools of the wise, and wise men of fools; favouring the passions, destroying reason, and in a word, turning everything topsy-turvy.
~ Marguerite De Valois

I have my lab externals from tomorrow - Distributed Systems on Monday and Web Programming the next day. I finished reading the 11 programs in just 45 minutes including the descriptions but I am worried if that is enough. I had studied them once for the internal test a few days back.

Some days back while travelling the bus, the conductor asked me to show my bus-pass. Then he asked for the ID card too which he even matched with the ticket of the pass and verified the ID number. He made that detailed verification only for me and possibly this for the first time I saw a bus-conductor being so watchful. His act that's making me write this here is that he didn't do such a thing for any other person in the bus.

A buss-pass has two cards - the ID card and another one that shows the validity dates of that card. When I renew the pass every three months, the computer checks for the bar codes on the ID card and prints the other ticket - the other card. Conductors check for the validity dates only and if the pass is a route-pass (valid only between specific routes), the check the route on the ID card. In my five years of bus-travelling with a general pass (free travel on any routes), this was the first time such a checking was made.

As the conductor moved in the bus, I sat watching how many passes he checks that way. I was angry. I keep my pass in my wallet and show only the ticket card when asked for. No conductor asks for the ID card and even when they ask, they just give a glance on it. Other people use a specially made folder cover of heir passes. The cover just shows the validity dates - the ID card can be seen only when it is opened. The conductors check the dates through the transparent cover on the top. Even this conductor was doing the same thing - just check the dates for people with such covers. For me, he asked for the ID card when he saw that I had the ticket in my wallet.

I wanted to ask him why he wasn't checking other's ID cards and why I was an exception. I was getting angry with this. I felt as if he was being a racist; as if he didn't trust because I am from a minority community; as if I were a a foreigner and that I could be a terrorist. I kept patience and waited. I knew that I might be exaggerating my thinking. And then he sat on a seat near me. I wanted till he finished making notes of the ticket numbers.

Turning towards him, in a boldly enquiring voice I asked him why he wasn't checking other passengers' ID cards. I wanted to quarrel with him. I wanted to ask him why he was being rude with me. But he didn't seem to understand the tone of my voice and the anger I wanted to throw at him. He calmly said that it is not always possible for him o check everybody so comprehensively and he told me how people bring ID cards of their friends. That was still not an answer to my question. There were 35-40 passengers in the bus and he could have easily verified the ID cards of those who had passes. But the softness of his reply made me agree with what he said and I told him that people do cheat.

The rest of the journey I sat thinking about a bus-conductor's job. He works for more than eight hours a day walking from one end of the bus to the other wading through people who sometimes leave no gap between them to be walked through. He has to shout and make people purchase tickets and show passes. He deals with all kinds of people, men, women and children. At times he ends up fighting, he has to argue, cope with frustration and still do his work. He does have a difficult job to do. I wished I could tell them how difficult their job was and how much I appreciated their work. But it looked odd to me talking to them at such an emotional level. Not all people respond to emotions positively. Some don't understand them. Some misunderstand.

Though all my anger on that conductor came down to zero, I was still not happy at the treatment I was given. I felt like a part of a subjugated and an untrusted community - we are being portrayed that way. Many people, I have seen, look down on Muslims while travelling in the buses. And when beards and caps are seen, things become worse. There of course people who talk respectfully, but there are many who do exactly opposite of that. I have also felt that because of my formal dressing and the photo-grey glasses I sport on my face, I am stared at as though I am an alien inside the bus. I don't have any complains on that but this ID card thing was bad.

Perhaps I just over-reacted at this. Maybe because the conductor saw me keeping the card in my wallet and not in that cover, he thought there can be something wrong. Or maybe he did find my face a one that can't be trusted. I can't help if I look like a threat to anybody. I have lived with my face for almost 21 years now and I have learnt to love it. I am happy with how Allah has made my appearance. If some half wits find it as untrustworthy, I pity their intellect. But I am at the receiving end and I don't know how to change it.

And in general the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) is well known for its bad, senseless drivers and rude conductors. The buses are parked in the middle of the road near the bus-stops - the width of the road on both sides of the bus when parked at a bus-stop is same. The driving sometimes is very rash and hardly any traffic rules are followed. The engine's power of these buses is not proportional to their weights and the buses can run very fast making them dangerous. The conductors are rude with students, they don't always talk properly, when they step on the feet of passengers they give a damn to that and some are very slow with their work.

But there are exceptions always. And we all like exceptions and get interested in them. There are some very good drivers and a few very good conductors. I remember once a conductor who said 'thank you' to people after issuing tickets. Some are very fast and never make the bus wait. And not to forget a favorite of mine: he was regular on the route '142 s' untill some months back it was changed. Now I don't know where he is. He had a habit of calling every youngster 'Azharuddin'. He was fun and he speard happiness among the passengers of his bus.

LaFortune

in Many things ran through my mind in the mean while that I wanted to write but never got the right kind of time required to type anything for the blog. Yesterday night I recollected all major changes I have seen since the time I started remembering them - right from the time I was four years of age. Before that I had spent some brain on 'dependency issues', on what all Islam has to say about marriage (http://muslimmarriages.wordpress.com), and some politics. Just sometime back I finished writing an assignment of Compiler Construction. I had my ears covered with the headphones, I was sitting front of the computer with the monitor switched turned off, and I was copying the answers from a photocopy of the assignment done by a classmate - in fact I don't even know whose copy it is.

Yesterday after the three tests I wrote, we friends had two plans - going out to Java Green at Hyderabad Central, and playing football. Java Green came first. I was there for almost an hour and came back to college with hopes of playing football with my toe still aching. I was too late to have any time with the ball but we sat in the college for about half hour joking and shouting. Next came a during at a bakery. I went there only for that Coke - I am not sure what it was - but my friends had rolls and puffs. We joked, shouted and discussed a lot sitting around that round table. The topic was more interesting than anybody could get but it can't be mentioned here.

I wanted to meet my grandmother and even though it was getting late, I reached her house a little after 7:30 pm. Before this I even spent some time at a friend's house. By the time I reached home it was 9:40 pm. My visit to my grandmother was the most important part of the day because she had once asked me to keep coming to her place even during weekdays. I spent time listening to her. I wished that my grandfather was still with us.

End Of A Lifetime

I was asked to dial '123' on my phone as I entered the 'Ied-gah' yesterday morning for the 'wajib' Ied prayers. The security was high as the city is on an alert but I could see how easily any heartless and faithless man could rip off a bomb of any size near the mosque. There were half as many men outside the mosque as there were inside - thousands. There were hundreds of car and motor bikes. They can't be checked, nobody can see what the hundreds of beggars with their soiled bags were carrying, nobody could even check if the men dressed up in police and military uniforms weren't fake. I didn't mind being frisked, but if I wanted, even I could have carried an explosive - easily. All the security we see is a show-off. We aren't safe.

A day of fasting missed during Ramzaan cannot be compensated even by fasting the whole of lifetime. Since I started to makes full-month fasts when I was 15, I always missed one or two days because of illness. This was the first time after 5 years that I could fast all 30 days of this Holy month. I am not glad I could do it, it's compulsory for me anyways. But I know how important it is and how I have been blessed this time. Even my brother for the first time fasted all 30 days. Last year he missed many just because of sleep.

I read so many blogs on the Internet and I wonder how these people write so perfectly well. They use all kinds of emotions and stitch them brilliantly into the carpet of wisdom and knowledge. I just remain a fine line between my mood and the neighboring intrigue. Whenever I write I write with an objective - to fondle myself, to tickle some idea or to scrub some irritant. Many times I don't read what I write and sometimes when I do, I try to recollect what made me write it. No doubt I have mentioned this several times. The better thing is to wake up in the morning to a highly motivated mind, and the best thing is to do that daily. I appreciate how these other bloggers write. Their objective must be a lot deviated from mine.

I have mentioned it long back that I constantly track the visitors to my blog. My first tool is sitemeter.com. It helps me find out the time of the visitor, the length of each visit, the browser and the OS used while visiting, the default language of that computer and most important, the ISP (Internet Service Provider) - BSNL, VSNL, Pioneer, Sify, Excelmedia, Beamcable, Iqara and many more. Then of course are the ones who search in google and reach my blog. Though I can't exactly find out who the visitors, I can just track their time spent on my blog. I can never drill down to the node of the visitor and see who that person is or even the location. I can just know the city and the ISP's IP address. This is barely what I need to trace visitors - sometimes I have to do it when they provoke me anonymously.

Some days back a friend sent me a link of islamonline.com as a message and asked me to check it. Somehow I missed that message and finally got to the website a couple of days back. I read many articles relating to Muslim youth.
The Muslim family (http://www.islamonline.com/news/newsfull.php?newid=722)
Dating in Islam (http://www.islamonline.com/news/newsfull.php?newid=761)
Friendship in Islam (http://www.islamonline.com/news/newsfull.php?newid=656)

Nothing Poetic

If

By Rudyard Kipling (1865—1936)

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too: ….

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same: ….

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, ….

Yesterday we seven friends had dinner outside for the second time in this month. By the time I reached home it was almost 9 pm if I remember it correctly. By the time I reached home the news of a bomb blast in Ajmer had already reached my ears and it was the same kind of bad management of the government and police in that place as it was when it was Hyderabad some weeks back. Those who kill innocents are sinner but those who don't take the right actions are bigger sinners. They are the politicians of the country who representatives of the people but consider themselves the leaders. Though I am strictly against all the reasons why Ajmer is such a well-known place, the blasts are excoriated.

Earlier in the day I had played football making myself completely tired. I removed my shoes after they flew in the air when I tried to hit the ball high. I ran bare-footed in the ground for sometime after playing with the ball in the basket court. I was explaining my friend about the importance of teamwork when a new player came in his team and won the match single-handed. He proved wrong all my opinions of working as a team. He was a lone warrior in a game which otherwise would have been won by our team. And not to forget the two self-goals I made.

The report that appeared in the newspapers about the chaos in my brother's college was all biased. There was hardly a bit of truth in it. They didn't mention about the comments that floor-in-charge gave. They didn't mention how he apologised to only a few people and how he refused to apologise initially. When I read the news article I had to spend some time bringing myself to normal from a high degree of anger and rage. Then I understood how the media is always against my religion. I can feel my blood heating up even now.

We were expecting Ied-Ul-Firt to be on Saturday and all the preparations were in the swing. I spent 15 minutes on the terrace hoping to find the white 'C' staring at all the starry darkness. It looked liked the stars were laughing at me. The more I kept staring the more number of stars kept laughing. The most beautiful sight was the fainting horizon which appeared in orange, brown and grey shades. I recollected a time I spent once staring at the sun as it disappeared in the distant land. I don't need to see any more miracles to believe in Allah's word.

Death still looks like a myth to me. I simply can't believe that one day I would die and they day can be tomorrow too - or even more before that. It looks to me as if I will live always and never see an end. The thoughts of eternity confuse me. I can't imagine seeing myself as dead. But I know I will understand all this the day I die and I will realize that only death can explain death. And that day I will realize how much bigger a miracle life itself was. But it will be too late. This, today, is the time for me to realize; and act.

My Keyboard

In the morning my mother asked me to take the house's keys and instructed my brother to go to my grandmother's home if he was left early from his college. Around 2:50 pm when I passed by his college, Narayana Junior College, I saw a few policemen standing there. This is a common feature of that place as eve-teasing is prevalent in that area. When I got closer, I saw broken windows and glass on the floor and the cops were holding rifles. I knew my brother would be at my grandmother's house now. I called him and came to know from that some floor-in-charge of his college had given unpleasant comments on the Holy Quran and the students went berserk. Though the comments ignited the fire, that particular in-charge has always been very strict with the students even punishing them for coming late to the college after namaaz in the afternoons. He was known to punish students badly even after knowing that they were fasting.

I asked my brother all the details in the evening after he came home. I asked him why they broke the college's windows and if shouting yielded anything. I asked him why he was with all those students when he didn't know what the comments were. He said he was just with the crowd.

The lab internal I had today went by smoothly. I had no problem with he programs and in the viva the lecturer asked me to name the topics I had studied. I said about AWT and swing, and I was asked very little about them before I was asked to leave. Even though everybody knows that all the students have the same programs (they have been copied by the lecturers from 'Java 7th Edition') taken from the faculty, but still we are being asked to submit print-outs of them. Today they refused to accept photocopies. I really don't understand what difference it makes if the paper has passed through just a different type of machine to have the text painted on it.

The other day when I was at a restaurant celebrating my mother's birthday I heard the cries of an infant. The voices were coming from the other side of a partition and it after a very long time that I heard a baby crying. It sounded so sweet. It was music to my ears. I know how ironic it is that the sound of a baby crying can be music. My parents were exchanging some giggles between themselves but I heard my name being used. They were talking about a 'time to come' involving me.

Tomorrow I have my Distributed Systems lab internal. I am almost done with the studying with only some reading of syntaxes left over. Unlike web programing and Java, this lab has no book for reference. Though we are doing the coding and creating applications in VC++, are have not been taught that language. It's not so hard to learn it either. Just requires a little patience.

A couple of days back after I wrote in my blog that a long time ago a friend told me that I had changed, I fell into some serious thinking about myself. I am not the person I used to be. I used to be more sensible, calm and quiet. I used to think a lot before talking. Then slowly I began to get defeated by thoughts that being my own self is what I must believe in and as long as I am a good person, I can never say anything inappropriate or do anything unnecessary. I understand it is not a good option to try to be ourselves always. The better thing is to think before everything we do and everything we say.

Before sleep, daily, when I think about my day I had spent, it gives me deep thoughts about what has happened to me. I am joking a lot, I am laughing a lot, I am talking a lot, I have given up the habit of listening to people the way I used to and I have even developed a sense of superiority. I know I have friends with whom I have turned very open, and these are the people I can talk anything to. So I have been taking it for granted that I can talk and do anything as long as I am with them.

Now I don't say that I am losing control over me. But the point is that I am not gaining much either. The words which I used to avoid using are surfacing, I am becoming more blatant, easy-going and I am becoming happy-go-lucky. I am hardly left with any kind of fear for exams and tests. I don't mind losing marks. I am taking attendance for granted. Some serious things don't perturb me. For so many things I am ending up telling myself "aaw". This is not how I was and this is not how I want me to be.

The better parts are that I am very much in control of my eyes - I keep them down always. There are still many words that I hear others using and I am alien to them. Giving and taking respect is a part of me - in fact I am a part of it. Realizing where it is my ego and where it is self-esteem is still clear to me. And I still start thinking about all opinions considering me as wrong and then go on to correct myself if there is any need for the correction - this makes me think. I still sort out all misunderstandings with my friends and I never play double-standards with them. At least I am not cheating anybody. I am still being myself - I just need to grow more.

So many times I keep telling myself that I should be a good person. So many times I just tell myself that I am going away from the right path. But telling is not enough. Even writing it all here is not enough. Some dumb might ask why I am sharing all this - that writing such things has become a matter of pride and fashion for me. I won't care for those who fail to understand the essence of my writing (as if I know!). There are some posts directed at others and the rest directed at me. There are some who don't understand what I am writing and there are some who ignore. The last two types are a lot better than the previous ones.

I see the difference in how people used to be with me when I was in the first year of my engineering and how they are to me now. I have made several new friends who are closer than the old ones and I have no complains. I move on, others move on, but it confuses in how people change. It confuses even more when I change. It was slow and I need to change again. I have to regain the respect and the image I once had. I need to lessen the amount of talk and reduce the volume of my laughs. I will start from these two. It's all confusion in here again.

Ciphertext

Yesterday we celebrated my mother's birthday at a restaurant away from the noise of the city. It was somewhere near Gachibowli and we liked it. The newly laid tar roads made the ride to that place a smooth experience. Just before leaving for dinner I had a conversation explaining my brother about the importance o formal dressing. He was wearing a horizontal stripped t-shirt with sport-shoes. Later I made him stand with my father, mother and myself to make him realize how separated he was looking. I matched my red shirt with my mother's red dressing.

I have my web programming lab internal in about 9 hours from now. I spent a lot of time reading Java from the text book which included many programs and also revised the HTML and XML parts. My performance will largely depend on how I will go through the programs just before the test and how much I retain. This the first time I spent so much time on Java and I enjoyed it. Wednesday I have a test in Distributed Systems which shouldn't be much of a problem to me.

I discussed a possibility of me doing MBA in France with my parents. After learning from my uncle how good a place Europe is and about the demand for engineers it has, I did get excited. But later I myself realized that studying there would be too expensive. Even my parents said the same. I can look for scholarships but I don't know how much it can really be feasible. I might think of going there after all my studies are completed. I had once considered learning French and had also enquired about it from Alliance Francais, I will consider that again after a few months now.

Coexist

There was a pretty odd feeling I had after writing the last post. When I started writing it I had no idea where it was going to lead me. I had my objective in my mind and I was using the 'instincts' idea just as an example just to explain something else. It was for a friend and we had a chat on that today. We have a chemistry between us that allows to to discuss long topics just as examples and explain ourselves some points and then come to the objective. It's like tuning the thinking in the right direction and then moving the vehicle to its destination. There was something for him in the last paragraphs and I felt nice after discussing it with him. There was nothing else in that post.

I was having a chat online with my cousin who is right now on a European trip. Today he is in France at my uncle's place. He has spent 10 days in Amsterdam and in a few days he will be back in Bishkek where he is doing his medicine. We couldn't meet when he was leaving Hyderabad. He was waiting for his passport and he left for Amsterdam the moment he got it. My uncle who lives in France is asking me to do an MBA from there and he said he can help me get into a good college he knows. I wonder how that would be. I dread ending up at Infosys. I am ready for anything better than that. Allah knows best.

I was in the college till 4:15 pm. I have two lab internals next week and I was preparing for them in all ways I must - right from collecting the programs, arranging them and studying them. I am done with one of the two lab's programs but still the printing part is left which I shall finish tomorrow. Things have become a bit tough with my printer's cartridge not working properly. And I am in no mood to spend anything on that.