daayein haath ka til

Scene: N's wedding in LA (with Jb)
Time: Around after Nikaah
Background: Just as the regular socializing MC, MS (n's relative), T1, S(n's cousin) are getting to know each other.

MC - you are from gujarat?
MS - yes
T1 - I am 1/3 gujju
MS - where did you do your undergrad from?
MC - Nirma, in Ahmedabad
T1 - (that place) in Pune
T1 - where was yours from?
MS - VVM, vidyanagar
T1 - that place that has a muslim principal?
MS - yes, why?
T1 - oh he is family.
MS - Really!!!!!
T1 - yes why?
MS - he is my dad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mr AMS - right?
T1 - REALLY!!! that means you are my second cousin on dada's side!!!!!
MS - YOU ARE AWS's son!!!!!
click - click - click - kodak moment

(continue talking about cousins in USA and so on)

Subhanallah!!! Takbir Allahuakbar.

to be contd.

Summer vacations

you know summer vacations have started when you hear loud screams of joy from teenagers on the streets and in their cars, as if they have conquered the whole world... those pesky teenagers!!!!

But there is nothing like school where they give you two months to rewind and chill and relax and play all day. Everyone feels really happy that they have completed school but the irony is that school is where the fun lies.

Anyway, this is probably the last post C and D will read on mainland usa before starting around 1/2 the world in 24 hours!! Bon voyage.

to do nothing

The best solution for insomnia is to watch godfather. Whoever wants to say whatever about convergence of individuality and role playing and all bloated jargon, my take on this movie is that it is extremely dry boring. On a positive front, I have reached scene 7 (out of 23) before falling asleep. The best part of the movie is the theme music, and probably that is why i get suckered into watching it.

Movies should be like Munnabhai mbbs - where you challenged to fall asleep. I finally got around to watching it (before switching to fogdather). Yeah yeah many of you will be sighing a relief that i finally saw this and there is still some hope left for me in the movie watching field. And since you are already reading this - let me tell you the alternative ending in the Da vinci movie - (tom hanks is killed by the albino in the end). The rest of the movie is a page -per -page from this novel.

But DaVinci movie also places a unique dilemma upon me. This movie has a conspiracy theory attached to the Christianity structure but is not denigrating to Jesus (PBUH). Did Jesus (PBUH) have a wife? or is that an assumption or the first step into fiction? Is it wrong to assume something like this islamically?

driving arizona

First i noticed that i was doing it. I am driving in the rightmost lane; the driver in front of me wishes to take a right turn. Instead of slowing down, my first reaction is to look in the rear vierw mirror to see if anyone is behind me, in the left lane and immediately swerve into it. Then I tried that with a stationary bus and after that decided that slowing down was the best for me. Now when I am taking a right turn myself I like to look in the rearview mirror myself and it is so strange to see other people behind me trying to swerve into the left lane using the procedure mentioned above.

P.S. - Yes this is a crappy post and I wish to keep it that way.

Life as a mail-in rebate

MIR are an amazing way to cheat people with false prices. The best one I have ever seen is the case where I bought some stuff for which the mail in rebate had to go out after 2 months but before three months from purchase date. So now it is not merely simple to say that i come home and send the MIR asap. MIR (as we know it) surely sounds like some martketing grad student had nothing to do.

But there is one rebate that you are assured of and you dont even have to mail it in!! Its our good deeds in our life-time that will act as a rebate on that final day. Guess that what keeps us going.

thoughts from leadership

Its amazing how whenever a leader is appointed to his position he has all these ideas to do all these things and all these changes that are to be brought about..... And when their term gets over, they still talk about all the ideas that they still have and as if they have not performed their duty etc.

One thing that I learnt from the managing committee that I was a part of for the last year was simple - concentrate on the one thing that is important for your group. Fulfill your duty to achieve that objective and feel happy about completing it at the end of the year. Ideas will always be popping out and the best place to brainstorm their potential is over an informal setting. People are more open about things.

mid week contd

Frankly I do not know how the last got posted. Too late in the night with the head swinging to other tunes!!

Carrying on, this republican guy and democratic guy are arguing about gas prices and ethanol etc etc. Mr R guy quotes that reilly guy from fox mentioning that Brazil is the best example where 100% of cars run on ethanol and they dont have oil dependence. Now this was too much bluff for me, and I asked him to search online for an equivalent report. I personally could never find a report like that and he did not get one to show us either so tat just solidifies the overdepedence of people on TV. Brings back to mind of an ex-colleague who mentioned that only stupid people gain their knowledge from TV.

mid-week

The news article mentioned that Fox, al Jazeera and BBC are the most trusted source of news!! As mush as I hate Fox for their ultra-rightist view , Al Jazeera is not an angel either. It has fed off the distrust that Fox generated. So that leaves BBC - and we have seen last year or the year before that where they fired the editor on grounds that he was not honest in his reporting. So ultimately who are we trusting? Simple answer google-news :)

this discussion actually resulted among friends over lunchtime. It was strange to hear that people move out of AZ because it is republican and others had left democrat states to be with fellow republicans. Wow !! no such brand loyalty among indians!! Simple rule - follow where the heart goes - or even better your job!! Even strange would be if indians applied this rule in India - with only 30 states, only 30 parties can be accomodated.

Summer of 2006

Time to say alvida to the many friends and community members who will be leaving town, state and country. Two of them are already imagining their seats on BA, another is ready to ship a CRV. Another is already driving. Add to them the two families that have already left. Sniff Sniff.

mopeddding in usa

The price of gas has started pinching my pocket a lot and hence to counter that i have started closing myself in within the walls of my room for longer periods of time. What I am trying to actually imply is that I am sleeping a lot, more importantly cleaning my room, and lastly catching up on a lot of PS2.

But meeting up with a couple of bros who sell mopeds, I thought I had the solution to tackle the gas prices. Add moped-pooling and it is a sone-pe-suhaaga situation. However safe driving like the one that Miracles101 reported, exists in India, and the americans in their massive SUVs are still dangerous on the road. I know that these mopeds cannot be driven on the freeways as I will be sucked into the 18 wheelers. But keeping this thought aside, what actually convinced me from not buying a moped was the second accident I witnessed in as many months. Only today's accident was terrible. The intersection was the one that I visit everyday and was actually heading towards it. One person was killed after being rescued from his vehicle and the other person was lying on the pavement. One diligent police officer was running the rescue operations and common people were out there redirecting traffic away. The Car soon burst into flames - and frankly till that moment i beleived that happened only in Hollywood movies. The Black smoke and fire was eye opening. We were shooed off from the scene as soon as the fire personnel arrived. I guess i can leave all the moped riding for India in the upcoming months.

What exacerbated this, was my chat with another fajr-brother who survived one such crash (Alhamdulillah) but is handicapped in many aspects.

Each time such an incident happens I am taken aback and am reflecting back about all the things that may not be in accordance with what I believe in and wonder if this was the eye-opener that I need to stick more firmly with my beliefs. May Allah protect me on these streets of USA.

we are veree innovative

how do you politely ignore someone who is giving out flyers for a noble task within the community?

I have seen many tactics, such as staring down to the ground and walk as if you are searching for something that you dropped earlier. Or talk with friends and ignore you, as if they want to devote all their attention to the friend. But this Friday, I saw a newer one - Take one shoe in each hand, and walk confidently out. If the guy distributing the flyers offers you one, then just raise both hands signalling an inability to carry anymore. Subhanallah!!!

but on a positive note - ICC did an amazing job to lead,clean and beautify the cemetary. Thanks to all the people from the community that showed up. Inshallah it will soon be an oasis in the desert.