Cliff Diving

Cliff diving is a great thing. So is bungee jumping. I haven't really tried out the latter, but the reason I'm promoting and marketing both of them is the same: To take the jump, you need to shut off your mind.

So, what does this have to do with the whole life and philosophical theme of my blog? Humans still exist in this world because we have evolved... part of which is knowing how to keep your ass alive. The brain now has inhibitors, and they (usually) act as anti-crazy gates and stop you from doing something ridiculously stupid like... well, jumping off a cliff :)

Cliff diving teaches you to turn off those inhibitors for that one crazy minute... to "take the jump". In life, there are a lot of situations in which you need to stop being careful and just take the jump. This works in countless situations... from changing your job to making a risky investment to moving to another country... even dumping your nagging girlfriend.

A human is the sum of all the experiences he/she has had. "Taking the jump" lets you have a greater diversity of experiences in life... giving you more fulfilment and making you a stronger, more complete human being.

"I refuse to tiptoe through life, just to arrive safely at death"

Of Moths and Humans

Given the number of daily power outages here in Pakistan, one gets more chances to observe things that we didn't have time to observe before this affluent state of our country's energy resources.

On one of these interesting times that the power was out, my family and I were sitting in the lounge, almost silent after running out of topics to talk about. During this relatively peaceful time, I noticed a moth that was constantly trying to touch the flame of the candle we had lit to be able to see each other's gloomy faces. The moth would touch the flame and go away, at times getting burnt by the flame, other times hitting hard the glass on which the candle was standing. This went on for as long as I could remember (probably a little less than an hour).

The next day, I found the moth dead on the floor of the lounge. I thought to myself: This moth had spent its entire, albeit short, lifetime trying to get close to a light source (the type of light didn't really matter), and had died while trying to achieve this seemingly myopic, nonsensical goal.

But I also realized, that humans are not very different. Yes, we may live a life of 70-80 years (if we're lucky), as compared to the 2-3 week lifespan of the moth, but essentially we spend our entire lives trying to make money, and more money. And this obsession keeps us busy until we meet death. Reminds me of the following verses from the beautiful song from The Verve:

'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, this life
Trying to make ends meet
You're a slave to money then you die

For most of us, that really is the story. We spend our lives in search of money, and then we die. Anyone looking at humans from a distance would not find us very different from that moth.

TL;DR: Lying in my death bed, in retrospect, I would not want to see a life spent only on trying to earn money, and realizing that I had only one shot at life, and I wasted it. Nor would I want this for any of my friends or family. Money is only a means, not the end.

What I don't want to be remembered as...

Tayyab Javed ka hamari tareekh mein jana pehchaana naam hai. In ka naam to bacha bacha jaanta hai. Woh Lahore mein paida huay aur unho nay apni ibtidaee taleem Lahore main hee haasil kee. Tayyab shuru say hee baaki bachon say faraq thay, woh khail kood mein zyada dilchaspi nahee laitay thay, balkay yehi waqt kitaabein parhnay mein lagatay thay (What a blatant lie!).

Teesri jama'at kay baad Tayyab apni family kay saath Saudi Arabia hijrat kar gaye. Unhon nay teesri jamaat say chhati jamaat tak wahan taleem haasil kee. (American school part omitted because of patriotic reasons). Uss kay baad unhon nay aik saal Islamabad mein guzara, jis kay baad woh Karachi chalay gaye. Karachi mein hee unhon nay apna mash'hoor khitaab "TJ" paaya. Yahan par unhon nay apni ta'leem mukammal kee (O Levels and A Levels part omitted because of anti-colonialistic reasons).

Magar Tayyab kay parhai kay shoq nay un ko yahan ruknay nahee diya, aur woh mazeed ta'leem kay liay Lahore chalay aye (as if a bachelors degree is really rare). Yahan par unhon nay Lahore University of Management Sciences, jis ko pyaar say LUMS bhi kehtay hein, kay prestigious Computer Science program mein dakhila haasil kiya.

(Since I didn't get any awards as such, we need to say the following) Tayyab yahan par bhi baaki bachon say zyada mehenti aur danish'mand thay. Woh parhai aur baaki cheezon mein sab say agay hotay thay, aur unhon nay bohat jaga apni university ka naam roshan kiya. Sab asaatiza ko Tayyab par bohat fakhar tha.

Apnay aakhri saal mein Tayyab nay LUMS kee mash'hoor society LES kee sadaarat haasil kee. Unhon nay iss society ko apna bohat saara qeemti waqt diya, aur society kee shaan mein chaar chaand lagaye. Unhon nay apnay ham-khayaal logon kay saath mil kar Pakistan mein pehli baar Young Leaders and Entrepreneurs Summit karaaya, jis mein pooray Pakistan say taalib-e-ilm aaye.

(... to be continued)

Religious Freedom in Pakistan

The title pretty much shows I'm not going to be touching upon a light topic today. I've been wanting to write this entry for a long, long time... more-so because my feelings regarding this issue have been building up in intensity day by day. The whole debate is: "Does giving birth to a child give you the right to determine his/her religion?"

In our subcontinent, and in the West till a few decades ago, the trend has largely been that religion is "inherited" from your parents... just like your ethnicity, your looks, and your allergies.

In Pakistan, for example, no child (even when he/she becomes an adult) can dare think of
changing their religion because of two reasons:

1. The whole household will break down and there will be waves of criticism from the immediate and extended family, from friends (who might soon become ex-friends) and from the society as a whole. Basically your family will disown you and your society will treat you like an outcast.

2. More importantly, under the Islamic law, you will be labeled a "murtid", and are liable to be killed unless you repent and revert. I am not sure how many scholars disagree with this law, but to the best of my knowledge, it is widely accepted.

I completely fail to understand that with such laws, how can we even dare to invite others to Islam. How can we ask someone to leave their religion and become a Muslim if leaving a religion is such a heinous crime? The typical Muslim response to this question is: "That is because Islam is the true religion of God and all the others are not". Come on! With such a self-centered worldview, do you really expect to be living in harmony with the rest of the world?

Imagine you trying to convince someone to convert to Islam... and in return he says "I am convinced that your religion is the true and final religion of God, but if I convert, my government will kill me under the religious law". What will you call their law? Savage? That is exactly what they call us: savage, barbaric, extremists.

The non-flexibility of religion is so ingrained in our heads that hardly anyone even dares to ask questions like "Is there even a God? If yes, is Islam really His true and final religion?" In fact, even the sub-categories of religion are so rigidly defined that no one dares think of changing their sect from one sect to the other. In most cases, that could actually be worse than leaving religion altogether.

Conclusion: I strongly feel that religion is a matter of personal choice, and we really need to help our people understand this. We need to kick back the self-righteousness and and push up the tolerance. As the Radio1 public service announcement very aptly puts it: "Tolerance. It's not just a word. It's what we need."

Saying Goodbye

OK so due to the 31st Dec incident, my whole of January was spent traveling in riksha's and buses, sometimes even on foot. On one day I walked almost 2km, WITH my not-so-light laptop bag, on my way home from office. For some reason, the trip was neither boring nor tiring.

Since my car was standing at the workshop, on many of the days I had to go to the car parts road of Lahore, which is known as Montgomery road (It's actually surprising how many pre-independence British names we still haven't changed more than half a century after our so called independence!) n many of the days, I had to go during office timings, which led to me sitting till late, sometimes even after 11PM!

But if you have read "Who moved my cheese", which was given to me by my boss in Infosys (Pune, India), Miss Zalak Dedhia as a farewell gift, you would learn how to convert any incident into a learning experience. And I did, I now have more knowledge of the car parts industry and the qualities or parts available. I have also become less dependent on my car now, it doesn't seem all that crucial now after I've spent more than a month without it.

The Young Leaders and Entrepreneurs Summit (YLES) 2008 is going on at LUMS nowadays, and they have a whopping 900 delegates this time, including an international team from Malaysia. Yesterday was the most exciting part of the event, the ad-making competition... and I must say that some of the ads were absolutely mind-blowing! It seemed that their concepts and ideas for the ads came from some advertising expert! According to the "official statement", the ads will be available on the YLES website soon.