Sky of Lahore,,,

Well what goes around comes around, there is no backing off from one’s doing. Nature has a way of giving us the precursors for future, and I realized it when I beamed my vision over the skies of once my beautiful homeland. A beautiful clear sky with a wide stretched golden haze, flossing clouds, and a lot of birds swirling around, their serenading chirps echoing the bliss in one's ears, but this time my sight was in vain to capture and reminiscent those beauty days of my yore. I didn’t know when this transition happened, its funny how one gets really imbued in enslaved schedule and misses the subtle priceless things. But what I saw this time was a sky filled with smoke and scavengers floating all over it. I haven’t seen such a number of death eaters before, they really jolted me to my soul. But again what we are doing on the ground is reflected on the skies. On the ground we are feasting on the carcass of a dead nation, in the skies kites and crows are savoring the helpless birds. The whole ecological system has changed, now I wasn’t able to find nightingales,doves,swifts and other precious birds that used to add beauty to Lahore. Even the number of wild pigeons have reduced alarmingly, once in abundance, now only can be seen near PU’s old campus or at Darbar. I wish one day the hopes and birds will be back again, but it seems most unlikely.

Living in fantasies,,,

We are living in the times where truth is swaddled in the cloak of lies and conspiracies,making it too complex to comprehend. So sometimes, I find my sanctuary in figments of my wishful mind, I have to inject a dose of fantasies to maintain my sanity. I know there is no 'Vena Amoris' in my left hand's finger, but still I love to believe it. I know there ain't no Zeus and he didn't make us in pairs and then performed the segregation, but I like to quote 'Zeus's Split' quite often. I know embarked lines on my palms have nothing to do with my fate, but sometimes reading them give me satisfaction. I guess in the world where truth is grotesquely webbed for presenting the  false narratives, it's better to believe in fantasies.

Bonn Voyage : Living the Moment

Reminiscing that horrid day still gives me jitters, when one of my closest friend called me and told me he is diagnosed with a schwannoma in his trigeminal nerve. Since the tumor was so big that doctors have to perform an open brain surgery. This is the biggest surgery one can get nowadays. Terrified to my bones, and apart from my procrastination and apathy, I went to see him. Just before a night from the operation, we all were sitting in the waiting area, making fun, playing “who can throw the paper ball in the bin”, and stuff. There wasn't any glint of apprehension in his eyes. He took it so well, in fact anyone would easily be deceived with his attitude that he is having an appendix removal or hernia operation instead of an open brain surgery. With all his wits, he showed me a piece of paper, where the repercussions of the surgery were mentioned. Among death , paralysis , loss of vision etc , the most troublesome was “personality disorder”. I guess that troubled him the most because everything else was evident and self explanatory, only “personality disorder” was a vague term.

But, I know exactly what was going through his mind then. The surgery didn't affect him physically that much as it did mentally. I haven’t seen such a lively person, always enjoying the life to its fullest. But surgery has shattered his confidence, his liveliness. Life consists of many finite little moments, in struggle of making our future lustrous , we forget to live these precious moments. In the end we end up with regrets for past and unfulfilled expectations for future. But some people live in the moment, my friend belongs to that group, he has this wonderful , “happy go lucky,fuck the world” attitude which I always envied. I wish soon he starts to live the moments again.

Bonn Voyage : Ignorance is not a bliss

Bigotry, self righteousness are the traits common in most of the people, but setting national pride aside, I have noticed we are specially gifted in these. Argumentation and debate arises when we try to judge others in the mirror of ourselves. We lack the ability of letting our self go, and for once try to understand the phenomena without involving any “me” in it. Finding one whose reflection is same as yours is nearly impossible. But the thing that saddens me most is that we allow our preconceived notions to block any access of new ideas, its not that one should accept them out rightly, but we even don’t bother to invest any time to find out whether they hold any water or not. This habit of procrastinating has made us in an ignorant nation, where I am proponent of the premise that “reasons can’t stand for feelings”, but for us it’s true in every wrong way.  

Bonn Voyage: Close Encounter,,,

It’s been more than 60 years since the fall of Third Reich, more than 20 since unification; no doubt that Deutschland has resurrected itself from mere ashes. But in the process, instead of eliminating the racism and hatred, it has suppressed it. I am a skilled professional, doing my masters in one of the most prestigious universities of Germany. Whose legacy holds 7 Nobel laureates, including the only German economist to win one. Not only that I am working at one of the biggest research institute of Europe. I am writing this not in brag but in the context of personal humiliation and utter mental distress. Well today, coming back from a friend’s place, I was encountered by a typical German teenager. I guess he hasn’t seen the door of a university ever, or hasn’t heard the last movement of Beethoven’s Choral, where he orchestrated the finest words advocating fraternity and brotherhood. “Alle Menschen werden Bruder”, just remain words for me now, as the bantering and racist remarks bestowed on me, murders the gist of these beautiful words.

Bonn Voyage : Acceptance

One thing that I have learned is that the basic impetus of human behavior is “acceptance”. We all as conscious beings, thrive for gaining the acceptance of others. In a sense we all live in the consciousness of others, with all our idiosyncrasies, we give ourselves to others for judgment, for their approval and acceptance. This acceptance makes us complete, and fail to gain one, makes us sullen. The emptiness prevails in the failure of gaining other’s acceptance. For this we guise in sweetness, or wear the cloak which suites others. And this morbid fascination grows, molding our behaviors and personalities. But the thing which is most common in the people I met here, and no shame of accepting it myself, the acceptance of opposite gender is most satisfying. I have seen egos succumbing, self proclaimed rules defying, and people kneeling down just for been accepted. Well once I was lingering for that too, but now ain't gonna listen to song of sirens. As I have concluded first one should seek acceptance within.

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.

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.