Living the Pakistan quake in Germany

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

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

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

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

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

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

(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.