Sailor on a busy Road

few flashes from the past and i realized...................
when i was driving today, i focused on the path which lay ahead....
round about, turns, lane, indicator, brake, red light.........

In between i talked with my wife...........
sang broken lines of songs for my daughter who sat behind..........

And rarely, very rarely, i glanced at the rear mirror......
what i left behind..........
Looking back helped me in making corrections .........
driving better...............

I left places and people not because i wanted to.....
because it was meant for......
I have to reach my destiny and i can't stop.....
can't look back all the time......

But when i do, it strengthens me......helps me in driving better. 

War On Terror?

There are very rare chances that you wake up every morning and from your home to office and back, you don’t come across this word atleast once. It seems like suddenly everyone in the world is after ‘terrorists’. Yet  I am lay-man, a common man, ‘AAM ADMI, DHARYALA ka DEHATI’, my low capacity brain, is unable to digest that. Yes, when you are gross and naïve you think from your stomach and digest from you brain. All this crap is making my brain to start digesting everything I gallop. I fail to understand that a trillion population of the world is after few thousand terrorists and their few leaders and they still can’t get hold of them. Despite of its low capacity, my brain is very stingy when it comes to forgetting things, so it doess’t. Its like’Mahallay ki auntie’, you mess with it once and it will never forget that incident. So recalls when I first heard this word, after 9/11. At that time I was young and energetic and wise as this grouse word didn’t exist at all in my dictionary. That was the time when I thought that the world might go anti-clockwise and donkeys might start flying. U.S so called the leading country in development and having honoury medal of bombing and killing millions of people in WWs and aftermath of WWs, was brought down on its kness by few crazy heads. WTC supposedly one of the tallest concrete building, a symbol of modern day architecture and civil engineering works turned to ashes by mad planes roaming around in blue skies of U.S like tiny little toy drones and once out battery came crashing down on that building. And like the people knew what will happen and were waiting for it from ages, WTC bowed down to God to thank away for as if its childhood dream came true. If you drop down the size at proportionate level, its like smashing a dinky car against a dog house and bringing the entire house down into ashes. What a clumsy little episode it was, by the way some of the greatest fiction the world ever produced came after that. U.S came quick onto it, it seems that camel riding people were fed up and thought to ride something more fancy and once tired smashed it down.

And then the little tiny word ‘terrorist’ found its appreciators. After being ignored from its birth it was finally its day to shine bright. So it did. It went on knocking down countries after countries and nations after nations. Most astonishingly my first RAM of brain blew up when I realized that these terrorist are Muslims and those being killed are Muslims. And what was happening before that? Muslims were still being killed by so then not Muslims. But those Not-Muslims were never called terrorists. But when Muslims started killing Muslims, Muslims became terrorist. This blew up nearly my entire motherboard and my brain started doing job of stomach in early half of its real worth. So my body became over employed in some places and under employed in other. Total chaos.

During my childhood I was a very patient kid. But still if somebody hit me, I hit him back. For people around me it looked fine that I defended myself and the kid who was first to strike always got punished no matter what lame reason he digged up, ‘Maam he farted’!
But now they tell me that world has changed and developed. So now we don’t hit back, we have patience now. If someone ‘you can never be this someone’, hits at your home you can’t hit back. No, you can’t shout, because it is a technological world and you will not have any media to raise voice. So he will hit you back again and keep hitting you until you do not give up whatever he wants, your home, cloths, toys, books, mom and dad, sister and brother, may be your arm, some of your fingers, a short blow on your head, may be one of your limbs or right leg…..anything. And if some how if you hit back, you are a TERRORIST. I need to rush to flush out as my stomach is employed off time in intestine work.

Sir te topi ,te niyyat khoti ....Part 2.

continued from previous............

The moment the needle clicked 13:30 we all stood up for SALAH.  

Who will stand in front as IMAM?

We don’t have a proper MASJID with paid IMAM in our office, instead our management has been kind enough to provide us with a praying area and IMAM on volunteer basis……….well we had to find one at every SALAH.

Democracy rules now jerks!

 It was not only me pondering over this, but for few seconds I saw everyone scanning Everyone!

It was a usual process of being scanned. At that particular moment I always found myself filled with guilt. I did have a wish of stepping out and performing IMAMAT, but never had the courage to do so. Every day, ……..this was the place where I felt myself as a third grade citizen. It was like suddenly you find yourself on stage with spot light right on you, theatre……….…house full

 Pin drop silence……

 With all eyes fixed on you…..

 And there you stand……………………..totally Naked!

May be it was my own assumption. May be they don’t know about my sins. May be they don’t know about ashi…nelophar…jenny…..annie….mennie…tenniee…..ohhhh Annie you are so hot…I mean HOT!!

ASTAGFIRULLAH…toobah toobah….SALAH SALAH!!!

“ALLAH O AKBAR ….ALLAH O AKBAR”……someone was reciting TAKBEER. Finally we found the right man for IMAMAT.

And guess who?

Yes, the guy with the longest beard. And the one with second longest beard was reciting TAKBEER. Together we had found our most pious and righteous guys.

MOULANA SAHAB, the righteous guy..haina?

“Abdullah get on with the beard and come on lead us”. Yes I was just one beard away from being the most righteous guy, the most innocent …….like a newly born child. Thought the child doesn’t have a beard! But he is innocent…..sinless.

And what about Annie, her hotness, our magnificent dates those last dark seats of atrium, where you are always concentrating less on movie and more on MOVIE!

“Don’t worry about it yar, your beard will conceal all of it ” I told myself

“And what if the IMAM SAHIB is having an Annie too. Wow isn’t that cool. No I mean isn’t that HOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT…!”

ASSALAM o ALLAIKUM WA REHMA TULLAH ……………….. ASSALAM o ALLAIKUM WA REHMA TULLAH

P.S: I just want to make it clear that I am not against keeping beard. No not at all. Rather I love it. I truly believe that keeping beard is following noble SUNNAH of Prophet MUHAMMAD S.A.W. Instead I just want to express my feeling over the fact that as a nation our direction is not right..not at all. It is so unfortunate that our understanding of ISLAM is so poor when it comes to the implementation of ISLAMIC teachings in our daily lives. We believe more on things which are visual to us, and forget that ISLAM has more to do with moral and spiritual values followed by practice of our learning in true letter and spirit. Avoiding back biting, fraud, false statements, earning of inappropriate profit, hating others, judging others, considering others to be more kafir  and yourself as the most MUTAQI on earth, hurting others, using others, being mean, selfish, treacherous and what not.

Only having Annie around you is not the only sin. And please this statement is not a ticket of proving that Annie is not a sin. Let us forget her for heaven sake!

To cut the story short…….daikho bhai signal torna be gunnah hai !

Sir te topi , te niyyat khoti

Are you one of those who always find it difficult to develop loving affair with their office bosses and working environment!

Same case here :P

 Despite of a long working career by now, I have still failed to understand or learn how to be in good books of my bosses. I seriously don’t understand “Boss ko patatay kaisay hain yar”!!

   Every time when I feel that am doing good and people are happy around me, a clock in my mind starts tickling hard, and I feel that every passing second is nearing my annual leave. So somehow I gather the entire strength, take a deep breath, hold my neck high and

 “Excuse me sir”

And before boss’s slow and obsolete processor could interpret what I have just said, I enter his office, assuming that the answer would definitely had been

“Yes, come in”!

Today, yet again, it was the day…finally am going to ask him for a leave! And my ever wish of a leisure trip to northern areas, with an amazing group which am sure am going to find and in that too I

Northern areas, ye chez !

will meet someone whom I had always seen in my dreams ……just like in movies….wow….Bullshit!!

It was my boss.

“What kind of bullshit is this”!

“Abdullah, I think you should look into this. Ahmed is new and he is not getting things right! Next week the foreign delegation is coming and we need to get ourselves geared up”!

‘Yes Sir ’, I could not say anything else.

While working on that ‘Bullshit’ which my boss assigned me to clean up for him, I was wondering that how on the earth he came to know that am planning for a leave.

‘He definitely knew it, and had nothing better than this crap to do away with my little wish of leave’….ohhhh my love, again I failed to reach you!

And now what am going to tell people around me who often ask me, ‘aur bhai…shadi wadi kar li k nae?’

‘Nae yar, bas abi talash e gumshuda jari hai’, my pet answer with a stupid smile.

And at this moment I realized that how much I hate doing work.

Any how I did not have enough time and was to submit my work before the day ends, so I quickly turned on my laptop, placed on a serious and annoying look on my face, Plugged in my headphones into my laptop and there it goes

‘Besharam’ !

I just downloaded it the other day :P

At the interval, I didn’t have popcorns and drink but instead just like good and faithful Islami bhai, I went off for Salah(Namaz).

I saw my colleagues in the praying area, tired looks on their faces and shoulder tilted down as if they are carrying tones of load.

And of course my body language was not very different...............!:(

What .....?

You don’t expect me to be energetic and fresh after such hard work of 1:30 hr!:X

To be continued…………..

DATE WITH A WOMAN.

(The writer of the story is unknown to me)

After 21 years of Marriage, my Wife wanted me to take another Woman out to Dinner and a Movie.She said I Love You but I know this other Woman loves you and would Love to spend some Time with You.

The other Woman that my Wife wanted me to visit was my MOTHER,
who has been a Widow for 19 years, but the demands of my Work and my three Children had made it possible to visit her only occasionally.

That night I called to Invite her to go out for Dinner and a Movie.

'What's wrong, are you well,' she asked?

My Mother is the type of Woman who suspects that a Late Night Call or a Surprise Invitation is a sign of Bad News.

'I thought that it would be pleasant to be with you,'I responded.
'Just the two of us.'

She thought about it for a moment, and then said, 'I would like that very much.'

That Friday after work, as I drove over to pick her up I was a bit Nervous.
When I arrived at her House, I noticed that she too seemed to be Nervous
about our Date.

She waited in the Door with her Coat on. She had Curled her Hair and was wearing the Dress that she had worn to Celebrate her last Wedding Anniversary. She smiled from a face that was as Radiant as an Angel's.

'I told my Friends that I was going to go out with My Son, and they were impressed, '
She said, as she got into the Car.
'They can't wait to hear about our meeting'.

We went to a Restaurant that, although not Elegant, was very Nice and Cozy. My Mother took my Arm as if She were the First Lady. After we sat down, I had to read the Menu. Large Print. Half way through the entries, I lifted my eyes and saw Mom sitting
there staring at me.
A Nostalgic Smile was on her Lips.

'It was I who used to have to Read the Menu when you were Small,' She said.

'Then it's Time that you Relax and let me Return the Favor,'I responded.

During the Dinner, we had an Agreeable Conversation, nothing Extra-ordinary, but catching up on recent Events of each others Life.

We talked so much that we missed the Movie.
As we arrived at her House later,
She said, 'I'll go out with you again, but only if you let me invite you.'I agreed.

'How was your Dinner Date?' asked My Wife when I got Home.
'Very Nice. Much more so than I could have Imagined,' I answered.

A few days later, my Mother died of a Massive Heart Attack.

It happened so suddenly that I didn't have Time to do anything for her. Some time later, I received an Envelope with a Copy of a Restaurant Receipt from the same place Mother and I had dined.

An Attached Note Said:
'I paid this Bill in Advance.
I wasn't sure that I could be there;
But nevertheless, I paid for Two Plates 
One for You and the Other for Your Wife.
You will never know what that Night meant for Me.
I Love You,
My Son.'

At that moment, I understood the Importance of saying in Time:'I LOVE YOU!'
and to give our Loved Ones the Time that they Deserve. Nothing in Life is more important than God and your Family. Give them the Time they Deserve, because these Things cannot be Put Off till 'Some Other Time.' Pass This Along To Everyone With An Aging Parent,
To A Child,
To An Adult,
To Anyone With A Parent,  And Most Importantly,
To Someone You Truly Love

MY LOVELY BRIDE.

Lalay guess what, Ahmed got married .!!

Sesly ? Na kar yar …..kameenay nay bataya nae mje ..! So how did the ceremony go?

I don’t know, the news struck upon me yesterday when I logged onto my facebook account. Firstly I thought that it’s Ahmed, with his usual style of one month-one girl….:P

“We exchange smiles of Kameengi” And Shahnawaz continued;

But then I saw numerous comments of ‘Congratulations’ and realized that he actually got married. Plus the invitation card was laying in my inbox !!

On this I too realized that I haven’t been on facebook from weeks and my life might come to an end if I continued my ignorance to the prestigious social website.

Shahnawaz and Ahmed were my childhood friends. We were too close….and our bond was getting so tight day by day that we had to take a break when people started giving us strange nodes……and we heard a poet shouting    “ Ab itna b na chaho k dam nikal jae “

We used to spend weekends together…..one fine weekend when I came back home, my mother was waiting for me right at my doorstep.

“Where the hell were you, koi sharam hai tm main, pori raat bahir guzar di”

And for a moment I felt like being an 18 year old, young, sizzling, hot babe….whose mother is always worried for her izzat ki tajori. But then I quickly came back to the reality. An average boy …with ordinary looks with no sense of fashion and a personality sprinkled with bad manners and ever rolling tongue….throwing pinching and at times colorful ….melodious words of typical Punjabi abusive language.

“Oh come on. Why do you have to worry about me, no one has to do any thing with me, and even by mistake if some one gets onto me, he would curse the time when he thought of it, and if it’s the other sex …she….then I would be more grateful to her :P ”

Though I never had the courage to utter the later cheaper part of my thoughts.

But right now, here on this piece of writing, let us just focus on Ahmed’s bride.

So on Shahnawaz’s alarm, I rushed onto my desktop, quickly logged onto my facebook account, saying so …‘quickly’, it still took an entire 20 minutes effort to do that. Yes my old Pentium 4, full of Trojan viruses which always had to be restarted atleast once for normal operation, and then the ever ‘fast and furious’ Qubee internet connection.

Connecting ………….connecting…………!!

And my mother called in …….’beta khana kha lo aa kar’

And we all know ….’Ma k hath ka khana,  umm yumm’

It took me around 15 minutes to hasten the entire meal inside, came back to my room and to my highest level of patience test.

Connecting ………….connecting……….!

But finally it connected. And there I was 87 likes, around 141 comments, many many congradulations and what not. And yes the couple …standing, smiling at each other, holding hands and probably vowing in their hearts for ever lasting relationship.

Awwww how cute.

And then I heard someone saying …..’what are you doing’

I ??

Well am just looking at my friend and his bride. I simply replied.

What ….sharam kar yar. Bhabi hai teri.

Yes I know that. But I haven’t placed this picture. Ahmed wants every one to see this, he wants us to see his bride. Or he could have simply placed in his own picture. Now come on just shut up and let me focus.

After putting a close eye on the couple, I commented

“MA SH ‘ALLAH both of you are meant for each other, A decent couple indeed. Congratulations bro”

And while doing soo, Shahnawaz’s words echoed in my ears;

‘Beta bandi fit hai wesay

’

Wait a minute, come on, don’t just start judging me. Remember it’s the bride we are focusing on right now. I know many of you are going to put forward logics, accusing me of indecency, advising others to be like a true friend and close your eyes when your friend puts on his brides’ pictures on social websites. But from inside you all know that this isn’t how it works.

No one closes his eyes. And why should they??

After all you guys are putting in so much efforts, by taking and uploading all those pictures on facebook, it does requires an effort. And yes you want people to see your Bride, isn’t it?. You want them to comment and like your bride, to admire her looks. So that the next day you can come out proudly with your choori chati, in between your friends with the feeling that you have a pretty wife. And how would they know unless you public her.

I want to say here lot more than this, so that the concerned, might get thori si sharam. But I think that for those who have the slightest element of wisdom will understand, others would simply judge me back. I truly believe that our religion tells us to be respectful to our women. Islam tells us to be kind to them and give them respect. And what do you think, putting their pictures on social websites where everyone can see, judge them and admire their beauty, is respectful?

Respect your bride (your women), don’t public them for your own publicity.

I AM A MUSLIM .....AND YOU ARE ?

I can’t stop it coming out here. 

Not that I didn’t try ignoring my thoughts, diverting my attention, every time turning off my laptop before I could go on writing this piece.

It might appear useless to you, complicated to some and confused thoughts to others.

It might offend you to.

You might think of me as an extremist….. jahil……ignorant….or pass comments like

“Why is he being soo much judgmental….Samajta kia hai ye apnay aap ko”

Well so you can just stop reading it right now. Because the entire writing is pushed by thought of SHIA-SUNNI and and Islamic month of Muharram.

Now you might be the one going under black out during first 10 days or of the other colored group throwing pinching messages on the first one.

Whom I belong too?

“None of the above, Am just a Muslim”

“huh, aya bari Moulvi, Astagfar…kia ool fol likha hai, Namaz kabbi parhi nae tw yahi haal ho ga na”. Don’t ask me who said this to me.

Yes I am not very good practicing Muslim and in addition to that I have an irritating habit of questioning………questioning too much.

“Name: Muhammad Abdullah

Father’s Name: Muhammad Afzal

Religion: Islam

Sect:    ?

I was too young at that time to understand this. So I asked my father.

“Abu ye kia hai”?

“beta yahan ****** likh do” My father nominated a Sect for me.

“par abu g ham tw Musal-maan hain na”

I proudly said that. Though at that age I didn’t know anything about the world power politics, but somehow even at that age my inside always felt soo proud of being a Muslim.

 So proud of belonging to a Muslim family.

So proud of being a member of one Muslim Umma………..one.

And then over the years I learned that the word ONE has multiplied. And that we all are stamped in our Bio data forms in one of these. And then our entire lives we are made to believe and groomed to defend our bio data forms. There is so much coming out, so much already has been discussed and debated.

And All of it useless and waste of time.

So why can’t we let it be the past. Why should we follow traditions and customs which have been formulated to divide us.

Can’t we just follow one straight line, gather under one flag, one platform, one forum, be one ……ONE UMMA. Make ourselves proud of being ONE. Powerful enough to protect every part of our body……body of entire Muslim Ummah.

Yes this is how I take this. This division……

You do remember that childhood stories of unity ……

“Try to break 7 sticks altogether…

You can’t do that ?

Ok break them one by one …..

See, if you get divided you become vulnerable to breakage”

It seems that whoever planted the seed of this division, is now enjoying the fruit of it. And it does not matter really that what has been infused in our religion, to be practiced to cause our division. What matters is that we have been made to believe in it. And believes are not easy to just give away like that, believes are foundation of your entire life…..how can you just give them away on some ones advice.

Come on go die for it.

Yes this is what we do………we can die in a bomb blast during religious celebrations and traditions and rallies and what not.

But we hardly get up for five time Namaz to make our Masajid populated.

We will spend thousands on flags, banners, lights, strange looking minarets, and what not 

But we will hardly hold hand of a poor to come along.

Shia …sunni par aa kar phattay ga

Sunni ..shia par aa kar phattay ga

Par dono mil kar israel mai nahein phattay gain …..india mai nae phattain gay …..billions of non muslims hain unko kuch nae kahain gay…rather wahan ja kar gooray ka bathroom saaf kar b khush rahain gay …..

Par yahan ………..

Isn’t it very simple that the entire strength of Muslim Ummah lays under one flag, unity. Five times a day we are to remind ourselves the same thing that we are ONE. And our enemies don’t want us to stand together. They want us to fight internally so that we can never stand up against them. So that when we are spending millions on security to defend one group of brothers from the other, they could laugh at us. And that we are ensuring their evil plans to ripe.

So for a while ….just for a while…..why can’t we just quit practicing whatever divides us. Whatever is different between us. Stop putting in Sect: ----------- column in every bio data form. Stop putting special names and identities……stop doing all this crap.

I strongly and firmly believe that there is still a lot on which we all believe as one. A lot to practice, and if we only do that and only practice on which we stand as one (like NAMAZ, ROZA, ZAKAT, DON’T LIE, BE KIND, SHOW RESPECT, HAVE PATIENCE, LEARN TO PAY REGARDS, RESPECT NEIGHBOURHOOD, BE HONEST, DON’T CHEAT, DON’T LIE, HELP NEEDY AND POOR & SO ON & ON),..............

We will still BE a very good Muslim and doors of Heavens will not close on us.