Wrong assumptions

Never assume in a foreign country that all the people around you don't know your language. A friend quoted two funny events that happened with his friends in Hamburg:

Once they went to the stadium to watch a hockey match of Pakistan. After the match they entered the field among others. Now to get out, they chose a short-cut that involved jumping over the advertisement boards. They saw a girl trying to jump over the boards and one of them exclaimed "help her guys". At that came the voice of her father from the side "tum log yahan aa kar tou badal jaya karo" (you people should change at least when you live here) :D

Similarly, they were once standing on train station waiting for the train. A woman, seemingly arab, was also standing with her child there. Another european woman was eating a burger near them. The child was crying and speaking to her mother in a foreign language. The woman eating the burger guessed it and gave her burger to the child. At that one of them exlaimed "what a spoiled child it is". His mother turned to them and said "apnay hon gay tou pata chalay ga" (you'll know when you'll have your own).

Plagiarism

Two students and their professor found plagiarising multiple papers from famous authors and publishing them in high profile ACM publications:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/08/plagiarism_and.html

I was tired of Pakistanis cursing those people from that uni and blaming them for everything. I think we should learn from it. That is what intelligent nations do: learn from their mistakes, never to repeat them. I would just like to add one aspect to this discussion: that is our character. It is not only research culture that is important, but also character is important. I am studying in Europe and as others, i have found their studies no better than those in Pakistan. In fact i have attended here that lecture which i have taught in FAST lahore many times and i am confident that the Dr here didn't teach it any better than us (if not worse). Here they have two semesters per year and lots of holidays. Similarly, their researchers spend far less hours per week in their universities than us. They go back from work at 5 or 6 pm. They rarely work on Saturdays and working on Sunday is a sin here. So it is something else that has developed them.

All of us were very quick to blame to an extreme these people who did palgiarism. Yes they did wrong, but is there anyone among us who can claim he has never done anything similar? or that he has never cheated in exams? or that he has never copied assignments? I have caught copies in assignments in all courses i taught and i had to stop everytime afraid that the whole class will be failed by me due to cheating; so i failed only very serious cases. We had a teacher from abroad who asked us to write a paper. and later he declared in the class that if the papers submitted by us were really written by us, he would send us on the next flight to MIT in USA. How can such people blame others for cheating? Here i can't think of any German cheating in Uni or in his daily life. They just don't think of it. and all the pakistanis here learn nothing from them. They do all their normal cheating here as well. Even people posing to be very pious do it, let alone others. And they feel very happy by fooling the Germans. It is not the Europeans we are fooling my brothers; it is us who are becoming fools. Germans are not harmed by our cheating, only we are.

So after analyzing this situation, we should always try to put up a solution as well. My suggestion is that we all promise to ourselves that none of us will ever cheat again, no matter what the people around us do. We won't lie, cheat, fraud, take/give bribery, use "sifarish", skip our duties, break a traffic signal, throw a rapper on road, abuse each other, etc... Only and only then can the rightful get their rights in our country. Only then, the hardworkers will get their reward here, just like they get in USA or Europe. If we make this promise then we can blame these plagiarisers and any future wrong-doers. Otherwise, we have no right whatsoever to blame anyone for any kind of cheating.

My lost jacket & rare German attitude

Today we went to Frankfurt. One of my friends was going to receive his wife coming from Pakistan on Frankfurt airport. It was a weekend so we could travel five people with one ticket. So he took three others with him to see the city. The flight was coming at 5 pm so we had plenty of time to roam about. But hard-luck, as it was raining since morning. Nevertheless, we took out our umbrellas and went around the city. First we went to a train station where there was an Indian restaurant offering "daal chawal", but it was close. So we wandered a little more to find food and cam across a street with many Indian, Pakistani and other South Asian food shops. Fearing them to be costy, we finally landed in a Turkish shop to eat roast chicken and went in a nearby mosque. It was a surprise to see a Turkish, a Pakistani and perhaps an Arab mosque side-by-side there. After roaming some more we went to the airport and walked around. Surprisingly there were many Pakistanis and Indians arriving that day there. We helped some of the first-time comers find appropriate trains untill my friend's wife arrived.

On our way back the train was unusually crowded and we had to stand in the train. We searched desparately to find a place for seating at least his wife. In our portion of the train, some luggage was placed against some seats. A man was standing there drinking. I asked him whether we can move the luggage up in the luggage apartments to make room for sitting, but he refused. An extremely rare response here. We got some seats after some time as people got off. When we finally arrived our city after changing one train in the way, i asked my friend for my jacket that i had placed with his luggage but failed to inform me. He was shocked alongwith me. The jacket was left on the previous train when we changed trains. The previous train was going to a city farther than our city near French border. I called my friend in that city to pick my jacket from the train. Then i called the train service telling them the train number and asking to find my jacket. Finally at night, my friend in that city informed me that he had found the jacket and that i should now relax.

Missing a train in Germany

Today we went to a historical city in the far South-West of Germany, called Tübingen. We started our four hour train journey in the morning and landed at the apartments of Pakistanis there. They started their hospitality by a delicious meal and then we went to see the city. Walking through the streets of this extremely hilly city, admiring the looks of old houses etc; we reached the beautiful fort. After inspecting it inside out, we came down to the river Neckar. It is a smaller river that falls into the big Rhine river later on. There were many types of boats there ranging from pedal-boat to rowing-boat and even long boats with a long wooden stick with which one of the sailors pushes the floor of the river to move the boat forward. My friends being afraid of the other options, we took a big pedal-boat into the river and travelled in both directions, stopping occasionaly giving way to other longer boats, amidst great confusions.

Later we got on the train back home. We had to change trains 3 times on the way to get the cheapest journey possible. There are normaly 10-15 min for train change at a station. After our first train change, our second train was reaching the station where we had to do our second train change. Five minutes before that station, we got up and gathered our small luggage and came towards the door; when all of a sudden, the train stopped. It waited there for about 15 minutes with the driver announcing he didn't know why the signals ahead were not clear to go. We were praying that the next train we were supposed to catch also gets late. Finally our train reached the station. We got (jumped) off and ran to the respecitve platform; but the train was gone. We returned to the ticket machine and got a new time table. Now it would take us one hour extra to reach home. We reached home later than expected and slept long after eating the meal our friends had prepared for us back home. See the photos of the trip at:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/yasirniazkhan/album?.dir=bf8e&.src=ph

Pros & cons of a Pakistani community

Yesterday night i attended the farewell dinner of one of our Pakistani colleagues at another colleagu's (apartment). The night before, i arranged a farewell dinner for him at my apartment. At the same time, one of us returned from Pakistan, so he received a couple of welcome dinners. This is the typical tradition here; at least in one bunch of Pakistanis. When Pakistanis arrive or leave from this city, other people arrange dinners for them in which some of us sit together and cherish the last moments or the start of a new companionship. Sometimes, another Muslim joins us (indian or arab). In case of arab, we try to have the conversation in English since many of us are still not comfortable in German language.

The reason this Pakistani is leaving is that he was not able to pass the German language requirement even after four attempts of the university German language test. He is among the three with the same fate. Now they are transferring to other universities. This requirement is not common and so far i have only heard of it in this university. They arrange mostly free language courses for international students and the students have to pass this test in at the most three semesters. It is supposed to be an easily test, but the problem with us is keeping only in our own community. We tend to make friends with Urdu or Hindi speaking people, or at the most with English-speaking. So our German doesn't get improved. Even i felt afraid after some time that i'll forget the German i learnt if i stay like this. So now i tend to make more foreigner or German friends with whom i speak German.

Shahi Tukra - the South Asian sweet dish

Today when a friend of mine came to my room in the morning (Sunday morning = 1 pm), he offered me the long-promised breakfast of a special bread from a local bakery. He left to get it leaving me to get ready for it. He came moments later to tell that the bakery closes at 12 pm. Now was the big problem of what to have as breakfast. We were both bored of usual breakfasts so wanted to try something new. Then he uttered the magic words "shahi tukray", although he said that we cannot make it as its very tough and involving. Just say "impossible" before me and see what happens. At once came the recipes rolling from Internet. After some consideration, I chose one recipe to be good, and the process began.

We collected stuff and I started preparing the thing. The recipe looked very simple and the end product didn't seem to be promising. Nevertheless, i decided to give it a try. It was prepared, i guess, in half hour since it was my first time with it. After putting it on plate and storing iin refrigerator, we two and two others chit-chatted for a few minutes. Hunger made good of my patience and the dish was taken out of the fridge. It looked beautiful. I tried the firt bit and wow; something extremely unexpected and tasty. It was very heavy (oil, milk, sugar); even then we ate the two plates hurridly. I suggest you try it. The recipe I chose was at:
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mp/2004/01/05/stories/2004010501700300.htm

Recipe - Shahi Tukra:
Ingredients:
Bread Slices - 8
Milk - 400 ml
Sugar - 150 gms
Crushed cardamom - 1 tsp
Condensed milk - 100 ml
Fried Cashewnuts - 15 gms
Fried Pista - 15 gms
Khoya (sweet) - 50 gms

Method
1. Remove the crust of the bread and cut into triangles. Deep fry.
2. Boil milk, reduce to half and add sugar and cardamom. Simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from fire.
3. Add condensed milk to the reduced milk and mix well.
4. Arrange the fried bread slices on a tray.
5. Pour the prepared milk over the bread slices and garnish with the chopped, fried nuts.
6. Place in a preheated oven for 3 minutes and serve hot (optional)

Note: This dish can also be served cold. Most use silver paper as garnish. It has been intentionally avoided for better health.

Transport System in Germany

Today i write some about the German transport system, said to be one of the best; and it feels like too. Since the moment i came to Germany. Trains, buses, planes, even cars. The best thing is the train system, which requires a separate post. Buses are not any less. Planes are as cheap as 1 euro (exlcuding airport tax). There are many online services through which you can find out exact routes, timings and stops for trains and buses. There are specific bus stops and the buses don't stop enywhere else. Doors operated only with buttons, ticket punching machine (sometimes the whole ticket-buying machine) located inside and displays showing next stop make the travel very comfortable. Just press one of the many buttons inside to stop the bus at the next bus-stop. Inter city buses are very high with stairs to climb before reaching the seats. Inner city buses usually come in two sizes here. The normal buses and the long-ones.

It was a surprise to see the long buses. It looks like made out of two buses. Remove the rear wall of one bus, remove the front part (including wheels) of the second , join them and walla!! you've got a worm-like bus twisting around on road turnings. Both parts of this bus are joined with flexible spring-alikes in between. So whenever the bus makes a turn, first the front portion turns and when it is half turned only then the second portion starts turning. Like two carriages of a train. People sitting in the front part of the bus disappear from view for a few seconds while turning if we sit in the back portion. Having doubted their stability, i find myself travelling many times on them.