musaafir-e dasht

So, today was my last day at work. I really cannot sum up my feelings in words but yes, I stepped out of a phase of my life and stepping into another one. Every one greeted me in an extremely warm manner. I was presented with two books by the Ed and I am supposed to attend a farewell lunch after two days :$ Well, honestly all of this was a bit unexpected. I do not have any regrets. Not at all. After all I firmly believe that the course taken by the events is surely going to benefit me. Everything happens for the best for behind everything that happens there's Someone else's hand and Will that cannot lead to anything unfavourable. In short, I am optimistic. After a very long time, today I can truly feel this sense of optimism. Isn't it strange that when we are supposed to encourage someone by being optimistic, all we manage to come up with is pessimism. And when we actually BECOME optimistic... they are no longer there! But once agian, how can the Supreme Will lead us towrad...

Today I am writing something for my blog after such a long time :( I somehow do not feel like writing anymore but then how can I give up on words? :) InshaAllah i will begin writing soon. Anyway, I just wanted to say that FINALLY today we had a peaceful protest rally in Karachi! Arranged by Tahfuzze a Khatam e nabbuwwat , some political leaders also participated but over all it was a peaceful affair, Alhamdolillah . I just wanted to record this thing in my blog!

I had to go to work today after a two-day break. There wasn’t much traffic on roads and the city seemed quite peaceful. See, I am not against staging protests but those protests MUST be peaceful. Resorting to violence is not an answer to any solution. According to a renowned scholar Mufti Rafi Usmani, killing an innocent person or harming his/her property is NOT AT ALL allowed in Islam. And I think we all are aware of it, aren’t we? For a heinous act committed by others, why punish our own people. It’s a pity that here in Pakistan, we still haven’t realised that violence won’t beget anything. Rather it’s only making us weaker. What we truly NEED to do at this hour is boycott all Danish and I would say Western products. We won’t die if don’t use them. But it would definitely touch a nerve in the West. In fact, it can render our ‘colonial masters’ helpless… We just need to think! It’s a Capitalistic world people. Capital is the determinant of Freedom. Capital is the determinant of Power....

Today in one of the discussion sessions I cam across a very strange comment. That comment has been in my mind since then. I will write down a small conversation that finally gave rise to that comment. A: Don't we see that all natural processes take place on time? Has sun ever said that today I cannot rise because I do not feel like or I am tired of monotony? No, it never has. But, yes once it did not rise on time. Yes, there is one incident in history when sun did not rise on its prescribed timings. Can anybody tell me that? B: The day Hazrat Bilal Habshi Radi Allah u 'Anhu did not give azaan. Allah SWT did not make the sun rise until Hazrat Bilal Radi Allhu 'Anhu called for fajar prayers. I was familiar with the incident. But the comment that followed was something that I was not familiar with. Something that I knew, but I knew not. 'A' said: "Taqwa kaainaat ko musakhhar karne ki quwwat rakhat hai"

Ah, yesterday went to the sea-view after such a long time. And yesterday only, we had a presentation on the Old man and the Sea in the book club meeting. It was fun being a part of the discussion. "I have learnt how not to be unethusiastic" :) They say sea is calm. Is it really? The roaring waves always seem to be trying to say something which they cannot express. What do they know of words! They come in and recede. They come in again and recede again... and yet they do not get tired. Perhaps, because they are not human! But why do they look sad? No, why do they SOUND sad? Is it that they are tired of monotony and we just cannot comprehend the message they want to pass on to us. A message that contains a long story of a never-ending journey. A message that encomapasses the entire struggle that keeps them alive... Sea, what a creation of our Lord! Somehow, whenever I think of Sea, the Urdu word zarf comes to my mind. And the verse as it goes: Shor e dariya se keh raha hai sa...

I just came across an article regarding Pakistan's re-entry into the commonwealth. Written by Sarmad Bashir, the column titled, A pariah in the Commonwealth appeared in The Nation on November 30, 2005. Following are some of the excerpts: "One must be reading too much into General Musharraf's observation that people in Pakistan have the tendency of overstepping each other's domain: a doctor wants to do an engineer's job and the vice versa. At best this could be a general rule for 150 million ordinary folks to follow. But then there is always an exception to the rule. And our uniformed saviours are exception to all rules. For the President it is not a matter of opinion but a matter of fact that the so-called experts picking holes in the ongoing relief operation are ignoramuses insisting on knowing everything. It hurts him when he tunes in to his TV set and listens to these critics. Perhaps they all lack the ability to understand that Generals Zubair and Farooq are ...

Technically, I have messed up my template... I hope i get it fixed soon with the help of none other than SE...