Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

Few individuals significantly alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state. Muhammad Ali Jinnah did all three.
Excerpt from the Preface of Stanley Wolpert's Jinnah of Pakistan.

Anthropological murder of Lahore

On Monday night, I had a craving for some desi food, so my friend, two of my brothers and I decided to have one of the finest creamy chicken savoury served at Pyara Chargha , Mozang. What ought to be a simple trip, turned out to be a sort of adventure for us. We just went couple of furlong away from my home, when we noticed a punctured tyre. We removed the punctured tyre from the axle, it took us almost 20 minutes to do so as we all were first timer when it comes to remove a tyre. Cutting long story short, I volunteered to look after the handicapped car, where others get the tyre fixed. I sat on a small jutting coming out of someone’s porch. There I sat alone seeing the lanes on my left and right, and after couple of minutes a strange feeling of alienation imbued me. I have lived here for more than a silver jubilee; the lanes bears the names of my ancestors, but still I felt such an isolation there sitting alone. Suddenly I realized that this area ain’t what I used  to live in, and due to my introversion  and lack of ability to mingle in , I didn't feel the transformation earlier.
It was my epiphany, I was terrified to see what we have done with this city, the city has been transformed into a corpse, and we all inflicted by avarice, are eating the flesh on the carcass of once beautiful Lahore. Due to unplanned exodus from suburbs for some better living, Lahore has been crowded by all sort of unwanted population. I noticed , once a local dhabba providing food of some desirable quality; we as children were not allowed to eat food from outside, but my own cousin grew up eating the Nihari from there, now that dhabba has been converted into a sub standard and I am very positive in an illegal 5 storey building.
Allah forbid but I am seeing Lahore's culture becoming a sort of cosmopolitical amalgam , because the zest and beauty of its own culture is decaying in the mist of political ignorance. I am afraid some day Kasuri, Okarvi, Narowali, Gujrati etc culture will prevail in Lahore , and Lahore will be a mini Punjab but not Lahore as it used to be.

Dinning at Cafe' Aylanto

One thing that have crept into our nation is that they feel it is their outright obligation to pass comment or shed immense rays of their wisdom on every matter despite the fact that they have no or shrimpy knowledge on the subject. And not only that they pass comment, they inflict its righteousness on others.
But when its comes to cooking, we Lahorites deserves every right to pass a comment. Lahore is famous for many things but when it comes to eating, we have special place as we not only know how to cook, but also how to devour. So in my capacity as a true Lahorite and self claimed connoisseur of food , I will like to take a liberty and comment on my experience at a suave restaurant. First I would like to add a context, it is implied now that any restaurant in Lahore whose name matches the expression of ^ Cafe [a-z0-9]*$ will be a bit more expensive than those restaurants  whose name doesn't match the expression string (exception are there).
As on Friday night, in honor of soon to be an ex-colleague, we went to Cafe Aylanto. As name suggests the restaurant serves Italian and continental food. As we entered the restaurant, we were greeted warmly and were escorted to our table. The ambiance was much to desire; couple of candles on table, gibberish music with no sense of lyrics and dim lights in which I could hardly read the menu. Having said earlier about the prices of these places, Cafe Aylanto did not disappointed us as they also had a stupidly expensive menu. But as i was not on paying end and limited to 1000 rs per person, I managed to order seafood grill platter and margarita pizza. Other guys orders were mainly consisted of steaks. When our orders came, I was pleased to see the presentation of food, The quality of food was nice, my platter was awesome; prawns, sole fish and squid were nicely marinated with mildly spiced sauce, with pinch of oregano. I poured freshly cut lemon juice on them to give zesty flavor. On my side order I had Arabic hummus which was nicely blended, but the pita bread was dull, soggy, and most definitely not fresh. The pizza which i ordered to compliment my platter was below average, the base was soggy and bit under cooked. I think Alyanto really had some problem with their breads that day!
I tasted the steaks of my friends which in my opinion were awesome too. The tangy tenderloin beef cooked to perfection, tender and flavorful. The succulent beef was complimented by assorted veggies and some thick gravy sauce.
But the shame of the day for Aylanto was there pasta. It was an insult to “al-dente”, for them “al-dente” means anything that sticks to your teeth. The pasta lacked crispiness and the white sauce was over powered by one flavor which my taste buds failed to recognize.
Well in the end Aylanto is good place to hang in if you have won some lottery or you just got your pay, in our case the latter was true.

The contribution of Informatics to the development of social networks and their impact on society.

The contribution of Informatics to the development of social networks and their impact on society

Change is continuous constant; inevitable and sometimes unpredictable. We can easily say that world has changed a lot in industrial and mechanical era but the change seen in last half a century is exponential and amazing. If we have to credit one invention which had bought such a revolution, it would be computers. With advent of computers, a new paradigm shift was seen, computers enable mankind to compute and process data in more meaningful way with a blink of an eye.
And it did not stop there, once a stand alone computing machine, the true acumen of computers was judge when they were connected with each other forming a giant mesh of information following from one place to another in speed of light. As technology advances, the hardware and software capabilities of computers increased, now recently 1terabyte of hard disk space is normal for personal PCs, where servers and super computers can manage thousand of terabyte easily. Well it is debatable that can we apply “Moore’s Law” on the expansion of Internet too, but in practice its seen that Internet has grown tremendously in past years. Currently there are more than 50 billion web pages on Google alone, so one can easily imagine the depth and breadth of Internet.
Humans have always shown eagerness and urge to learn unlearnt, find which is not found yet and invent things with improvisation and innovation. This hunger for knowledge is reflected on Internet, as it has abundance of information where million of people quench their thirst. But the most amazing thing about the age of information and Internet is that they not only infested our professional or educational life but they have imbued our social life too. Aristotle once quoted in his Politics that “Man is by nature a social animal’, well if Aristotle would have been alive now he would had uttered that indeed man is social network animal. Internet helped to shape new social norms in our generation, though we are in transaction period but in more than two decades this would be a tautology.
Alvin Toffler in his book “The Third Wave”, declared that the shores of the Earth have been struck by wave of information. Interestingly the power of Internet and socializing through networks was so strong that when Alvin Toffler wrote this book back in 1980’s , Internet has not yet reached its epitome, though it has not reached it now but its far more glorious than back in 80’s. But still the anthropological changes pointed by Alvin are very visible and evident. Ships, trains , super sonic jets etc have not shortened the edges of this world but Internet has really made this world a global village. It would not be an exaggeration; but single invention of making a meager data packet flow from one point to another brought all other inventions of 20 century to their knees.
As there was a huge junk of scattered information lying on the Internet which would be useless in majority of cases was channelized by the brilliant idea of socializing sites. The informatics provided a concrete edifice to these social site which developed there existence surrounding it. I can still remember that when I made my first account on orkut and shared a funny and witty scrap among my friends. I was rejuvenated by the replies and than it was no looking back. The concept of interacting with your friends who are at far geographical locations was just amazing and it also provided a taste of cross cultural exchange, and not only that but also increases  your intellect by indulging in talks and debates around the world. The lacuna of geographical, cultural, religious,cast,creed etc was beautifully filled by social sites and networks. The vastness of these social sites are unimaginable, as on face-book statistics, its reported that 800 million users are active member of face-book, and according to Metclafe’s law the number of connections can be calculated by squaring the connected people. so one can hardly imagine vastness of the “node link” graph of these social sites. There is no harm in accepting that these social sites are now imperative part of our lives. But with pros there are also some cons attached they come with package, as human being  is a bit stubborn, prejudice and many people will argue but sometimes irrational too, social site failed to provide tolerance and flexibility. It rather serves the purpose of full filling your social desires; desire to be loved and liked by your friends etc. But still i am not pessimistic , i am firm believer that these social networking may not bring complete ignorance and patience but will pave the path for global tranquility.
There is also a trend developing among the people to communicate and interact with each others through social games. I can quote this with full authority and with professional experience that the socializing through games is a new big bang. I am a team member of developers those  created TapFish Android and currently I am developing a new social platform for our android games which will provide device portability and new socializing opportunities. Currently 5million people have played Tapfish android around the world, which is more than the population of many cities in the world. The social games have not only set the trend for providing “virtual” pleasure but also to communicate with each others. They have also provided  new meaning and realm to the concept of currency by introducing virtual currency (Maybe in future the paper and plastic money would be replaced by virtual currency).
In the end i would like to conclude that social networking has  shaped this world and i feel lucky and blessed to be a part of this revolution.

References :
1. Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/)
2. Aristotle’s Politics
3. The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler.
4. Facebook Statistics (http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics)

This is an essay I send to Munich for admission purposes, i made vivid changes from original draft.