The One With Ziarat Incident

yun di hme azaadi ke dunya hoi heraan 
Ai quaid e Azam tera ehsaan he ehsaan
And now you have paid him back! He gave you a home, a free country where no one stops you from going into your mosques, temples or churches. And this is how you repay him?
I believe this is the saddest incident of all bad things that ever happened to Pakistan.
As I kid, I always looked Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah as my hero. I wanted to be like him. I loved his rules, his disciplined life. And I hated all those who said anything wrong about him. I still remember how it pinched me in my heart when one of my friends used to say "qaid aisa tha wesa tha" Couldn't she say "Aise they wese they" ? I hated all those who refused to give him the respect he deserved.
I hated those people, Imagine how much I loath those who destroyed his residency? What kind of nation does that to their national heroes? What kind of nation we are?
As a kid, whenever I looked on his picture, I felt that he was unhappy. I could see tears in his eyes.. His eyes had many questions in it. What are you doing to this country? 3 blasts a day! Why are you destroying my country?
Well, now there are actual tears in his eyes.... see for yourself..
                                           

  

The One With The New Budget

O.k I will just cut to the chase. So you have enough money for distributing stupid laptops and metro buses, and you don't have enough money to pay the government officers !!!!
"Tankhwa daine ke paise nai hn barhain kahan se"
arey wah ji wah! ab log mehnat mazdoori krn aur ap unhe tankhwah de b nai skte!!!! 
Height of Hypocrisy! I can't believe people voted for you guys!
"Punjab me tankhwahon me 10% izaafa
  Khebar Phakhtoon Khan me 15% izaafa"
arey Khuda ke liay mughe koi ye btai ke wafaak kis khatey me ata he!!!! 
Prices of everything were increased in this budget. How do they expect us to buy those things with no increment in our wages?
pata nai is mulk ka kia bne ga. Awaam ke pas daal kharedne ke paise nai aur ye laptop bant re hn! 
If you really want to spend money on education, give us scholarships yar! Especially to those who can't afford their studies. Create jobs, establish universities and for God's sake do something about the sarkari schools!!
udhar bachey chataion pe beth ke parhtey hn, khasta tareen amarton me beth ke 'pai se Pakistan' prhtey hn. Us gandey aur chotey se sehan me kharey ho ke qaumi tarana aur Lab pe ati he dua roz subha sawerey parhtey hn. Unka kia? kbhi aap logo ne udhar kuch kharch krne ka socha?
I am simply sick of these double standards! There are lot more problems residing in our country. That is a topic of another blog post. But someone just tell me, why this injustice? Why? Will Pakistan be like ever be a normal country? ever??? I wonder when.....

The One Where Abbasi Doesn't Join Us

So, the last paper of my engineering degree sucked. In fact all the life was sucked out of us when our common nightmare was to get marks in negative! But you know what? Life always finds its way. And on that fine day, it found a way in form of colors.....
                                                          Flash Back

 It was an official rang day of our degree. Colors here, colors there, the whole Mechatronics departments was looking like a huge 3D canvas with a lot of red color in it. As usual the electrical people were shoved off by authorities and were told to go and have their fun else where  :/ (aur phr log kehtey hn electrical sari hoi he... hun! ) Anyways, we had our separate piece of fun right in front of the department and nobody stopped us! In fact there was no one around to shove us off :p And yet Abbasi didn't join us :( I tried to convince here, Pashu tried, the whole other bunch of people tried but the Abbasi had her rules that she couldn't break, or modify..

Actually she reminded me of myself a few years back. I never appreciated that sort of fun. (Me going crazy, throwing colored water on others, taking wild pictures etc etc) May be it was in my mind, "You are too mature for all this crazy stuff! " Now I think, may be I was afraid to do it. Come on! every one is afraid of jumping into new things. Think it like jumping into ice cold water. It turns out that only that first step is difficult, the one where you have to jump into it. Once you are in the water, you are not afraid any more. I always stopped myself from having fun (Yeah call me nerd or whatever!) But now when I have had it, I kind of like it. I like getting crazy and wild, taking fun pictures, enjoying the life to its fullest!

And I wonder, still I wonder 

Who'll stop the rain...

So, Abbasi, if you are reading this, just know that you will only have to take the first step. The rest will be all right. Get in the cold water. You will not feel its coldness anymore. Just Jump and don't think :) 

Live Long and prosper!

The One With The Farewell Party

I was watching the last episode of this season and I realized that farewells are really hard and sad. Next thought that hit my mind was ‘Oh you are leaving too! 4 years in a same college and now is the time to say good bye’ For the benefit of readers I should tell that we had already got the official farewell from our juniors. But I came up with a different idea of giving the farewell to ourselves. Surprisingly that idea was taken well and plans were readily made. Initial plan was to go to some nice place on Thursday. Turned out it was a project day for few so we moved the plan to Monday.

On Monday morning we decided to go to Salt n Pepper, Islamabad. Few people had to leave early while I and other three were supposed to come in a Daewoo shuttle. I was busy in dressing (and coloring) Abbasi’s hair in Photoshop while Abbasi and Pashu were forcing me to get ready. I got up reluctantly and got ready. Four of us met near the main gate and we all left to find Daewoo shuttle. To our disappointment, it turned out that they hadn’t enough seats available. Next option was taxi. The moment we asked one cab driver, hundreds of others swarmed towards us, “Baji kidhar jana he” In the rapid confusion and a lot of fuss, we chose one who was offering lower rates and finally set off for the destination.

It was a long route and cab driver had no idea where the restaurant was. We kept wandering Blue area for a long time before we actually found the place. People had already finished their meal (People, as a fair warning I should tell you, food in that place is not good!). So, we ate (reluctantly), took some pictures, paid our shares and then they all left. All of them except me and one of my best friends whom I have lot of fun with. In my whole academic history I have done more adventures with her than with anybody else. We are the ones who went on a secret luncheon together :p we explored new Daewoo bus stop together. Believe me or not, we did scare a hell out of a Rickshaw driver once. There was one time she was supposed to visit my place but instead I ended up visiting her place. I, she and another good friend had a lot of fun (including taking weird PTI-campaign-pictures of each other in public) at F-10 Markaz right after blowing our exam. That was the day when three of us decided to join PTI after graduation.  And many other little stories like that exist. Well this time our adventure was to invade and explore the PIA building. It is a big, fancy, white building located in Blue area. Plan was to enter the building somehow and take photos with pictures of airplanes :p well that was Pashu’s idea. We got passed the security metal detector and security guard with ease. The security lady on the reception area demanded to check our bags. Pashu handed over hers and she asked suspiciously

Iske andar kia he

Pashu gave the lady her innocent smile and said

Kitaben..

The lady smiled. And that’s all. Pashu’s father came to pick us up. The lady was demanding for more bags but we said ‘No need. Hme lene a gain hn’ Awkward moment. We left without saying another word.

May be the farewell party didn't go the way I imagined, but the fun after that was some real fun. And despite of the tininess of this adventure, it was full of joy and source of good memories…

The One in the Sunday Bazaar

So I went to the famous Itwaar Bazaar the other day. It was an experience. Yes, I will refrain from using any adjective here right now. You can choose yourself based on the following observations I made there:
Well, to give a broader picture, Itwaar Bazaar is really crowded place. There are people everywhere, swarms of people. And it is really loud.
"100 rupay ke dhai kilo. 100 rupay ke dhai kilo. Le lo kharboza 100 rupay ke dhai kilo"
Every shopkeeper shouts constantly. And yet I was able to find a similarity between Itwaar Bazaar and stock exchange. Every seller is granted a cabin like, you know, people in stock exchange (in particular and offices in general). Every seller works like a machine, again like people in stock exchange. (Well, not exactly. Shopkeepers at Itwaar Bazaar work much faster). They shout like financial brokers. (minus the temper thing)
The difference is the mahole. One can observe that there are variety of people in Sunday bazzaar. The sellers in cabins, the buyers, the sellers standing on stairs selling mosquito-killer devices.
"Ye le lo. Machar bhag jai ga", the seller boy said
"Han han bhag jai ga", mocked a woman passing by
Few years ago, make it few months, I used to think that our people are not very decent in general. In fact decency left our country long long time ago. Or may be it was never there. Well, a woman in Itwaar bazaar accidentally bumped into my mother and apologized immediately! She kinda took me by surprise. So, our nation is not completely deprived of decency! Good to know.
A counter example from same day same place:
My dad parked the car in an appropriate place. But then, this guy parked his car right behind my dad's so that there was no room for our car to get out. We told the guy to park somewhere else as we were in hurry but he said he won't be long in there. So, when we were done shopping, we came to know the obvious. The guy's car was still there. And yet our car was not the only example. Many cars were trapped by other cars and motorcycles. My dad took a taxi driver's advice. Khan sahab suggested that we should go to the speaker phone and call the guy by his car's number plate. It was a good suggestion, so my dad went in there.
A counter counter example from same day same place:
My dad returned after two minutes with that guy. It turns out that he luckily ran into the guy. The guy said his sorry and moved his car.
I would say that overall experience of Itwaar bazaar was good. Everyone was in rush and meant his/her own business. The bonus point is the left-out decency and morality. Some people still do care...

Best Andriod Apps

I am android user for quite a time now. In this time I have discovered several useful and interesting apps.
I don’t know if you guys will find them as useful as I do. All the same, here are few of them listed below:

Pulse:  
My most favourite app. Getting bored? Want some interesting news stories? Pulse takes the responsibility of collecting these stories from famous newspapers and summarizes them for you on one platform. There are several categories available. Science (most favourite), Technology, Design and Architecture, entertainment, and even women fashion! 

So now you will know when scientists discover some supermassive black hole in centre of a remote galaxy, or when they find ice on Mercury’s North pole, or when they try to detect dark matter on earth! You want iphone 5 news? Pulse will bring you stories.
Another good feature is that you can save news stories and read them offline afterwards. 

Remote Web Desktop:
Control your smart phone from anywhere in the world! All you have to do is to start the server on phone and then go to a URL that will lead you straight to your phone. You can send and receive SMS, make phone calls, have a complete remote desktop control and access to terminator (only if your phone is rooted), and convert you cell phone into remote web-cam. All these facilities in one app. Enjoy :)

AndroMouse:
There are several wifi mouse apps on android market. This is the only one that worked for me (don’t know why :/). Well, now you can convert your phone into a wifi mouse (rather touch pad). Give your presentations in a classy style and impress everyone!
Your phone should be connected to internet. And the laptop/desktop should be connected to same network. You’ll have to install AndroMouse server on your laptop/desktop, which is quite an easy task.

Moon Reader:
Best for reading novels and short stories. If you are tired of reading on a same plane screen of Adobe Reader, this is the app you are looking for. It comes with several themes, day and night mode, brightness adjustments and so on..

Dock4Driod:
Missing your windows dock? Download this beautiful and highly customizable dock from the market and enjoy!

A.I.type keyboard:
With several in-built themes (including iphone keyboard theme) this is the best keyboard ever, I have to say. The free version has a trial period after which the suggestions won't work but rest of features will be available.

Mixing Basic:
I don’t know if people will agree or not yet I have found this one the best media player app. It can play several music and video formats for you. It comes with locked screen widget, which is the best part indeed.

Piano Perfect:
Convert your phone into a piano. Now available with multiple instruments and several template tunes. Tap, play and enjoy :)

WiFi Keyboard:
I would have talked a lot about this app if I hadn’t discovered Remote Web Desktop. If you find it difficult to type on touch screen (especially when it’s small) or you are just tired of it, use this app to type on your phone from your laptop/desktop's keyboard.

Alchemy:
For all those chemistry lovers. You have four basic elements, fire, air, earth and water. Use them to make other complex things like life, DNA, dynamite, perfume, alcohol etc.

The Fall

For those who wanted to know what happened with me and my laptop:
Unlike my friend Mr. Gray I have a little capability to destroy electronic devices. You see I have this laptop for three years and during all this time, it performed perfectly well and its genuine windows remained intact. Well, everyday is not Sunday.. (or Good Friday, or Saturday :p) Things usually don't remain as they are. People are just the same. That's another discussion... May be some day later I will talk about this too..
My laptop was suffering from a disease called 'Heating Problem'. There could be two major reasons:

• It needed cleansing 
• Something had gone terribly wrong.. Some internal delicate circuit was damaged  

One of my friend's laptop was suffering this second malignant disease and her laptop died after few months. I couldn't let this happen to my beloved laptop. So I decided to consult some doctor. That was my first mistake. He and his staff took out each and every bolt of this poor machine, cleaned its delicate circuits with a painting brush! and returned it to me after an hour operation. Turns out my laptop needed cleaning. I forgot to tell you first that my laptop's LCD was also problematic. The colours got distorted sometimes..
Well, this was the outcome of 'the service':

• My laptop was free of this heating problem
• LCD was back to normal

I was happy. However, later I discovered few horrible after effects (more precisely, side effects) of 'the service'. Interestingly, problems showed up one by one in irregular intervals on time axis

• Two USB ports were gone!
• The Linux system crashed
• Windows got stuck in an infinite loop of starting, Configuring, and shutting down!
• AVG started declaring windows file as viruses! (few of them though)

Well, I solved problem second and third. First and last are still there. But the interesting thing is that I am blogging through same poor laptop right now. It is working. Ubuntu works really well and windows causes problems now and then. Sometimes it won't run any software. Sometimes explorer.exe would get stuck in an infinite loop of stopped working and restarting. Sometimes it gives me several notifications about corrupt files that are actually windows files. Anyways it is working..

Surely I can't let it be like that for a long time. I was already fed up of this windows and I am soon going to reinstall it...

So, people, this was the sad story of my laptop's devastation. Hope you enjoyed it :(