The First look at Malaysia - Entering UTP

Palms trees, with  height lower than the palms we see there in Pakistani,  there were lots and lots of them. This is the first thing I noticed while landing procedures began for Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA). The next thing, to amaze me was the expanse of KLIA. I walked and walked a long lounge with a couple of turns just to find that I needed to board on a bus to reach the immigration department. 

I had a chance to pass by the labourers and workers waiting for the travel agents to pick them up. For a moment, I thought if this is my chance to see real milita. (for years, I had spelled the word as 'Malaysia' when it really was militia - the men in dark gray shalwar qameez and peshawari chappal carrying big guns. I was told when in first grade  that their uniform cloth comes from Malaysia and so the force is called as 'Malasia walay'). The security personnel on the other counters, meant probably for visitors or may be aothers except workers category, were nicer and wont at all fit into my definition of security or police. 

There were long queues of people and would get longer and longer with each minute as a layer of people would be added to the zig-zag path leading to the counters. As I made it out of the airport TI was greeted like , "I am gonna kill you, you made me wait for so long" by an Egyptian foundation student who had traveled around 21 hours in multiple flights. He fell asleep in minutes as we started for the 3-hour drive to university with Mr. Hiduwan from UTP. All the way,  I kept him busy in answering my questions all the way. 

After an hour of so, I began to feel like I am missing something here, I could find on roads in Pakistan, what it was, definitely the beautifully decorated trucks saying 'Tere Yaad Aye Teray Jaane k Baad'. All of a sudden, it appeared as if there were going to be a traffic jam. Hiduwan predicted it would be an accident on the other side of the road. People are too curious, he continued, to see what happened until the persons and the vehicle is carried away, so an accident is the only option he felt could slow down the traffic. He told me about the Malaysian oil company Petronas, if the company collapses, so does Malaysia, and the various local car brands like Proton. My calculations, in Pak Rupees, revealed cars here are cheaper but not the way, friends as in US are. 

For once I could not believe my eyes, but it happened again and again. Women on bikes, were to be seen all along the highway. That's the norm, Hiduwan corrected me, equal rights, equal opportunities for all. Lately, I found women would work in all sectors just like men including office jobs, running shops, police or whatever it is. As we entered the university, a vast mosque with a dome and a sort-of-lake on two sides welcomed us. I came to learn that the people here don't hesitate in having one, two, any number of "Jamaats" after the first one. The warden at the hostel was playing football but soon returned to hand me the keys to my room. I bade Riduwan with "Terimah Kasih". I had met more number of Pakistani students here than I had even expected could be found here at Universiti Teknologi, Petronas, before getting the keys.

That was my first look at Malaysia. 

I am learning new things each day but some of them have already gone old. Probably, this is how it goes.

Lahore Horse Race June 2010.mp4

Thoughts About Flopped FYPs

All I am jotting out here is not at all supposed to be taken seriously. Its just a random listing of my observations and experiences with Final Year Project while I spent about two years of life in project lab sharing the joys and woes of students, faculty and staff.

The most prevalent and relevant issue, I have observed, is project selection. I do not mean finalizing the topic but finalizing the objectives and coming up with a verbal description of claims you have in heart. People, fail to come up with a list of specifics and claims about the device, hardware or software, whatever are planning to create, design or just borrow and display and label it as their Final Year Project . “Sari Hasrtain Dil mein hi reh jati hain.”

Often when project selection and specifics are unclear, there can’t be a way to allocate times for constituent tasks and components of the bigger task – The FYP. Synchronizing your individual timelines and coming up with a balanced schedule incorporating studies, the project, and your curricular, extra-curruculiar and “Gharicular”- home related activitvities is a big challenge.

If not accustomed to working in teams, it’s difficult to fairly and purposefully delegate tasks to individual team members according to our likes/dislikes, abilities and the demand of the hour. There are a lot of things around that hurt our “Anna”. I will like to put it as ‘Ego Issues’.

When the tasks are loosely delegated and there’s infinite time of a whole year, timelines also are too flexible, it’s not hard to fall a prey to procrastination – laziness and putting things off on a ideal, dreamy tomorrow. 

More to follow Inshallah.

I will wait for your comments and feedback.  

Let's Save Ourselves

“Where the government or the opposition felt was some lack of trust on part of nation and/or the international community”, was the question raised by a couple of journalists to PM Gilani and Nawaz Sharif. The reply as I expected was mere diplomatic play just reiterating and emphasizing the objectives of new commission being formed.

Whenever we want to amend our ways, we first acknowledge and accept our follies or whatsoever mistakes committed by us so far. Then we can proceed to work for improvement. Without realizing what our weak areas have been and fully acknowledging the mistakes committed by us in past, we cannot expect much improvement in any process whatsoever.

As citizens, all of us have our own reasons for distrust in government bodies and other agencies. Even if we ignore the financial crunch and recession, how can we trust those who have looted our nation for years? How could we easily forget the brilliant utilization of our money in “Qarz Utaro, Mulk Sanwaro Scheme”, the scandals of Steel Mill, the rampant corruption in each and every office of the state, the utterly shameless fake degree holders and those who have backed them? The wounds of 2005 earthquake have not healed yet and we know what government has done in rehabilitation of affected areas.

Now that government and opposition want to emerge as a hero again, we wanted them all to acknowledge, at least in between lines, that they have made mistakes; that they realize the BIG blatant black sheep (let’s ignore the normal anomalies) among them, and show clear intentions of their willingness to work for rehabilitation of affected areas without political point-scoring.  As any such part was missing in the press conference, the distrust is still there rather enhanced in degree.

The distrust is not solely on part of politicians. We have very few around us to trust. From and office clerk to the milkman all of us have been involved in blatant and unrestricted money-making without any respect for right and wrong. This dishonesty and corruption is biggest cause of distrust. This has been devastating our nation.

Now that we want to rise as a united nation again, we can make the process easier if each one of use contributes positively in the process. If we start caring a little for our own dignity and respect as humans; if we think of what Pakistan has given us and what we owe to our homeland; if we take our duties as responsible citizens once again, we can make the process of nation building faster. We must realize that if we fail to act now, the menaces like terrorism, insecurity and unemployment are not going to affect all of us for coming years.

What a relief it was to hear names of Rana Baghwan Das, Adeeb Rizvi and alike, some honest and dignified personalities whom our disgruntled nation could still trust. If we could simply forget our selfish interests for a while and follow footsteps of our own heroes, we could realize real independence and liberty. Independence always brings with itself responsibility. Let's start to believe again in the universal principles our honesty, hard work, courage and persistence. This message may not be new but it reiterates and embodies the essence of 14^th August, our independence day. 

Save a Life, Have a Juice …!!!

He was from our class. That was all I knew about him. He was searching for a blood donor. I knew my blood group matched but I had doubts. I had never donated before. I was weaker than a lot others around. Why did they not donate? What will my parents think about this? What if something wrong happens? I could create excuses. I could say look for someone else and keep me as the last options. That’s we what many of us go through when faced with donating blood. We may think donating blood as noble act. But when it comes to ourselves, we tend to pull ourselves away. I will say, this is our natural reaction.

I had a parallel thought at the same. He was a classmate going through the same tough routine and schedule as the rest of us. And now that he was in problem, he would naturally be looking to his family, friends and class for help. If I did not help him and make him look for other options, to what avail was my existence? And, I should have some solid reason to deny. I had none. Whatever I had read or heard said nothing bad about donating blood. And internally I wanted to provide some relief to my classmate right from the moment. There is a right time for everything. There is time to take decisions on your own. I have no words to define what courage is but that is what we need at times. The next thing I asked him was when will I be leaving with him to the hospital? Do you think I will ever be able forget the sigh of relief and the smile on the face?

The donation itself, depending upon the staff there, is normally an excellent experience. The medical staff tries best to make you feel normal. They may crack a joke with you at times. The worst possible part, if you want to explore for the heck of it, may be when they inject the needle into your arm. Do you really think it is something deadly? How many injections you have on your count? Perhaps, you never counted. You just lie there for few minutes while they arrange juice for you. That’s a tradition around us even in blood banks; they have drinks to offer you. No matter how much you resist, they won’t let skip that part of the exercise.

I have been through this exercise around half a dozen times now. By the way, I have never felt any weakness ever after a donation. . The only precaution to take is not to rush up when you are done. You should wait for a 5-10 minutes so that blood circulation is normal. Otherwise you may feel a little dizzy, nothing to be afraid of by the way. At the end, you are amongst the happy ones. You definitely relish those moments of real satisfaction. Just to put it for you, I have basically been a lazy freak with no regular exercise or play in my routine. My friends, once, timid like me have gone similar experiences. Often it started when someone real close to us was in dire need of blood. But gradually we learn it is a little sacrifice worth it. What can be better service than saving a life at the cost of almost nothing? No fears now.

It is normally a half-hour exercise overall once you enter the hospital and are ready to leave. Sometimes, according to specific scenario, you may have to wait. At times, they may decide not to bleed you. Once I was in Mew hospital and it the process took around 3 hours. Government hospitals are overcrowded here, you know. What a surprise at the end, they handed me the bag of my own warm blood so that I could deliver it to the patient. OMG..!!! I held my (one pint) warm and fresh blood in my own hands and made sure it was injected to the patient within 30 minutes of donations. Once a school headmaster took me all the way from hostel to hospital on his bike and shared with me how he had been struggling to save life of his son for whole last year.

Well friends, on a lighter note, when you know there will be refreshments at end of match, you are definitely tempted to play. Now that I assure you of drinks at the end, can I hope you will be urged, just a little may be, for this noble cause?