Life in Germany

Transport strike in Germany

2012-01-26T12:16:00.000+01:00

This Monday was a strike by the transport union drivers in my area. They are being paid on a different tariff than the standard tariff, but want to be shifted on the standard tariff. The strike was announced last week in some newspapers, but still many people didn't knew about it, especially the people not reading German newspapers. I also got to the bus stop next to my home and discovered that the electronic displays showing the next arriving buses was blank and only displaying the text that there is a strike from the drivers and buses are running according to an emergency schedule. I checked the website of the bus company and it said that they are trying to run some buses and that many bus-stops downtown have been occupied by the drivers, so it was not possible to service those bus-stops. We waited for the next bus for some time, but then they told on their website that they cannot serve the route towards my campus, so I decided to walk to office. Good thing that it is just a 10 minute walk downhill. Some of the colleagues decided to work from home. Many people were angry with the strike. Later I saw some pictures on the Internet of the people doing the strike. This was a very peaceful strike. I don't know if their demands were met.Earlier there have been frequent announced strikes from the transport drivers in Stuttgart, which had been going on for months (although the strike was always one day long every time). I just hope that these strike don't occur so frequently here.

Population

2011-09-08T12:49:00.001+02:00

We are often told by our rulers that all of our problems are due to a huge population. And the worse thing is that many of us believe them, and thus their own corruption goes in the background. In fact it is their corruption that is the main problem. Let's analyze statistically what is our population situation.

Wikipedia: List of countries by population density

Pakistan has 59th largest population density in the world. There are many countries which are richer and yet have more population density. These include Germany(56), UK (53), Japan (38), Belgium (36), India (33), Israel (32), Netherlands(30), South Korea (23), Taiwan (16), Hong Kong (4), Singapore (3). Even Italy (61) and Switzerland (67) are not too far behind. So it is a myth that we are poor because we have too many people.

Lately, countries with huge populations are becoming stronger. For example, China and India are the new booming economies because of making good use of their populations. US also has a big population. Brazil is also getting stronger and opting for a permanent seat in UN SC.

Lastly, advanced economies of Europe are facing an acute shortage of young workers. Because of their decreasing population and better health system, their populations are getting old and they have to import workers. Similarly, China is also going down this path and is about to face this problem. We should use our population effectively before we also face this problem.

Travelling business class with Qatar Air

2011-02-28T22:55:00.007+01:00

I took membership of the Qatar Air Frequent Flyer program. I flew with Qatar last time. So I had gathered points. This time when I flew to Lahore, I had gathered the required 10,000 points to upgrade half of my return flight to business class (from Lahore to Doha), although this cost an extra 25 Euros. Well, the upgrade was worth it. First up, I was spared the check-in queues at Lahore airport and was checked-in at business counter. Then I was given a voucher, with which I discovered that there is a VIP Lounge at Lahore airport with free snacks, drinks and tea. There were PCs with Internet and a large TV. They informed the guests when their boarding started. I was also boarded prior to the queue. The seat in the plane was very large and had a multi-function remote control which provided a massage and could be fully to a bed. The meal was served in clay crockery and there was a large variety of drinks. The personal TV screen was also big. The blankets were thicker and they also provided eye-cover etc. There were disposable tooth-brushes and tooth-pastes in the washroom, though the wash-room size was same as Economy :)

Towards the end of flight, the head-hostess went to all the guests individually and asked about the journey. Then the pilot went to each passenger and chatted about their destination and invited to travel with them again. To me he informed of the Berlin Film Festival. From Doha to Munich, I traveled in the usual Economy class. However, only this time, the Economy cabin seemed too small and the meal too less presentable :)

I then realized, how just a few hours of travel in a different class made me very uncomfortable in the regular class people; what kind of mind-set would it be producing in the people who regularly enjoy that upper-class facilities, and some of them claim to represent us.

First snowfall of Winter in Germany - too much snow

2010-11-29T16:32:00.000+01:00

Last Thursday, it started snowing for the first time in this winter. Overnight there fell a lot of snow. On Friday morning, everything was covered in snow. The city's snow cleaning services were working and clearing snow from roads and footpaths.

But Friday afternoon, it started to snow again. Till the evening it got very bad, so that the city had to restrict its bus system. All buses going on hills were stopped. My city lies on hills, that means many destinations were not reachable through public transport. My university has many campuses around the city. The campus where I work is on a hill. So no bus was coming to my campus as well. A colleague was nice enough to give me a ride home in his car, otherwise I would have to walk down the hill and up another hill to my home.

It has been snowing almost everyday since then and the little snow that melts during the day is replaced by new snow overnight.

Won a robotic competition in Germany

2010-10-24T22:07:00.004+02:00

On 2nd October, one day before the national day of Germany when East and West Germany got united, we participated in a robotics competition for which we were preparing since last year. The competition was organized by a renowned German company building laser sensors and other stuff, called SICK. The competition is thus called SICK Robot Day. It comprised of a circular area with numbers drawn on big posters and hanged along the boundary of the arena. Within the arena, multiple obstacles are placed at different places on the ground. Each robot has to recognize the numbers and drive to them in sequence while avoiding the obstacles.

There were 12 German and 4 European teams. Our robot (called "Attempto") completed the whole task in 3 minutes. Our robot hit some obstacles, so including the penalties, our task time was 3:18 minutes. Each robot was given a time of 10 minutes to complete the task. The robot at second position completed the task in over 6 minutes. No other robot was able to correctly complete the task. One other robot completed the task, but it misjudged one of the numbers. Here is the video of the successful run of our robot:

Slow Tsunami - worst floods in Pakistan

2010-08-29T16:16:00.001+02:00

These are the most destructive floods in Pakistan's history. After the flood, the real destruction starts, as the crops are destroyed, livestock killed, roads and bridges dismantled, houses unusable, and worse, diseases spreading from standing water.

United Nations is repeating calls for aid. Please help.

Google Blogaward for my Blog

2010-05-31T22:24:00.006+02:00

Since a couple of days I was receiving comments on my blog congratulating me for winning the Pakistani blog award. I checked the section of the Google+CIO award website containing my blog, but there was no announcement there, and my blog still had less votes than some others. So I thought of these comments as spam.

But today I received congrats on an email forum of old students of FAST-NUCES, which made me very curious. I went to the home page of the award website and there I found the announcement. It was a pleasant surprise for me since I entered my blog very late in the competition and thus it had received less votes.
http://blogawards.pk/

It was a beautiful 5-hour event and I missed it :(

Country Manager of Intel Pakistan (Ashar Zaidi) was the judge of my category, and hear his flattering comments about it:

They even made an animation about my Blog Award on youtube :)

More details of the event:
http://ciopakistan.com/2010/05/1st-annual-pakistan-blog-awards-new-media-unconference-2010/

Solution of Pakistan's administrative problems?

2010-04-04T02:16:00.004+02:00

Recently, there has been much talk in media of increasing the number of provinces of Pakistan to solve the many administrative problems. Both politicians and TV anchors have repeated this plea. Now that the constitutional reforms have been agreed upon, maybe the Government should focus on this issue. It is often said that the provinces of Pakistan are too big to manage, either population-wise or area-wise. This has resulted in the focus of govt resources on provincial capitals and around. Creating new provinces will also solve the problem of separatists and smaller provinces complaining about bigger provinces. No province will then become the center of power. All the developed countries of the world and neighbours of Pakistan have many more provinces or states than us.

So how should new provinces be created? There could be many ways and the parliament would know the best. But here are two scenarios that come to my mind:

Scenario 1: Divide each of the provinces into two parts. Since Punjab is the biggest, it may be divided into three parts to get a balance with other provinces. Then we would have 9 provinces: Quetta, Kalat; Hyderabad, Sukkur; Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan; Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan Divisions.

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00maplinks/modern/pakadmin/pakadmin.html

Scenario 2: Another scenario presented in the media is to convert all the previous divisions into provinces. This scenario has two potential subscenarios: First is the divisions before 1990s. Then we would have 20 provinces:
Quetta, Kalat, Sibi, Makran,
Hyderabad, Sukkur, Karachi,
Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan, Hazara, Kohat, Malakand,
Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, Gujranwala, Dera Gazi Khan, Faisalabad, Sargodha, Bahawalpur.

The second subscenario is the divisions that existed till 2000. These were 26 in number, thus creating 26 provinces:

Quetta, Kalat, Sibi, Makran, Naseerabad, Zhob;
Hyderabad, Sukkur, Karachi, Larkana, Mirpur Khas;
Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan, Hazara, Kohat, Malakand,
Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, Gujranwala, Dera Gazi Khan, Faisalabad, Sargodha, Bahawalpur.

Many people complain that only 5 cities are being heavily developed, and most provincial funds are spent on the provincial capitals. Creating 26 provinces would give an immediate benefit that instead of 5 cities, we would have at least 27 cities which would be developing fast.

Final solution to my slow notebook: parts replacement by Dell

2010-03-31T00:06:00.000+02:00

This weekend, my laptop came down to an agonising slow speed. It was getting heated too much. The voice of the fan had also slowed a lot. I decided it was time to call Dell again. So I called them Monday and explained the problem with my Dell Inspiron 1521. The guy agreed to replace its motherboard. The next morning, a technician came with a motherboard, fan and heat sink unit. He laid out a rounded sheet and plugged its wire to the power output. He wrapped another of its wires around his wrist. I asked if it was a protection against electric shock, but he said that it would protect the notebook against any static charge. he opened up the complete notebook and replaced the three parts. I asked him many questions. He mentioned that the typical life of a notebook is 6-7 years. He also showed me a ball of thready dust (about the size of a big cherry) that was stuck in the fan. He told me that the notebook has a protection mechanism such that it reduces the processor and graphics processor to reduce the heat, if fan or heat sink is not working. If that doesn't work, it shuts down the system.

After that, i turned on the system and I was able to watch youtube videos in fullscreen again. My warranty would expire this year. I guess I'll renew it to get my notebook parts replaced often :)

Kashmir Day

2010-02-05T15:37:00.002+01:00

Today is Kashmir day. The day we show solidarity with the Kashmiri people suffering decades of violence and occupation. It all started in 1947, when the British left the Indian subcontinent and gave the option to all states whether to join India or Pakistan or stay independent. The population of Jammu and Kashmir was Muslim majority and naturally wanted the join Pakistan. However, the ruler of Kashmir was a Hindu Maharaja Hari Singh. He wanted to remain independent. People revolted in western Kashmir to overthrow the Raja, and their neighbor tribesmen crossed the border to help them. They were advancing fast towards the center. The Hindu ruler asked India for military help to save his throne, but India refused to help unless he joined India. So he joined India and India invaded Kashmir.

Later, India took the issue to UN in 1948, which passed a resolution asking for a Plebiscite so that the people could themselves decide upon the fate of their state. Both India and Pakistan agreed to this. However, the plebiscite never took place. Pakistan has repeatedly called for the plebiscite according to UN resolution, but India refuses and claims that Kashmir is a part of India. The UN Security Council passed Resolution 47 on April 21, 1948, which stated "that the final disposition of the State of Jammu and Kashmir will be made in accordance with the will of the people expressed through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite conducted under the auspices of the United Nations". The cease fire took place on December 31, 1948.

The UN Security Council later passed four new resolutions, revising the terms of Resolution 47 to include a synchronous withdrawal of both Indian and Pakistani troops from the region, per the recommendations of General Andrew McNaughton. Uptil now UN arbitrators put forward 11 different proposals for the demilitarization of the region - every one of which was accepted by Pakistan, but rejected by the Indian government. Let us hope and work to get this plebiscite done in Jammu and Kashmir and let the people decide. Pakistan says that it would accept any decision from the people of Jammu and Kashmir. However, this is not acceptable to India.

Problem solved: Windows 7 slow on dell notebook

2010-02-03T12:15:00.000+01:00

Ever since I installed Windows 7, my laptop was very slow. Whenever I ran vlc, I had to close all other applications to save it from dying down. I solved the problem with my Windows 7 being too slow. Well, it is a long story: I had a dell notebook which when charged its battery full, would disconnect the battery and run the laptop on direct power. Due to many problems, I got it replaced, but the new laptop (1521) lacked this feature of disconnecting the battery. As a result, my battery wore out after 2 years, while the earlier laptop's battery was good even after 2.5 years of use. Since we always use the laptop at home, I let the battery inside and use it as desktop replacement. A few days back, when I turned my laptop on, it said that my battery was almost dead and thus my computer could run slow. Walla ... that was the reason. I removed the battery, and the laptop now runs fast, much better than Vista. (however, not when I run Vuze) :)

Cleaning snow in Germany

2010-01-29T17:43:00.000+01:00

I live in a so-called Terassen-haus (house on steps?) which has its floors placed diagonally on the side of a hill. So the building is not straight, rather diagonal. So the elevators opens its one door for the first 3 floors, and the opposite door for the higher 4 floors. I live on the 5th floor. Such an arrangement of floors gives each front appartment a big balcony, and each balcony is surrounded with bushes, so the whole building looks a part of the hill. The building is located a little above the base of the hill, so there are 3 sets of stairs before the building, with a 2 meter flat surface between each set of stairs. Why am I telling in so much detail? Because yesterday I was asked to remove snow from these stairs.

Each appartment in the building gets its duty almost once every month in winter to keep the stairs clear of snow. Last 2 months, there was no snow on my duty. But this month there is snow every day. They place the tools outside the building. They consist of a shovel, a long brush and a bucket of snow-salt. I had never done this before, so I took the shovel and tried the carry the snow on each stair-step to the side. Most of the snow was easy, but it was very hard where people had stepped. The surface was not smooth, so the shovel didn't move easily. Then I figured that fine cleaning would perhaps be better done with the brush. It worked, but not at some spots. I tried for half hour at my best and then sprinkled salt on it and left for office. It snowed heavily in the afternoon, reminding me that I have to clean again in the evening. When I reached home, the path that I made on the stairs was even cleaner than I left it in the morning. This snow-salt is a magic salt. Though, I was a little annoyed why I had I worked so hard in the morning, I would have just cleaned a bit and sprinkled the salt. But, anyhow, it showed me that Farmville is a lot more easier when played on PC :)

Chilling Winter in Germany & Europe

2010-01-21T14:33:00.000+01:00

This winter is different than some previous years. Well, it started like normal: it snowed in December, but the snow vanished before Christmas, leaving wishing for another white Christmas. Then, it snowed again; this time an awful lot. For many days it snowed daily, mostly powdered snow. City services was quick to clean the pathways, but it snowed again the next day, until the newspapers announced a shortage of snow clearing salt. I even saw snow cleaners at night. A few days after, the authorities issued a warning asking people to store 4 days food and candles in case of electricity outages. This made us nervous, but then we realized it was probably meant for Northern coastal regions and Islands. They were hit the hardest by this extreme snow. People even said that this is a record since at least 20 years.

A funny (read: scary) thing happened too. My university has multiple campuses. My campus is on top of a hill. A bus goes up and down the hill. One day, when it snowed at extreme, I was waiting for the bus at bus-stop. The bus was late about 5 min, and it crawled slowly towards the bus stop. It was a double bus (two bus sections joined, but can bend). Well, I got on the bus, and the bus started down the road to get on the main road on a T-intersection. There was a signal there which was turned off due to the weather. The bus waited, but cars were coming from both directions. As soon as a small gap occurred between the traffic, the bus driver gave gas to make use of it, but he had to turn sharply to avoid tumbling down the hill in front of the T-intersection. The bus driver applied brakes, and the feared happened: the bus slipped: it was too fast. It took our breath away. So the driver released the brakes and gave some gas while turning the steering-wheel. Thankfully, the bus turned and got on the main road.

Trip to Pakistan

2009-12-16T13:28:00.003+01:00

In November I had another trip to Pakistan; first one with my daughter. I traveled with Qatar Air which is known as the only 5-Star airline in Gulf and surrounding regions. The flight was as usual, however, the staff was very good, even at airport. They asked us to hand the stroller (baby-pram) at the gate of the plane. Folding the pram was a long effort since I was doing it for the first time and the staff also struggled with it. My daughter was presented with a stuffed plane model with vibration feature. Older children were given small school bags with coloring stuff. We had to change plane at Doha, Qatar.

The first flight was from Munich to Doha. It took us 4 hours even with the fastest train to reach Munich airport. The airport is cleverly designed in that there are two runways on both sides of the terminal, so they can be used simultaneously. And passengers have to walk less because of reduced building size. However, the small walk between terminal 1 and terminal 2 is bad on a rainy day. Food on the plane was as usual German style. They provided us a basinet for my daughter in the plane. It is a rectangular box fitted on a table in front of the front seats. A child can easily jump out of the basinet, so constant care was to be taken, but still it was very helpful.

Doha airport is a small one lacking boarding tunnels. After a small security check, we went upstairs to wait, only to come downstairs on the other side and board a bus to the next plane. It was going to Lahore and thus completely full with a lot of families. Hence we couldn't obtain a front seat and so no basinet. We were given two seats from a row of 4 seats. Another lady was sitting beside us with her baby. The steward moved her somewhere else, since this row had only 5 oxygen masks and thus only one baby could sit there. We landed in Lahore at about 3 am. There was a banner there that passengers from some Swine Flu infected countries can get tested here.

Our return flight also started at about 4 am. Changing the plane again at Doha, we landed on Frankfurt airport. Then we went underground to the fast trains (ICE) station. They have separate train stations for fast and for normal trains at Frankfurt airport. There we tried to board a fast train, but it was full. Then we waited for half an hour for the next train, but it was full too. I went to the booking office to reserve seats, but it was not possible for the next two train connections, since it was Friday afternoon and everybody was travelling for the weekend. So we boarded the next train and stood in the aisle. After reaching our city, we asked multiple big and small taxies, but noone would take us since we had luggage, a pram and a baby. Some didn't have a baby-seat and some thought the luggage was too much. Finally we got a minibus from a company and reached home.

Why we do not progress

2009-12-11T14:37:00.004+01:00

I remembered an old bad happening with me. When I came to Germany in 2005, I got in contact with a Pakistani named Kashif Ghani. He was running a company called Magnus Multimedia. He told me that he got the project of translating a website into multiple languages and he wanted me to get this translations for him and he would pay me for each translation. I started my hunt for translators and found a French and an Italien translator as per his requirement. I got the text translated by them and sent it back to Mr Kashif in good faith. I didn't get any reply. When I checked the Deewan Farooq website, the Italien translation was uploaded. I intimated Mr. Kashif about it. He replied that they had uploaded both of the translations and I would soon get the payment in my Pakistani Bank account. At the urging of my translators, I asked him again about the payment. His reply was: "Our accounts manager is in England these days, he'll return after 10th August. We'll deposit the agreed amount in your account as soon as he returns". After one month, I again asked him and he said that the account manager has returned and my payment will be transferred soon. But as expected, no payment. I kept emailing them for 6 months, but there was no reply. I paid the translator from my own pocket in Euros. To this day, there is no reply from Mr Kashif Ghani (kghani@magus-multimedia.com), and the Italien translation is still visible on the website: http://www.dfsml.com/Italian/. I do not know why the French translation does not show up.

Now this is the attitude that beats us. The guy had such an opportunity with me as I had people of almost all languages. We could have been progressed a lot in translation business. But all he saw was his temporary gain, and removed my faith from freelance employers.

Yahoo Geocities closing its free service - a saga comes to end

2009-10-27T13:22:00.003+01:00

Yahoo is closing its free web hosting service Geocities. It will, however, continue providing paid web hosting services. I don't remember when I started using Geocities service, but it was a long time ago. I really utilized it extensively when I became my batch's representative (2001), I put all information about my university on it. Later I put my teaching materials on it (2003). I also registered a domain www.yasirniaz.com and pointed it to it.

There were some good points in it and some bad. Good point was that it was one of the earliest and most reliable free web hosting. Bad point was uploading of html pages, which I had to do file-by-file, and since I used a desktop tool to make pages, I always had to upload many files related to its theme. One bad thing was also, that they were not increasing their webspace, unlike their email. Still it was the best solution available then and it served its purpose good. Even now I still come across many private websites using this free service. I guess the finanical problem is the reason for this closing. They also closed Yahoo Briefcase earlier, which was a free online storage service since a long time. It also had the same problems, but was the best service available and I also used it for a long time.

Now the question is: where to get free web hosting? The first name coming to mind is of course, Google. Google's web hosting is different, as it lets host multiple sites. However, they strip the html that is imported into a page, so much that most of the good dynamic features are gone. Is there any other reliable free web hosting service?

Gujranwala Light Rail Project

2009-10-23T00:14:00.004+02:00

Here I propose a light rail project for the city I spent my childhood in. It is not as good as a tram system, but it would certainly ease mass transit until a tram system is built. In western and central Europe, cities with more than 200,000 people have trams. Gujranwala has at least 8 times that population (2009 estimate 1.6 million).
Blue markers indicate existing stations, while yellow markers indicate new proposed stations:

View Gujranwala Light Rail in a larger map

Nationalism in Germany

2009-10-21T18:37:00.003+02:00

Yesterday I went to a foreign language class at the university packed with more than 50 students. The teacher required everybody to state their names and the country they come from in that language. Most of the students came from Germany so they said this. However, one of the German students said "I come from Bavaria". (Bavaria=Bayern, a Southern state in Germany). This was followed by a laughter from the class. Next time around, he stated that he came from Germany.

I heard before that people from Bayern are very proud of themselves and consider themselves to be true (or the only) Germans. I thought that was a thing of the past. But still, even the youth has that mindset. In Pakistan too, some people from some provinces think that way :)

Moving to another city in germany

2009-10-19T12:24:00.002+02:00

I had to shift to another city this summer. It seemed like a very big task, but two of my friends helped in packing. The city where I was to shift was about 2 hours away by car and 4 hours by train. The first option was to hire a small truck and ask someone to drive it with my luggage. This was very expensive. Second option was to pack all the stuff in boxes and post it through a packet service (Hermes Packetservice). This option was cheaper so I chose this one. I collected some packing boxes. But later, a close friend suggested that some of my friends can travel with me on train to deliver my luggage. Although I was reluctant to bother my friends, they agreed. So we started packing stuff into suitcases. We pack everything inside clothes and put them in suitcases. I collected a couple of suitcases from friends, as there was not much stuff to pack. But as soon as we started packing, we needed more and more suitcases. I kept running to friends to borrow their suitcases. When we finished packing, we had 9 suitcases and 2-3 boxes. We decided to leave the boxes and big items like microwave at a friend's and then contacted 8 friends to go along.

So our journey started with 10 persons, 9 suitcases and a pram. We had to change trains 2-3 times. It was really funny watching people stare at us. My friends ate lunch at the destination and then departed back. Thanks a lot to all of them.

btw, when we reached the departure train station with all the suitcases in two rounds of a big taxi, the taxi driver, an Arab friend, asked me why I didn't contact them before planning. They would easily transport all my luggage to the other city in a small truck. Tough (late) luck!!

Unity of Muslim world in starting Ramadan and Eids

2009-09-16T12:47:00.020+02:00

For long, we have had this problem of multiple Eids and Ramadan starts in almost every country of the world. Scholars are also divided on this. The debate is on whether to rely on scientific data or physically see the moon. However, there is already a solution. All Muslim countries came together around 1978 in OIC and decided upon a common criteria for starting moon calendar. Their decision was to start the new lunar month on the "first possible moon sighting anywhere in the World". This means they decided to rely on scientific data. Sadly, very few countries follow this decision. Germany has also started implementing this decision since 3 years. I present the following topics in this article:

Why rely on scientific data?
Why not leave it as it is?
But Prophet (pbuh) asked to see the moon!!!
What about scholars?
What happened in Germany?
Eid-ul-Fitr
What to do:
More examples from Sunnat:

Why rely on scientific data?

If we calculate a little, it is very easy to understand the decision of 40 Muslim countries in the OIC, that is why they rely completely on scientific data. Suppose they decide that Ramadan will start with the first moon sighting in any part of the world. Then on Thursday (20-Aug), the moon is sighted in South America (or Hawaii). At this time, day time/Fajr time has already started in Japan, Australia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia, India and even in Pakistan. Which means Muslims cannot eat Sehri (eat) in these countries for the first roza (fast). Even in Middle East and Europe, if there is time to eat Sehri, there is no time for Taraweeh prayer.

Similarly, if the OIC decides that Ramadan will be started with a moon sighting in Saudi Arabia, then it is still too late for Muslims in Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Philippines, Eastern China, Eastern Russia and even Indonesia. It is also possible that the people in South America and South Africa have already seen the moon on the previous day. So unity of Ramadan start is not possible based on Moon sighting.

Why not leave it as it is?

Current situation is that every country sees its own moon. Well, we know how the situation is right now. There are disputes every year among Muslims living in non-muslim countries. Even in Muslim countries, Muslims are divided whether to follow their govt or Saudi Arabia. A brother from Indonesia told me they have the similar problem there, just like the moon problem in NWFP (Pakistan) etc. The solution is for all the Muslim countries to sit together and find a solution which is acceptable to everyone. This is exactly what was done in 1978 in OIC that Muslim countries sat together to solve this issue. There is a city in North (maybe Essen), where 7 mosques of arabs and turks started ramadan together on friday. If they can unite, why can't others?

So, is there any other solution to world's moon calendar problem?

But Prophet (pbuh) asked to see the moon!!!

There is an excellent example of this OIC decision. At an occasion, Prophet (pbuh) sent a group of Sahabah to a place and asked them to rush quickly and pray only after reaching that city. Sahabah got late in their way, the prayer time was expiring. Now some of them wanted to follow the words of Prophet (pbuh) as it is, and not pray till they reach that location. But some of them wanted to act on the logic of His command, not only the words, so they said that we should pray. Later, the Prophet (pbuh) declared both to be correct. Even the group which didn't follow the exact words of the Prophet (pbuh), but its logic. So, decisions can also be taken based on logic of Hadiths, not just their words. And this principle forms the basis of Hanafi Fiqh. Hanafi Fiqh is mostly based on the logic of Hadiths, that's why it is difficult to find good quality Hadiths with exact words as the Hanafi rules. On the other hand, Maliki Fiqh is mostly based on the exact words of quality Hadiths. Shafai and Hanbali Fiqhs fall between these two extremes. And it is our belief that all of these 4 Fiqhs are correct.

What about scholars?

Decision is to be taken always by scholars. But our definition of a scholar is a very relative one. Pakistanis consider Pakistani scholars. Arabs take arab scholars, Turkish will accept Turkish scholars, etc. In this way, we can never find a common solution. We need to see the big picture and listen to all scholars of Muslim world, and ask them to find agreement on these issues, and currently only OIC provides such a forum.

What happened in Germany?

Two years 4 Muslim organizations in Germany came together to decide on a common starting date for Ramadan. These organizations then announced agreed upon dates and about 200 mosques followed them. This is the start of the unity in Muslims (at least in Germany) that has been awaited for decades. This year, they have again agreed upon a common date for Ramazan to begin on Friday 21 August 2009. You can see the announcement here (German): http://islam.de/13657.php. There are four Muslim organizations including Turks, Arabs, etc, which have formed KRM (Coordination Council for Muslims, in Germany). The criteria for their decision making is the 1978 decision of the OIC (Organization of Islamic Conference) on Ramadan and Eid. KRM gave a clarification of their announcement for starting Ramadan on Friday 21-08-09 (http://islam.de/13704.php).

I am also a very strong believer in physically seeing the moon. But if the Muslims agree upon one method or the other, I'll be more than happy to follow. If their decision is against my belief, the correct way for me is to talk to them and try to convince them, but still follow the decision of the majority. So we should make an organization and go to this meeting of Muslims in Cologne (Köln) and present our opinion. This is the correct way of differing, rather than create small groups in religion. This is the concept in all religious movements of our country, including Tableeghi Jamaat, which says that if you have a different opinion, come to the meeting (mashwarah), present your opinion, and then follow the decision made in that mashwarah. They even state that there should be no gossip after a mashwarah is complete. And this pattern is followed by all preaching groups.

Eid-ul-Fitr

Hence, according to them, Eid-ul-Fitr will be celebrated on 20-09-09 inshAllah.

What to do:

Please try to convince your local mosques and Islamic centers to follow this decision of OIC so as to unite us. I know it is difficult, but not impossible. Last year we also put some pressure on our mosque and they did it. However, please don't be harsh and fight. If they don't accept it this time, maybe they'll accept it next year, or the next year. Just keep on trying in the best way and keep changing public opinion.

More examples from Sunnat:

It is also stated by the Prophet (pbuh) that the majority of Ummah can never be wrong. Even the Prophet (pbuh) changed many of his decisions based on the majority opinion. And I am certainly not more right than the Prophet (pbuh). e.g. Umar (RA) recommended to kill the prisoners of Badar War, and this was also the will of Allah, but Prophet (pbuh) released them based on majority opinion. Then, it was the will of Allah and also of Prophet (pbuh) to stay and defend in Madinah during Uhud War, but Prophet (pbuh) decided to go out of the city based on majority. Prophet (pbuh) wanted to rebuilt Kaaba as Prophet Abraham (pbuh) had built it, but taking care of majority opinion, he never did it. (One Muslim ruler attempted it later on, but there was a lot of chaos, and the reconstruction was reversed). etc, etc. All of these wrong majority decisions angered Allah but he forgave the Muslims since their decisions were based on majority opinion. This means, that if Muslims take a decision based on majority opinion, then they won't be punished even if they are wrong.

We know how Europeans used to brutally fight amongst themselves and kill thousands of each other. Then, they all came together and formed a Union to compete with their rivals. Is it not time for Muslims to form such a union?

Karachi Circular Railway

2009-09-07T13:59:00.007+02:00

There is new life in KCR project with federal government's funding promise. I attempted to create a Google Map of the Karachi Circular Railway based on maps from Wikipedia etc. This map gives an idea of the railway routes. Since I don't live in Karachi, the map may not be correct. I am improving it with time as more info becomes available.

Wikipedia article with map

View Karachi Circular Railway in a larger map

Unity in Muslim World in sighting Moon

2009-08-27T12:47:00.004+02:00

OIC (Organization of Islamic Conference) decided in its multiple meetings in 1974, 1978 and 1984 upon the issue of moon sighting and starting of Islamic months. All member countries (including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) agreed that an Islamic month will start on the "earliest possible calculated sighting of moon anywhere in the whole world."

Germany:

Last year 4 Muslim organizations in Germany came together to decide on a common starting date for Ramadan. These organizations then announced agreed upon dates and about 200 mosques followed them. This is the start of the unity in Muslims (at least in Germany) that has been awaited for decades.

This year, they have again agreed upon a common date for Ramazan to begin on Friday 21 August 2009. There are four Muslim organizations including Turks, Arabs, etc, which have formed KRM (Coordination Council for Muslims, in Germany). The criteria for their decision making is the 1978 decision of the OIC (Organization of Islamic Conference) on Ramadan and Eid.

To my inquirey, www.islam.de gave a clarification of their announcement for starting Ramadan on Friday 21-08-09 (http://islam.de/13704.php). It is better to read their clarification, however, for non-German-speaking Muslims, here are some imp points they mentioned:

- the OIC decided in 1978 that an Islamic month will start on the "earliest possible calculated sighting of moon anywhere in the whole world."
- about 57 member countries agree to this decision and thus removed the doubt in physically seeing the moon. However, most of these countries are not acting on their promise.
- Turkey is one of the few countries that has been following this decision for many years now. http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=month-of-fasting-commences-2009-08-19. (the issue was resolved in three conferences ... of OIC, in 1974, 1978 and 1984)
- The majority of Muslims in Germany are of Turkish descend. So their opinion carries a big weight in meetings for issues related to Muslims in Germany.
- European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR) decided upon this matter in 2007 in Sarajewo.
- Because of the lack of unity, the issue of a holiday for Muslim children in German schools on Eid day is unresolved.

Eid-ul-Fitr

Hence, according to them, Eid-ul-Fitr will be celebrated on 20-09-09 inshAllah.

What to do:

Please try to convince your local mosques and Islamic centers to follow this decision of OIC so as to unite us. I know it is difficult, but not impossible. Last year we also put some pressure on our mosque and they did it. However, please don't be harsh and fight. If they don't accept it this time, maybe they'll accept it next year, or the next year. Just keep on trying in the best way and keep changing public opinion.

You can see the announcement here (German): http://islam.de/13657.php

Jazak Allah khayran

Lahore Light Rail Proposal Phase 2

2009-08-16T01:49:00.007+02:00

It was a while ago that I posted a proposal for a Light Rail project in Lahore until LRMTS project is developed. So here is the second phase of this proposal. This phase also makes use of the existing railway line in Lahore and makes some stations on it. This will use two existing stations and add four new stations. Additionally, it proposes extending the railway line just a few kilometers to reach the airport which is visited by a large chunk of population and is an important part of travel. This new line would be 6.5 kms and include 3-4 new stations.

View Lahore Light Rail Phase-2 in a larger map

Afraid of flying? Well, you should be...

2009-07-01T17:20:00.025+02:00

... when they are making three planes take-off at once!!!

This is Frankfurt airport with 3 planes taking off (along with their shadows):

I don't know how long will they keep this current view of Frankfurt airport on google maps, as I have been seeing it for an year or so. So enjoy...

View Larger Map

Lahore Light Rail Proposal

2009-06-26T00:47:00.010+02:00

The Lahore Rapid Mass Transit project has been on the table for many decades now, but is as far from implementation as ever. Probably, the government could try a much cheaper and faster solution first. By using the existing rail line running through Lahore, a light rail project could be started, where small (and thus fast) trains could run frequently on the existing train lines providing commuter service to the huge population. This project can teach valuable lessons and its success could trigger more support of the Rapid Mass Transit project. Using Google maps, I created a rough sketch of such a project. This would use 6 existing stations (blue markers) and require 7 new stations (green markers) to be constructed. So here is the proposal:

View Lahore Light Rail in a larger map

Lahore Tram Project

2009-05-28T22:53:00.014+02:00

The detailed google map of Lahore enabled me to create a route of the first tram line (Green line) of the long planned Lahore Rapid Mass Transit System. The route maps available around the internet are not very clear and differ from each other. So I just created a combined route map to get an idea of the first line. So here is my attempt:

Green Tram Line of Lahore

View Lahore Rapid Mass Transit in a larger map

Pakistan detailed maps on Google Maps

2009-05-26T09:55:00.015+02:00

Today when I opened Google maps, I was pleasantly surprised to see the detailed map of Lahore. Not only Lahore, it has all the major roads of Pakistan and also many large cities like Gujranwala, Sialkot, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and of course, Karachi. At least, I have been waiting for this for a long time and it was at time frustrating. But now this is excellent development. What is more amazing is that it shows bus-stops in Lahore. Also it shows mosques, schools, hospitals, markets, etc.

View Larger Map

My daughter

2009-03-02T23:25:00.002+01:00

On Saturday, I did an Aqeeqah party for my daughter. She was born on 14th of January 2009 at 2:55 pm. We named her Hadia Yasir. She is a real cuty. At the time of birth, she weighed about 2885 grams and had a length of 49 cm. Actually I inquired about her weight and height only after I met my friends who have children. They started asking me such questions making me realize that I am supposed to know such stuff.

The city hospital was really nice and took great care of us.

Finding Nemo

2008-12-07T22:33:00.005+01:00

Today i tried to find a friend in the streets of Germany. The story began with a friend inviting me over for dinner. My mobile phone's battery was low and i had never my friend's house before. As soon as I got out of office at about 9 pm, my mobile died. I tried to turn it on for long enough to call or read my friend's number, but the Sony Ericsson E900 refused to stay on even for a few seconds. My friend told me that his house was next to the city-park near the water-pump. I got to the pump and looked around. No sign of friend. I walked around trying to find some signs, when a window on a 2nd floor opened. I walked towards it with a ray of hope, but in vain. It was only an old woman who came out for some time.

Finally I decided to try the dare. I yelled "Farhan", and started walking. No windows opened. I walked a distance and shouted again. The woman coming from the front with her dog saw strangely towards (a bit scared as well). I turned in one of the probable alleys and shouted once again. Unfruitful, I repeated it another alley. Another man jogging in the park stared at me. I came home, charged my mobile, called my friend and enjoyed his dinner.

Trip to Nuernberg - trial place for hitler's generals

2008-08-20T16:31:00.011+02:00

Some time ago, the university took us on a trip to Nuernberg in eastern Germany. It is a big and old city with the city center enclosed in an oval city wall with castles, forts and watch towers. Much of these is still preserved. A river runs in the middle. It was a three day trip so we had plenty of time to see around. The King's castle has been excellently renovated and converted into a youth hostel. This is thus one of the most beautiful youth hostels of the country and this is where we stayed. It is located at one end of the city wall, high up a hill. The first day we wandered down from the castle into the city and went through the city center to the other end of the wall and back. We also went to the 3-D cinema there to get the schedule of their shows.

Second day, after breakfast, we were taken to a museum to learn about the history of the city through models and see the life of kings there. Then we went looking for a market of Turkish residents. Once there, we found restaurants and shops of Turks everywhere. We are roasted chicken from one shop and prayed in a mosque. We also went to the 3-D cinema to see a small 4-D animation where they violently shook our safety belt laden seats.

On third day, we were taken to the parade grounds outside the city, where Hitler used to gather and display his military strength. It was a very big stadium where about 500,000 people gathered every year before the second world war. There we walked on the long parade road, a large portion of which was a bridge over water. Then we saw the unfinished building which Hitler was building to become the largest of the World. There was also an audio-visual museum about the complete history of Hitler's rise and fall. Even two hours were not enough to go through it completely.

Middle of July

2008-07-22T10:08:00.001+02:00

It is a funny mid of July. There is no summer. The temperatures are around 15 C. People are wearing jackets. Its getting different.

A nation respecting its teachers

2008-06-11T18:47:00.003+02:00

During childhood I often heard the story of a policeman who stopped the traffic to let a professor cross the street. Today I saw it in Germany. I was sitting in a bus coming back from the university, when a couple of professors got out of the car parking talking to each other. They were about to cross the road but then saw the bus and stepped back. The bus-driver stopped the bus and asked them to cross the road, even though it was no zebra-crossing. Normal cars may stop for pedestrians without a zebra-crossing, but buses never stop. This was the first time I saw this.

Travelling to Pakistan on Saudi Air through Riyadh

2008-02-18T20:47:00.007+01:00

This time around, I wanted to travel to Pakistan with Emirates Air, since my wife expected to fly back with me and i was thinking of touring Dubai. But this year, the ticket prices were too high as compared to last time. All airlines were offering above 700 euros prices. At last Saudi Air came to the rescue and offered a ticket in 550 euros. This was probably their debut flight. They too had a very busy schedule and I could barely get a seat in it for my required dates. The agent promised a seat for me, however, it required me to stay on Riyadh airport for 7 hours without hotel. I had to accept. But a few days before flight, the agent indicated that there are no seats from Riyadh to Lahore and I have to go to Islamabad. This required only a 1.5 hours stay in Riyadh. I had to accept it.

On my flight day, a friend was driving to Frankfurt airport and he offered to take me along. I took the offer although I would have to spend a few extra hours at the airport but would avoid the hassle of train change etc. I asked the airport staff if there is an internet connection on the airport, but it was too expensive. Then I asked for a power plug to charge my laptop and they prompted me to use the plug they use for charging their airport transport vehicles. So there I laid down on a long rest seat watching the Matrix. It didn't seem like a good idea for me to watch a movie with heavy gun fights on such a location, but never mind. When I passed through the security check point, I was overconfident. The security door didn't like that and protested. So they ran their handy scanner over my body and it too kept the view of its bigger cousin. I took everything out of my pockets, but it kept on buzzing near my feet and on my legs. So the guy asked me to came aside and take off my shoes. Then he felt my whole socks and I admired his courage (or strong smell nerves) :) I had put some money in polythene and put in my socks, but he ignored it and let me go. During boarding, my hand carry was over-weight (on the confidence of their membership, whose card arrived only after my departure), so the lady said that I'll get in trouble at the boarding gate. So, i waited to go last in the gate and avoided her while boarding.

The plane from Frankfurt to Riyadh was a Boeing 777 with personalized on-seat entertainment system. And the plane from Riyadh to Islamabad was a Boeing 747 also with the entertainment system, but this one was not friends with the remote control and was working for hearing-disabled people :) They distributed menu choice lists on both flights. Food was German-style in first flight and Pakistani style in second flight. Riyadh airport is beautiful but is under development as a new World's second largest airport. They have a beautiful fountain in the middle. The 747 to Islamabad was jam-packed. From there I took a Daewoo inter-city Bus to Lahore.

Married!!!

2008-02-03T21:20:00.001+01:00

I know I should have mentioned this a long time ago, but I would again blame laziness for this :) I wrote about my trip to Pakistan last September. btw, I got married in that trip :)

It is the beginning a whole new aspect of life. Although I only got "Nikkah-ed", still I feel somewhat different. Or at least I try to... When I returned to Germany, I attended a party where I had a chat with an Indian guy. During the chat I asked him if he was married. Upon his denial and back question, I also replied in negative. A few seconds later, I realized my mistake and uttered "yes, yes, yes, I am married". So, I have to feel that I am married. Marriage itself involved many processes. Deciding whom to invite and whom to postpone till walima. Then going to almost every home in Lahore to distribute the invitation cards. I had to sit formally with my wife for some hours on stage and it was difficult to find time to talk to her. Then came her sisters and cousins for the milk-drinking ritual, where they gave me and my wife some milk to drink and then demanded payment for that milk. A hefty 50k amount. We struck a deal of a much less amount. Services Club proved to be a good spacious hall for such a function attracting about a couple of hundred guests.

Notebook replacement from Dell

2007-12-18T14:57:00.000+01:00

I finally got my notebook replaced by dell. I bought this Dell notebook three years ago and it was having problems every often. In these 3 years, Dell replaced my hard-disk, DVD drive, processor fan and heat-sink, LCD screen and charging adapter. Now they wanted to replace my motherboard because of the problem. I refused to let it happen and asked them to give me a permanent solution to this time-waisting routine every six months. I asked them to either replace my notebook with another model, or to "tell me their office address so I could shift my home near them so that they can come everyday to my house to repair my notebook" :) This suggestion had the desired effect and they resorted to replacing my notebook. I did many upgrades to the free notebook they offered me and hence I got 2 GB ram, 160 gb hard-disk, bluetooth, integrated camera and metallic blue cover in 250 euros extra. The new notebook i got is an AMD Turion X2 TL-58 (Insprion 1521) with 15.4 inch wide-screen display and 3 years service warranty. I have formatted and packed my old notebook and waiting for the delivery service to pick it up. Dell Inspiron 1521

First snow in Kaiserslautern

2007-11-15T14:58:00.000+01:00

It snowed here today. Actually it snowed a little yesterday but the snow couldn't accumulate on ground. Today when we woke up in the morning and the ground was pretty much covered in snow. This was the first snow of this winter. Normally, in our area it snows for 2-3 months. But last year was an exception as it didn't really snow last year. There were snowfalls a couple of time but the snow was soon gone. So practically, there was no snow last year. This time, we have yet to see whether it really snows or not. We usually get one snowfall at the end of November and then the regular snowfall follows in the end of December or start of January. However, this time it snowed a little earlier than usual. Well, strange things are happening with the weather every year.

New life in Lahore Rapid Mass Transit (LRMT) Rail Project

2007-09-28T12:48:00.000+02:00

The chief minister of Punjab Ch. Parvez Ilahi announced on 26-sep-07 that the Lahore subway train project will be started after Eid (14 oct). Many train lines are proposed to be built. The first line is the Green line covering 27km area from Shahdara to Hamza Chowk. This line will take 3.5 years to build and cost around 3 billion dollars. The original plan estimated the completion date in 2012 but the authorities want it to be built till 2011 before the World Cup.

You can find a lot of information about the project on the website: http://www.pakistaniat.com and in a forum thread at: http://www.skyscrapercity.com

Flying with Mahan Air through Tehran

2007-09-17T01:25:00.000+02:00

Last month I travelled on Mahan Air through Tehran. Mahan Air is a private airline of Iran having 24 planes and flying to 27 destinations. I was very cautious about it based on rumours but had no other option. It didn't fly from Frankfurt, but from Duesseldorf instead. They gave a train ticket so I took the journey of 4 hours to reach that city. Duesseldorf Airport is also a nice airport with landing/take-off viewing platforms. The train station is on one end of the runway and hence a hanging sky-train takes visitors between the terminals, the parking and the train stations. The plane from Germany to Iran was surprisingly smaller than the one from Iran to Lahore. They had far more newspapers than Gulf and Emirates Air. They also offered passengers coffee-toffees once on board. The flight was smooth and we were offered standard drinks and food. They presented kids models of aircrafts. We landed on the new airport of Tehran, the Imam Khomeini International Airport.

Before landing into Tehran for a plane-change, the pilot requested the women to dress properly according to Islam as required by law, even at the airport. They then presented all of the women pink long-shirts and white head-scarfs. It was fun to see European women wearing these nice modest clothes on the airport. Exiting the plane, they gave everyone a small box of pistachios. Once in the airport they gave us our next boarding cards and also coupons for a free burger/cake and a free drink. This was uniquely generous considering we had a stay of only two hours. Then we went to buy sweets from there. The first sweet-box I saw costed some 50,000 Rials. Their currency is extremely devalued and a Euro is equivalent to about 12,500 Rials. They had made very beautiful shapes filled with dry-fruit. The flight to Lahore was even more peaceful so that I slept and missed the meals. They always presented their own carbonated drinks similar to Coke, Sprite and Fanta. All food items were also made in Iran. The return flight was also ok except there was a delay at Tehran airport of about two hours which is normal with cheap airlines. Thank ALlah that I caught the last train to my city in time.

Muslim Students Group at University of Kaiserslautern Germany

2007-08-20T23:50:00.000+02:00

Some days ago we decided to attend a lecture in Karlsruhe. We being the Muslim Students Group at University of Kaiserslautern (Muslimische Studenten Gruppe, TU Kaiserslautern). This group existed before but ceased to be active some years ago. We reconstructed this group to actively arrange activities for all the students at the university. We are starting from smaller activities and progressing towards bigger ones. So first of these activities were an Islamic weekend. We went to Karlsruhe on Saturday to attend a lecture by a converted German named Pierre Vogel. The lecture was arranged in a sports hall which was full with audience, both Muslims and non-Muslims (including German) with as many women as men; reason being perhaps the topic: Position of Women in Islam. The lecture was in German and the speaker was a native speaker. So I understood less than my level of German understanding. Before going to the lecture we had lunch together and saw the Karlsruhe castle. We 10 men had travelled from Kaiserslautern with Train while about 8 women came in a van we had rented. Photos.

The next day we arranged a Bar B Que party for the members and potential members. Though it was summer, summer was nowhere to be found. It rained that day as well, however, with a bit of wind. So we found two covered places at the Uni for Grill. One saved us from the wind but not rain; the other saved from rain but not wind. After some to and fro motions, we opted for the second option. There were about 50 people at the party. We had beef sausages and chicken and people brought salads. We also gave small talks about our MSG in German, English and Arabic. As soon as we started the party, the weather got good. Photos.

Now we are planning a trip to Trier to see the city and attend a couple of lectures there.

Happy Independence Day

2007-08-14T23:57:00.000+02:00

happy independence day to all. The independence to be corrupt and to rob and kill each other. Let us promise today that we will never do corruption, never give or accept rishwat, never accept or do sifarish, see our fellows above the divisions of language, province, ethnicity, sect, etc. Only then do we deserve to celebrate our freedom. Otherwise: long live our new masters (internal or external).

Receiving Pakistanis in Frankfurt

2007-08-13T20:24:00.000+02:00

Last week we decided to go to Frankfurt airport to receive a batch of Pakistanis coming to Germany. They had received the HEC scholarship for phd and were being sent in 3 groups. Two groups had their flights 4 hours apart and the third group was coming 3 days after them. We opted to receive the first group while others chose to receive the second group. We started our journey in the morning, reaching Frankfurt city in the afternoon and strolled to a Pakistani restaurant "Shahid ka Dhaba". There we were served delicious dishes with hot roti and lassi. Then we went to a Bengali mosque to pray and subsequently to a Pakistani sweet shop (Akmal). We bought freshly made "Gulab Jaman" and returned to the train station to catch a train to the airport. The flight was delayed half an hour. PIA was banned from Europe shortly but now was allowed to operate again. This time around, they probably didn't have flights to Frankfurt. So the students were flown to Milan, Italy. Then they were to reach Frankfurt through Al-Italia airline. When the scholars finally reached Frankfurt, they told a horrible story of their change-over. The luggage of some of them was placed in the next flight. So these people chose to stay and wait at the airport.

We came back after sending the scholars on their way to their respective cities. Some other Pakistanis were to receive the remaining scholars at night. One of them tells the story of reception like this:
"In the next flight 8 scholars were missing. They were supposed to spend night at Milan airport as they were not allowed to go out side the airport but I heard that then some Pakistani from tribal area helped them & they spent night at some hotel. They arrived then next day at 11:30 am & went to their cities. Two or three of them had lost their luggages. The students arriving with 10 pm flight were very upset & many of them had lost their luggage (as well). All the clothes & important things were missing. I helped them to claim the luggages & hope the airline will send them when they (are) found. This was really very bad & was due to the PIA & HEC officials. All have told all the story to Pakistani embassy & also to DAAD."

btw, a funny thing happened as well. One of the students gave me the telephone number of the hostel's manager where they were supposed to stay. I called there and asked if all of the 8 scholars of that city will stay with him. He sounded like a Turkish guy. After confirming, he asked me a question: "these people coming from Pakistan, are they some high officials or some ministers or something?" At my surprised answer that they were just students, he exclaimed: "You are the sixth person to call to inquire about them".

Bar B Que party at my research group

2007-07-31T18:21:00.000+02:00

This month we had the yearly Grill party at my robotics research group. We hold this party every summer at a Bar-B-Que location next to our building, and invite all the students who have worked with us during the last year. This year, summer has not come completely yet, so we were afraid of a bad weather. However the weather got better at the time of the party and we started a little earlier than scheduled. The initial phase, burning the coal, was tough, so we used a heat blower to speed up the process :)

I came back at about 11 pm while the party was going on with still a few participants there. Some left-over food and drinks now lay in our kitchen ready to be made good of...

Joining East and West Germany

2007-07-07T02:06:00.000+02:00

A few days back, the university arranged a trip to Berlin. We travelled on bus with Brazilian students singing and making noise at the back for the first two hours. This was a ten hours journey because of our stopovers. We got a hostel to stay neat the city center in this relatively big city (but only a third the population of Lahore). There we were briefed on our location and where to go in the evening and which areas to avoid. Yes they told us two areas where we could be engaged by neo-nazis that got us worried. Nevertheless we got out and met a friend there who took us to an Lebanese restaurant serving tasty KFC style chicken.
The next day we went to a research institute to hear some presentations and see their super-computer. It was in a large noisy room with a long line of cupboards containing processor arrays. They had more than a hundred hard-disks which were used as temporary storage. The actual data storage was on tape drives on which a robotic arm was used to switch tapes. We also saw pieces of Berlin wall placed at city centre. There was a clear brick all through the city marking the position of the former Berlin wall. Since the Berlin wall was not straight, rather circular, so it was always difficult to tell which side of the wall (marking) was East and which West. Even the guide had problems sometimes. However, there were some things that provided some clues. Like the traffic signals for pedestrians were different. There was a very small portion of the wall intact at one place surrounded by a metal fence. Near it was a very long piece along the river with paintings depicting the history and sufferings due to the wall.
This wall made Berlin a very interesting and complex place. Like in other cities, foreigners were colonized on the outskirts of the city. In the case of Berlin, they lived near the wall as this was considered a dangerous place. When the wall vanished, these foreigner colonies found themselves in the middle of the city at important locations. So there are colonies like Turkish, Arabic, etc very near to the city centre. Secondly, once the wall was removed, Berlin was the first capital of the world with a huge empty space right in the middle. They didn't know what to do with it, so they sliced the area like a cake and divided it among huge companies. So now there are triangular buildings in this area made by Sony, etc.

Are you ready to die?

2007-06-20T11:11:00.000+02:00

This video shows death of a soccer player on field while playing. The player is Miklós Fehér

Cricket series with Saarbruecken

2007-06-06T11:32:00.000+02:00

Guest post from the blog of Omer Kamal.

A bold step at KFC Mall Road Lahore

2007-05-29T13:32:00.000+02:00

A guest-post from a friend (Ahsan Saleem):

Out of the blue, instead of going to relatively cheaper AFC (Mall road) I went to neighboring relatively expensive KFC. I haven't been to a KFC recently but the crispy chicken KFC ads have been tempting me for a while. With a watering mouth, and ready to go air wallet I entered KFC. Unlike its main branch (Barket market walee), the restaurant was almost empty with only a few tables filled, which I thought was an achievement of AFC. I hate rushy places so that came as a plus. The counter line was all empty and a girl with hijab was standing there.

Without wasting any time, I picked a menu and went off; I want this .. I want that upsize .. I want breast piece etc etc etc .. when suddenly the attendant at counter stopped me with a silent signal of her hand, and pointed to her ears with a negation. I was a little embarrassed or not.. I cant remember, but I surely felt surprised. I mean thats not common, I haven't seen that anywhere before. I spent some time in Beijing china some couple of years back and had developed a pretty pathetic sign language. It brought back old memories but the attendant was pretty quick and on the spot.

I started to realize that all of the walls were filled with posters teaching sign language and the menu appetizing me had sign language on it also. With in 10 minutes I was able to find a holding describing that KFC as a special branch being run by special ppl. I was happy to see someone in mainstream taking such a step. I had fun eating crispy chicken [ :) ] and practicing original and authentic sign language. Do try the KFC mall road.

My first encounter with French language

2007-05-24T21:17:00.000+02:00

Recently we decided to visit a French city near German border. It is called Strasbourg and is located at a three hours train ride from my city. We traveled on the "Happy Weekend train ticket" (a ticket that allows you to travel anywhere in Germany within one day) to a German city (Kehl) on the border of France. Where here, Strasbourg was lying over the river. We thought we should cross the bridge into France and then purchase a "full day ticket" in Strasbourg to make use of local transport. But the ticket office near the border was closed. The bus stops had no ticket machine and the bus drivers didn't sell "full day tickets". Worse, the drivers didn't speak either English or German. People at the border also didn't speak anything but French. So we used our natural instincts to ask for directions. We took the bus to the center of the city and climbed the highest cathedral in France there. It had more than 300 steps and induced hunger when we climbed down. We asked for a Turkish restaurant and ate a Halal Döner (shawarma) from there.

Then we set out to see the chocolate museum boasting to show chocolate manufacturing process and offering free chocolate. We took the tram to outskirts of the city till a bus station and asked a waiting passenger for further directions. He told us in broken English to take bus nr 50 after half an hour. The sun by this time was starting to burn. When the bus came, we showed the map and location of museum at which the driver asked us to take bus nr 2 with hand signals. We again waited and then got to the driver of bus nr 2. After showing him 3 maps of the region, he pondered for about 10 min and identified the place where we were standing on the map. Exhausted, we asked him about the museum and he began again searching the map and his brain. After about 10 more minutes he explained the directions in French to which he also didn't seem confident about. So we decided to head back to the city and took a boat tour around the city. The one hour tour showed us the European Parliament there. Then we took our dinner from a Bengali restaurant and headed back to Kehl with bus. The bus stopped in the middle for tne minutes to make us miss our train and wait for an hour for the next train. Once in Kehl we had to wait another hour for the next train. So we went inside the city coincidentally finding a loud festival there. We reached back at 2:30 am instead of 12:30 am. Pictures of the trip can be seen at Picasa.

Celebrating Labour day in Germany

2007-05-04T14:52:00.000+02:00

1st May was a public holiday in Germany on account of Labour day. The graduate students union arranged a trip to a local garden-show including numerous dinosaur statues, ranked among the uniques in Europe. We gathered in the city center at 10 am, noticing that the police was stopping cars from going towards the city center. Soon a rally emerged from a side walking towards the city center. There were hundreds of people carrying slogans to increase the pays. Many of them were whistling and some were beating drums. There were also children carrying banners reading "increase the pay of my papa". But it was a very peaceful rally. I heard there was trouble at the rallies in biggest cities like Berling and Hamburg. We joined the rally for fun and walked with them to reach the Garden-Show. They scattered inside the garden where speeches were held on a stage. We left them to wander off in the garden.

The garden was publicising 1 million tulips from the start of April. This was a replica of the famous tulip show in the Netherlands. Half of the tulips had withered at this time. Then there were dozens of very big and very small dinosaur models. In the evening, we played cricket as on every holiday.

Trip to Switzerland

2007-04-13T00:38:00.000+02:00

Soon came the Easter holidays. Four free days demanded some outing to get out of boredom. A friend had earlier proposed of going to Switzerland. That seemed a good option. So off we went on Saturday morning to Zurich, the biggest city of Switzerland. We arrived just in time to catch a city bus tour which guided us in and around the city for four hours. The city lies around the mouth of a lake and goes up the surrounding hills. We also took a cable car up the hill to get a bird eye view of the city. The bus then boarded a ferry alongwith 15 other cars to cross the lake. Zurich has the best living standard in the world. The guide showed us the most expensive area of the city. He also showed us the place where Churchill raised the slogan "Rise Europe" to pave the way for making the European Union, of which Switzerland is ironically not a member. We then headed to search for a cheap hotel, not having booked one in advance. After about two hours of searching, we found a hotel offering 30 Euros per person lying on the lake-shore close to the train station. Zurich was surprisingly clean with staff collecting junk in trains at regular intervals. There was even a steward in train selling eatables and collectibles. Most of the train journey to the next city was underground.

The next morning, we abandoned the plan to go the third largest city Basel and instead set out for Luzern, upon recommendation from tourism people. The coutry was covered in clouds which were expected to clear in the afternoon. We took a trip in Luzern to a very high mountain through cable cars. The cable car journey itself took more than half an hour with two interchanges to take us to a beauty i had never seen before. We crossed the clouds to reach the top of the mountain, called Mount Pilatus (dragon). It was a rocky mountain covered by snow on its flat areas and naked on steep slopes. There were two tops guarding a small flat strip over which people lied on berths under the furious sun. The mountain crows made it their backyard playground accepting food from tourists with their yellow beaks. Two hotels bordered the strip with a restaurant serving hot meals. A radar and a communications antenna watched over the surroundings from two different peaks. A 500 meter slippery cave lined one of the tops supposedly housing the fire-breathing dragon. Not wanting to leave that scene we came back to find the city bathing in bright sunlight.

After touring the city on the high city walls and eating from the train station, we headed home on the last train, a big risk in Germany. And the feared happened, the train stopped at one point to load us into a bus to reach the next train station. The ticket-checker although assured us that the next train will not leave until she has boarded us in it and thus that train waited 5 minutes for us 5 persons. Thank God we reached home that night.

Trip to Paris

2007-03-26T16:12:00.000+02:00

This month, we unexpectedly got a chance to visit Paris. A Pakistani student had earlier come from Sweden to our city to do his masters project. He was leaving this month so he urged us to make a trip to Paris. We conceded. He planned a one day trip with a tourism bus service So off we went, we five guys, early in the morning to a nearby city from where we were to catch the bus. The bus journey took about 4 hours, excluding a half hour stay we did on a highway filling station. The driver drove us through the city telling us significance of different buildings there. He finally stopped near the base of the Eiffel Tower and asked us to wander around and come back to the bus till 9 pm. he also gave us a map of the city telling about important locations and also which train station shoots the train to Germany in case...

We had already heard of the long lines at the tower and were puzzled whether to climb up. The line didn't seem that big, although it was one the three lines at the four base pillars (one elevator was out of order). We also had to wait there for a resident Pakistani who had lived in our city and was supposed to show us around. So we got into the line which was moving in quick steps. The straight line was not so long, but when we got near the counter, the line was twisted in a zig zag form with about 10 turns. We finally got the tickets and went into a big elevator that took us up to the first platform of the tower. It waited for a couple of minutes and went up again, diagonally this time, to the second platform. There we got off and stood in a line to get into a small elevator taking us to the top. The view was magnificant. We couldn't find the boundaries of the city. Seine river was flowing next to the tower.

Then we came down and took a very long walk along the river, passing by Les Invalides museum and (one of the World's biggest) Louvre Museum, to reach the Notre Dame. Then we passed through the Royal palace, coming to the Concorde and walking back through Champs-Élysées (famous shopping street of Europe) to reach the Arc de Triomphe. On the way we saw offices of PIA and National Bank of Pakistan on this street. Eating fish burgers from a Macdonald there, we came back to the tower, took its night pictures and caught the bus. The driver again took us through the city and finally headed home.

Btw, the city Rahim Yar Khan in Pakistan is the partner city of Paris.

Trip to Nuernberg and Rothenberg, Germany

2007-03-09T19:27:00.000+01:00

The university (of Kaiserslautern) arranged a trip to the South-Eastern cities of Nürnberg and a smaller city Rothenberg. We moved in a group of about 40 people changing trains to complete a journey of more than five hours. Such a long distance required that they arrange a night stay. We were to stay at a youth hostel in Nürnberg which was located inside a castle. It was historically inpsiring from the outside and modernally beautiful from the inside. We went to a bunker of world war but couldn't go inside. Then we went to an hour long trip in the tunnels under the city. That was a huge network of tunnels with the guide offering us another trip to cover the rest of the tunnels in another hour or so. It was a very important city during world war and even after the war, the trials of german generals etc were held here.

Photos from Asif Shahab
The next day we went to a small city in the South, called Rothenberg. After seeing Nurnberg we were wondering what better had this city to offer. Ignorant had been our thoughts untill we climbed the city wall. Tracing the wall we walked on and on and the wall never seemed to end. We walked for about an hour to cover only one third of it and then climbed down to see the city. It was surprising that this wall was intact after the world wars. The city also boasted an "investigation museum" which was more of a torture museum. It had about a hundred different tools for torture or shame for the criminals. A high-rise tower in the heart of the city provided a nice view of the city and the surroundings, among very high winds. Exhausted, we finally went to see the river and climbed down dozens of steps to get to it, only to find out that we have to go up all those steps to get to the train station.

Photos from Asif Shahab

Experiencing extreme climate change in Germany

2007-02-23T19:47:00.000+01:00

This winter was unbelievable. It was like there was no winter at all. There was no snow. It just snowed on two occasions, but only for the night. The next day the sun rose high, and the snow was gone. That is pretty strange for a city that used to spend a couple of winter months under the snow. Some regions in north and south were a little more (un)lucky, as they got some heavy snow; but that too didn't live its usual life. It makes life easy but it also takes away the pleasure of walking in the snow. A colleague also told me that snow kills different germs and so it is necessary to have.

Similar was the effect back in Pakistan. We weren't used to seeing negative temperatures in my city Lahore. But this winter we saw -2; and a good number of times. Seems like in a couple of years, the snow that fell in Kaiserslautern would instead start falling in Lahore. Global warming is taking its toll too early than predicted. Good to know that Pakistan Government has waived custom duty on all solar power equipment. Germany is the largest generator of solar power in the world.

Freedom of expression!!!

2007-02-15T19:39:00.000+01:00

"A German court on Thursday convicted far-right activist Ernst Zundel of incitement for denying the Holocaust, and sentenced him to the maximum five years in prison..."

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/02/15/germany.zundel.ap/index.html

Receiving fellows from Pakistan in Germany

2007-02-06T17:11:00.000+01:00

Last week we got news that about 52 Pakistanis were coming to Germany on scholarship from HEC. That is the largest we have ever heard of. We decided to welcome them and guide them as usual on Frankfurt airport. They were supposed to reach Frankfurt on Sunday at 5 pm. 4 other persons beside me were also coming from different cities. I took 4 friends from my city (a weekend ticket can be used by upto 5 people to travel around Germany). We first went to Mainz, the capital of our state (Rhineland Palatinate), did some sight-seeing, took lots of photos and went to Frankfurt city. Once off the train, we scavaged the streets for Pakistani restaurants. One of us found one and we entered among greetings from its Pakistani owner. We ordered daal, chicken curry, paey and chicken tikka with fresh roti and naan. After filling ourselves till the top, we took tea, paid 32 euros and took the 20-min train to Frankfurt airport.

We walked through terminal one to the skyline train, which took us to terminal 2 where the PIA flight was scheduled to land. The flight had landed earlier than expected. We were greeted by other hosts and we waited for the arrivals. Soon came two Pakistani guys pushing their luggage carts, with first arrival looks on their face. We asked if they were HEC scholars and asked them to park the cart along one wall. We handed them the contact list to fill and also the small info broshure we had prepared. And then started the long flux of arrivals and the space soon became overwhelmed. We asked hem to group according to destination. They had their studies in different studies but have to do 2 months course divided in 4 cities of Germany. So they formed 4 groups. Biggest was the group for Dortmund (about 20 students) which was sent off first with two guides to the integrated train station. Then was the group for Berlin consisting of 10 students sent also with two guides. The Frankfurt group of 8 students was handed over to a local Pakistani, and then the group of 4 students for Munich was sent with one guide. So in total, we had about 40 people, as some stayed behind for various reasons.

I then escorted the last group (Munich). We saw the Berlin group who were going up the escalators in a seemingly wrong direction. I inquired from the airport staff and before changing direction, saw the Berlin group coming down again. I told them to follow and went towards the train station. The Berlin group got a little behind. I purchased tickets for the Munich group and left them at the station with a guide to return. On my return I saw the Dortmund group going towards the train station, so I went with them again to see them off. Meanwhile i got news that Berlin group was sent off in train. We then gathered and returned to Frankfurt city train station where we again met with some Frankfurt people. From there we five took the train back to our city Kaiserslautern. It was fun when the new arrivals asked us whether we were hired by HEC or DAAD for the purpose. Others who heard about our trip asked if we had someone known among the group. Of course we had; they were all Pakistanis there!

My eyes are a challenge for the medical experts

2007-01-29T12:48:00.000+01:00

I went to my eye-doctor to try out the contact lenses she had ordered two months ago. I had this problem of vision for as long as I can remember. I went to this doctor here who did some extensive testing using 4-5 machines. After that, she put aside all machines, sat in front of me staring at my face and asked, "how did you survive so long? how did you manage it?" I shrugged my shoulders and said "I just got used to it". "I have driven a car for years" I further added; to which she got shocked and turned away saying she couldn't believe it. That made me believe she would call the police and get me arrested. But she didn't. Instead she told me that my eye-balls are of abnormal dimensions and lenses of this dimension are not made. This disease is called Astigmatism and I have an extreme case of it. They would have to put a special order for them and see if the manufacturer can make them at all.

So today, after two months, I went back and they put on the lenses on my eyes. It took long to get used to them and then continue with the tests. The Astigmatism problem was gone but the image was blurred. She put some lenses in front and I managed to get a perfect vision. Then I saw the world like never before. So clear and so beautiful: for the next ten minutes. I could read the smallest of numbers she projected on the front wall. Time froze, there and then. But there was pain in my eyes. She took off the lenses. She said that new lenses have to be manufacured with some adjustments. She said that normally people start with soft, round lenses; but for me they have to start with these oval and extremely powered lenses. One added feature was that my eyes didn't provide enough fluid cushion between them and the lenses. So they have to put a soft lens below the actual lens, again if that can be manufactured. This is getting very complex, but I am prepared to go through it, to relive the ten minutes of a new world I saw before. I can now feel how amazed are the people who get vision after almost completely losing it.

She did say one encouraging thing. She said that my vision itself is perfect and that is a miracle. She couldn't believe that I could get such a perfect vision with only the removal of astigmatism. Ideally people should have zero Astigmatism. Disorders cause it to grow to 0.5 or 1.0 or even 1.5. But I have an astounding 9.5 Astigmatism. She was an old lady but looked like she had never seen something even close to that. Anyways, that means I have perfect eyesight (6x6), but my eyeballs' shape distorts the image before it reaches my retina. I am thankful to God for that. I am also thankful to God that He has given me eyes with which I can see. I am very thankful that He has given me hands, arms, feet, legs, tongue, ears, nose, and all the other things and that He created me in a time when He gave knowledge to people to cure my little eye disorder.

Easy & pure charity in the developing world

2007-01-22T10:58:00.000+01:00

Last time I went to Pakistan, I rediscovered the pure and easy charity method I had earlier formulated. The problem was to discourage begging while giving charity. We had also heard of stories that people kidnap children or women and make them disabled for begging. Even poor parents do that with their children. This is a very serious crime and citizens also need to discourage alongwith the government. So if you give charity to beggers, you are just encouraging this practice. This is kind of a paradox. Once I was sitting in my car in a market and a young guy came to me in a wheelchair asking for money. I asked him to sell something instead. He sighed and said: Sir I have been selling things like newspaper etc, but now i have to wed my sister and for that i need more money. So i have resorted to begging this season. Surprised, I asked him the difference of income, and he told me the figures. I don't remember the figures but his begging brought him more than his selling. That is a shame for us, the society.

So what I do is: i never pay to beggers. Instead i buy small things from people selling them near traffic signals etc. I pay them more than the thing costs, like ten rupees for a newspaper, and they become very happy. I let guys clean my windscreen and pay them, instead of screaming at them. I buy balloons even though there are no children in my house. We can even get useful things from here, like newspaper, pens, flowers, etc. You can't imagine the nice environment at home if you bring your wife flowers every now and then. So buy what you need, and buy what you don't need if possible. This way i do my part in reducing begging and increasing trading. So let us all encourage selling small items instead of begging. Let us stop more people from getting disappointed from selling and going to begging.

One last point is the practice we normally adopt concerning poor sellers. I often see people standing at roadside carts and fighting over the price. Those sellers are very people who can't even afford a shop. We are very happy to go to a very big shop or a restaurant and pay them whatever they demand, but we fight with a poor guy who saves just a couple of ruppees in every trade. It's disturbing when somebody in a big car comes and fights for five ruppees over a half kilo peanuts with a poor seller. True that most of the sellers ask more money than deserving, but in a society that has little justice, people are seldom paid according to the hardwork they do. And those who are, are not well paid because of their hardwork. So until the society becomes just, we should pay these sellers a little more than they deserve in trading.

Dubai stay with Emirates

2007-01-11T20:24:00.000+01:00

The Dubai airport is huge. We walked a long way to get to the transit gates where all my friends said good bye and went into their next plane. I again undertook a very long walk in the airport to get to the counter of Emirates and later outside where we were escorted to a van which dropped passengers at three different hotels. I arrived just in time to catch breakfast. My stay was for about 10 hours. The hotel was very high and outside the window of my room i could see Dubai city port with big ships and endless lines of cars being transported. They gave me a nice double-bed room. Although the airport had muslim showers installed in the toilets, the hotel lacked them, just like in Muscat. Then i went to the tour guide sitting next to the hotel entrance to get some info about the tour options she provided. She gave me a booklet with multiple options out of which i choose one and found out that it was not so expensive. It was a 4 hour personal cab tour of famous places for about 30 euros. I consented and met an Indian Muslim guide who took me in his cab to start the tour. He showed me the beach with the famous 7 star hotel "Burj-ul-Arab" build on a small artificial island near the beach. Entry was allowed only for people who had booked a meal or a room. Then he showed me the newly developing "Marina" area with skyscrapers all over the place. I must have seen about 50 skyscrapers (mostly under construction) at one place. Then we went to this big mall where they had built a skiing slope with snow. Now imagine this: seeing a snow slope in a dessert. How can someone be more luxurious?

Then he took me to the camel feeding grounds where we saw a herd of camels being returned after feeding. These were truly dessert areas. The person steering the animals became furious when my guide took the car near the camels saying that this disturbs the animals and the owner may kill us without getting into any problem. Then we went to the racing arena where a race was to take place that evening. The security guards didn't allow us to enter but the guide told them i was a German tourist here only for 10 minutes. And that's what we did...just took some quick snaps and came back. On my way back I saw a white boy playing with his dangerous looking hawk in the parking area. At the end he took me to a museum which looked very small on the surface but was very long underground. I saw Pakistanis as policemen, security guards, hotel hosts, tour guides, cooks, camel steerers, etc. I even saw some road side signals with Urdu among other languages. Although it was middle December, but the weather was warm. It was drizzling sometimes and the people said that it is a rare event that they have such a pleasant weather because of the clouds.

Trip to Dubai with Emirates Air

2007-01-02T20:58:00.000+01:00

In middle December I got an intermediate stop in Dubai during a flight. The stay was to be of 15 hours. I asked my agent to arrange a transit visa and hotel stay from the airline. Five more Pakistanis were traveling with me but they didn't have such a long stay. When we reached Frankfurt airport on the flight day, we got the information that the flight was delayed for 3 hours. We got in the very long check-in line. The other Pakistanis had to catch the next plane in Dubai after just 3 hours. We asked the Emirates guide the reason for delay which she said was that the plane from Dubai was late. We told her about the situation and she went away. After about half an hour, when we finally reached close to the check-in counter, the guide came back; asked us to come out of the line and told us that they are sending us through Lufthansa Air to Munich where we can catch an Emirates plane to Dubai so that we don't miss our next plane.

We hurried to terminal one of the airport. There are two terminals of Frankfurt airport connected by both a skyline train and a bus. We took the bus and walked through the terminal to reach the Lufthansa Air counter. They didn't have a clue about this transfer of passengers. They phoned their supervisors and Emirates counter and finally figured out the situation. Then they started the check-in, only to find that the Emirates staff had written one less name on the paper they gave us. Lufthansa staff said they couldn't check-in that passenger. They tried to figure out some way to resolve this problem, but in the process they found out that the plane flew off. We took the train back to Emirates counter where they checked us in. There was some problem with one of us as two of his suitcases weighed more than 30 kg, the new limit put on every piece of luggage, the resolution being transfer of extra luggage to the boxes they provided us. They gave 15 euro dinner vouchers to all passengers because of flight delay, which we spent in Macdonald's while watching planes take-off and land. The airport had prayer rooms for all religions. The plane took off 3 hours later and we landed in Dubai.

The smallest joke ever

2006-12-27T20:49:00.000+01:00

Heard a great joke on TV:

Once there were two Pathans playing chess. (finished)

(Pathan are people of one of the provinces or states of Pakistan. I use them in the joke as i belong to them so they shouldn't feel offended. I have purposely exchanged them for a much more popular joke group of India).

Staring death into the eyes

2006-12-19T21:04:00.000+01:00

I described earlier our trip to Oslo Norway. We traveled there with a cheap airline called Ryan Air. The next night we took our return journey which was delayed an hour. The pilot taxied the plane to the runway and then took it off to a side lane saying ice needs to be cleaned from the wings. This was unusual. They cleaned the ice for a half hour. Then we took off from the airport. The pilot asked us to expect a bumpy ride because of bad weather. After about 15 minutes of smooth flying, the seat-belt signs went on and the plane starting jerking vertically. After another 15 minutes, the pilot asked the cabin crew to take seats and fasten seat-belts!!! And then the plane shook violently. I saw an air-hostess grab a seat trying half-heartedly to smile at the passengers. With one big bounce the women gave out screams. But after half an hour it became ok and we forgot the event for the next hour.

Half an hour before landing in Germany, the pilot again put on the seat-belt signs and later asked the cabin crew to take seats. We again started experiencing the bumpy ride. This time around, the plan was not shaking up and down, rather swinging left and right. We could easily see the spin of the craft. The pilot began descending the plane and we started praying. There was pin-drop silence in the plane. The pilot took the plane below much before the usual time. I could see the runway a few feet below the plane and still the plane was swinging. The plane touched the runway, bounced up and again landed on ground. The pilot finally stopped the plane and we sighed with relief. Despite the bad weather, the pilot had made a very smooth landing. As we got out of the plane, the wind was so strong that our jackets ought to being blown off. Two of our frequently flying friends exclaimed that they had experienced many bad flights but none like this; and others said that this flight brought God closer to them than ever before.

Trip to Oslo, Norway

2006-12-08T14:32:00.000+01:00

A few days back we 5 friends made a trip to Oslo, the capital of Norway. We bought return tickets of the cheapest airline "Ryan Air" for only 15 euros each. A combined room in a hostel in the center of the city was booked for about 20 euros per person. It was just a two day trip with one night stay. The airline Ryan Air offers such cheap tickets across Europe as it operates from non-regular airports far from big cities. The airport we were to fly from laid about a two hour drive from Frankfurt main airport. So we traveled there in a friend's car. We then took about a two hour flight to an airport in Norway from which it was a two hour bus to the Oslo city. This bus costs 40 euros for a return trip to Oslo.

Temperature in Oslo was not much below that in Germany, but strangely we felt extremely cold there. We reported at the "Anker" hostel at 11 am as required but they told us that check-in starts at 3 pm. Since we had the accommodation in city center, we didn't have to travel on bus or tram. We could go to the tourist places by foot. There were lots of Pakistanis on the streets. You could hardly walk for ten minutes without seeing a Pakistani. They were employed everywhere, from restaurants to security. The day was very short as Maghrib (evening) started at 3:15 pm. It is a city of just 500,000 people but it looked much more than that during the day (Wednesday). We saw the king's palace, Nobel peace prize building (where the ceremony was to be held on the coming weekend) and the (small) port. We also elevated to the 34th floor of a hotel to see the city. There were zebra-crossings on the road, but with traffic signals :) People were frequently breaking those signals and traffic had to stop even on green signals because of that.

One pleasing thing was that everybody could speak English, even on the streets and in shops. The old people could also communicate in English. We met only one old women and a couple of forigners who couldn't speak English. The most disturbing thing were the prices there. We were happy to receive about 5 Kronas but were startled by the prices even in the super market. A mere sandwich bread costed about 2-3 euros; 5-6 times more than in Germany. A small bag of chocolates candies costed about 10 euros.

An amazingly cute and emotional animation

2006-11-21T16:03:00.000+01:00

Ramadhan and Eid in Germany

2006-11-05T16:27:00.000+01:00

This Ramadhan was like the last one. We had Iftaar (ending the fast) every evening in the mosque. It is a totally different culture we have not experienced in Pakistan. Most of the bachelors do Iftaar in the mosque. There are about 70-90 people there daily. We also arranged two Iftaars. On both occasions we had more than normal attendance, thanks to the impression of South Asian food we left on the people last year. On the first occasion, we served chicken korma and sawayyan. As a drink, we served doodh soda (carbonated sweet milk). It was the first time in the mosque that the people couldn't fit in the eating hall and about 20 of them were seated in the praying hall. The second time, we prepared biryani and zarda (sweet rice). This time too people liked the food but they went crazy over zarda. It was unbelievably tasty and peopl searched to eat it aftwards till early morning.

On Eid, we prayed in the mosque, which as usual was over-crowded. It was a rainy day so we couldn't expand to the open area of the mosque. Had the Eid been one day earlier, we would have prayed in a conference hall at the university reserved for us. This was usually the case before the mosque was started. After the prayer, we decided to have a party at a Bar-B-Que spot in the university. At first the coals were not burning. Then when they burnt (after an hour of effort), it started to drizzle. We found a big piece of foam from the construction site nearby and used it as a cover for the Grill. It took us a lot of time to cook, but all-in-all it was fun.

Living the Pakistan quake in Germany

2006-10-08T16:08:00.000+02:00

Today is the day a devastating earth quake struck Pakistan last year. I still remember the events that happened. We got the news at night that there was a quake in Pakistan and a portion of a building in Islamabad collapsed. It seemed nothing too special. The following morning i woke up and opened and saw the death toll raised to dozens of thousands. I was shocked and so were my friends whoever i told. The whole nation then turned to help. I tapped into the helping streams and was overwhelmed by the volumn of efforts put in by normal people. The universities turned into supply hubs; students into NGOs; pockets into fountain-heads. People here were making their largest charity spendings. Calls were going on from China till US for managing funds and buying tents and stuff.

But still, as expected, such a huge help didn't turn out to be enough. There are still problems there, even after one year. Just the other day i heard in the news that there is no water supply in the city of Balakot. Govt plans to shift people into safe cities made in the area over the next 2-3 years. But how are they going to survive these many years in the coldest and highest of regions. They need constant help and honesty. May Allah enable us to help them continuously.

I have seen God - many times

2006-10-02T13:45:00.000+02:00

I love my Lord: Allah. He never lets me go too far in pride. It's only last week that i bragged about my cooking, and this weekend i totally ruined a dish i was supposed to cook for a party of about 20 people. I wanted to make Chicken Karahi (one of my favorites) and ended up with boiled chicken in tasteless sauce. This has happened a lot. Whenever i get too proud, God gives me a chance to come down to earth. I remember after about one year of successful teaching at my university, i was over-confident that i could get any course i wanted. And i got rejected to teach a course that semester. Though painful at that time, it is soon realized that it was a blessing in the hiding.

Similarly, when i got some knowledge about Deen, i proudly quoted a hadith about an issue on a mailing list, and got an immediate reply disclosing the correct version of the hadith and advising me to be careful with them. May be it happens to others as well. So watch out for God's clues.

Comment on my cooking

2006-09-27T15:02:00.002+02:00

Recently a married friend of mine passed a surprising comment in a dinner party at my place. He uttered "Yasir's cooking is very good. Even our wives become very careful while making food that we intend to send to Yasir. They make sure everything is perfect in the food."

I don't know whether to be proud of this comment or...

Not that I critisize bad food. I don't critisize any food, I just give my opinion how to improve it if someone asks. I praise everybody's cooking :)

btw, i get my recipes mainly from http://www.contactpakistan.com/pakfood/

Pakistani birth in Germany

2006-09-04T13:12:00.000+02:00

A few days back, a pakistani student was gifted with a son. This event invited a swarm of curious and sometimes funny experiences. The day his son was born, they went to the hospital in the morning, but they asked them to go back and come in the evening. Since my friend requested English to be spoken, they became mistakenly known among the staff as the "American Family". They were especially surprised to see that the grandmother of the newborn was also present there. They are not used to relatives visiting or taking care of the family. We went to the hospital to see the child and asked at the reception for our friend. They searched for some time and declared that the name of the mother is indexed and hence required from us. One of us was married, so he had some idea of the name and hence we got to the required room. Guests were allowed to stay only till 7 pm and father till 9 pm. Only mother could stay overnight, if she wanted.

The doctors discovered a bacteria common in South Asia but extinct in Europe on the baby. They did't care much about it. My friend consulted doctors in Pakistan who advised to take the matter seriously. So they took the little guy to the hospital and told the doctor that they had consulted British qualified doctors (actually true) and quoted their advice. The local doctors then admitted their mistake and took the child in for a week for vaccination and checkup. That problem is now solved.

Another critical problem remains: Khatna (circumcision). Local doctors are mostly not prepared to do it or at least not through the health insurance. They don't treat it as necessary so my friend will have to pay for it. He hopes to find a Muslim or Jew doctor who can do it from the health insurance.

Fed up with Yahoo's war with Google

2006-08-28T18:11:00.000+02:00

I have long been a Yahoo loyal, but now i can't stand Yahoo's new moves. It has waged a war against Google in a negative way. Earlier i thought that this was just a conincident, but it happens everytime. The issue is that i am the owner and moderator of some of the groups on YahooGroups. Recently i sent some emails on these groups using my Gmail account. They were shown as delivered on the group's hamepage but they never got to the members of the group. I then re-emailed from Yahoo email and it got through. Since most of the members are subscribed to the groups through their Yahoo email accounts (as recommended by me, since it allows usage of other group features), my Gmail emails ended in their "spam" email folders, while my Yahoo emails got to their inbox. The same story has been happening since a few months now and without an exception. Yahoo email delivers my Gmail messages into "spam" folder even though i am the administrator of these groups. Has anybody else experienced the same?

I have been using Yahoo's email, web site provider (geocities), groups, photos and briefcase services. I always preferred services other than Microsoft's because of their attempted monopoly. Now Yahoo is going on the same road. Although Yahoo is among the top website visited around the world, and Yahoo provided Video search long before google did, this is a very cheap step they have taken towards monopolizing their services. I am now thinking of moving to Google groups.

Trip to Holiday Park, Hassloch, Germany

2006-08-23T13:34:00.000+02:00

This Saturday i went to a theme park in South-West Germany. It is located in the city of Haßloch, 40 min train from my city. There are many thrilling rides and the pathways leading to these rides go through forrest-like environments. The first and most exciting ride we took was the roller coaster which took us 60 m high only to drop down at an angle of 82 degrees. It's frightning seeing the earth in front of you coming closer and closer. Then it completes its tracks with ups and downs and twisting. This coaster won the public's award for "best coaster of the world" in 2003 and 2004. As we got off of it, it started raining. There was a small round cloud covering only the park. I could see the blue sky all around this piece of cloud. Anyways, it rained for an hour during which they stopped most of the rides.

After the rain we took to the "free fall tower". It takes the visitors 70 meters high and drops at an angle of 90 degrees with extreme speed. The pressure is so much that our legs are stretched out and its difficult to draw them back down. There is another roller coaster that is not so high as the previous one but circles around many more times. A water-log ride made us a little wet before we went to the "Light house tower" which spun us around at a height of 80 meters. After taking many more rides, we headed towards the laser night show. With a lot of spectators, this was an amazing show. They used lasers to project huge and unbelievably detailed images above a lake. They presented different presentations and the story of Alladin flying with his carpet over different landscapes and ended the show with fireworks accompanying the last laser presentation. I tried, but my camcorder was unable to capture the full beauty of the show.

A briton MP's truth about Lebanon Israel conflict

2006-08-13T14:53:00.000+02:00

(9 min video)
Truth about Lebanon Israel conflict explained by a British Member of Parliament (MP) George Galloway on Skynews. A little rude, but blatantly straightforward and convincing.

Pak India cricket in Germany

2006-07-28T10:45:00.000+02:00

A few days back we were invited to play in a cricket match between Pakistani and Indian students in Heidelberg, Germany. This is the city where Allama Iqbal lived for some time and learned the German language. Match was played on universit's football ground with coordination from the university of Heidelberg. There was even a trophy for the winning team. Players were collected from cities around the region and most of them met for the first time to form a team. Indian players were supposed to wear white shirts and Pakistanis wore black shirts. Match started after national anthems were played. Indian captain won the toss and invited us to bat first. Our start was very bad with wickets continuously falling with less runs, After half the overs, we picked up pace and started scoring to get about 125 runs in 15 overs. At that moment it was drizzling. As soon as first half ended, it started rainging cats and dogs. We ran to find refuge in university buildings. After more than half an hour, the Indian team started batting, They kept their wickets but could only score half of the runs.

After we won, the Indian team chanted a loud, "Three cheers for Pakistan, hip hip hurray, hip hip hurray, hip hip hurray" that surprised us all. That was an sxcellent gesture shown by them even after losing from their archrivals. We couldn't help but utter that though Pakistan won the match, the Indian team won the event. Credit goes to the chief organizer, Atif, a pakistani student at Heidelberg university. See photos here.

Tsunami and earth quake in Indonesia

2006-07-19T17:19:00.000+02:00

A tsunami occured in Indonesia on Monday. So far 525 people have died with 273 people missing, More than 35,000 people have been displaced and hundreds of buildings were destroyed. (CNN)

Today an earth quake struck Indonesian capital Jakarta. Reports are coming in of damages. Our brothers in Indonesia need us just like our brothers in Pakistan earlier. Try to donate as much or as little as possible. Even a single euro would help.

In my opinion, it is best to donate to Islamic Relief. You can easily donate to them using your bank account. Just do an Uberweisung to:

Islamic Relief
bei der Sparkassen KölnBonn,
Kontonumer: 12 20 20 99
BLZ: 370 501 98

For refernce: Islamic Relief de

Other relief agencies worldwide: CNN List

Jazak'Allah

It's a bird, it's a plane...

2006-07-14T11:15:00.000+02:00

Look! it's an islamic terrorist, it's a taleban, it's an al-qaeda member...
No, it's just an israeli soldier.

(Pic courtesy: CNN)

Upsets of the world cup 2006

2006-07-07T10:54:00.000+02:00

Although the Germans didn't expect their team to even reach the second round of the world cup, hopes raised of it grabbing the cup after it defeated Argentina (1:0). That was probably the first major upset of the tournament. Germans did good in containing Argentina and stopping them from scoring. Argentina was considered one of the favorites, scoring highest number of goals in this worldcup (against Serbia and Montenegro 6:0). Their game with Germany went into extra time but still undecided. So it was to be decided through a method which everybody hates: panelty shoots. There Germany was stronger since it has never lost a panelty shoot-out ever in the world cup history. But they lost to Italy (0:2). Italy played better but couldn't score until the last minutes of the game. Italy were desperate to stop the game from going to panelty shoots given the fact that they have never won a panelty shoot-out in worldcup history.

A minor upset was Portugal defeating Holland (1:0). It looked more like a wrestling match than football. Portugal started the foul play and Holland responded. Especially in the second half the game was very brutal. Both teams ended up getting the most foul cards in the world cup history: 16 yellow and 4 red cards.

And finally the biggest upset was the defeat of Brazil from France (0:1). It was said that Brazil wanted to take revenge of the final of 1998 where France defeated Brazil 3:0 to claim the cup. But now Brazil has to take two revenges. Brazil was the hot favorite of many from the very start. Even most of the Germans had a Brazilian flag alongside a German one on their cars and houses. Ronaldinho of Brazil was perhaps the most renowned player of the tournament from the start, but he also couldn't do much. Ronaldo performed much better than expected. Zidane took his team to the final which will be the last match of his career. It was interesting to know that Zidane is an Algerian Muslim.

I don't have much interest in football. But its true that you get excited being in a football-excited country. I didn't know who was playing before the cup began. Now thanks to m friends, i am following the game excitingly.My favorites were Argentina (without any reason), but they are out. The sorrow was somewhat relieved when Brazil got out as well :)

Meat-eater Germans

2006-06-28T11:37:00.000+02:00

A few days back, one of my colleague invited the whole research group to his town Bingen. It is a small town located on Germany's biggest Rhine river in the most beautiful of areas. It is a hilly area with lots of grape fields and forest. That's why this area is called weinstraße (wine-street). The river curls through the valleys hosting the largest density of castles in the world. It has 40 castles in just 65 kilometers. We took chair-lifts, walked through the forests on hills viewing the rhine river below and the small towns located on it and took small cable-cars. We also visited the statue called "Germania". It is the statue of a woman representing Germany.

In the evening, our colleague took us deep inside the town to a restaurant to have a special dinner. This restaurant had seats in its lawn with wines growing long to produce a roof. I as usual looked for fish and ordered smoked fish. When it came, i was surprised to see red slices of fish meat spread across the plate. I tasted it only to find out that it was uncooked. My colleagues told me that it was only half-cooked. I somehow managed to finish it, trying to keep it down my stomach. By that time others had finished their dishes and a couple of them had ordered some snacks containing some sort of meshed tomatos. When i proudly announced that i had finished the fish, they asked me: "do you know what we are eating?". Upon accepting my ignorance, they declared they were eating what many Germans eat: beef. Not just beef, raw beef!!! completely uncooked. I watched them in utter disbelief as they continued eating it with bread and butter.

Living the Football Fever in Germany

2006-06-14T11:03:00.000+02:00

Football fever everywhere in Germany. Each day fans, both locals and guests, turn out to take part in city parties, parades, festivels and head to the viewing arenas to watch their favorite games. My city Kaiserslautern has posted two giant tv screens at two different locations. Both grounds have stalls selling drinks and edibles. The main road between the two arenas and the area around them is also decorated with stalls and joy-rides for children. There are groups of famous street performers performing in them. We went to one of the arenas to watch the first game of the worldcup between Germany and Costa Rica in Munich last Friday. Naturally there were lots of German fans flooding the tv arenas. We got there after the game started, so couldn't get in. There were many people outside the arenas as well watching the match as much as they could see. Germans got very happy when their team won 4:2.

This Monday Kaiserslautern got its first game of the WM (german name of world cup - Weltmeisterschaft = world-championship). The game was between Australia and Japan which was won by Australia 3:1. Swarms of fans flooded the city that day literally blocking the pedestrian pathways of city center. People had to jump over benches to get through. Yesterday i watched a sensational game between Brasil and Croatia. Though Croatia lost 0:1, they played surprisingly a very beautiful game against the WM favorites. Obviously there were more fans of Brasil in the arena, but they started cheering Croatia in the second half for their fearless play. They made more attacks than Brasil and their goal-keeper ended up saving less direct shoots than the Brasilian goal-keeper. Everyday three matches are played in Germany (3/4 pm, 6 pm and 9 pm), which are telecasted live on giant tv screens in major cities. See the football fever in my city Kaiserslautern at: Kaiserslautern Football Fotos.

FIFA worldcup - from Germany

2006-06-09T11:18:00.000+02:00

FIFA Worldcup kicks off in Germany today with a lot of anticipation. The first match is between Germany and Costa Rica in Munich. Many month-long parties have been planned in major cities. Giant screens have also been put up in these cities to show all matches. In Frankfurt, a giant screen has been placed in the river Main to be viewed by people on the river-banks and on boats. In my city Kaiserslautern, they have placed a big screen near the city-center. Almost all the many construction points are completed in my city. All hotels and hostels are booked. Cities are making tent colonies to host the fans. I have been getting requests from people for a place to sleep during the worldcup through Hospitality Club.

It has been reported that Germans want to show their openness using this event. Traditionally, the world has viewed Germany as a closed society and as a result tourism has failed to develop in the beautiful country. The theme of the cup "A Time to make friends". They are working against racism and discrimination. The authorities are worried about a million foreign fans arriving here. Special arrangements have been done for English fans, although disorder by them has almost vanished since the last two worldcups.

The Book of Mormon

2006-06-06T11:00:00.000+02:00

This Saturday we got a visit from a couple of preachers. They were Christian boys, one American, one German. We sat with them thinking they would preach Christanity to us. Instead, they presented a new book to us called "The book of Mormon" and emphasized that we should turn to God. We were confused and after some time asked explicitly their place in Christanity. They said that they were Christians but also believed that Bible was changed and is no longer in the original form. However, another book was written about 400 years after Jesus using quotes from some other Prophets before and after Jesus This book was burried to be discovered in our time. A guy in the US was instructed in nineteenth century by an angel to go to a place and dig up this book. He digged it up, translated it in English and gave the original book to the angel. Since then, they have been following the teachings of this book, which is similar to Bible. This group is called "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints". They have had many prophets and are still having them. One important thing that they mentioned is that though their story may not be very convincing, its only a matter of faith and belief. We offered them cold-drinks but they said they were fasting. They'll come again next weekend and bring the book translated in Urdu. Their website: LDS

On Monday, we organized a party given by a Pakistani fellow to his university working group. We prepared Pakistani food and asked them to eat it Pakistani style. Photos and details on a friend's blog: Danish's Blog

Europe's largest train station opens in Berlin

2006-05-26T11:18:00.000+02:00

Germany boasts today the opening of Europe's largest and probably most expensive train station. It is built right in the centre of the city, thanks to the undeveloped area along the former Berlin-Wall. Costing 700 million euros, the station took 10 years to built, the only major station in a century to be built from scratch. Aiming to serve 1,100 trains and 30,000 passengers daily, it is a big multi-storey structure with a lot of glass to allow sunlight to penetrate down to its lower storeys. They even had to change the path of a river (Spree) away from the station.

Trip to Spain (not really)

2006-05-17T17:58:00.000+02:00

This Saturday we went on a university trip for ship-riding in the biggest river of Germany: Rhine. We travelled by train to a city near the river and from there we boarded a small ship that took us on a one and a half hour journey through the most beautiful route in the area. Travelling through the twists and turns of the river, watching big cargo trailers and admiring the greeny hills and small villages in them, we reached our detination town. On the way i made friends with a couple of Spanish guys. Later they talked with an Italian guy and it seemed they could understand each other. Another guy from Columbia joined them and also started speaking Spanish. The group leader was from Peru but had no trouble speaking Spanish. I found a guy from Argentina with whom i spoke English. He also started speaking Spanish with them. It was like i took a ship to Spain. They told me that Spanish is the major language in most of the countries of South America except Brazil (where Portuguese is spoken). And Spanish and Italian are much alike so they understand each other. So Spanish was the language of our trip.

The town we reached with our boat had a big castle, most of which was still standing. We read a sign on the door of the castles that flashlights or candles must be taken to visit the caves. This sign was ignored by us and we went inside - thanks to the rain that came along. We were handed maps of the castles to find our way. After strolling through the castle, we had seen all the visible area in it and were wondering why they gave us maps for such a small region. Instead of waiting for our departure, i took my Argentinian friend (Santiago) to explore some more. We finally reached a cave-opening and two more friends joined us. The more we went into the cave, the darker it got; until it was pitch-dark. I had a mobile with flash-light, so they put me in front and we walked for some time until i announced "i see light". My trailing friends got new energy and we got out. Now they insisted that we go back the same way. So again i was the path-finder. We had seen some smaller caves openings but we couldn't go in them standing. I decided to explore them this time. We sat on our feet and inched into the smaller tunnel. We kept going until the cave sunk with a greater angle and water started seeping in from the walls. It was too dangerous to go further, so we returned. Turning in this small cave was another problem. We turned suffering some bruses. When we came out, we were lost. We couldn't figure out the map and ended up on the other side of the castle. We troted the road to reunite with our friends.

See the trip photos here: Rhine-trip Photos

Flying back to Germany and Nepal tales

2006-05-12T09:52:00.000+02:00

On Monday i started my journey back to Germany. I was supposed to come back with Gulf Air. There were a lot of passengers at Lahore airport, most of them going for "Umrah" (religious trip to Makkah). They were getting their luggage checked just after they enter. I was also directed to get in line, but later an officer called me aside and asked me to go to the next stage without checking. The remaining process also got through easily, except for some waiting. The plane flew a little late (as usual) but got to Muscat (Oman) in time. Muscat airport was terrible. They directed us to a queue with non-transit passengers. These queues were huge in heat and humidity. We had to go through all checks that we had already gone through at our last airport. They should have maintained a separate route for transit passengers without repeat checking. From there, we changed the plane and flew to Bahrain to exchange passengers.

I sat with a Nepali boy who could speak English and Hindi. He was fun to talk with and know about Nepal and Nepalis. He told me that many people in Nepal can speak Hindi because of Indian people and movies in their country. I was surprised to know that he was married and had two daughters, one of them eight years old. He was definitely younger than me. He married a classmate in 10th class. He proudly told that it was a love marriage and his parents accepted it. He was a jewelery-maker back home and was going to Qatar to his relative to find work. He said Nepali language is similar to Hindi but i couldn't understand a word when he spoke to a passing-by Nepali. I asked him about Mao rebels. He said they were against the king and wanted democracy. He added that most Nepalis want democracy and now the king has lost most of his powers to the prime minister. There is a peace agreement for three months with the rebels.

The plane again flew late about half an hour from Bahrain but the pilot announced that we'll reach Frankfurt five minutes before scheduled. This scared me a little. The delay was caused by them counting and recounting passengers many times. One of the passengers who was supposed to get off at Bahrain didn't. They were searching for him. This had happened on my earlier flight as well. At Frankfurt, the procedure was not too complex. There weren't many passengers and the airport was almost empty. I met a Pakistani who had come to Germany for a trip, so i guided him to the train leading him to his destination.

Visiting Pakistan in Summer

2006-04-30T13:07:00.000+02:00

It's been quite a while since i arrived in Pakistan, and summer started with my arrival. It has been between 30 and 40 degrees in the day, even sometimes surpassing that. First two weeks were taken away by the preparation for my brother's wedding. His flight back to Australia was scheduled two days after the wedding. He got sick on that day and had to delay his flight for one week. He then departed for Australia.

My departure date is tomorrow. A few days back i looked for my air ticket but found it nowhere. All the family searched for it but in vain. Then i declared to Gulf Airline that i have lost the ticket and want a reprint. They said they'll have to send a request to Frankfurt to block my old ticket. The request will then be redirected to Bahrain headquarter which will allow Lahore office to reprint the ticket. This can take one to two weeks. This means i'll miss my flight. Later, my mother suggested to query my brother in Australia. I asked him; he searched; and found the ticket in his belongings. He then dispatched the ticket through the fastest service, but it won't reach until Monday (my flight day) since Monday is holiday (Labor day) in Pakistan. btw, it's not a holiday in Australia. So i also had to delay my flight a week and now i'll be flying next Monday if nothing else goes wrong. I will be able to attend six weddings during my five week stay in Pakistan :)

Flying to Pakistan with Gulf Air

2006-04-05T11:51:00.000+02:00

I flew to Pakistan with Gulf Air last Thursday. It was a big plane from Frankfurt to Muscat and a smaller plane from Muscat to Lahore the following day. I was to have a 14 hours stay in Muscat for which i was to be provided with a hotel and visit visa for Muscat.

The plane left Frankfurt a little late. The crew visually demonstrated emergency exit points. It was raining at that time. The staff in the plane was very nice and polite. Announcements were made in Arabic, English and German. Seats were comfortable and blankets were provided for sleeping. Air conditioning was really good and i felt cold at times.

First stop was Bahrain: about a five hours journey. We were to drop and pick passengers and then fly to Muscat. After some time in Bahrain, the crew started to get paniced. They moved to and fro down the aisle and counted and recounted the passengers, requesting passengers to sit in their designated seats since they couldn't count for all the passengers and couldn't fly without doing it. After about a half hour delay, the plane departed from Bahrain and reached Muscat in an hour.

contnd...

Elections and time change

2006-03-27T17:44:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was state-govt election day in 3 of the 16 German states. These states are more autonomous than provinces and have their own local laws (btw, in germany, every officer has his own laws :) My state also had the election. Preliminary results show that CDU (chancellor Merkel's party) is winning in two states and SPD (Schroder's party) is winning in my state. This is probably the only state left where SPD is so successful. In other states, CDU is becoming more popular. It doesn't matter a lot since both of these big parties are partners in the government. However, they'll now depend less on small opposition parties to pass laws; that is, if they can come up with a common set of laws.

What does it mean for us? Well, CDU is stricter in terms of foreigners. This has been reflected in states having CDU governments in matters where foreigners called their families to germany. Many people were refused by the state govt and then allowed after a lot of effort and assurances. In my state, however, people didn't have many problems in this matter and everybody's family joined them easily and quickly. My state has had an SPD government.

We changed our time this Sunday. Clocks were moved one hour ahead on Saturday night. It still seems strange since we don't have such a system in Pakistan. But a usual person hardly notices this change. We only notice the prayer timings change. This time changing was tested one time in Pakistan and it resulted in somewhat chaos. This was expected since it was a start. But don't know why this system was not followed afterwards.

Preparing for a visit to home

2006-03-21T16:47:00.000+01:00

I am going to visit home next month inshallah - next week. Its a been a long time away from home. There is excitment...and confusion. What should i take home? For whom should i buy gifts and for whom not? What will i do once i am at home? How will home seem now? Will there be mangoes?

I am also worried about my transit in Muscat. I have a stay of 14 hours at night. Thats a long time. The airline will provide hotel and visa but what will i do at night? I plan to probably sleep in the evening and see the city in the morning. Let's see how is the service provided by Gulf Air.

Tales of Tokyo, Japan

2006-03-10T14:09:00.001+01:00

Recently one of my friends visited Japan for a project meeting. What he told on his return was quite interesting as well as surprising. His plane landed at Tokyo international airport which is one and a half hour away from the city. A very fast shuttle train takes people nonstop to Tokyo city. There are not many sky-scrapers, may be because of the earth quakes. There was only one high-rise building in the city. Traffic drives on the left hand side, so they have the same cars as in Pakistan, not like European cars. Power lines run above ground near the buildings just like in Pakistan.

The restaurants seated guests in the traditional Japanese way by putting the table on the carpeted floor. So guests sat on the floor with their legs in the small digging beside the table. This digging i had never heard before of. Almost all of the dishes served contained sea-food - mostly uncooked. So my friend enjoyed different types of "sushi" with raw fish using sticks instead of cutlery. In the toilets they have electronic toilet-seats which fire a jet of water at your body for cleaning. It is turned on by a button and switches off automatically when you get up.

Huge snowing in Germany

2006-03-03T20:22:00.000+01:00

It snowed like crazy today. Starting from last night heavy snows fell in my area. Everything is covered in snow. It is difficult to walk with about 5-6 inches of snow. Buses have stopped operating. All the trees have bent down with the heavy wight of snow on their branches. Cars are identifiable only by their doors. A friend living here for 9 years said that it is the most snow he has ever seen in Germany. My colleague told me that the highways are blocked by traffic jams all around. He got up early today to reach home in this day. Young guys are skiing on slanting roads. Kids and adults alike are sledging down the slops. More snowing is predicted tomorrow, but not as much as today's. A few days before we were thinking of changing our warm clothing with less warmer ones. But now we need snow clothing - clothing used for skiing :)

See photos of snow in Germany

Karneval in Cologne & packed trains

2006-03-01T13:21:00.000+01:00

We went to see the Carnival (Karneval) festival in Cologne (Köln) on Monday. People dress up in colorful costumes and go out on streets to watch the parade and collect sweets and flowers from it. Although this festival is celebrated to some extent all over the Christian world, it is with more color in only some cities. In Germany, the biggest celebrations are held along the middle section of Rhine river: from Frankfurt to Dusseldorf including Mainz, Bonn and Cologne. So people from areas away from this region tend to flock to this belt of cities. Carnival was not a religious festival, but it has not become sort of a religious season, marking the start of Christian fasting starting from Wednesday. This fasting continues for 40 days and is ended by Easter celebration, the biggest event in Christian calendar.

So we also chose to travel to the largest city in Rhine river belt: Cologne. The trains were jam-packed and more people got on at every station. This delayed the trains a lot and caused us to miss next trains. So we had to wait many times for next trains. We reached Cologne one hour later than planned. As expected there were lots of people on roads dressed in colorful novel clothes. The carnival parade continued through the city till evening. We had planned to return home the same evening, but the trains were late and were coming in random order. So we ended up taking the wrong train, going in opposite direction. We came back to Cologne and spent the night at a friend's in Bonn city. We took the train on Tuesday to reach home.

Pizza Party & Turkish hearts

2006-02-23T17:55:00.000+01:00

Last Saturday we arranged a Pizza party from the profit we gained in Global Village stall. We arranged it in a Pizza restaurant owned by a Turk Muslim (or Arab?). They serve all halal food and no pig or alcohol. Invited were all Pakistanis and Indian Muslims. It rained all day long that day. The time of the party was at 4 pm and as could be expected: everybody arrived late except 4 of us. We ordered party pizzas of different tastes and had a lot of it. About 25 people attended this party.

See photos here

Afterwards when we approached the owner for the bill, he refused to charge us telling us to donate the money to Earth Quake victims in Pakistan. Surprised we offered him to take half of the money leaving the other half for Quake aid. But he again refused. Moved deeply by his passion we came back and donated the money.

The Carneval season is ending and this calls for the biggest festivels in North-West Germany. This Monday they'll have big parades through cities. I intend to go to Köln (Cologne) to see the Carneval parade since its not so big in my city.

Protests in Pakistan against Denmark cartoons

2006-02-17T14:25:00.000+01:00

We are hearing horrific stories about violence in protests in Pakistan against Danish cartoons. This is neither normal nor expected. We are all surprised to hear such news. I have talked to family and friends in Pakistan and everybody says that this is not right. Nobody supports this mode of protesting. Endangering the lives of civilians in Danish embassies or companies while attacking them is not correct at all. Burning vehicles on roads is total madness. These vehicles and small shops belong to poor or middle-class people. What did they do wrong? Why should they pay for this?

But this all is not done by the general public. There are news in local newspapers that this violence is always started before the protestants reach the scene. I also heard interviews of protest organizers in BBC Pakistan news and they said that violence broke out a couple of hours before their protest was to start. Newspaper also told of groups of mysterious people doing violence before the processions reached there. So there are some elements who induce violence into these protests, and most probably they are international. The general public is against this violence. This is evident from the fact that there were huge protests in Pakistan some time ago against Iraq war but none were violent. I also heard of the protest organizer saying in the news that now the protests are against the Pakistan govt. Anyways, i think that the protest organizers should now volunteerily call-off their peaceful protests so that the trouble-makers cannot take advantage of them any more.

Having said that, we also believe that Danish paper didn't do right by publishing those cartoons. We love our Prophet (pbuh) much more than our parents and ourselves. It was very painful to see these cartoons. But the protest against it should always be peaceful and legal. We have protested by voting in online polls and signing petitions etc and these methods are legal.

Many faces of India

2006-02-16T13:22:00.000+01:00

When i came to Germany i discovered an astonishing fact: India doesn't have a national language!! People in South India can't speak Hindi. Then how do they communicate with the North? They use English. Thats strange as it sounds. So, now whenever we meet an Indian, we ask him whether he can speak Hindi. However, Muslims in South India can speak Urdu. But most of them cannot read it since it has an arabic script.

Whenever we speak Urdu with Indians, they speak pure Urdu and don't use words of Hindi (Sansikrat). Thats strange as well. Because when we hear Indian poiticians in news or when we hear Indian news channels, then tend to use at least some Sansikrat words. But Indian students here don't. I don't know whether they do it for us or is it their normal way of speaking.

Global Village at university

2006-02-09T18:36:00.000+01:00

Yesterday night we participated in an event called Global Village held in the university. Students of different countries are asked to put up stalls depicting their culture. We also made a big stall with many things. Almost all the stalls had some presentation about their country runing on a projecter. We had cooked Chicken Biryani, Samosa, Pakora and (Carrot) Halwa, which all sell out despite the chillis in Biryani. Women had placed some jewelery and other stuff on the tables with posters and pictures hanging on boards behind us. Some of us wore Shalwaar Kameez. The event started at 7 pm and continued for two and a half hours. Many people came to see the event.

Besides us, the Iranians had prepared a very nice stall with cloth, carpet and traditional utensils; and the Indonesians had placed dresses and some sweets. Some East European states including Russia made good stalls. Indians also put up a good stall but without food this time. Germans had a stall in center with a tiny German flag stuck into every edible item. Americans had a small stall offering info and cookies. French and Swiss stalls offered free bread and cheese. I'll put up pictures of the event soon since i haven't got them yet (i chose to make a movie with my camcorder instead of taking snaps :)

Shifting a house in Germany

2006-01-30T11:54:00.000+01:00

Yesterday we shifted the house of a friend here. He was to move from a bachelor's apartment to a family apartment (yu hu!!). Thanks God that the new apartment was in the same building. In Germany, if you leave an apartment, you not only have to clean it, you also have to paint its walls. So during the day we packed and moved his stuff. There were many of us (5-6) so it wasn't a big problem. In the evening we painted the walls. I also got to paint one of the walls, to prepare for the time when i have to leave my apartment ;)

In the evening (after Isha prayer) there was an Aqeeqa party in the mosque. It is a tradition to do this party for every born Muslim child. They had prepared their famous dish "kuskus", which we could hardly eat as always. We also got to construct a double-bed for another friend, which turned out to be more of a challenge than painting the walls. The bed came in in the smallest of parts and instuctions on how to put them together. There were lots and lots of screws and we couldn't find an electric screw-driver. So we had to screw every screw manually. It was easy, but took us hours to complete even with three persons.

It is snow on the ground everywhere. It last snowed on Thursday but the snow has not melted yet. Its quite sunny today. I hope it melts away today.

Indonesian names

2006-01-25T15:58:00.000+01:00

There are many students from Indonesia here. Its fun to meet them and talk to them. But their names are difficult to remember. They don't have Arabic names like us Pakistanis, rather some strange ones. For example, one of them is named Yo Yo. The other is Yudi. And third one has the name Apri. When asked where does that come from, he replied that he was named this way since he was born in the month of April!!! He said that its not common practice but is done sometimes there.

Like us, they are much more comfortable with English language rather than German. Arabs, on the other hand, seldom know English and thus can speak better German. This seems to be the phenomena here. People who know English don't learn much German as they always end up speaking English in the university. People who don't know English, have to learn German to survive here.

There is an event coming up in a couple of weeks called 'Global Village' in the univeristy. In this event, people set stalls to represent culture of their countries. We also plan to do so. Let's see what happens.

Eid with Arabs

2006-01-17T11:39:00.000+01:00

Eid-ul-Azha was on last Tuesday. This eid wasn't so loud may be because of the very cold weather and the fact that Arabs were arranging an Eid party on Sunday. Nevertheless, we did sit together and an Indian Muslim friend cooked a delicious and tedious rice dish (Biryani). On Sunday we went to the Arab Eid party. It was a big party with probably more people than the hall's seating capacity. The hall was located in front of a church. I guess they rented the hall from a Christain orgnaization since there were some bibles placed in one of the rooms.

Children sung songs and performed small skits on stage. There was also a prize distribution ceremony for an arabic course for children. Many families were present there including some European wives of Arabs. They started the program after Zohar prayer and served the food after Asar prayer. The food was a lot and with much variety. In contrary to that served in Ramzan, some of the dishes were very tasty. They always prepare a particular dish called "khus khus". It consists of small grains like gained rice. It always tastes aweful but they keep preparing it. Desserts were served after Maghrib prayer and this too with great taste and variety. During the whole function, there was chaos, so it was a real party.

Last week saw an extreme weather. Temperature dropped Sunday evening to an unbelievable -11 degree Celsius. This continued till Monday noon. But it changed back to above zero today. I bought a camcorder last week. It is a Panasonic GS20 (German version). Similar English models have received excellent ratings. The result of the camcorder is very good in ample light conditions.

Trip around North Germany on Christmas and New Year

2006-01-04T17:17:00.000+01:00

End of December brought us the news of holidays coming. So me and a friend (Javaid) decided to take a tour around North Germany meeting our friends on the way. We set out on Saturday to our first destination, the city of Cologne in North-West Germany. We spent one night there with a friend (Ramzan) and played with his cute little children while enjoying parathas (oil-bread?) of his wife's hands. You can see the pics at: http://community.webshots.com/album/534045615tphuvO

We missed our second stop-over due to mis-communication and had to go to our third destination, the second biggest city of Germany: Hamburg. It lies in North of Germany and so suffers extreme winter. It started snowing the day we arrived there and continued till we came back. It is a port city where a river meets the ocean. Containing lots of bridges, the city runs ferries (boats) alongside its tram and bus network. It was nice to walk through a tunnel under the river and see a museum of transport models of European and American cities. These models were fully operational with trains, buses, cars, emergency vehicles and ships running around. It simulated the whole day with darkness and daylight. Pics are present at: http://community.webshots.com/album/534046721yyjcfL

From there we returned to our last stop-over missing again another intermediate station to Giessen, a small city in almost middle of Germany and near Frankfurt. We travelled with a person who was going there by car by paying him some amount. When we left Hamburg, a snow storm hit North Europe and traffic slowed even on highways. It took us double the time to reach our destination. We saw the New Year fireworks in the city-center of Giessen. Pics at: http://community.webshots.com/album/534051618HRAPul

Finally we took a trip (rather two) to Frankfurt. First trip was to help the next batch of HEC scholarship holders who were arriving on 30th Dec. The flight was delayed for two hours due to snowfall and so we had to spend the night at the airport. After boarding them on respective trains we came back to Giessen after spending some time with a friend in Frankfurt. We returned back home on Sunday 2nd Jan. Pictures at Frankfurt can be found at: http://community.webshots.com/album/534053275YHvsuT

Christmas season coming

2005-12-21T11:21:00.000+01:00

Now is a time of much anticipation. Christmas and new year are coming, and along come a lot of holidays. People are busy planning their vacation trips. Germans usually plan their hoidays well ahead of time. They usually spend Chritsmas with parents and then head for popular locations for the new year celebrations. Looks like there will be no snow on Christmas. There was some snowfall last Monday but it didn't stay long. It is, however, getting colder. There are Christmas markets in every city. This is usually a lot of stalls put in the center of the market with a lot of lighting and Christmas trees. Unlike shops, these markets are open late and on Sundays. Big stores are offering attractive discounts on their products to be given as Christmas gifts.

The university is closed for the next week. Even the heaters are shut down so nobody can work there. This is the first time i have heard of a complete shut down. We are also planning to visit our friends across the farthest parts of Germany. We also plan to help the next batch of HEC scholarship holders arriving at the end of this month. We remember what difficulties most of us faced when we first got here in Germany. So we intend to go to the airport and at least help them in getting on the right trains to their respective destination cities. They'll most probably arrive late on new-year night with nobody to guide them. This is what happened to us. Although it is a good experience but some of us had a very painful experience.

A day in France & EU Parliament

2005-12-15T17:15:00.000+01:00

On Tuesday we went to Strasbourg, a city in France. It was a university trip arranged by a private NGO aimed at uniting European youth. The city lies exactly on the border of France and Germany and thus is a mixture of both cultures. It is a renowned tourist city, much because of the EU parliament building here. It is a spectacular round building. A very big building, walled from the outside with glass and lying along a river provides a magnificent view. The river flows through the city giving out a branch that later joins it after following a circular path. Within this circular island is the city's heart. But the city spreads across the river as well.

Taking a journey of about 2 hours, we reached the city and inside the EU parliament, one of the three EU administrative building (other two being in Belgiuma and Luxemburg). We were first briefed on the working of the Parliament, then were seated in the observation balconies of the Parliament. A session was in progress. Less than 50 of the nearly 780 members of parliament were present in the 850+ seat round hall. The session and office work is conducted in 20 languages of the 25 member countries. Headphones were available translating speeches of members in those 20 languages. Discussion was related to next EU budget and most were critisizing UK.

After the end of session and our lunch (pizzas), we took a boat trip inside the city showing and informing us about different kinds of buildings. Afterwards we went into the Christmas market. It was beautiful. We had to find our way back. Now we asked the local people if they knew English. Not English but, thank God, they knew some German. So we used our German to communicate with them. This is the first time we felt German to be our language and thankful that we learnt it.

German Tea party & Iqbal house

2005-12-06T17:44:00.000+01:00

A German colleague of mine visited an exhibition in Japan and brought different teas with him. He is already very fond of teas. So he invited us to his house to try out different teas. We went there in the evening. He started with a Japanese green tea and then a Chinese green tea. Then some other green teas from Asia. Then he started the black teas. Presenting black teas from different countries, he ended up with Sri Lankan and Indian black teas. Many of my German colleagues were there. To my surprise, none of them put any sugar in any of their teas. Even they put milk only in the last two black teas. I had had it after drinking some teas without sugar, and then i started putting sugar in every tea. They did get surprised by this. :)

This weekend the International Club at the university arranged a trip to Heidelberg (Germany) to see the Christmas market. It is a tourist city located between mountains on two sides of the Rhine river. It has a castle which is pretty much preserved. We all went in the train there. Thank God that the snow had melted since Thursday and temperature was above zero. We first searched for a Pakistani restaurant and found three. Two were big but not so many guests in them. The third one was a small one with self service. It was crowded with Germans, a pleasant surprise for us. We even had to wait for a few minutes to get an empty table. The food was good and extremely cheap. May be thats why it was crowded.

Then we met a friend living there who took us to see Iqbal house. It is located on the river bank. There is a plaque on the boundry wall saying that Iqbal lived here and that he was the visionary of Pakistan. He lived here for about 6 months for German language course, before going to Munich for his Phd. Then we went on a small tram which climbs on a mountain at about 45 degrees angle. Half of the journey is done on a modern metallic tram, but the second half is completed on an old wooden tram pulled by a metallic rope. It went so high up the mountain that the ground was covered with snow there. It became extremely cold with chilling breeze blowing. After taking some pictures we resorted to coming back down to the city. We returned after it got dark. It gets dark these days around 4:35 pm.

Its snowing in Germany

2005-11-28T10:58:00.000+01:00

It started snowing on Friday. It was a quick change in weather. Just one week ago it got chilling and now it is snowing. Some say it is not normal. Others say it is normal again, since for the last couple of years, it was not normal since it didn't snow till late December. It has been snowing on and off since Friday. Only yesterday, it converted into raining. I still see snow covering the whole ground outside my window in the university, may be because university is located on hills higher than the city. The city is a little lower, so the snow has melted there.

In the recent International Donor's Conference, the target aid has been raised, amounting to $5.8 billion. Most of it comes from the US. But the UN says that it will take too long for the promised aid to reach the country and internatioal community should take steps to speed up the process. (CNN)