Peace Be Upon You...

Fleeting Moments...

2012-01-24T02:14:00.004+08:00

Alhamdullillah it's Mac time...

Everyone human being is defined by his/her struggle...which is characterized by how much they are struggling to achieve their objectives in life.
For some unfortunately their objectives need immense revision for others, they must consistently re-look and remember their objectives in life.
For me I hope and pray that my objectives in life all lead to one goal, that is the goal to meet my creator and to have achieved some minute objective in this life that allows me inshAllah to stand in front of my Lord.

Life goes on and we all eventually surrender to its fragrance and seduction, all that is except those who remember that there is nothing more temporary in this life than life itself.

The very definition of earthly Life can be described as a fleeting moment. Look back, think and remember your very first day in kindergarten...I for one cannot remember it, then try and remember your very first day of school, then look at your very first day in university or at work...then look at yourself today and see how they years have passed you by....in a fleeting moment...all your experiences can be boxed in a box called 10/20/30 years...sure some may have no so called regrets but think,ponder and contemplate on how time has passed you by.

Rather I should say how time has passed us by....

That line on the testpads, I used to see in my school exams was right, Time and Tide wait for no man

Life is not meant to be experienced, or lived, rather Life is meant to be Understood.Its Purpose,It's Meaning,It's existence...my existence..your existence...our existence

The sharing of the planet,it's resources which are limited but have been made to appear so and everything in the sky,the earth, in between and beyond....

Ask yourself, why was it made and then ponder,reflect and analyze your answer and see what you come up with...

Alhamdullillah....Allah made me a Muslim..may he always keep me on this path..Ameen

...and to Allah, they were not martyrs....

2011-04-04T00:04:00.000+08:00

My Cultural Heritage and Me

2011-01-24T00:02:00.001+08:00

This is an essay I wrote for a youth conference a couple of months ago:

My Cultural Heritage and Me

As I read the title of this essay that I am supposed to write for the 4th IYEP a myriad of thoughts engulfed me as I thought which cultural heritage that I have that i should write about. Aahh...I digress, before that let me introduce myself as a global citizen, one who was born in West Africa, raised in Southeast Asia yet I am from the North of that gigantic country known as India, known as a land rich in spices and culture.

When the question of culture rises, I suppose that a definition would mean the traditions which include the clothes I wear on special occasions as well as the type of food I eat, if that is taken to be the definition then I can definitely identify myself with Indian or rather South Asian culture. However if culture is defined as the way in which I think ideologically or perhaps a better word is align myself in terms of thinking then I can definitely say that I have a somewhat ‘rojak’ or mixed culture with influences from the American/British ways of thinking [due to my schooling and its education], as well as the Arab and Malay ways [due to the influence of friends] as well as a variety of various other cultures.

If the above paragraph shows a picture of an extremely culturally confused and ignorant person, then I must concur that I am guilty as charged. I am in somewhat of an identity crisis when it comes to culture, whilst I strongly identify with the positive family values of the Indian culture, I also believe that respect must be earned and not given on the basis of seniority, an idea some would say is an American import. Having not had any real pressure from my parents to strictly follow and adhere to certain Indian customs has allowed me to view the Indian culture in a more positive light than some of my peers who rejected it completely and as a reactionary measure embraced a culture that was completely alien to them.

In recent times I feel that more and more people are becoming racial and cultural conscious. This perhaps is due to the constant harping of certain players on the world scene on the differences between civilisations and cultures, or as one person would have it “a clash of civilisations”, as opposed to the similarities between civilisations and cultures, or the “collaboration of civilisations and cultures”
In this world unfortunately whilst communication barriers are being broken down every day, I feel that in place of them there are more psychological and emotional barriers being formed between communities and cultures. As a result of this blanket attack by a few quarters on my culture, I somehow fell more strongly connected to it than I would have 6-7 years ago. Perhaps this retrospection is good as it enables me to start to look for the good in my culture and in the process of that I hope to find the good in other cultures.

Perhaps something that has impacted me in the way I associate myself to my confused cultural heritage is the knowledge I consume and the language and sources by which I obtain it. I dream in English and that according to psychologists means that English is my mother tongue, which is a bit odd seeing as how I couldn’t speak English until the age of 3, which is when I started going to school. The material that I consume impacts the way I think, talk and even act. Hence seeing as how mine and most of the rest of the world, primary source of information is in English, we all exhibit at times a certain similar type of cultural thinking. This impacts the way I look at things and events, the movies and media I consume, and the information I digest. So yes I can say that I am partly if not greatly influenced by Western culture, whether that may be eating pop corn whilst I am watching a movie or eating fast food on a regular basis, I am lead to the conclusion that whilst I want to believe that because I have lived in and met a great variety of people I am different, I fear I am no different from the sheep that is being lead by the shepherd. I fear that in this world where a few people control a vast majority of information, I am being lead and not doing the leading, I fear I am a product of Western culture who hides behind his ethnicity to try and prove that he is deep and mature , whereas in reality I am shallow and naive.

Having said that , I feel that in every culture there is something that can be learnt , both good and bad. The heritage and legacy that I would like to pass on to my children, God Willing, would be that irrespective of our differences in clothes, sizes, shapes, spices, food or whatever it is that we identify with our cultures we are all equal in the eyes of God, differentiated only by our levels of piety.

Greetings of peace

2010-11-23T09:43:00.000+08:00

This is a story I came up with at 2 am last night...its been a while...

Greetings of Peace

It is Friday, the thirteenth of Ramadan, 1482AH, I suddenly feel very exhausted. Just as I am about to go for Friday prayers my legs feel exhausted, as if they cannot support my weight anymore. Then I feel myself collapsing and drag myself to the nearest sofa, as I do that I see an enormous creature before me...

....he has a smile so big I feel enveloped by a sense of worry which soon turns into a euphoric feeling. Is this I thought...is this...the time...is he the angel of death?...There appears to be a glow around him

In the distance hear the faint cries of my family saying...shouting in the distance.

It all seems so far away....yet in the distance I can see a man on a camel welcoming me with arms outstretched , and he to has a smile on his face. Who is this man with the white Jallabiyyah and such a kind face....his gestures are welcoming...

Suddenly I feel a pain that I have never felt before as my soul reaches my throat and then more screaming....

...and as my lips move for the last time they form the words “La.... ilaha Illal...Lah Muhammad Rasul...Lallah”. I can hear the doas of my family they envelop me and comfort me like a warm blanket on a cold winter day ....as the weather around me flows from a chill to a cold breeze on a warm summer day...in front of me I can see gardens with such beauty and splendor , with so much green and yellow and blue a kaleidoscope of colours and a smell so fragrant that even the rose I gave to my beloved wife on our honeymoon could not compare, and the delight that I feel as that smell draws closer...I swear by God never have I ever smelt something of that...in the world that I am leaving behind.

I ask myself where and why?....why?...what did I do to deserve such a reward...as I turn my face to my right I see the most beautiful creatures that I have ever seen and when I send greetings on them they reply with that wonderful greeting “Salama....Peace...Peace be upon you oh servant of Allah....you have truly fulfilled your destiny”.

I hear people washing my body, they wash it and my youngest son stands there...controlling his grief...as he performs the mandatory bath and covers my body with a simple white cloth.

I hear in the distance the Imam reciting the Janazah Prayer over my body as the congregation prays behind him....subhanallah how many people are here...I wonder as I see lines after lines fill up the masjid...

I look back at my life and think what did I do and I ask the angels...what have I done to be blessed with such a reward...pray do tell me so I can tell me fellow man to follow this path and do the deed that has brought me here...to this wonderful place. They reply “Allah loved that quality in you that when the world abandoned you, when the world did not believe in you, you turned to him and said “Oh My Lord! The Most beneficent! The Most Merciful! I seek sustenance from you!... Save my family and I...my Rabb ....save us from the evils of Riba and Bribery! Save us my Lord and give us Barakah in our earnings for you are the best to provide sustenance!”.

This the angels replied made you enter the Gardens of Bliss. I then stand in awe and reply to the angels , Allah [swt] gave me Mansions in the Dunia, he blessed me with good fortune and good company...and in the Akhirah he has blessed me with the company of the prophets and the akhirah is forever...

“Whoever submits his whole self to Allah, And is a doer of good, has grasped indeed the most trustworthy handhold; and with Allah rests the end and decision of (all) affairs”
Surah Luqman : Verse 22

2010-08-09T01:19:00.001+08:00

A new look for a new period in my life....

A fresh start on the whole blogging thing.....

A new beginning.....

As Busy as a BEE

2010-01-10T00:35:00.002+08:00

Well I last blogged last year....

So much has been happenig that blogging is getting quite tough now...
Anyway my 2 latest projects:-

Golden Ratio Solutions

and White Kuffi Productions [still working on a website for this one]

--------------------------------------------------------

I have officially ventured into the world of business and I have to say it keeps me busy but happy! because of the challenges it poses my mind is constantly in motion trying to predict how to move next...InshAllah one day i'll own a company as big and impactful as Google/Twitter/Facebook.

And then I'll got to the SD people who interviewed me for 2 hours and say to them hey just because I was a foreigner you didn't give me the post...now I am here to buy your company.

2009-09-07T23:46:00.002+08:00

It has been 2 months since I posted anything. This a result of my travels as well as the many projects that I have been involved in. All of this will slowly unravel in the next couple of posts. Anyway for now enjoy:-

6th July 2009

Well folks...its that time again, When I head back to my Bharat (India). It was on Thursday the second of July when yours truly flew back to New Delhi after 2 years. Well I had heard that India had changed, I had seen the movies that depicted the trance-formation of India however nothing prepared me for the amount of Western influence on the land that has a huge history of culture and civilisation.

Anyway...we’ll discuss that in some other post inshAllah.

However reaching the Indira Gandhi Airport was a huge emotional moment for the family as it was the first time we were going to meet all the Chachas, Chachis, Khala, Khaluus, Mammus, Mammis and cousins for the first time after my Papa(May Allah have mercy on his soul) had passed away.

It was a long night with condolences offered and stories exchanged. It was 3am before i managed to get some sleep in my cousin’s flat in a place called Malvi-Nagar.
The next day was spent complaining about the 40 degree Celsius sweltering heat in the Delhi sun.

The last time I came to India I came in the heat as well however for some reason the heat this time is hotter. It’s like sitting in an oven with a hot fan blowing hot air into your face and then drinking cold Bisleri (mineral water-seeing as how we can’t drink normal drinking water from the tap as then we would be super-shitting) and then sitting around eating heavy and delicious Nihari curry, Chicken Kurma curry and eating...mangoes.

Now one who has never been to India in summer has no idea what I am talking about. However if one has been to India in the summer then one gets to sample all the different types of varieties available on the market, especially when one is blessed with a loving khandan (clan) such as myself.

The latest aam (mango) variety on the market is the langra (handicapped) mango variety. Why it is called as such I have no idea however knowing us Indians I am sure there is an elaborate folk story for the history of the “handicapped” mango.
It was on Saturday that a cousin of mine took us to visit some of the historical monuments in Delhi or Dilhi as it is pronounced in Hindi.

We first stopped at Humayouns tomb.This is a historical monument built by one of the mughal emperors as a tomb for him and his family. Althrough I don’t remember much of the history behind it is was interesting to note that there was a drianigae sys em implemented probably to drain the water from the rains. It was also interesting to note that the architecture of the entire tomb was highly symmetrical i.e. the tomb was enclosed in a square compound and hence everything of note in the tomb for example the many fountains and gardens were all shaped into squares and even their intricate designs had squarish details.

The next stop was India Gate. This is a monument built by the British in memory of the Indian soldiers who fought for them in the First world war. There is a fire that burns and has been burning since the inception of the monument which is guarded 24-7. It was interesting to note that there were a considerable amount of Muslim soldiers who fought for the British during the war.

We then drove to Cannought Place. I used to imagine that this was spelt Cannot Place and always wondered who would name such a place and why? Alas! my contemplation was in vain as sadly such a name did not exist. In Cannought Place there exists a shop known as Kevinders-apparently it is famous for its Milk Shakes. And indeed jostling in line trying to get a Milk shake I found out its fame was not exaggerated. This claim was further put to the test when I drunk their strawberry milkshake was delicious and might I add icy cold!

Next on the list was the famous Jama Masjid of Old Delhi. To get here and park would be a hastle so we decided to take the Metro from the Rajiv Chowk Metro station to the Chawri Bazaar Station. I have to say I am extremely impressed by the Metro service in Delhi and hope that soon God Willing it will be able to span Delhi and connect it all over. From the Chawri Bazaar station we took a 10 rupee rickshaw to Jama Masjid.

Jama Masjid was amazing. I love coming to the Jama Masjid area in Delhi, the smell of the restaurants and the frying chickens and the hustle and bustle of everyone doing their business in tiny shops is an experience and sight that one can’t find anywhere else. However I have to say that I do not like the lack of cleanliness in this mainly Muslim area. Being Muslim we have been told that being clean is a part of our faith however sadly I do not find this being practised in the Jama Masjoid area.

The Jama Masjid was built by the moghuls as are most historical monuments in the Delhi and Agra areas and again it is an architectural marvel, MashAllah.
In the Jama Masjid area we stopped to have a meal of Afghani Chicken and Mutton Birra. Two dishes which tastes out if this world . The flesh of the Mutton was tender and soft and when one bites into and pulls it comes away ever so perfectly in one’s mouth. This is probably due to the Masala and grill that the Mutton and chicken both have undergone before they reached our plates.

After that we headed back to the Malvi-Nagar area in New Delhi where my cousin lives having spent an extremely event filled day in Delhi.

Kareem Salama-Generous Peace

2009-06-30T09:58:00.000+08:00

This fool throws wet stones at me insists on attempts
to break my nerves
But I hate to respond to the anger and freed the fuel in
those ugly words

They ask me why I say nothing at all like I don't have
any self respect
I say gentleman I'm like incense the more you burn me
the more I'm fragrant

And I don't feel the need to act violently
And I don't feel desire to fan the fire
You can say what you want about me
But I lace the lines of these times
with generous peace

There's a thin line between virtue and fea and
it's funny how they appear
Both demanding restraint and control and it's enough
that I know it's clear

That I'm not scared of you I'm scared of me and I live
by controlling my fool
Cause you're a fool enough for the both of us but
I still try to find the good in you

And I don't feel the need to act violently
And I don't feel desire to fan the fire
You can say what you want about me
But I lace the lines of these times
with generous peace

I know its hard to listen to the words you just can't stand
It's gonna take more than a fist to enlighten an ignorant man

And don't you see how we fear the patient eyes of a lion
And don't you see ow twe fear those lions in their silence

And I don't feel the need to act violently
And I don't feel desire to fan the fire
You can say what you want about me
But I lace the lines of these times
with generous peace

Lyrics and Song by Kareem Salama - This Life of Mine

2009-06-26T14:49:00.004+08:00

Alhamdullillah I have extremely busy in the last couple of days..not work wise but i have a few projects going on. I also met a few interning students at MERCY and found out or rather realized that my opinions and the world-views that I have...have been limited in spite of me thinking of them being extremely broad views. #

Oh and by the way International Relations is definitely one of my future career choices now after having heard about it first hand from the Interning students.

By the way Arab food is pleasingly different from North-Indian food.

Project no. 1

Get a Salam Cafe type thingy on Malaysian tv - discussions are underway with YMP and friends to work that out

Project no. 2

Anyone who knows me knows how I love to travel and I will be going back to India inshAllah next week for a brief fortnightly visit inshAllah with the family.

Project no. 3

Find a non-research oriented job- having trouble with this one, apparently I have discovered after much "research" that I am not a guy who loves sitting in the lab day after day-Althrough it does mean a lot of FB time.

2009-06-11T17:55:00.002+08:00

I believe I have discovered the most important barrier to learning...embarrassment. I mean think about it we learn the most when we are young and are toddlers and kids. However once we hit the age of puberty we become extra-conscious of ourselves.

Most teenagers just want to blend in and I believe this carries on into our adulthood years as well. In university when our lecturer used to ask us if we had any questions most of my class would look at the floor or at each other our eyes daring the other to ask, something...anything. I remember this was normally the case in our boring classes we would all search for questions and then start a conversation with the lecturer about things totally unrelated (but interesting) to the subject.

Anyway coming back to what I was saying about the whole learning and embarrassment thingy it just goes to show that Life is all one wants it to be.
If we can take the initiative and then the positive side of things we can learn so much. I have learnt a lot from watching my nephews and niece grow up (mashAllah). When babies learn how to walk they try and try till they get it and I am going to apply this babosophy(yes I coined it just now) to my life.

I have a dream and if God wills I will live to see it fulfilled by His grace and Mercy.

2009-06-01T15:09:00.002+08:00

Travelling by LRT is not my favorite way to travel. It so happens that today I chose to travel using the LRT early in the morning. Now to those of you who have never used the LRT early in the morning count your blessings. What happens is that Men and Women literally throw themselves into the carriages. I kid you not!

Here is what today at 7am in the morning: I was happily standing at the door and dreaming of the blue blue sky…when from absolutely nowhere a man(small in size) decided to disturb my dreams. Now the train is full-it is pretty obvious for everyone to see but still why should anyone give up a chance. When anyone sees even a small crack of space in between the backsides and frontsides of people they stick one foot there and press themselves against anyone and everything that stand in their way.

What happens next is a combination of skill and experience (obtained I assume from doing this on a regular basis) which involves holding one’s breath and again pressing one’s body against any and everything that gets in one’s way until the LRT doors slide shut. This is then followed by everyone around that individual heaving huge sighs of relief as then the well experienced individual presses against the closed doors of the LRT leaving a few atoms of space for everyone to breathe in.
All of this is fine as long as no-one coughs/sneezes.

However if someone who has been holding in a sneeze for an extremely long time decides that he/she’s nose and chest simply cannot bear the torture anymore and they then decide to let it go resulting in a huge ACHOO!!! The surrounding individual turn and look around at that poor helpless soul and stare for extremely short periods of time but I guess to the individual it must seem like eternity. Also with the H1N1 virus around the world it doesn’t help the case of the hapless sneeze driven individual.

I am dreading the journey back!

2009-05-23T22:21:00.001+08:00

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

A few days ago I closed a big chapter in my life. A chapter which had been going for more or less 4 years or if you want to start from the beginning 5 and a half years .The climax of which was my final year project (which as mentioned before was a major factor in my head losing its protective covering!).

However when I look back and ponder upon my 4 years I feel that I have been through a lot by God’s grace.

I mean losing my Dad, starting a part-time business, wrestling with mice, teaching English to students, helping in founding a committee that everyone predicted to fail but Alhamdulillah even with all its problems is still going on today, going to camps to train students, barely passing some subjects and making much doa and promises to Allah if he made me pass them, doing a research project that involved driving some 600 kilometres and back to get raw papayas, meeting people from all over Asia as part of a debating tournament , organising in part an Interfaith Dialogue that saw people from all faiths visiting the campus of a Muslim university for the first time, all of these events and more have made me feel that I am blessed to be where I am.

Even though I complain all the time about what type of a university I was in now I feel blessed to have been part of this institution and to have taken to some extent advantage of what was offered on the menu so as to speak.

Four years here have shaped and moulded me whether I like it or not .I have Alhamdulillah made some friends that inshAllah will stay with me for life and more importantly I have begun to some extent understanding that thing that makes and shapes us my deen i.e. my religion or way of life.

Having said that there are still a lot of things that need to be done in order to change the way we Muslims perceive and interact with the world. Many a time I have sat down in a discussion and we all come to the conclusion that whilst there are many things wrong with the Ummah (Muslim Community) at large we as students cannot do anything bout it. I belive that this is a very wrong and negative approach as if we the youth cannot do anything about it then we will all follow in the footsteps of our predecessors which has lead us to the problems we are in today.

May Allah help us to become one ummah again, with one purpose and may he guide all of us and help to stay on the straight path (Ameen)

2009-05-10T12:50:00.009+08:00

Wonderful lyrics by Farhan Akhtar from the movie Rock On

Just think about it...

aasmaan hai nila kyun, paani gila gila kyun
why the sky is blue, why water is wet

gol kyon hai zameen
why this earth is round

sukh mein hai narmi kyun, aag mein hai garmi kyun
why there is softness in happiness, why there is heat in fire

do aur do paanch kyun nahi
why aren't two and two five

ped ho gaye kam kyun, tin hai yeh mausam kyun
why have the trees decreased, why are there three seasons?

chaand do kyun nahi
why aren't there two moons?

duniya mein hai jung kyun, behata laal rang kyun
why do wars exist in the world?, why does the red color flow?

sarhadein hai kyun har kahin
why are boundaries every where?

socha hai, yeh tumne kya kabhi
thought of it?have you ever thought of it?

socha hai, ki hai yeh kya sabhi
have you ever thought about it? what all this is?

socha hai, socha nahi toh socho abhi
have you ever thought?, if not then think now!

behati kyun hay har nadi, hoti kya hai roshani
why every river flows, what is light?

barf girati hai kyun
why does snow falls?

ladate kyun hai ruthate taare kyun hai tutate
why the stars break/fall?

baadalon mein bijali hai kyun
why is there lightning in the clouds?

socha hai, yeh tumne kya kabhi
have you ever thought of it?

socha hai, ki hai yeh kya sabhi
have you ever thought about it? what all this is?

socha hai, socha nahi toh socho abhi
have you ever thought about it? If not, think now?

sannata sunayi nahi deta, aur hawaaye dikhaayi nahi deti
we can't listen to quietness/silence, and can't see the wind

socha hai kya kabhi, hota hai yeh kyun
have you ever thought, why this happens?

aasmaan hai nila kyun, paani gila gila kyun
gol kyon hai jameen
sukh mein hai narmi kyun, aag mein hai garmi kyun
do aur do paanch kyun nahi
ped ho gaye kam kyun, tin hai yeh mausam kyun
chaand do kyun nahi
duniya mein hai jung kyun, behata laal rang kyun
sarhadein hai kyun har kahin
(socha hai, yeh tumne kya kabhi
socha hai, ki hai yeh kya sabhi
socha hai, socha nahi toh socho abhi) - (2)

2009-04-23T01:52:00.000+08:00

My FYP is mowing all the few strands of hair left on my balding head!

A Tribute to Someone Very Special

2009-04-19T21:36:00.000+08:00

This is dedicated to one person who in spite of what the world used to say always used to tell me that determination is key to succeeding and Alhamdulillah I followed those words of advice and so have reached wherever I am and a lot of credit goes to that one particular individual(May Allah Have mercy on his soul).Today marks 1 year and 1 week since he passed away, since my beloved father and mentor returned to Allah.

Indeed when he was alive I feel that there may have been times when I used to wonder how much do I love my father , what is the extent of my love for him yet I believe that we only know the true extent of our relationship with a person when we lose them forever or at least for this lifetime. The hole that is made when we lose someone close to our hearts can never be filled no matter how much and with what we try to fill it. The loss of a parent can only truly be understood by one who has lost one or both of their parents and I say this out of experience. About 2 years ago a close friend of mine lost his father and a few months before my dad passed away another friend of mine lost her father and to both of them I sent my condolences, trying to put myself in their feet and imagining that I was doing it the right way yet when I experienced it myself , I later realized that the magnitude of a loss like that can only be understood by someone who themselves have felt/experienced such a big loss.

I still remember the day as it were yesterday. The whole experience is still very fresh at times and yet at times it feels as that less stressful, more peaceful-ish life of mine was a long time ago.

Now everybody says that their father is special or wonderful and like everybody else I will say the same. However I can say this that I have only good memories of my father and for that I am grateful to my father for leaving me with such a high standard of who, what and how a father should be and I also thank Allah for blessing me with such a father, so Thank you God and Papa!

There is a multitude of songs and poems written about the importance of a mother and indeed this is true the importance of a mother is three times that of father as in the Sahih Hadith from the Prophet(saw).Having said that I feel that at times we tend to understate the role of a father in the upbringing of his children. As a father, husband, friend my Dad managed to have a certain bond of trust that continued even after he passed away and it was evident not only in the family(both immediate and extended) circle but also in the many people who spoke of his trustworthiness, honesty, humbleness and one quality which I strive to emulate above all his many, the ability to walk away from an unnecessary argument/fight or quarrel and still be patient with the provoker. As one family friend put it “Your Father was not one in a million but rather one of a Kind”.

I pray that Allah, The Almighty blesses the soul of my father with his Rahmah(Mercy) and grants him Paradise and the company of the most Righteous in Jannah (Heaven).

Ameen

2009-04-05T09:55:00.000+08:00

Publicity!

Interfaith Disclosure

2009-04-05T08:49:00.001+08:00

Sometimes the things we condemn, because of tradition, just might be the way to bring the message to people who otherwise might not be open to the opportunity to listen to the true message.

It is only God who guides us

Four years on....

2009-04-05T08:31:00.002+08:00

There are a few weeks left for my stay as a University Undergraduate to end inshAllah. It has been four years since I joined this institution or rather in April it will be four years. I still remember my orientation week, running around the campus in a batik shirt and then going from Mahallah (Hostel) to Mahallah. Coming late into the hall where we had our orientation and having the camera train its lens on us which resulted in about a thousand people looking at us on the big projector screens as we tried and might I add…unsuccessfully to sneak into the hall.

After that the briefing with our faculty and department heads, it was a great feeling. We have finally made it i.e. we made it through matriculation and into university. When any Aunty asked me “Beta, tum kiya parr re hu? (i.e. Son,what are you studying)” I would raise my head and proudly exclaim Biomedical Science. When further questioned on what such a subject is , I would mutter something about science and drugs and pharmaceutical research and try and run away at the first available opportunity as I also did not have much idea on what the hell I was studying.

4 years on – I have to admit at times I am still hazy but still now I can gorEng(make up something) more easily on how the world cannot survive without scientists and the future of mankind depends on research and blah..blah..blah.

However that is not the moral of the story, rather the moral goes something, like this-

“The times spent as an undergrad student has blessed me with the opportunity to make friends the like of which I never thought possible. As one friend if mine today said “Haris I’ll tell your kids that …”. The very thought that eventually inshAllah we’ll become parents and have children and these people will become family friend uncles to my kids is strange yet nice . This is the time just after finishing when some friends, Fahmi+ a couple of others are getting married InshAllah soon and maybe I’ll be at their weddings , maybe not but what I will tell their kids is all the crazy times we had as friends/roommates and indeed it will be strange , just as strange as it is for me to remember school and my friends at school. I hope that I do a better job at staying in touch with these friends than I did with my friends at school. But dear friends/roommates it has been a great time with you guyz and may we meet before the day of Judgment and on the Day itself I pray we will be in the shade of God’s grace and mercy and may we be in it together inshAllah”

Oh well now its time to get back to studying for the final finals inshAllah and working on that thesis due on the 28th.

2009-03-23T01:37:00.000+08:00

The last-last week was very stressful-Had to submit my FYP results to my supervisor and had to do them as we are trying God Willing to submit an abstract for an international conference in July. So anyway had to juggle my fyp results as well as the First Aid Course done in my Occupational Health subject which by the way was great!

I always complain about the syllabus and method of teaching in my faculty however in this case I raise my hat off to them for providing us with such a great instructor(Mr Hussein) and the course itself. It covered stuff like CPR, Choking, Spinal injury and how to deal with accident cases and overall patient evaluation.
The next week promises to be stressful as well with 2 exams lined up and the pressure of finishing all our biochemical analysis as well as Red Sirius Collagen staining by the 15th of this month.

Right now it is 5 am and I am trying to learn about Occupational Safety while listening to trance to keep me awake as the darn caffeine didn’t work again!
However I believe that the hard that was put in the FYP is finally paying off(all praise be to Allah ) albeit there is still more hard work to be done but all those nights and weeks which turned to months and in this particular month turned into a year of hard labour..umm…work and planning and strategizing is finally looking like it is going to pay some dividends off.

Speaking of dividends this is really not the year to graduate as the economic crisis and in resultant the unemployment rate is threatening to go from extremely bad to unimaginably bad-however speaking of unemployment we as Muslims believe that risiq or earning is in the hands of God and so if we are meant to get that Job and we work hard for it , then there is no way we will not get that job as God only helps those who help themselves.

May God help all of us(Ameen)

2009-03-02T11:55:00.002+08:00

This as my other posts is one day late

Yesterday(i.e. the 28 of february) was one of the biggest events that has ever happened in our campus in IIUM,Kuantan. The first IIUM Kuantan Interfaith Dialogue – we had invited speakers from all the major religions in Malaysia i.e. speakers from Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and of course Islam. It was massive as we had about 6oo people come into and fill the main auditorium in Kulliyyah of Medicine.

Yours truly was the moderator for the dialogue which coincidentally happened the day after my 21st birthday-and which I will get to later in my blog.

Anyhow we had a great IFD –it was a big hit with both the IIU student population and the members of the Public(most of whom were non-Muslims) in fact in the survey form which we gave to members of the public in the rating of 1-5 with 5 being the highest , most of them gave it 5. I believe that all the audience members thoroughly enjoyed Bro Shahkirit’s speech and also the way he handled the questions being asked.

The program was massive because of the nature of it i.e. religion in Malaysia is a highly sensitive topic and also because of the response that we got . Now coming to my birthday my roommates and gang i.e. Yusof ,Fahmi ,Muhammad ,Sardar and Hanaan came up with a surprise. All the speakers got a souvenir from IIU and these crafty guys got one made for me and were planning to announce at the end of the ceremony that it was my birthday the day before and here was my souvenir but the MC(Jaz) forgot and in the process saved me the embarrassment of looking shocked in front of roughly 500 people. A picture of the said plaque is shown below.

By the way they had planned it about 2 weeks ago and in celebration we later went out that night to Santai (a supposedly exclusivish restaurant with pretty decent food )
However what happened that was embarrassing was that in afternoon’s speech I was sitting in the audience and during Bro Shah’s speech I went to sleep and then he asked around where was the moderator and it was found that the moderator was asleep and lost in a world of dream a bunch of friends were trying to call me and SMS me while I was sleeping but to no avail – I suppose it was to do with the fact that I had only slept about 2 hours the night before as we were busy with preparations with the IFD. Anyhow I only woke up after all the action of looking for the moderator was finished and so was saved the embarrassment of the moment-however I have to say I didn’t find as embarrassing as I might have found it a couple of years ago-and for this All praise be to God.

Anyhow I remembered my previous birthday as in the evening I was sitting in my room in hostel when my late Dad(May God have mercy on his soul) called me up together with the rest of the family and wished me Happy Birthday-how was I to know that it would be my last birthday with him.

You don’t how your life can change in a matter of seconds so tell and show your loved ones how much you love them before it is too late!

2009-02-17T16:25:00.002+08:00

This is what I wrote yesterday(16th February 2009) :-

We are defined by the choices that we make and as I prefer to leave things to the last minute my last minute stuff is best described by what my Mum calls “Hubber-Dubber” I strongly believe in this statement as when I began the day today I had no idea that it would such a hectic day for me. Normally I do things at the last minute metaphorically speaking but today was an example of day when I did things at the last minute literally.

3.00am- Woke up and started work on processing the Final Year Project Pictures

6.00am- Went out of N’s room in Gombak to look for a Musolla nearby where they might be praying Fajr prayer went into the nearest Musolla but saw three bodies lying there and sleeping.Did not feel like waking them and went back to N’s room.

7.00am-Went to M’s room to borrow the key of his bike so that I could ride his bicycle to the graveyard to visit my late father’s(May Allah have mercy on his soul) grave. Now normally I would walk around the from the back of the Gombak campus where there was a small opening in the fence which would allow me to go over and visit and all of this was done in about 20-25minutes. However due to university’s strict policy and not allowing students to “escape” without them knowing when and where to i.e. they have repaired the fence I had to go the long way using M’s bike. By long way I meant over hills and more hills which resulted in my unfit self pushing the bike more often than riding it.

7.50am-came back but was late so friend M ended up missing his 8 o’clock class.

8.00am-Rushed back to N’s room as he had an 8 o’clock class and I had the key to his room.

8.05am-Left N’s room with my bags as my day was packed and I would have no time to go back to the room.

8.10am-Called and met Hr(brother of Hn-friend in Kuantan ) so that I could get Hn a suit from his brother to wear during the IFD.By the way I should mention here that Hr had a class at 8.30 am and I had to meet him before that-which alhamdullillah I managed to.

8.15am-Went to T bhai’s room for breakfast as I had promised him that I would visit him before I left KL-went there and told him about my day so far we had a laugh about it and then I dozed off only to awaken 2 hours later.

10.15am –Had the breakfast that was slotted for 2 hours before and then took another shower.

11.00am –Left the campus for some work to do in KL city

12.00pm –Finished my work and then took the monorail to Bukit Bintang to get Md’s(room-mate) hard-disk .

1.00pm –reached Kl Sentral station –prayed and then stopped at Subway to grab a quick bite and then started work on my Final Year Project picture processing again.

3.26pm[present time]- Finished the bulk of the picture editing and the lot –all praise be to God.

5.00pm-Have to leave for the Titiwangsa(aka Pekeliling) monorail station where at
6.30pm have to get my bus for going back to Kuantan inshAllah.

6.30pm-Bus leaves for Kuantan inshAllah.

9.30pm-Bus arrives and get to campus

10.30/11.00pm –Continue Final Year Project result processing and finish preliminary
round

12.30am-Go and get Y from Bus Terminal inshAllah.

1.00am-hopefully sleep inshAllah.

Now that is a long day!

2009-02-13T10:49:00.002+08:00

I am writing this post as I am sitting in my CADD(Computer Aided Drug Design) class after having an extremely bad quiz. Well I normally don't not pay attention(*cough*splutter*)in class but I have to say bio-informatics , homology modeling and the sorts really is not for me.

Well the IFD stuff is almost ready-came up with a trailer that really is not very good but hey in my defence it was my first and also a video for the latest ISCK gathering which I will probably be putting up on the new blog that will be hosting my video and other creative technologies work inshAllah under my productions company i.e.Dari-Wala Productions.

Any way soon inshAllah I'll be putting up the url for the dari-wala productions after i finish writing the speech for the deputy rector who will be officiating the IFD program inshAllah .

Well its back to the world of facebooking...I mean Cadd work.

2009-02-06T03:55:00.000+08:00

I wrote this a couple of days ago

It is 3am in the morning and I have to get up in the next 2 hours to start working on my business that my rommies and I came up with. We supply egg and mayo sandwiches to the Kulliyyah(faculty) for the students to eat in the morning. Note how I have italisized the word morning as it doesn’t(sadly so…) refer to my definition of the word which is any time after 12pm and before 3pm but rather to the cruel cruel world’s definition. Now anyone who knows me knows that I do most of my work at night i.e. I sleep until 12pm if I don’t have any classes in the “morning” or at times even when I do. Anyway due to the “Egg n Mayo” sandwiches I have been awake at about 6am for the last couple of weeks and I have to say this for it “Business is HARD WORK!”. I now thank God that I have no interest in pursuing my career as a businessman as then the few remaining strands of hair on my head would then disappear .

Oh well my lovely bed calls and how can I refuse its embrace!

2009-01-27T02:26:00.002+08:00

I am bored!

Now this is becoming sadly a habit-well for those who know me knowthat I become bored with something very fast! I guess that it has something to do with my exciting childhood where even going into the garden was an adventure.

I miss that -especially at the end of a day like yesterday where I spent 5 hours in the lab doing biopsy punctures on 16 mice-in which the only "action" part was when I had to wrestle with a few of the resistant mice who did not take too kindly to some one poking their belly area with a 32mm needle.

I have to say that sitting at 3am in the mornign doin an assignment I have no idea or interest in doing pretty much sums up how my last couple of days has been.

Oh well I have to say in spite of this bordeom I still have so much to thasnk God for -so Thank you Allah!

2009-01-11T18:14:00.000+08:00

Indeed there is a difference between us human beings and animals.

Yesterday as part of my ongoing experiment I had to put around 10-15 mice to sleep in the chloroform tube thingy that they have in my faculty. I was thinking at that point that the life of a mouse must be very boring and subservient. I mean imagine being bred just so that 6 weeks later a human can anesthesize you and make a hole on the back of your neck and for 2 weeks apply an extract twice a day as well as have to wrestle with the human- every 2 days- who is a hundred times bigger than you just so that the human can take a picture of the wound on your back.

Even if the human is pressing down on your neck all you can do is not move your neck as somehow the human would naturally expect the mouse to hold its neck nice and stiff and pose for the lens of the Canon 5.0 megapixel Powershot Camera after it is nearly being throttled to death. I mean that is the most natural reaction for a creature if it is being handled in such a that manner.

Oh yes!

Occasionally if the human is being really irritating or is not holding your tail the right way you may just get the satisfaction of sinking your teeth into a hand that is covered by a latex glove that would probably leave you with a rubbery taste in your mouth.

After all those weeks of posing for the camera and those dreams of sinking your teeth into the hand that holds you from your tail and swings you around to subdue you before a photo shoot you end up in a tank filled with choloroform in which you run around till you eventually go to sleep! Forever!
To all those people who think life isn’t worth living for or to all those people who say “Why didn’t God make me a bird or a rock” here is your answer.
And also the fact that being a bird or a rock is extremely boring – I mean seeing as how rocks sit around all day either growing moss on them or getting a sun-tan I don’t really see how one could or would want to be a rock or bird which has to migrate every time it gets too cold or too hot.
All praise be to Allah! I am a human being who lives , talks ,walks and interacts normally- by the mercy and will of Allah I am able to live an ordinary and normal life.

“Then which of the Favours of your Lord will ye deny”
Al-Quran, Surah (Chapter) Al-Rahman(The Most Gracious) Verse 13
(Note :this particular line/phrase is repeated in this chapter many times)

2009-01-04T21:20:00.000+08:00

READ THIS EVERYONE!

2009-01-04T19:15:00.001+08:00

I speak English as my mother tongue/first language. I literally dream in English and according to psychologists the language that one dreams in is their mother tongue. Now having said that I also have to confess that English is extremely deficient in many ways .For example mother’s brother in English is Uncle and Father’s brother in English is Uncle. However if one was to look at Urdu the language of my forefathers one notices a clear distinction in addressing ones uncles for example. Mother’s Brother is Mammu and Father’s Brother is Chacha. There is in Urdu a word for nearly everything hence defining each object or subject extremely carefully and clearly-however this is not present in English hence giving a lot of people especially the politicians the opportunity to say that “I was misquoted” or a more common one Nowadays “I was misinterpreted” . Not that I am laying the blame squarely on the language used because as we all know dodgy people will be dodgy irrespective of where they come from or what language they speak but definitely it provides them with loopholes for getting away with saying absolute nonsense and then blaming it on third parties.
Having said that one cannot deny that the media has a certain slant towards sensationalist coverage and after all that is what sells. However one does notice a certain bias towards the side that favours the rich and powerful for example the massacre of young,old, male ,female Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. This bias is apparent in the world’s media coverage of a certain “war” that is going on as I type this. Israel claims that it is targeting Hamas and that the civilians are being used as human shields by Hamas. Now while I don’t agree with a lot of Hamas’ policies I have to say that the justification for this attack on Gaza is flawed. It is flawed not because Israel is doing it but rather because the main purpose according to Israel is to wipe out Hamas. Now what they are doing is creating martyrs out of people based in the Hamas organization and hence creating a vision of people dying for the sake of Islam in Palestine. Hence eradicating the threat in the short term perhaps but creating more long term and hardcore supporters of Hamas whose only desire is to “wipe Israel off the map”.
Having said that all we can do is pray for our innocent brothers and sisters in Palestine who are being slaughtered day and night in continuous bombardments . To quote the words of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon “the use of excessive force must stop” and let me add here excessive and unnecessary force must stop today , now ,here and not tomorrow or the next day or the next week .The world has already seen so much blood shed in the last decade –and if we don’t stop it then tomorrow our children will question us and accuse us of being complicit in the dirty actions of a few. Let’s all start the new year with a resolution not to maim each other, not to kill one another and to live side by side in a society where each individual respects the rights of the other and does not impose draconian views upon the other and in a society which does not lead us to an apartheid state being formed in the 21st century. This is a message to all those governmental foreign policy makers who decide not only their countries future but at times also hold the lives of other citizens in their hands and on whose hands the blood of thousands of innocent civilians and bystanders lie if they choose to remain silent. For as we know remaining silent is the same as agreeing with the other party and by doing so being an accomplice in the crime!

An Update-

From an international reputed news agency's website

"The International Committee for the Red Cross said on Saturday its medical emergency team had been prevented for a second day from entering the territory.

The UN has warned that there were "critical gaps" in aid reaching Gaza, despite claims from Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, that there was no crisis and that aid was getting through.

At least 25 per cent of the Palestinians killed since Israel began its aerial assault nine days ago were civilians, the UN has estimated."

2008-12-31T18:08:00.002+08:00

I'm Back !

Back in Kuantan that is. I travelled roughly 6500km in 24 hours just to reach Kuantan,but after having journeyed so far and jumped straight back into my fyp i fell that it was worth it. Althrough honestly nothing can replace leaving my family behind fot Allah knows best whatever time period but anyway kuantan has become something like home for me.Never thought that I would say it but there u go-stranger things have been known to happen.

Another big thing is that I have edited and directed my first short film and here is the link on youtube so go ahead and watch it-comment either here or on youtube so that I can know where to iprove myself inshAllah.

A Ramadan Reminder

Anyway this is my last post for the year so Fiamanillah!

2008-12-21T20:46:00.000+08:00

I am a clumsy oaf! Now normally I wouldn’t degrade myself but I am not too happy with one of my more recent stunts. I was jumping up and down on my sister’s huge trampoline when trying to show my nephew and niece a special stunt a jumped and landed not to solidly on the trampoline and ended up twisting my ankle. Since then it has been an excruciating journey-and one that has had my 4 year old nephew threatening to poke my ankle if I did something not to his liking.
Now I have been threatened in the past but never bya 4 year old!
However that is not why I am upset –I think that it has to do with the journey that I will be taking inshAllah in a couple of days. Now as described in previous posts AirAsia is not an airline that believe in frills so walking up and down the airplane staircase with a twisted ankle that hurts every time I try to twist my knee is not the way , I imagined my return journey to KL to be.
That reminds me –I have to stock up on chocs and sweets and everything nice before I leave

2008-12-03T11:10:00.001+08:00

Okay here is the 101-I finished my exams, worked on my FYP for about 2 weeks and then grabbed a flight down under to visit my family. Now while this may all sound like too much too fast-actually it is –alhamdullillah I am with my family for the first time since my dad passed away i.e. we are together again for only the second time since my dad passed away.

An interesting thing that happened to me while on my way here was –well this was my first time taking Airasia-which by the way is a budget airline. And the funny thing was …you know how normally you have to use a tunnel sort of thingy to get from the airport terminal to the plane well they don’t have this is in Airasia apparently one has to walk to the plane and then board it like the olden days. Now the funny thing was that it was raining pretty heavily –the usual heavy downpour in Malaysia- and the only way we could get to the plane was by walking. So what they did was they provided us with nice, red colored Airasia umbrellas which we used to walk on the tarmac to the plane.

The result-my pants got wet until the knees level. In fact one of the guys next to me was muttering “this is what I paid,$600 for…”.
Let me add at this point I had ordered an International meal –and needless to say I was curious as to what it might be-so I waited eagerly curious and I guess it helped that my stomach was also growling. So when they finally came around to serving the meal and reached my seat I was impatient to say the least. “Sir, may I have your boarding pass to check for the pre-booked meal”..”Aahh…International meal”-Out came a Spritzer mineral water bottle, a kit kat and a very disappointingly tiny box that contained chicken and baked potatoes with some vegetables. A little bit of a letdown on that front!

Actually through I was extremely impressed by the service provided by Airasia-they were only 5-10 minutes late and their stewards and stewardesses were exceedingly polite. Plus it helps that they were much cheaper than any other airline. Well I have been pretty busy since I came here –meeting my nephews and niece- acclimatizing them to say “Haris Mammu” again and by the way I have to say that the weather here in spite of it being summer is pretty nice. I mean I wake up in the morning at times shivering with no fan on-that is better than Kuantan during the rainy season.

Alrite then! Till next time!.. G’day Mates!

Latest in Islamic arts

2008-11-23T23:55:00.002+08:00

Qatar opens THE Islamic arts Museum!

This beats the Al Bukhary Islamic Arts Museum flat!-and this was good museum.

Wish I could just hop on a plane and go there asap!

2008-11-23T22:56:00.005+08:00

I fell like I should do something more with my life!
I mean something meaningful!
Something that will make a difference!
Something that will be able to give me some benefit in this world and the hereafter!
Something that will give a thrill and money and is interesting!
Something that doesn't involve poking holes into mice or injecting rats with diabetes inducing drugs or spending hours in a lab at odd hours(i.e. 3am) or something that doesn't have to be only money related!

What am I asking for?

I'm asking for a miracle-that will allow me to do something that I will wake up in the morning excited to do and in the night make me happy,pleased and satisfied with my contribution to mankind and the ummah inshAllah(God willing)!

Who knows it just might come my way,knocking on the door and I just might open the door of destiny!-Ameen

Keep praying that inshAllah(God willing) I am guided to the best path!

and Yes I know it looks like I just discovered the BOLD button but know this each of those words has significance.
Each one of those words is a piece in the jigsaw puzzle of life!

Bwahahaha....

2008-11-20T19:26:00.000+08:00

I have to wonder…why is it that people always accuse other people of weaknesses they see in themselves. I once while working as a trainer for SLEU heard in a seminar a trainer say something that went like this “other people are like your mirror. What you see in them is at times what you see or don’t see in yourself!”. It’s true ,you know that saying that it takes one to recognize another-a drug addict or a smoker they know another drug addict or smoker when they see one. Sometimes it’s by looking at the way their eyeballs always have a lost stare in them or by the bluishness around their lips-but its there.

I guess that’s why many more people find it today harder to trust people. I mean in societies or in places where one grows up taught that the world is a cruel and hard place to survive in if that same individual were to move or shift to someplace where the world was a soft and kind world the person just would not accept that such a place or such a society really and actually does exist.

So there you go –for all those people out there who truly believe that one person can bring a change or believe that they themselves can make a difference then they will-God Willing. However if they choose to make the world a pplace of haters-an arena of war and hate then let them be prepared to live the short life that we all havesurrounded by deceit ,hate and manipulation.

The dream of Gandhi , Malcolm X , Martin Luther King all started with an individual who stood up and said that they want to make a difference-they want to be heard. Everyone told them its not possible but as a cousin of mine likes to say the very word impossible says I (a)m possible.

It was the dream of the Prophet Muhammad(may peace be upon him) that his ummah would remain united and steadfast and it was and will be God willing. The time when we stand up and say to each other that the only difference between me and you is our level of faith-which we also cannot determine as it is only God who determines that. When we stand up and follow the hadith the says “every believer should want for his brother ,what he wants for himself” and by follow I mean read, recite and most importantly practice. The problem with a few of the people that I have met is that they choose not to do the third step-they just read and recite – this is where I must also correct myself so please do remember me in your doas(prayers)

2008-11-16T22:06:00.003+08:00

Well in simple words I have absent from my usual dose of the internet for a very long time and after suffering (as a result of exam and the fyp) from withdrawal sympotoms and depression I have caved in.

I am back with a vengeance.

As I have some time on my hands I decided to put together a video based on a trip that I took for my fyp to get papaya which ended up in us going to genting highlands-ask not how it happened as we all still wonder about how it happened.

Nway here it is:-

The Monkey outside my Window

2008-10-19T01:15:00.002+08:00

As the title suggests I have recently encountered a member of the monkey species –not in the jungle –but outside my hostel room/cubicle window-which by the way is in the jungle. Or at least the is what I call it. Observe pictures(taken with my trusty,sturdy and highly sensitive to any hand movement Samsung S760 ) below-

Thank God its not my window he is peeking in!

That is the most exciting thing that has happened to me in the last couple of days…oh...and also the Annual Grand Dinner of Sciences Students in my uni –which besides the venue and the food isn’t really worth mentioning except for the fact that it was my first and is InshAllah my last AGD.

Apparently my FYP is going very slowly and not really at all as we have just found out that the 7 months of work that we put in will give us a very small quantity of results and hence we have to redo the whole thing again.

We are planning to go on a road trip all the way to Hulu Selangor (about 5 hours away-one way- from Kuantan) and bring back about a hundred papayas and start the re extraction on Thursday IA. Btw we will have to go and come back in satu hari(one day). Extremely tiring! As that means that for the next 48 hours after bringing the papayas we will have to clean with 70 % alcohol then peel,blend and mix with PBS/distilled water. Followed by incubate shaking them then centrifuging them followed by taking the supernatant and then use it for freeze drying.

So wish me all the best and will update next IA with information about the road trip.

On another note I have downed 5 days of Fast in Shawwal alhamdullillah and there is only 1 more day left.

Fi amanillah!

Also I have written an article(below) for the sciences magazine –erudition and here it is –fell free to comment on it –note : honest comments appreciated.

A common question that I am asked especially from my cousins when I travel back is “Hey what are you studying in Malaysia?’ On the reply that I am studying Bio Medical Science there is a collective sigh that goes around the room which is then replaced by the very common question “…and what is that in English ”and also the other common remark that I get is “…oh well, now that is a mouthful’. Well what is Biomedical Science –honestly the last time that I went back to India I had not much idea so I would cook up images of scientists working on a cure for cancer or better still a cure for a deadly diseases. Movies like The Legend or Resident Evil helped to get the message across.

Well now in my final year it’s much easier to grasp an understanding of what I might be able to offer the job market back home should I choose to pursue my studies in Biomedical Science or a related field. My country is unique as it is not only my motherland but also the motherland of a huge number of industries and also the motherland to one fourth of the world’s population. However before I digress , speaking of industries-India has enough to keep Industrial hygienists, Occupational Health personnel, Safety and Health officers and Pharmaceutical researchers –at this point I should mention that India is world famous for producing generic drugs, even some HIV treatment drugs which are then sold in countries like Thailand and Vietnam-busy and in demand for the next decade at least. Assuming that all the afore mentioned people don’t do their job properly then we have the environmental officers who then take charge. Speaking of the environment India has a lot of pollution so I would be making a valid assumption here saying that they probably would be in huge demand over there as well.

Ahh well at this point in time one just wants to finish and get on with life and see what one can offer the world-so to all those reading this please do remember me in your prayers and au revoir.

2008-09-29T06:46:00.003+08:00

Its that time of the year again...

Eid is less than 48hrs away and well this is going to be the first eid that i will spend away from my family in 20 years. So to say the least it will be different. Spent the last few days in the IIUM masjid at night and in the room during the day.

it is 650am right now and my eyes are rolling shut so off i go ...

2008-09-27T17:31:00.000+08:00

the article that ahsan is talking about is btw:-

http://www.new.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=32189467329&ref=mf

2008-09-24T16:08:00.004+08:00

The following views are slightly biased as they are based on my opinion and probably may not be understood in their complete context by those who are not familiar with my views.

The world's financial markets are in turmoil.The biggest insurance company in the world had collapsed i.e. AIG , a bank has gone bankrupt-and i thought that only happened to people and companies- and lost 700 million USD in the process and just day before yesterday a bunch of African students were attacked bear the central campus of my university in a series of racial insults and attacks that have been targeted at foreigners and foreign students living in Malaysia.

Not to forget that some members of the administration that are supposed to condone such sort of violence actually then say(as observed in the article above) -that the murderers tried to teach the africans good behaviour by attacking them with metal rods and knives. Well if that is the way to learn good behaviour then i'd run away from it rather than embrace knives and metal rods with open hands.

Racism is becoming a hge problem in todays world especially when we look at it from a globalized point of view and even more importantly a Muslim's point of view.

It is time we all stood up and said NO!

No to generalizing!
No to backbiting!
No to doing things behind people's backs!
No to racism!

FYP

2008-09-19T16:37:00.003+08:00

This fyp is driving me nuts at times.

When you are doing work it is very stressful and when you are not doing anything it is still stressful. Well our samples(50%) are missing,how i don't know we put them in the freezer room and the beakers apparently grew legs and hands and opened the freezer door and walked away to God alone knows where.

Just got a drilling from my supervisor and rightly so as my group and I have not done much except for plan and plan without the implementation. Well inshAllah after the Raya(Eid)break which will be over in inshAllah 2 weeks time is when I will be able to start with the biopsy puncture practice and the extraction inshAllah.

A biopsy puncture on a 4 week old mouse-

Also an update on the VDo that I was making I probably can't finish it this ramadan simply because some of my actors have gone missing for the Raya break and I also plan to go missing for the Raya break and hence we will probably release it for the next ramadan inshAllah.

Yaawn...its still 2 hours to iftar and i am feeling really stressed out.

2008-09-17T03:45:00.002+08:00

salam this is probably my only update in ramadan -

well life's pretty much the same except that Anwar Ibrahim is probably going to take over(according to him) by the end of this month as PM of Malaysia. Well wether he does or doesn't remains to be be seen

Btw I shud be releasing my first VDo from dariwala productions by the end of this week inshallah

well is time for sahur-so of i go to eat

2008-09-02T07:13:00.001+08:00

This was written yesterday btw

Today is the first day of the first Ramadan in my life in which my father will not be alive. This is not going to be an easy task ,to break my fast knowing that I have only one parent left. I think that as time goes on the wound will probably heal however the hole that has been left ,the seat at the table that will not be filled all these are irreplaceable.
Alhamdullillah this month is full of blessings. Today is the first day of Ramadan and I was already ionvited for Sahur/Sahri (early morning breakfast-before the cracka’ dawn) to a friends room who had cooked a delicious aloo aur chicken ka salann(potato and chicken curry) which we had together with bread and garama garam chai(steaming hot tea) and I am invited to an uncle’s(family friend) house for iftar(breaking of the fast-at sunset).
Righto as for the conference –well it was quite interesting but what was fascinating was seeing a hundred or so Muslim brothers and sisters from all over the globe sitting in one room discussing their problems (categorized into 3 main ones-1.) the whole Moral Sanctions issue-also more crudely known as boycott, 2.)The Missionary issue with Indonesia being a case study and thirdly highly fitting for it being a conclusive topic 3.)The political power of an individual with cases like Gandhi and Malcolm X being mentioned and not to forget an extremely fitting example Florence Nightingale-the founder of the nursing profession). It was a rare occasion and gives one hope for the future where people from such diverse backgrounds with such diverse views can actually sit down tighter in one room and try to solve with some suggestions a few of the issues that mainly involve us Muslims and is very close to our heart. I have to say that I feel very blessed with the opportunity to have attended such a conference which was made all the more meaningful simply because it was totally student run and student oriented. It really gives so much more to hope for especially in terms of unity, so much more than the generation just above us.

End of yesterday's blog

being absolutely random agian:a bird just chirped outside my window-it is 7am in the morning

2008-08-29T21:29:00.001+08:00

Life as we know it is extremely short. I was just remembering how my father(may Allah have mercy on his soul) was when we first walked into our rented house in BU. He was so happy that we had finally shifted into a house again after living for one and a half years in a condominium. All the space in the new house.Little did he know what would happen around 6 years later.The garden that he used to regularly buy flowers and plants for from Sungai Buloh on his way back from work . Not to forget the sole remaining papaya tree that was left of the many that we had planted(which later I think was struck by lightening or somehow also fell down at the ripe old age of 3yrs). Now the same door that he used to walk in with his two feet, the same door that he ushered many a guest in , was the same door that his body was lifted out off- on the shoulders of men.
Today after that fateful day was I think the first time that I was coming back- at the same time- on a Friday- from Kuantan so all the memories came flooding in again. The MaraLiner bus, the back seat,the bus stop, the whole jenazah process. Pretty much most of it came to my mind today.
Anyway tomorrow is inshallah the first student catered and organized conference from my university which I will be attending inshallah. So hopefully I can come back to the blog and say that 24 hours later I am much wiser and more knowledgeable about the issues affecting Muslims in today’s world.

2008-08-11T23:23:00.000+08:00

The weekend that passed was a hectic one. It was going to Gombak campus on Friday evening as the CFS-IIUM Debate League was over the weekend. As part of my requirements for this co circular course that I am taking going for the league was necessary. It was fun Alhamdulillah as it has unis from all over Malaysia and so managed to get quite a lot of exposure. Anyway the thing was that it was being held in the matriculation centre which was where my story of this university began. As it so happened during one of the breaks between the debates I decided to got to my old hostel room and take a look. So I climbed to the fourth floor-which may I add was higher than I remembered, perhaps the concrete stairs had grown in 3 years. The good thing was that I didn’t get lost and stopped right in front of UKC 1-422. So I stared at the door for a few seconds and was wondering whether I should go in or not. As I was staring at the door it hit me, the whole leaving business-I realized it was part of life. To move on-to remember the good times but look forward and build more good times was always necessary. Dwelling in the past never helped anyone, however learning from the past and then applying the knowledge that was harnessed from the past in the future was just as pr perhaps even more important now. To cut a long story short I decided not to go into the room and instead went on to the next debate round.

2008-07-31T23:40:00.000+08:00

Muslims have been called by different names all over the centuries. A collection of names which has been changd day by day according to the needs of the ruling powers. For example in the time of the Prophet(may peace be upon him) Muslims were known as Magicians or Sorcerers . Several hundreds of years later Muslims were called Mohammadeans-which while not a degratory term is not accurate as although Muslims do follow the teachings Of Muhammad (may peace be upon him) they do not worship him as do the Christians worship Jesus Christ.

In this day and age Muslims are known by the term of Terrorists or Jihadists. I personally believe that this terminology will also change with time. What Muslims will be called in the future really depends on the mood or the climate of the world. Today they are called terror mongers and killers simply because it is in the interest of a few to call them so. Whilst not denying that a few of them might in their ignorance be terror mongers and killers I would like then to present the argument that which society is perfect. Every society has a few bad apples and this is not a refection of society at large. Hence these “terrorists” and “killers” are likewise not a true reflection of Muslim Society at large.

Thankfully most of the people who have actually met Muslims in real life do not have the perception that the general mass media of the world is polluting that all Muslims are evil.

The talk nowadays is to build bridges all across communities and for that to happen there has to be a certain level of trust between communities and that level of trust cannot be present if one community continually labels he other with not to flattering terms.

By the way Gandhi has a quote “..be the change that you want to see in the world” . Based on this quote I think that its time that we all got to know out Muslims and Non-muslims colleagues/neighbors/friends/acquaintances more . More encompasses more than just knowing their names although that could be a start as well…

Good Luck in your “new orientations” people…

2008-07-29T00:05:00.002+08:00

Whenever we are undegoing a test from God then we generally tend to think especially if it is a tough test that no one has previously undergone such a hardship or such a test in the history of man or at least no one in our knowledge has undergone such a test.

Well...

That might be true to a certain extent but then I am reminded of a verse from the Holy Quran that says:

لا يُكَلِّفُ اللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلا وُسْعَهَا لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتْ وَعَلَيْهَا مَا اكْتَسَبَتْ رَبَّنَا لا تُؤَاخِذْنَا إِنْ نَسِينَا أَوْ أَخْطَأْنَا رَبَّنَا وَلا تَحْمِلْ عَلَيْنَا إِصْرًا كَمَا حَمَلْتَهُ عَلَى الَّذِينَ مِنْ قَبْلِنَا رَبَّنَا وَلا تُحَمِّلْنَا مَا لا طَاقَةَ لَنَا بِهِ وَاعْفُ عَنَّا وَاغْفِرْ لَنَا وَارْحَمْنَا أَنْتَ مَوْلانَا فَانْصُرْنَا عَلَى الْقَوْمِ الْكَافِرِينَ

On no soul doth Allah Place a burden greater than it can bear. It gets every good that it earns, and it suffers every ill that it earns. (Pray:) "Our Lord! Condemn us not if we forget or fall into error; our Lord! Lay not on us a burden Like that which Thou didst lay on those before us; Our Lord! Lay not on us a burden greater than we have strength to bear. Blot out our sins, and grant us forgiveness. Have mercy on us. Thou art our Protector; Help us against those who stand against faith."

And that pretty much sums it up.

I mean that we can go on and on about how much injustice there is the world and how people are not punished appropriately it is at that point that we must realise and remember that we will be rewarded and punished accordingly to our deeds in this world and as muslims we have to show patience and constancy at every turn in our life .

If we stop for a second and remember the tests on the men before us who were not even prophets ,people like Umar ibn Al Khattab ,people like Mawlana Mawdudi and the list goes on.

Just pray that we all remain steadfast on the straigth path inshAllah.(Ameen)

2008-07-28T00:23:00.003+08:00

Salam everyone...

It is 2:30 am and I am only at the Literature Review Part part of my FYP Proposal Presemtation and I've spent the most part of the last 3 hours working on it and so far have ended up with only 6 slides to show for it.

phew!

Wipes off "sweat" from brow in the air conditioned 20 degree RC.

This FYP thing is really exhaustiing not to mention the other weekend w my group mate and I spent 9 hours from 2pm-11pm in the lab just for one part of the methodology which is rotavapourisation.

Oh yes btw I am now the proud grandfather of around 70 small mice pups and awaiting at least 100 more pups.

It has been a crazy few weeks in terms of lab work which for the next month or so only promises to increase .

Alrighty then back to the Proposal Presentation.

3:30am -Searching Pubmed foranything related to the antioxidant properties of Zinc and frustratingly can't find anything yet.aargh!

btw am up to slide number 7 and on my literature review now alhamdullillah

4 :50 am- i am now on the methodlogy part which actually leaves me with (including this part) 2 more parts of the presentation to go. btw the coffee has done its work and so far all I have to worry about is my cold and the huge pile of tissues on my desk that might I add keeps growing.

5:05 am -restarted methodology after a couple of minutes break

5:23 am -Going back to hostel from kulliyyah

3 months ago...

2008-07-12T18:18:00.001+08:00

Yesterday it marked the first 3 months since my dad passed away and i decided to publish something that I wrote a little while back....

“The weight of the pen is heavier than the weight of a sword”

There is a lack of quality education in today’s society and nowadays there are many seminars,movies and speeches that individually address the lack of a proper education in our society today and I think that is what Islam brought i.e. when it was properly implemented. I mean the fundamental reason for most of the globe’s problems are not rooted in extremism or poverty but rather a lack of the right type of education. That is why I believe that God has put a special reward aside for those who are teachers.

People like my late father.

Just the other day I met a magistrate from Pakistan who turned out to be one of my father’s students. I have also met a Nigerian who was doing his PhD under him and a student from the Ivory Coast , not forgetting the thousands of Malaysian ,Nigerian and Indian students that learnt Evidence, Criminal Law ,Criminal Procedure Code and scores of other legal subjects as well as many life lessons from him. Police officers, Judges, Professors from all walks of life, Government Officials and literally people from all sorts of careers and from all walks of life sent their deepest condolences to my family when my father passed away. On the 11^th of July,2008 it will be 3 months , approximately 90 days since I last spoke to my father and that day still is as fresh in my memory as if it were happening now... for me that day at times can play like a movie ... in front of my eyes as if it were the present.

The call that I got at 2:10 pm from my mum saying that your father has fainted, the call from my brother who was overseas telling me to rush back home as soon as possible. The laptop bag that I grabbed while in the lab working on my FYP and the time later , sitting in the car on my way to the bus station ... telling my group mates that if everything would be okay then I would try and come back in the following days to finish up our Final Year Project which we had just started work on the day before, the last day that I saw my dad alive(10^th of April,2008)...the rushing to the bus terminal(I was there in 15 minutes max from the time that he fainted)...the buying of the bus ticket for the earliest available bus at 3pm for RM 20 which was a slightly raised rate. Being offered the driver’s seat initially as there was no space to sit for such a sudden booking and then moving to the backmost seat. Calling home at 2:40 pm and asking my mum what was happening and remembering that she said that they are trying everything pray Haris, pray and hearing her recite the prayer(doas) loudly on the phone and then calling my brother and asking him to book the earliest flight back home and then sitting on the bus with my heart pounding and praying that my dad would still be alive by the time I got home. Then calling at 3:00pm and asking my sister to pass the phone to Aunty N who was there and hearing from her that they didn’t want to tell me until I reached home but that it wasn’t good news.

Then the call from my brother in law and sister confirming it , followed by a long 3 hour bus ride in which I cried so much but all that the people around me were doing were trying to ignore me and the calls that I made and got-which had me telling people about it.

Those 3 hours were the shortest in my life and they whizzed past like they were a few long minutes. Then reaching the Gombak toll and being picked up by Uncle A I and initially being brought back home and then turning around to go straight to the mosque as the traffic was too heavy.

Receiving the calls from loads of people asking about where the Funeral Prayer(Jenazah) was going to be held and then reaching the mosque, meeting a friend of mine while doing wudu’(ablution) which was then followed by me praying my Asr and then going to meet another friend of mine ,E in the ISD office.

Then waiting for the Jenezah van to arrive and drinking a small bottle of Apple Juice simply because I knew that it was going to be a long night and I needed Sugar in my body and needed it fast as I hadn’t eaten lunch.

At around 6:45 the Jenezah van pulled up outside the mosque lower ground floor and then helping to carry a long white box which was all covered up, into the bathing room.Shaking all over at that time both at the coldness of the room and the fear of seeing my father for the first time since he passed away.

Then Uncle MAM and AQ who had come with the van from the house asked if I wanted to see my father’s face to which I replied in the affirmative.

Taking off the cover which was actually quite light and then seeing my father’s face for the first time after his passing away wrapped in a cotton blue chadder(cloth) and then breaking down initially only to be told by Uncle MAM that my prayers would benefit him more to which Ireplied and slightly rudely as well that I would pray as well. The half smile that was breaking on my father’s face at that time was what I noted and this was confirmed by a family friend ,who later told me that your father was smiling after he passed away , Inshallah this is a correct assumption by all those who saw it.

Covering the mayyit(dead body) with the long box-like cover to await the ritual washing and then having to meet all the lecturers and family friends who had gathered outside the mosque. This was followed by Maghrib prayers and then I met my mum and sister for the first time since it had happened.

It was a very tough moment which was brief as well as I had to go downstairs to aid in the washing of the body which was done by 3 main people ,myself and Uncle AK and another uncle. We were also assisted by the mosque assistants and then later the chief imam of the Mosque.

Then taking the body upstairs to the ante room which was located outside the prayer hall and then the Isha prayer which was a beautiful prayer lead by a Nigerian Imam with a sweet melodious voice Mashallah who later ended up leading the Jenezah prayer as well. Then the announcement by uncle AK in both BM and English- that so and so a lecturer of so and so a faculty has passed away and please pray the Jenezah prayer for the deceased after the Isha prayer (the announcement was made before the Isha prayer),however there was no need to ask anyone as I saw most(99%) of the 300 or so people in the congregation stayed behind to pray the Jenezah prayer.

Then taking the mayyit to the van where I then called my mother and sister to have a last look at my father before we took him to the graveyard. Also at that time an Uncle advised me to ask if he(my late father-May Allah(swt) have mercy on his soul) owed anyone money then to claim it from the family and if he had offended anyone to forgive him. At this point , may I add no one in the crowd replied in the affirmative to either of the afore mentioned questions.

Then going with M bhai and uncle MAM in the Jenezah van to the graveyard and then at the graveyard exiting the van which they had parked as close to the open grave as possible and since this was all happening at around 9-9:30pm they had put spotlights all around the grave so that we could see all around us.

Then getting into the grave initially with my rubber slippers that my friend AA had brought and then removing them and then joined in the grave by E and AA ,with AA at the top part of the grave, which was facing Makkah , and E towards the bottom part of the grave with myself in the centre and then placing our hands underneath my father’s body to lift him.

Lifting him and then slowly lowering him into the grave with our arms and placing him tilted towards his right side and then loosening and opening the strings that bound his body as well as opening the hood that covered his face. After that E and AA climbed out of the grave which was up to my shoulders and then we placed a wooden board tilted side ways to prevent the soil from falling directly on him and also leaving some space where he would have been questioned by the Angels as all of us will be.

At the very end filling up the gaps in between the board and the earth with pieces of hard clay which were wedged in between the sides of the grave and wooden board. This was then followed by using a hoe to pull earth back into the grave and stepping on the earth as it hardened and then climbing out of the grave as it got higher and then piling soil on top with a spade and making a bump which was sticking out of the ground to mark the grave.

We then proceeded to place 2 green plants at each corner of the grave and then sprinkled a few flowers on top and that was officially the end of my earthly life spent with my loving father.

On a side note-That is where we will end up ,in the ground whether we are prepared for it or not. How we live this short earthly part or our lives will determine how we will live the remainder of our lives ,whether we will end up in heaven or hell, eternal salvation or eternal punishment.

You decide!

2008-05-16T23:23:00.001+08:00

Salam

well i really should update am in the middle of training and also AUDC(Asian universities Debating Championships) and packing up the house and handling some of the outside paperwork.

Am reaching crashing point

Oh Well !

Good thing that after this week no debate for some time inshallah.

my head is pounding so gtg.

phew!

2008-04-19T20:01:00.002+08:00

Innahilahi ra ji 'oon(Indeed we belong to God and We return to him)

Last week on the 11th of April 2008/4th rabiulakhir 1429H on Friday at around 2:20 pm at home my father,my inspiration ,my boulder of strength passed away after having prayed Zuhr prayer and after having reciting the shahada(affirmation of faith) and By saying "Ya Allah!Ya Allah!"

I have not been able to bring myself to blog before this and even now it is hard but I will InshAllah continue my blogging and write more about the events of the last week in another blog

Until then,please remember my father and my family in your Doas

2008-04-09T10:16:00.001+08:00

Salaamz....

Well there has been a change of plans with regards to my practical training as I will now be starting it on the 28th and running into the first week of my semester in July.

Well am also working on preparing for an InterFaith Dialogue to be held in my campus inshAllah(God Willing) in September.

As well as trying to make a trailer for it and trying to write a script for a short video that am trying to make but the only problem is that I have no idea on what to make it on.

Oh well...

Its Over and a new begining awaits....

2008-04-07T11:26:00.002+08:00

Well folks!

The finally long awaited end of exams celebration(well,somewhat) is here. Althrough that celebration is short lived as I start my training God willing next week at HKL-one of the busiest hospitals in Malaysia - and I go back to Kuantan on Thursday to start work on my FYP and the rush back latest by Sunday to make it in time for training on Monday.

Phew!

Wipes sweat off brow!

Well its going to be a long three months.

I'm off now to visit the old campus,so c...ya...folks.

2008-03-30T01:02:00.005+08:00

"Time and Tide wait for no man"

We have all heard this or a saying similar to this.I have a confession to make -I am a ...PROCRASTINATOR. I have often been told this,but now I admit it.

Proof for this confession= I had 2 weeks to study for my Haematology and Oncology exam and I kept telling myself that i will study now and I used to study one slide and then start watching movies or if I was in the RC start researching for my political journalism interest and as can be seen it is totally not related to haematology and or oncology(SBM 3034).

And so now-there are less than 48 hours left to the exam and I am trying to study and by the way since I am talking of deviation from exams the other day ,a friend and I at 4 am decide that we shall go and have McD and try and observe the sunrise from the TC beach.So as we needed to rent a car it was only only economical that we take at least another person with us-so at 6 am we went to my friend,M's room.

When we woke M up , the first thing that he said was "are you guys crazy"

T was followed by "it's 6 o' clock in the morning!,How come you guys are awake?"-We had not slept the whole night as we been trying to study for the H n O exam-

To cut a long story short we went and ended up having 2 breakfasts and feeling very broke.

however alls not lost here are some great scenery pictures,that we took :---

Observe the red line-it was quite cloudy that day and so we could only try and see the sunrise.

A little earlier in the morning....

---------------------------------That's it folks-for now at least--------------------------------

2008-03-21T20:20:00.002+08:00

I was just surfing and read this interview with Dawud W. Ali on Islamonline.net and really liked this question and the accompanying answer-

Name	Heba - Egypt
Profession	English teacher
Question	Do u think that people in the west really want to understand the essence of true Islam or they just believe what they want to believe?
Answer	As Salamu Alaikuk Dear Heba, Thank you for posting. You know - your question is a tough one for me. I really honestly don't now what anybody really believes. People in the west - like people in the east - are products of their environments. Most people I meet upon my travels world-wide are kind hearted, peace seeking people who struggle day to day with wanting to know "the truth" and answers to life's questions. Most people in the west are pretty unaware of what the Qur'an really teaches, but then again why should they be when they see so many of us, and our leaders, who claim to "follow it" behaving the way they do sometimes? If we continue to think in terms of "religions" and what "groups" we belong to, we will never get out of global ignorance. Followers of the Qur'an and the teachings of The Prophets (upon whom be peace) who still persist on looking at "Islam" or "Christianity" or this "ism" or that "ism" as their "religion" will never help bridge barriers of misundersatnding in the mids of others who think with similar mind-sets. It will alwyas be about "Us & Them". We MUST begin to look at faith more organically and with less division. When somebody in the west asks me what my religion is I tell them the truth: I believe in God and follow the Qur'an. That sparks conversation and we usually find we have much in common spiritually....through natural fitra. If I were to say "I am A Muslim" because I feel it is my obligation and duty to mark my territory as a member of the "Muslim" (with capital "M" community) the conversation would have a totally different direction. Doors would close and we'd only get as far as it would take for me to debate news stories about Iraq or Afghanistan. In the end I feel faith is more about action and deeds done for the sake of the pleasure of God, not what I call myself or what community I belong to as my support network. Thank you so much for the food for thought... this is probably the question I will take home with me and ponder over my evening tea at home. Peace. dawud

I really like the part in Bold.

Random pix

2008-03-21T17:41:00.000+08:00

The cast(actors and choral speaking team) and crew of "Out there" a WacKOS productions play directed by an acclaimed director(HBA).The Videos should be coming up once I finish the editing.

2008-03-20T23:13:00.002+08:00

Life is filled with trials.How many times do we choose to sit down and joke and smile through it all.Nowadays my university is in examination mode and everyone is walking around like they are going to kill each other,snappy and even in presentations everyone is seriously serious.

Yesterday I had to do a presentation for my English for Occupational Purposes class and when in the parts of the video-that my group and I made for the class-that were funny you could see lecturer enjoying herself while everyone was just smiling and laughing quietly-I mean how does someone laugh quietly?-The answer can be found in my class

There is a hadith that says somewhat roughly that if you see something happening that is wrong then stop it with your hands and if you cannot do that then speak out against it and if u cannot do that then say to yourself that it it is bad in your heart and that is the weakest of faith.

Well!

I try and abide by that hadith but sometimes when you speak out against injustice it is the people who you care about taht are hurt and trust me nobody's supports the fallen.

So how?How do we ensure that we stand out against injustice and still maintain our freedom and integrity ?

Aargh!People(Some) suck!

Oh well life goes on.

An update on my novel -after having written the first two pages I have got writer's block and man I now have more respect for the good authors of the world.Writing fiction is harder than non-fiction-take it from an experienced one.

I end this post by this quote by Allama Iqbal

Destiny is the prison and the chain of the ignorant. Understand that destiny is like the water of the Nile: Water before the faithful, blood before the unbeliever. - Allama Iqbal

2008-03-14T17:00:00.002+08:00

All praise be to God!!!

I have finally got a place for training in HKL.
I found out yesterday just a little while before the farewell dinner for graduating International Students where I had to to give a speech which was supposed apparently make everyone cry but rather as in usual Haris fashion it made everyone laugh...
I also got Briyani "Drunk" , I mean it was good free food and I hadn't had Lunch so well i went all out and the result was that if I had to take an ABC test I probably wouldn't be able to pass it and if I had to walk on a straight line I would only be able to so it if i clutched my stomach and carefully maneuvered myself.

Btw here is my "sad" speech -it has a lot of grammatical errors so just ignore them and look for the essence which by the way might take a long time to find:-

To the President of Isck and his Committee members ,to the advisor of Isck preent here,to the respected guests and invitees of Isck to this farewell dinner today , I greet you with the Islamic greetings Peace and greetings of Allah (swt) be upon you.

A few days ago I was asked by some of the organising committee to come up and give a touching speech ,they said make them “cry”. Well while I cannot guarantee that I will make everyone cry I can say that I can at least try.

It is an honour to be with you today because as always in any institution it is an honour to address senior(makes them sound old ) members of any educational institution .Likewise it is an honour to address the leaving international members of this university from this campus.When you leave these halls and walls.The guards at the gate will not be the only people who will miss you but we,we the students left behind will also miss your good selves.We will remember that when we came here one year ago,most of us barely knew each other but today one year on most of us know each other much much better.We know about each others favourite haunts and favourite restaurants and unlike in Gombak where we might just know each others faces we also can put names to the faces. These once unfamiliar faces have now become brothers and sisters.

We are like a family ,we are going places but while doing that coupled together with the excitement of going out into the world there is also the feeling of longing, the feeling that we might miss this place not because of the building but rather because of the people that make up these building. These same people who have made our stay here memorable.

And like a family we cover up each other’s faults in front of everyone else and behind the curtains we bicker and fight amongst ourselves like any family would. We thank the seniors for the invaluable advice that they have imparted to us and we pray that 20-30 years down the lane we might all come back here and tell our children that brother so-and-so and sister so-and-so studied here with me and we used to go together to Taj and Alif to break our fast in Ramadan.

We hope and pray that all these memories will stay with us and our seniors as we travel down life’s journey.

We also pray that the seniors remember us and we them in our duas,

Thank You Very Much

Wassalaam

-------------------------------END OF SPEECH---------------------------------------------

Today leaves me with less than 2 weeks to my finals ...ahhhhhhh

2008-03-12T00:29:00.003+08:00

Well its been sometime since I last posted a post.

Aaahhh well that is life,I've so very very busy.Now I have started my Final Year Project and I have finals coming up in less than two weeks and after that I will start my practical training inshAllah although God alone knows where,seing as how I don't have a place yet.I also have been so caught with the whirlwing of events that has been Malaysia in the recent elections which was a shocker to say the least,in terms of how many seats the ruling coalition lost.

Life as they say is never easy,but they never tell you why you might end up at 12:30 am in the morning typing a blog post just before you start to study toxicology.

Oh and by the way I took a career test today and found out that I have all the characteristics that do NOT fit Biomedical science.

What a surprise!

It was really funny through because the lady who was doing the course looking at my score and the characteristics that fit and was asking me "umm...what exactly do you do in Bio medical science?", when I replied "a lot of lab work",not only did she look puzzled she looked very worried and told me "seeing as how your are a social person,you have to go and meet people at least 2 or 3 times a week ,otherwise you will be depressed!".

Hmmm...

Anyway here is my FYP schedule that I am very proud (astaghfirullah) of :-

Month(2008)	Week	Work to be done	Comments
MARCH	2	Check schedule and locate previous FYP students samples,as well as study their FYP
	3	Discuss with lab assistants and check availability of solutions and freezers and book lab for short semester
	4	Get papaya(ripe and green) from Temerloh farm. Start preparation of papaya(ripe and green) extract using PBS and water.	Papaya must be peeled the same day and extraction carried out at the same time. Storage can only be done at 4 deg. Cel. In an airtight bag >/ 24hrs. Or at -20 deg. Cel. >/ 1 month Conditions for storage must be the same for both ripe and green papaya.

APRIL	1	-
	2(Weekend)-12^th and 13^th	Start preparation of papaya(green) extract using PBS and water.
	3(Weekend)-19^th and 20^th	Finish preparation of papaya(green) extract using PBS and water.
	4(Weekend)-26^th and 27^th	Start preparation of papaya(ripe) extract using PBS and water.

MAY	1(Weekend)-3^rd and 4^th	1.)Finish preparation of papaya(ripe) extract using PBS and water 2.)Begin breeding of Gen 0 for mice-2 males and six females
	2(Weekend)-10^th and 11^th	1.)Check mice –food + water and clean cage
	3(Weekend)-17^th and 18^th	1.) Check mice –food + water and clean cage
	4(Weekend)-24^th and 25^th	1.)Check and separate new born mice and label as Gen 1A-discard males and keep females(approx. 5 in number per mouse) 2.)New born mice(female) should number around 30. 3.)check for any deficiencies and keep aside for 6 weeks 4.)Check mice –food + water and clean cage

JUNE	1(Weekend)-7^th and 8^th	1.)Check all solutions(PBS and water and both concentrations for Zinc-50+100) and start breeding mice for Gen 1B-Two(2) males and six(6) females. 2.)check(food and water) on Gen.1A and clean cages
	2(Weekend)-14^th and 15^th	1.)Check food and water for Gen. 1A and Gen. 1B (breeding).
	3(Weekend)-21^st and 22^nd	1.) Check food and water for Gen. 1A and Gen. 1B (breeding).
	4(Weekend)-28^th and 29^th	1.)Birth of mice of Gen. 1B- Female mice should number around 30,male mice discarded. 2.)Separate Gen 1B from parents and label 3.) Check mice –food + water and clean cage	=>Check Camera and ruler =>Check wound inflicter

JULY	1(Weekend)-5^th and 6^th and whole week.	1.) Check mice –food + water and clean cage	=>Check Camera and ruler Both must be used for measurement , camera must be used to take pictures from a fixed height for all pictures =>total of 14 mice-for PBS with Zn50(7 for each green and Ripe papaya) =>total of 14 mice for PBS with Zn100 (7 for each green and Ripe papaya)
	2	1.)14^th-Start wound(6mm) infliction on Gen. 1A- and apply chemical-PBS(ripe and green) with Zn50 2.) 15^th - Start wound (6mm) infliction on Gen. 1A- and apply chemical-PBS with Zn100 –ripe and green papaya. 2.)Check PBS(ripe and green) Zn50 on the 16^th ,18^th,20^th 3.) Check PBS Zn100 (ripe and green papaya extract) on the 17^th ,19^th,21^st ^3.)Check mice –food + water and clean cage	Use camera and ruler
	3+4	1.) Check PBS Zn50 (ripe and green papaya extract) on the 22^nd ,24^th ,26^th,28^th ^2.)Check PBS Zn100 (ripe and green papaya extract) on the 23^rd ,25^th ,27^th,29^th 3.)Dispose of males 4.) Check mice –food + water and clean cage	Use camera and ruler Use camera and ruler


AUGUST	1
	2	1.)Gen 1B matures i.e. is between 6-8 weeks old. 2.)Make wound in Gen. 1B mice 3.)Apply Water Zn50 (ripe and green papaya extract) on the wound , start and check on the 4^th ,6^th, 8^th and 10^th . 4.)Apply Water Zn100 (ripe and green papaya extract) on the wound, Start and check on the 5^th,7^th ,9^th	14 mice needed 14 mice needed
	3	1.)Check Water Zn50 (ripe and green papaya extract) on the 12^th,14^th and 16^th 2.)Check Water Zn100 (ripe and green papaya extract) on the 11^th ,13^th ,15^th and 17^th .	Use camera and ruler
	4

SEPTEMBER	1
	2	1.) Do SDS Phage(Between PBS ripe and green) 2.) Do SDS Phage(Between PBS ripe and green)
	3	1.)Do SDS Phage(Between Water ripe and green) 2.)Do SDS Phage(Between Water ripe and green)
	4

OCTOBER	1	Start writing thesis+ paper
	2	Continue writing thesis+ paper
	3	Continue writing thesis+ paper
	4	Finish writing thesis+ paper

NOVEMBER	1
	2
	3
	4

DECEMBER	1
	2
	3
	4
Months(2009)
JANUARY	1
	2
	3
	4

FEBRUARY	1
	2
	3
	4

MARCH	1
	2

Anyway it appears that the Mechanisms of toxicity chapter is calling to me...

2008-02-27T00:49:00.002+08:00

This day 20 years ago,a screaming baby was pulled out of his mother's womb.The doctor turned him upside down smacked him real hard-this by the way got him crying like crazy-and asked his parents "what is the young fellow's name?".The parents replied"Haris"

Yes Folks! Today is my tweintieth birthday and I feel sleepy and tired and maxed out with all the assignments that I have to do,the quizes that I have study for and of course the FYP that I have started. Darn It!

It sure don't feel like a birthday...

Coming back to the FYP , I have decided to take it under the supervision of Dr. T. and the title is "Addition of Zn to papaya extract in wound healing".

If that doesn't sound scary then try this,I got the title today and have already started work.It looks like a long year ahead of me which proppably means less blogging and more working.
Hmm...

change the subject....

I remeber the last years birthday,I had forgotton it and was in the GPCL at 12 am when my phone rang and I checked it .It was a reminder taht i had set in case I forgot my birthday-which i did had it nor been for the alarm...-

Oh well! Let's celebrate...time to go and work on that EOP presentation due tomorrow.

God Bless!!!

2008-02-26T02:01:00.002+08:00

It is right now 2am in the morning and I am sitting in the resource centre just finished doing some research for my final year project and am gearing up to do my toxicology assignment....

Which by the way I still haven't finished after working on it after many a day.

yaawwn....listening to old cat stevens songs and researching about the wound healing capacities of Zinc and papaya extract and hoping and praying that I will pick both the right concentration as well as the right supervisor for the Final Year Project .

Sheesh!Nobody said that university was so tough!Today tried out for the AUDC(Asian University Debating Championships) selection-first round today and the second round is on Thursday so let's wait and see.

My book/novel is well flowing at least in terms of forming the plot and i still do not have aplace for practical training but am hopeful for Hospital Kuala Lumpur(HKL) because if Ido not get it there then I am in a HUGE mess!

Oh well back to the "disposition of toxicants and their distribution in the body" for me

HBA out!

2008-02-23T22:58:00.003+08:00

Alhamdulillah....

This is a post of satisfaction of a job well done...

I am of course referring to the first ever wacKOS program-managed by me and being a play which i directed and acted in.Of course the whole team at wackos put in their best and definately it wouldn't have been the roaring sucess-suprisingly-that it was without thier effort and of course the help of God.

The video shoould be coming up soon and inshallah I will be posting it on my blog .Well I found out what thing ,I might have a career in directing but acting ,umm...hmm...remembers that he forgot one whole page of the script during the play-,well we will just have to see about the acting part.

On news from the IT front ,my blog is undergoing a major restucturing thanks to me good buddy,S.A.A. aka A.A.Hopefully with his editorial advice and IT skills ,my blog will look a bit more technologically advanced and more colourful...

so long then...

adios amigos

2008-02-19T16:27:00.002+08:00

Today however there is something exciting going on..today is the day of the WacKOS play inshAllah in which I am both acting and directing.I hope that it is a success as it is the first WacKOS open programme and I am responsible for it..Nway we'll jst have to see...

Wrote this a couple of days ago at about 2am in the morning:-

Just finished watching the movie “The Kingdom”. It was amaaaazzing ...especially in the sense that it showed to some degree and extent both sides of the story. It is no wonder that it is the only one of the many war movies made and released recently that have made it to the top. What was interesting ,was that how it showed that once initiated the cycle of violence continues, there is no stop .Well that is until someone with enough guts comes along , so much so that he might even be accused of being a traitor to the religion or the country if he so much as voices out his abhorrence to the violence or injustice being committed. All this religious violence is caused by some “false sheikhs” who claim that they are the only people following the true path and in doing so loose their way and stray from the true teachings of Islam(in this case) or the original teachings of their religion or sect.

The idea that someone can call(this by the way does not refer to the movie) a fellow muslim brother who says the shahada daily , just because he disagrees with him on some religious teachings an infidel is absolutely abhorrent. I suppose it makes killing them and insulting them much easier. This is also what Tun Dr Mahatir Mohammad ,the former prime minister of Malaysia said in his speech at our university’s main campus on Saturday in a speech that I had the pleasure of attending. He mentioned and brought up some interesting points and when asked in a question about the role of the OIC and IDB in the development of the ummah, he replied in not so many words that the OIC was not standing up to what it was created for and that a decision at present in the OIC can only be made if it is consensus-and not majority. I guess that is why the OIC is ridiculed in most Muslim countries because all they do is have seminars and talks and more talks-no decisions are made because a unanimous consensus has to be reached, which as we all know in spite of how we talk about brotherhood and all of that can never be reached on a whole range of issues. So i guess either the OIC reshuffles and rethinks its policies or it will become another one of the many Muslim projects that never came to any use in spite of the big hype. As for the IDB he said that in his capacity as an advisor he advised them to try and reduce their usage of the US Dollar.

Will it happen?

Not in the near future in my opinion because the way the Americans play politics and give and take is spectacular-at least if you are not involved in it. Oh wait! But then we all are ...because as soon as America snaps its fingers, we shake our heads in agreement. I have nothing against Americans, most of them are very nice people ,it is just their foreign policy that irks me .It is so one sided-but that is a discussion for another day.

Oh well..have class tomorrow morning and so gotta sleep....zzzzzzzzzzz............

2008-02-01T15:33:00.001+08:00

Alhamdulillah ...although I have had a last couple of rough days I have finally found what I want to do inshAllah. Its been a rough ride and me with me in my 3^rd year of Biomedical Science with approximately an year left inshAllah and mashAllah. Well here goes...

Suspense music builds up...drums roll!!!

I am going to be writer/author/longer shot but maybe a journalist. Now I know that people will say well you’re doing it right now and I couldn’t agree more but not professionally, not yet anyway. It might take me a year ,10 or 15 years but that is what I want to be and that is what I am going to be InshAllah.

Now that we are done with the segment broadcast on breaking news , on other news we have for tonight’s post - is that I have just finished a toxicology mid term which was quite easy by God’s Grace .Now for the hard one-haematology mid term on Monday(the 4rth of February).All about blood and blood cells and all the factors involved in blood clotting and all the talk is “bloody”.

Well at the time of the composition of this post it is 5 am in the morning and about one hour till fajr so I have got to keep going till 6 otherwise I am going to miss my fajr which I do not want to do.

So am going to get started on a book an idea which I have had in my mind for sometime but today while staring angrily and happily(coz I finished the course)at my pathology text book it came to me , plus I have to finish this short story that I got started on.

Which of course I will be posting up once I am finished with it, hopefully people keep up the prayers.

2008-02-01T15:20:00.001+08:00

Here is a short story that I wrote at random............while bored

The End

God is great! God is great! The call of the muezzin broke through his bedroom window and awoke him from his slumber. He turned his side , reluctant to get up, when it hit him. Today was it! Today was the end! He had been waiting for this day for the last 4 years. He jumped out of his bed ,it was more like his heart jumped out of the bed , he staggered drowsily out of bed.He picked up his towel and left his room and walked groggily to the bathroom. He got into the showering cubicle and turned the tap on. Out poured liquid ice! Well at least it certainly felt like it.After rushing back to his cubicle ,while shivering, all he could think about was that this was the last day! Last Day...almost sounded like the lyrics of a really sad song, but he was happy right?

The thought bugged him as he dressed in his best for the long day ahead. After a recitation of the morning prayers with some additional reciting from the Holy Quran he felt he was ready for the exam that he had to face today. The test that would probably determine his future ,his life, his destiny ,his legacy .He shut his eyes and recited some prayers to calm himself . After his heart had stopped pounding and started beating more like ...well a normal heart, he pulled on his boots and walked out of his room. Down the four flights of stairs he went the same flight that he had been going up and down on for the last four years, the last 48 months ,it was the last time that he would go down them as the occupant of that room.

The sun was shining brightly ,the birds were chirping, it was as if the day was celebrating with him as well, yet he felt something ,was it a pang of regret or was he still sleepy. He couldn’t be feeling regret ,not today ,not just when he was about to leave this place. He was losing his grip! He shrugged off all these thoughts as he entered his faculty for the last time as an undergraduate student.He looked around at all the younger and new students ,still gawking at the architecture ,still talking about how the teachers in school were much better. He passed all of this ,that was when he saw the door. The door that was his door to freedom!

He waved as he saw all his classmates clustered around it and then the invigilator ushered them in.

It was the exam for dangerology-the hardest subject in the whole Bachelors of Thrills and Danger (BTD) programme. Well ..it would have been a harder exam he thought but thanks to Professor Kind Heart’s hints that were conveniently dropped in his last class of the semester it was a breeze-well at least for everyone else but as he had overslept and how everyone else had “conveniently forgotten” to tell him about them it wasn’t easy. After leaving the exam hall half an hour after everyone else he stopped to have a word with the Professor to try and impress on him the importance of how a good grade would definitely have a good impact on his CGPA and also how when the Professor was a student “I am sure that he also studied, buttt ...”.

Well that was it then! The last paper, the last walk out of the Faculty as an Undergraduate student, the last cup of coffee drunk to stay awake for an undergraduate programme. Speaking of coffee,he had drunk so much of it that now he couldn’t tell the difference between normal and decaf,brown or black coffee,sweet or bitter coffee, after four years it was all just a liquid drunk to keep one awake and stop one from dozing off.

He rushed up to his room after the short but hopefully productive talk with Professor Kind , picked up his already packed up bags and rushed down to the car park.He got into a rusty,old and cracked Volkswagen classic ,and let me stress on the word classic where all his friends had already packed their bags and left them in the car the night before.

Then with the windows rolled down ,the air blowing in their faces and the wind whispering in their ears they started moving towards the gate. The gate that was their gate to freedom. As they were leaving he thought of the all the times that he had in “The Shoe” .All the administrative people he had argued with, cursed at and who believed were both lazy and selfish. The bad food(if you could call it that)Yet he thought that he had had some good times as well ,the people he met ,the little bit of knowledge that he had gained in his four years here ,the stuff in the labs that he had played with and some of whom had been destroyed by his friends and him and the tough time they gave the security guards coming back 5 minutes after curfew time and cooking up some really corny stories about being lost or “the car broke down-for the umpteenth time”.

The experiences he had here would probably define him for many years to come and had probably shaped his character in a good way or a bad one. Well time would prove all of that,whether he had warped into someone good or bad.

The gate loomed up and with a final rev up of the engine and a wave to the guards they were out and away.

The world welcomed them back in by a wonderful sunset that outlined their car in shades of orange and red.

..................................................................................................................................................................

Today and Yesterday

2008-01-27T01:36:00.000+08:00

The world today is perceived as being round. Millennia ago that would have been considered a ridiculous notion. Life changes and people change but what is constant and what remains behind even after people leave the world is what they do. Their deeds, their history ,their work irrespective of what line it was. However people only remember those that were unique, those who when the world cried “turn left” ,”turned right” not because it was the “in” thing to do or because they were defiant of authority but rather because it was in their minds the correct thing to do.I saw this written in a movie once ,I think it was 10 Things I hate About You “What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right”.

We have many instances in today’s world where people are scared to speak the truth,I was having a discussion with one of my lecturers and I said that sometimes we have to keep quiet because of fear hurting those closest to us and she replied that it is because we care about those closest to us that we speak out and try to change the world around us. Both viewpoints are true however after “meditation ” I would say that the former is true but in the short term only and the latter is more effective in the long term.

Malcolm X once said that it takes a person to die before people recognise his/her worth. That is very true especially in today’s world we wait until someone says something before we actually say what we think. When we hear wolf we also cry “wolf” yet we do so even when we do not see the wolf but only so that we can please those who cried “wolf”. We do not give someone credit for what he/she has done until they are dead or are no longer there. The lyrics from counting crows song “you don’t know what you have till it’s gone” then rings very true in our ears.

At the end of the day what we leave behind ,the truth we stood up for ,the justice we fought for ,the people we stood shoulder to shoulder with when doing our daily routines ,it is this and these people that we will be remembered by. NOT! by how much we earned and what we spent it on.thw world they say is a nasty place, true yet at the end of the day I think we build our world around us and we build the walls that either isolate us from the people that we care about or that welcome them in. Perhaps we should all stop being followers and start leading by example ,perhaps we should all stop nudging that brother in front to lead the prayer and instead walk up and take the lead. Perhaps we should all start living our lives the way we want to and not the way society demands of us, although one should keep in mind that going “wild ” is not what I have in mind but rather we should all awake from our slumber and rise to the occasion and start to ask “Why”. Why is this like this and can i make it better and can I make a difference in the lives of people besides my own. That is when we can be considered as individuals who did more than just eat, sleep ,procreate and die. That is how societies are made and that is how socities will continue to flourish.

Tests....

2008-01-11T15:34:00.000+08:00

Life is a test and we believe as Muslims that we are all tested according to the level of our faith. Yes! it is hard, very hard sometimes to be patient with what God test us with but we must persevere because without out faith we have nothing. All we would end up with is a sense of the bitterness of life and frustration at it . The general idea in our religion is that the higher and stronger our faith at that moment in time the stronger and more intense is the test with which we are tested with. A very close friend of mine was recently both physically and verbally assaulted in an attack that we believe was racially motivated , on consultation with the relevant authorities they made this friend of mine the preparator and the original perpetrator was made the victim. Life Sucks! However on the Day of Resurrection my friend will stand and bear witness to God and then, by the grace of God the original preparator and the people who stood beside and behind him will be brought for questioning in front of God.

I typed all of this while drinking my instant Vono soup of cheese and mushroom which turned out to be the appetizer for my nasi last night.

Slurp!slurp!

On another note the auditions for the first WacKOS productions play will be held from next Monday until Wednesday. Seeing as how I am the director ,myself and a friend of mine (the casting director) will be overseeing the “acting” skills of some fateful students from my Faculty.

Rubs Hands with Glee!!!

GTG as my bus to KL leaves in less than half an hour

Masalaama

2008-01-06T00:37:00.000+08:00

This story absolutely broke my heart

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F22B4D85-59F6-4778-8E9F-C15E7F1CDB40.htm

On a happier note alhamduliillah got my first laptop delivered on wednesday and came from kuantan to pick it up from home.Its pretty satisfying althrough it took a looooong 2 weeks to arrive from Dell.

Plus, again all praise be to God i got my first article published in The Star newpapaer in the uni student section and will be putting up a scanned version soon hopefully inshAllah./

Annnnd...WacKOS won the RM6 K and the faculty approved our RM 30K budget.All by God's grace and will be pretty busy in the next couple of weeks with the first wacKOS open event i.e . to all the students in our campus.Yours truly is the director of the the first play to be held in the Kuantan campus of my university.So we have a script writing team and a casting director and all the cool stuff involved with a play .

However i also have to do my haematolgy and toxicology assignments and go to sleep to do so i've got to diaapparate for now...

Salaamzzz...............

2007-12-06T00:55:00.001+08:00

I know that I have to get down and finish writing out my travelogues (look at previous posts) but I'm too lazy.So I thought that I would put up a couple of pictures instead ...after all you know the saying a picture speaks a 1000 words......

So these are pixs from where my uncles,aunties and the rest of the familial gang went to for a 2 day picnic.....

View Nature at its most scenic....

Absolutely breathtaking…………..

The Tea Gardens of Ramghar

The view from one of the many strolls that I went out on...

The year the guest house that we lived in was built...Ancient huh!

this is my name in Hindi

2007-12-02T17:22:00.001+08:00

हरिस

(cool huh..)

Last OLd Blog post(no. 7)

2007-12-02T17:21:00.001+08:00

Sunday, December 2, 2007

A change in Address

Asslamaualikum...

I have made a blog changing discovery...
Yes i have discovered my blog that I made FIVE(5) byears agoooooo!!!
I have also(after many sleepless nights) decided to shift to it...

I will also be transporting my posts to it and then will start a fresh
P' haps from 2mrw seeing as how the new sem starts 2mrw
so InshAllah(GOD Willing) am going...you may access it at
www.haris.blogspot.com

OLD Blog PosT 6

2007-12-02T17:20:00.002+08:00

Monday, November 12, 2007

Technology and Me

I am NOT a technology person.....
and I admit it,in this world of It and sphistacation,Ipods and nano Ipods,PDAs and whatever you name it.....
I suck and badly so in using technology,this was proven to me just a few minutes ago when while toggling with my blogger screen i accidentally changed the language selection to ukranian and I had absolutely no idea what to click on next...Ukranian isn't everybody's thing.I then changed from Ukranian to another language that began with an E and had some scribble designs in front of it and I thought "Oh!there it is!the English selecton".I was very wrong ..I was even more lost now..Thankfully my eyes then caught sight of the A scribbly designs dash English option and I clicked on it and by the mercy of God it changed back to English just in time for me to write this blog.

This reminds me,just yesterday I went the Mcdonald's drive thru near my house .So there I am in the van-ish car that we have and I am looking at the order board thingy(...you know what I mean) and wondering what to pick.Ater having decided on an order after around 3 minutes was the time to order.
Now normally there is this window next to it(the board) with a head jutting out of in a yellow cap asking for your order,instead there was this box -ish thing with what looked like speakers and it said order here.I thought to myself"here,nah the order person is probably ahead at the next corner and I started to move the car.That's when I hear a Voice saying(from somewhere) "Sir!,Sir!".
I stopped the car ...looked around nobody,,Thought to myself "I need sugar in the body and I need it quick-I'm hearing things now", moved the car a couple of more inches ,that's when the yelling became more like this "SIR! OVER HERE! SIR!"
I then realized that I had to order via the box.
anyway needless to say... i had a decent enough dinner.

Me and technology...buddies -not yet!.

OlD BlOg PoSt 5

2007-12-02T17:20:00.001+08:00

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Here I am ...

Back In Kuantan

after a one week hias..... althrough to be more accurate i was back a couple of days ago after my long awaited and anticipated mid Break(smiles) hoever now i am back in what is known as kuantanamo!-at least among my friens and I althorugh i think most of the lecturers would call it that as well(smile fades away real quick)

Nway..its nt as bad as last sem i mean we now have a waffles stall which is addictive and expensive..funny huh... how those two words can't be seperated from each other in a sentence.

So how was my break..besides the great home food and all those koftaes and platefuls of properly cooked rice....

Well it was constructive..which is a suprise as most of my braks are just filled with food and sleep this one was different as i attended this two day conference entitled "Muslim Women in the midst of change " and was attended by speakers like Dr. Heba Raouf and Waleed Aly and his wife Susan Carland who both btw host salam cafe , the link to which can be found on my blog.This was also the first time that i tasted chinese food proper-we had an 8 course dinner,which had a menu like shark Fin soup and chicken dumplings-that is what i call really Scrumptulitious.I have to learn how to use chopsticks as i was using my fork n spoon which well doesn't look half as cool as a pair of chopsticks....pity there are so few Halal chinese food restaurents around.... even in a Muslim country known for its food, I mean with that type of food you could really sell.

Well it was refreshing to hear these speakers as they... well... in directly focused onhow we should nt be judgmental and should approach people and things with an open mind...

Nway met a lot of interesting people in the conference and inshAllah will be working on a project that Susan has actually done in Melbourne called grassroots Once i manage to get the cd inshAllah.

AND the other Big thing that happened besides the conference was that WE WON!!!!

YIPPE YAY YAY YOOO!!!

What did we win?
Who is WE?

Well its like this , a couple of peple and I are working on this project to turn an unused HUGE part of our Kulliyyah(Faculty) Known as and hereby refered to as the RC-Resource Centre into a Students centre and a cafe complete with coffee and a plasma TV inshAllah and magazines ..you get the picture..

So we entered into this Maxis Challenge for young entrepeneurs , something cq maxis anyway so we won the first round which involves us getting RM 1000 and after 3 months we have to show progress with the 1000 then hopefully if the good people at Maxis like what they see then they will give us(and four others) another 6000 and then if we and hopefully inshAllah get into the Final out of the five we get 10,000. Cool huh!

and a lot of hard work...

Well i have a busy week coming up ..
Pathology mid term on Tuesday inshAllah. Biostatistics mid term on Thursday(which btw is the first day of Ramadan-the muslim holy fasting month) and Immunology(the dangeroulogy subject) on Monday..

So people i gtg n study so till next time
Have some Serious fun!(our logo for WacKOS-the website which btw is ----http://cqwackos.wordpress.com/--Do Visit

Wasallaam

OLD BLOG POst 4

2007-12-02T17:19:00.001+08:00

Monday, August 20, 2007

back in kuantan!

Salaamz

been some time since i blogged
I actually planned to finish my travelogues before i would continue but well i have been unable to type out all my notes but fear not am working on it and inshallah within a m onth shopuld come with the final travelogue series season 1.

Well todaythis sem has been craazzy
came back one week later and it was like the world had passed me by....
Came back n tried to catch up with studies n juggled programmes and their setting up of taskforces and organizing with my commitee who i 'ave to say were very cooperative alhamdulillah, at the same time.

The International students commitee of Kuantan campus of IIUM has finished two programmes this sem:-
1.Trip to cherating for international students
2.OPEN DAY STALL WHERE YOURS TRULY COOKED!!!
Well i did help in making the chicken kurma,koftae,chapati(warming teh pre bought ones that is),gulab jamun and i even found out what a shahi tukra is oh! n btw we did not make profit which really sucked as i had already planned what to do with my rm 70 profit and that is why one should never count one's chickens before they are soLD ....oh sorry its supposed to be hatched.Money is a very addictive and seductive tool.Nauzubillah min too much of it that i forget the akhirah...

Tet!Tet!Tet!
my ph alram just rang reminding me that it is time for me to go and get back to my little tiny cubicle made out of wood and bricks in my room and filled with metal furniture and try and study for my pharamacology mid term which is next wekk.AAARGHHH!!!!!

Just finished a tele conference with the president of our uni a short while ago .He was speaking to all the president's of all the societies and clubs in our uni.Well he had some interesting stuff to say which( i have always wanted to say this) due to presidential confidentiality i cannot listdown here but let me just say it was quite interesting and to some extent eye brow raising.

Nway i am off to the non cyberish world again....Pray for me

salaamz

o yeah n btw i lecturer told me that she thought i might have been interested in writing based on i assume.... my mictrobiology essays and assignments which i take as a compliment as i know very little about microbiology itself....

N yes for the family member who was asking yes i have finally updated my blog alhamdullillah at 1 am in the morning.

Old Blog post 3

2007-12-02T17:18:00.001+08:00

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Travelougue part 2:The Saudi Days

Taasbih's and jewellery every thing is availale in these small side stalls

The Hilton Hotel just outside the Haram

8th June 2007

We left New Delhi in an Air India plane to Saudi.Now instead of leaving directly to Jeddah as it was supposed to "our good friends" in Air India decided to stop in Lucknow which they were supposed to have done earlier and left us to sweat in the plane for just about an hour and a half.Very caring and kind of them if i may add..

As we were landing in Jeddah the landing was "bumpier" than usual and our captain announced that due to a technical error it would take about 5-10 minutes longer. Fast forward 1 hour and we were still in about the same situation then we heard some machines and saw what appeared to be some tow trucks and then our plane was literally dragged across the tarmac to the place where it was supposed to be. We were later to discover that it had been an emergency landing and that our plane had been experiencing some problems with its landing gear...hmmm...Alhamdullillah-All Praise be to God we survived.

When we entered the airport and stood in the passport/immigration line a very pleasent thing happened.We were standing at the back of the line and then suddenly one of the immigration officers pointed at my mother and said"Ya Ummi-which in arabic means O my Mother" and asked her and then us together as a family to go to the front of the line leaving everybody behind us and those in front of us ... wishing that they has brought their families as well.

Once we cleared the immigration and got our baggage we were greeted at the airport by 2 of my uncles and they then dropped us of at one of my uncle's house.Sounds confusing don't worry its meant to be!

Prayed my Maghrib at the King Saud mosque which is a beautiful mosque and is named after the founder of Saudi Arabia.

9th June 2007

Today went for my first Umrah(well first.. excluding the one that i did when i was three). Men when they do the Umrah or the Hajj have to do it wearing an ihram which is basically twowhite pieces of cloth which are drapped around one's body and we are not allowed to wear any cloth that is woven.

We started out from Jeddah to Makkah wearing our ihrams. The Journey itself from Jeddah to Makkah is about an hour however after having to register and completeing all the neccesary protocol it takes about 2 hours.

We then entered the Haram(which is the compound that encloses the Kaabah and the Holy mosque) from the King Abdul Aziz Gate. After moving a few steps in front i gotmy first real sight of the Kaabah which was huge. Once one sights the Kaabah for the first time it is said that Inshallah-God Willing whatever one asks for it will be granted.The Kaabah is much bigger in real life than one can imagine ...it is about 30 feet high.

After praying our Asr prayer we commenced our tawaaf which is a circulation of the Kaabah and 1 tawaaf is equal to 7 rounds of the kaabah in each round one reads a different doa or prayer.At the end of the tawaaf we are required to pray two rakka's of prayer.

After tawaaf it was time for Maghrib,after praying Maghrib we then started on our Saee which i a 7 time to and fro from two points known as Safa and Marwa. This is in accordance with what Hajar(may Allah be pleased with her) the second wife of the Prophet Abraham(a.s.) did when she was looking for water for her littlr infant son the prophet Ismail(a.s).After completion of the Saee both men and Women are required to cut a small portion of their hair or for men to shave it off is also an option after which two rakaats are prayed in thanks to Allah(s.w.t.).

It was about 10 pm when we finished our first Umrah and by the time we go back home it was 12 midnight and we got to sleep at about a am in the morining. Needless to say we were thoroughly exhausted.

10th June 2007

Today at about 4pm we started out for Makkah we did not go earlier as it was supposed to be very hot before that time.This time Uncle no. 3 dropped us off at Makkah.We did our second Umrah althrough it was more tiring than before probably because the previous day's exerions.I tried to kiss the Hajri Aswad (black stone) however there was so much justling and pushing and shoving by everyone that i decided to try some other time when it was less crowded althorugh i have not seen it less crowded for the line for the Hajri Aswad.

We came back at about 12 minight to the hotel room with a bit of cough and sleepy eyes.

At about 4 15 am in the morning my Mum woke us up for Fajr prayer which was to be prayed in the Haram seeing as how we were in Makkah and so close to the Haram.After some tossing in bed I woke up and cam down from the Hotel room expecting to see a few people on the streets as it was 4 in the morning but my my suprise the streets were lined with crowds of people heading to the Haram for Fajr prayer. This was somehing that I was to see through my stay in Makkah every time there was a prayer it would be as if the whole of Makkah turned out for prayer Mashallah-By the will of God.At the fajr time there were easily tens of thousands of people and when i reached the Haram i had to pray on the Marble floor and standing next to me were thousands of people all awake before the cracka' dawn with one purpose one aim all praying to one God. It was truly awe inspiring.

Out of the many facsinating things that i saw in Makkah was that there were people of every colour , every nationality every shape, size and social status all standing together each indistinguishable in the above mentioned categories next to each other and it wouldn't matter who was standing next to you whether it was a prince or a pauper,every one was equal in front of God.

Today i saw an arab boy he must have been about 11 or 12 and he was standing on top of his cart and he was shouting "pach riyal! pach riyal!" apparently Urdu is one of the main languages spoken in Makkah.Anytime that i would get lost in the Haram i would just go one the workers and speak in Urdu and ask for directions even the arabs working in the Haram were shouting directions in Urdu.

11th June 2007

Did not do Umrah today however did tawaaf and was lucky enough by God's grace to manage to stand at the doors of the Kaabah(Muntazil) and make Doa there as we decided to do the tawaaf in the afternoon as there were less people due to the heat which was hot but not very hot.I was actually very blessed to be able to make supplication or doa at the doors of the Kaabah as it is normally very crowded and hence extremely difficult to reach there let alone be able to stand there for as long as i was able to do so alhamdullillah-All praise is to God.There was stone sla which i was able to grab and it is supposed to be one of the best places to be able to make doa in the Haram.

We came back to Jeddah the next day .
Will be leaving for Madinah tomorrow inshAllah.

Old Blog post 2

2007-12-02T17:17:00.000+08:00

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Travelogue 1 :The Delhi Days

here are some little snippets from my journal of some of the days spent there that i have kept for the last couple of days in disastrous and supremely overcrowded delhi...

29th May 2007

...As we entered the Indira Ghandi International airport ,the same musty odour greeted us noses .While observing the advertisements near the conveyer belt which were extremely good(there was this one that had a picture of the Taj Mahal with a caption that read "...and nowadays men get away with giving their wives flowers or chocolates..." ouch! cried the wallet)i said to my father that India has a poll of talent but not enough or none at all managment of the pool and hence wastage of talent occurs..

This statement later rang true when in the circumstance of locating the flat in which we were going to reside in the next couple of days we had to literally weave our way through the narrow winding streets or 'gulleys' as they are known here in the black battered maaruti van taxi taht our cousins had obtained from the airport. During the journey the battered 'khatara' van was subjected to more road abuse as the bumpy pebbled laden roads of Delhi gave it no rest.Then finally the flat came into view as i got out off the Maruti with my front teeth shattering and one of my legs numb due to the interestingly overcrowded conditions in the van which involved 7 people and 12 pieces of luggage i thought to myself Welcome to India!

The Auto rides:---

No visit to India or for that matter any country in the sub-continent is complete without one of these. These three wheeled generally green and yellow painted vehicles are an enlargement of the conventional scooter or motorbike.They leave one with vibrations all over the body and one's bodily balance grossly unbalanced.The price commanded is relatively cheap for the distances they cover for example for a distance of about 17 km they would charge about 70-80 rupees and as usual no auto ride is complete without some haggling of the price on the part of both involved parties. There is always the other side..the auto walas flout traffic regulations excessively...or peraps excessively is a gross understaement. They will creep up behind unsuspecting cars and zoom past them in what appears to be an unwritten and unspoken race in Delhi which involves beating the other to the next re traffic light which for the passenger sitting in the auto can be a highly unnerving experience.Every time that i sit in an auto i pray that i will arrive at the destination in one piece hopefully inshallah-God Willing.

30th May 2007

Today went to Jama Masjid which is one of the oldest mosques in the world and has a cluster oof bookshops selling all sorts of Islamic and various other religious books at a verrry 'sasta'-cheap- price.

31st May 2007

Today checked out Majeedia Hospital-one of the biggest naturopath hospitals in India-specializes in unani medecine which is related to ayurvedic medecine.If all these names do not make sense look 'em up on wikipedia or google them...

There was a counter in the hospital that dispensed free unani medecine to patients who could not of specific and i believe very common dieseases such as diabetes and hypertension.

1st July 2007

Ran out of water today as their appears to be some problem with the water pumpimg mechanism ,,,trust me not a very uncommon thing in the motherland...

As today was friday had to go to a nearby cousins house to take a bath not too bad at least we could take one rite...

Something is better than nuthin alhamdulillah-All praise be to GOD

Random(dates not wrtten)

Chandni Chowk

The name itself invokes something of a different nature.This is Asia'a largest wholesale market and is situated in Old Delhi.I had the oppurtunity to visit it with two of my uncles and it was quite an experience. We left the house at about 11 in the morning and came back at about 5 or 6 in the evening.We took a bus to a place called Central Secreteriat where the Parliament House and the Presedential Compound is situated. Both of the afore mentioned were of a reddish brown colour and they were humongous. From there we took the Metro which is something ike the LRT in Malaysia and the Tube in London. Inside the Metro everything was in Hindi and English. In Chandni Chowk there was a wholesale market for everyhting from clothes to medical items as well as spices and dry fruits and plastic and paper bags anything that was sellable was being sold there. The funny thing was that all of this was present in very narrow streets(probably about the size of an average person in width) which were jam packed with people and boxes and there were people going both ways and everytime there would be jam people would be telling each other to move out the way and an argument would initiate with everybody blaming everybody.Anywayz...after my uncles had completed their kaam-work we went back home thoroughly exhausted and smelling to high heavens due to the stiffling summer heat and when we reached home we found out there was no water !

Dhariagange

Haris!You can buy really cheap second hand books in dharia gange(i hope i spelt it right) on Sundays.That is how i ended up on the streets of the Dharia Gange market place near the New Delhi railway station with one of my cousins looking at what appeared to be hordes of books on stalls lining the streets.The interesting thing about these books was that they were very very cheap compared to their market value however they were second hand not like that is vey important.You know how Indians are always the butt of programming jokes...well looking at the amount of IT books and programming languages books(loads of Java books) i was not suprised.It was like nearly every stall had to have computer books.So managed to get some good deals Alhamdullillah-All praise be to God and came away thoroughly satisfied with mysel and enlightened and enriched by my cousin's bargaining skills.

That brings to an end my Delhi Days travelogue.....

I am very proud to be a part of this country which inspite of all the chaos and disorder present in it, is still managing to emerge as one of the World's superpowers.

Next will update in the holy land(Saudi Arabia) inshallah where my family and I will be going for a mini pilgrimage aka umrah

till then

salaam(peace)....

Old Blog post 1

2007-12-02T17:15:00.000+08:00

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

scholars of thepast

maulana mawdudi

"If the time of my death has come, no one can keep me from it; and if it has not come, they cannot send me to the gallows even if they hang themselves"

The above quote is from him when the government of pakistan of that day decided that his views contradicted theirs

no time rite now will update inshallah-god willing after my trip from the motherland inshallah

2002-05-18T20:21:00.000+08:00

right. now i am gonna blog

2002-05-16T20:28:00.000+08:00

testing