Bonn Voyage: Endless Division

One of the best thing of studying abroad is that, you experience a whole new cultural dimension; you learn new perspectives and find different point of views. Sadly due to my a-social life style and language barrier, I am not able to learn more about German culture but to my amazement, I had learned a whole new paradigm of my own national identity. I must say I was living in my own world and didn't grasp the gravity of national and cultural drift we had in our own homeland.
Till now one would say its nice to have such a cultural diversity, but in reality its not, as it is very hard or in case of Pakistan, impossible to thread them all in a single unanimous ideology.
What I had experienced is that, the urge of making one’s own culture superior, maligning others, and on the top of all these shortcomings, the parochial complexes have really destroyed the sense of nationalism in us.
I remembered reading in a preface of some book, Arnold Toynbee adduced that Pakistan can not stand a single day if its edifice is build on linguistic,cultural or geographical bases. What Arnold meant can be eloquently described by more superior scholar , Ibn Khaldun’s concept of ‘asabiyah’. According to Khaldun, nation dies when they lost the sense of “group feeling”, when individuals shun off sacrificing for deeds of others. This is what happening to Pakistan , and to all with national euphoria, I am very sad to learn that we are segregated not only in caste, creed and culture but in religion too , which I thought was one single point where all Pakistanis converge. And more sad thing is that I have to come to a whole new country to realize this.

Bonn Voyage : Bonn vs PUCIT

It been almost 2 months since I came here, and these days I am having my first mid exams at Bonn University. Well coming from two prestigious institutes back home, Forman Christian College and Punjab University, I think I am in right position to juxtapose the education I got in Pakistan and one I am getting here. But I am quite sad to say that the educational standards back home are quite ordinary. The only thing common between Bonn University, F.C.C and Punjab University is that they all share almost the same age of 150+ years , and this long epoch Bonn has outshine in achievements. And not to mention that whole Germany was resurrected after WW2.
But yet I will give the edge to German Universities as Germany is leading economy not in the Europe but in the world. From helping bailing out Ireland from economical crisis ,to making efforts to save Eurozone and deteriorating economy in Greece, Germany is shining these days. Germany has invested a lot in their educational system and no doubt they are providing the best education in cheapest rates.
Well going from PUCIT to Bonn, the major thing I noticed that the teacher's hierarchy is very well defined; all the teachers teaching in Masters are PhD. Back in my bachelors many teachers were plan bachelors with some market experience. Secondly in PUCIT teachers use to prepare slides from other resources like net, books etc where in Bonn mostly professors teach their own researches, for example Data Mining course which I am studying these days contains most of the examples which were conducted in house.
Moreover, the most annoying thing for me is that teachers here are always punctual, and they start lecture at exact time. And till the lecture ends there is no break, and professors blab for whole 90 minutes uninterrupted. Well I am sure Pakistani students neither have focusing ability for that long nor they are use to attend event less lectures.
But in the end some silver lining is that the tally of PhDs is increasing in PUCIT too.

Bonn Voyage : First Experience

Isolated, desolated sitting in a room with fear of unknown crippling me to my bones. Coming from a set life, aiming to create it again from the scratch, in a new world where you are not the people but alien.
These are my feelings when I moved from Lahore to Bonn for pursuing Masters in Informatics from prestigious Bonn University. But I am positive that everything will be fine and I will come over with this depression and jet lag with some time. I have been acclimatizing with the city. The temperature of Bonn remains from 5 to 19 degree centigrade nowadays with some drizzle every now and then, where the Lahore is reaching scorching 35 degree at this time of the year. I can finally say I am where weather suites my clothes. Hardly two weeks have passed since I came here, but the organization and efficiency of German people have made an impact on me. The roads are calm and most appropriate for walking. I have taken couple of strolls down the city and have found the experience most refreshing. The studies here are quite tough with comparison of the standards provided at my home land. The professors are very competent and delivers their maximum while lecturing. The whole city is connected with web of transport services and they are managed with immaculate smoothness. I wish some day these traits may be seen in my country too. This is a first draft of my intended 'Bonn Voyage' expeditions.

Fort Food Street

Lahore has always attracted gourmands from its suburbs, and it won’t be an overstatement that Lahore have been citadel of food for centuries. Lahore have abundance of eateries scattered all over its geography, but it would be amazing to know that only last decade or so, modernization hit them. Once old ‘dhabbas’ or shabby places,which were unaware of importance of ambiance, cutlery,etc and were just getting business because of their excellent food, but now it is imperative to have all these features to run any eatery. The food street at Gowal Mandi, Old Anarkali and an array of fancy restaurants at M.M Alam road were overwhelmingly accepted by Lahorites and it was evident that how long they wanted to have proper and decent place for eating and hanging out.
Punjab Government closed the Gowal Mandi Food Street, and after some time opened a well planned and well architected food street at Fort Road just within the vicinity of majestic and commendable Badshahi Mosque and Lahore Fort.
Yesterday my brother and I, after doing some shopping, decided to visit the new food street and quench our taste buds with delicacies there. We parked the car in well managed parking lot, which occupies the lane on the back and western side of the Badshahi mosque. The enterance for food street was well secured by walk through metal detector and security guards.
After entering the street, we decided to stroll around. The street was packed with people enjoying their meal with friends and family. After meandering we decided to sit at the beginning of the street, just a furlong away from the musicians. I wished that i would had brought some buds to jam my ears, the music was horrible there, and most ironic thing was that this place was famous famous for its music.
Second shocked came to me when the manager told me that they don’t have any pos for plastic money, and I thank my stars that out of curiosity I asked him whether they accept card or not because I was short on cash that day. Than I realize that in hurriedness of inaugurating the food street (and many other projects ) in unrealistic deadlines set by Punjab Government , some major things are overlooked. Well with the budget of meager cash, i didn't played much with my luck and put my bet on Tawa Chicken. I don’t know the origin of this dish, but i am aware of the fact that this place epitomized Tawa Chicken. Tawa Chicken is prepared in two phases, first the chicken is slowly grilled on coals and than this half done chicken is saute on huge pan (‘Tawa’) with yogurt, spicy masala and then garnished with julienne ginger, lemon, green chillies and coriander. Well I was anticipating something marvelous, but when we were served with our meal, i was very much disappointed. The dish have no sense of presentation, and it looked like it was prepared by making chicken wear a suicide jacket filled with masala and just blast it on our platter. Well I won’t recommend anyone to eat the overpriced food there, nor will I reevaluate my impression by going there to try something different because anything they were offering their, i know better place to get it!

The Artist and Hugo.

I won’t say that I am avid movie watcher, but I am advocate of the fact that movies can be an effective way for oozing depression. For last couple of years I was not able to watch Oscars, which I used to follow dearly, but professional life doesn't give me that luxury, in fact software industry strips you from many. I won’t be whining about horrendous field I am working in, this will be the topic of some other blog maybe when I resign or get fired.
Well I intended to write about 2 movies I watched which shined at Oscars this year, one was “The Artist”, bagging 5 golden statues in prestigious categories;  best picture, director and best actor, where second move “Hugo” also bagged 5 Oscars from 11 nominations.
The Artist was a very significant movie because of the fact that it was first silent movie in 80 years to win best picture at Oscars. The movie depicted an actor going through the transition period from silent to talkies. Imbued by his silent euphoria, confront by conundrum that whether go for talkies or not. The movie’s plot was not a new one, many movies have been made on such a topic, and I don’t know why all of them have intact the same stereotype for actors going through the transition. Means why a silent protagonist thinks that he will outshine the talkies by his charisma, why he thinks that he will make a great silent movie by risking every dime he earned and that movie will be a reason for his glorious comeback and audiences will hark back to silent movies once again. And I can’t comprehend the fact that why in the whole world, the only person loyal to technology stricken out of job actors is their butler. I think writers and directors should really work on this stereotype. Overall 'The Artist' was a nice attempt, I won’t say that it would be my favorite movie, but it rightfully deserved the entire accolade showered on it.
Now the second movie, “Hugo” was directed by one of my favorite director. The movie was adapted from historical fiction ’The Invention of Hugo Cabret’. The movie is about a lonely boy living with his inebriated uncle in a railway station. Jim Morrison  said, “We are thrown into this world”, same was the case with this movie, audience were thrown into it. The movie lacks a proper build up, and this happens with a lot of movies which where based on a epic book. But for me the treat to watch was Ben Kingsely’s portrayal of great George Melies. According to me he was more convincing as Melies than he was as Gandhi. I know not many people will digest this but it’s my personal opinion. The other best thing about movie was its majestic art direction and cinematography, for which it bagged Oscars too. Well in the end I would say that it was not best by Martin and he would do better.

Amazing Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Today, I was serenading my ears with beautifully composed qawali of Late Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan,suddenly my memory reflected me to a long forgotten argument between my two teachers about a decade ago. One teacher,who claimed to be an authority on sub continental music asserted that Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali was off tone singer who just got lucky,other teacher was opposing this preposterous claim.

I was just a stand alone spectator, as I didn't have any workable knowledge of music then.

But now I would like to add my share to the pertinent debate. Ustad Nusarat himself revealed that his father didn't give Nusrat approval  of making music as his profession because of the facts that qawali is not lucrative monetarily and qawals do not gain the social respect that they highly deserve. His father was also concerned about the quality of Nusrat’s voice and he insisted Nursrat that if he wants to pursue music as a career, he better learn to play instruments instead of going for vocals. Hitherto my teacher's claim that Nusrat was not a good singer can be substantiated, but what my connoisseur of music teacher failed to realize the true geniuses of Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Nusrat knew that he could not change his voice, but what he did was unprecedented in the history of qawali in Pakistan. He as a great composer and innovator, molded the raags and alaaps in a way that they complement his vocals. Like his father who was legend in his own right , Nusrat fused Khayal raag and Dhurpad raag in his qawalis. Doing this , Nusrat revamped the whole qawali singing, and Nusrat created a whole new world around these raags. Nusrat got an immaculate control on the vicissitudes of his pitch. He could enunciate raags with such a valor that i haven't seen any one to his par.

Second line of argument my teacher made that he just got lucky; well I wont negate that totatly too as we are what our surrounding and circumstances are. Nusrat got an excellent ambiance for music from his pedigree and then the lyrics of Khawaja Pervaz (I am not exaggerating but in my personal view I rank Khawaja Pervaz on a very high pedestal , his work is comparable at any national or international level) did the trick. The combination was instant hit.

In the end I would like to say , sir in your face what ever you think about Nusrat’s voice quality or he just being lucky, he was a true legend and I don't think someone can fill his shoes.