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!!!

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!

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

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

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.

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

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....

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

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

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

हरिस

(cool huh..)

Last OLd Blog post(no. 7)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

right. now i am gonna blog

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