The Purpose of Eid-ul-Azha – An Important Lesson Learnt

Every year on Eid-ul-Azha, commonly known as Bakra Eid, I recall those childhood memories when I simply failed to understand the purpose of this highly significant day. I only celebrated Ramzan Eid back then and didn’t understand the point of sacrificing all these animals and then celebrating a day for it. At that time Bakra Eid only meant one thing: MESS!

I was a fussy child. The blood soaked roads, the nauseous odors and the cattle waste spread everywhere was something I simply dreaded. Hence, Bakra Eid was the day I dreaded the most in my life.

Rewinding back decades, I remember sleeping with my parents for many days after Bakra Eid because I would get nightmares of butchers and their knives. *shivers*

I used to wonder why Allah asked us to celebrate this day. Why is it even a festivity? When asked aloud, our elders used to brief us the historic events that mark this day. That led to more confusion. If even we had to sacrifice an animal because Hazrat Ibrahim did it, why do we have to celebrate? Sacrificing and then celebrating – these were two opposite words for me and I just couldn’t link the two of them together.

It is just a pity that I learnt the significance of Bakra Eid after so many years of my life. I feel remorse at wasting those childhood days, fussing over the house getting dirty. Luckily for my son, I learnt this lesson just in time to teach him what Bakra Eid actually means.

As I see him playing with his goats, feeding them with his own hands, caressing them and enjoying every moment, I think about his reaction when he will find out that his beloved goats will be slaughtered on Eid Day. But that is when I will teach him an important lesson.

SOMETIMES, WE JUST HAVE TO SACRIFICE THE THINGS WE LOVE THE MOST FOR THE SAKE OF SOMETHING THAT IS MORE IMPORTANT AND VALUABLE.

In this case, it is the love of Allah. We do it out of His love. His love is more important than our love for the cattle. We buy the cattle from our own money, we nurture and feed them ourselves, we take care of all their needs and then we sacrifice them with our own hands. Because Allah asked us to. That is what our test is. And the celebration after that is the reward of clearing the test.

 

That is how sacrifice and celebration are linked together.

Eid-ul-Azha is all about sacrificing. If you are honored with the chance of going for pilgrimage at this time of year, you will find yourself doing things that look senseless and are not routinely required. “Some things in Islam escape all logical thinking”, this is what our elders will tell us if we ask them “why is it required? What is the purpose?”

Leaving your comfortable and luxurious house to live in Mina for 3 days, praying in the ground of Arafat and staying there under the extreme heat of sun with no air-conditioners, spending a night on the rocky ground of Muzdalfa under open skies with nothing to provide shelter and then finally shaving off your head; this does sound senseless, doesn’t it? But if you think logically, this is the time you learn some very important lessons of sacrificing. You sacrifice all your luxuries and comforts to blindly follow what Allah has required. Think about it. Allah doesn’t ask a man to shave his beard because he knows that is easy for him. But instead he asks a man to shave his head because he knows men love their hair. This reminds me of a joke that a man who got an expensive hair transplant would never go for pilgrimage.

But that is what SACRIFICE is and that is what Islam teaches us.

And Islam is so perfect that it doesn’t require a woman to shave her head because then it will destroy the woman’s beauty and her femininity.

My mother often says, “Be thankful that Allah sent down a lamb in place of Hazrat Ismail. If it were him, we had to sacrifice humans.”

No, my dear mother. 

The Quran says: “This day have I perfected your religion for you, completed my favor upon you and have chosen for you Islam as your religion…” [5:3]

And this is a proof that Islam is a perfect religion. 

Why was Burger King such a Secret Affair?

I just learned on Saturday 6^TH October at midnight that Burger King’s first outlet had opened in Karachi, ALREADY! Well, I didn’t know ANYTHING about it, not even any news of it opening anytime soon. I didn’t even know about the venue where the first outlet will be. And I don’t live under the rock! Certainly not.

In fact, we have been waiting for Burger King to arrive in Pakistan since a long time especially after Hardees was opened and we thought “we would never go to Hardees if there was Burger King around”. All I heard about it was that a contract had been signed between MCR Pakistan, the franchisee of Pizza Hut Pakistan, and The Burger King Worldwide Inc and that it would open sometime in mid-2014. I learnt this news from an article published in Express Tribune on July 16^th, 2013. It was further mentioned that the venue has not been selected yet. Who knew just months later, they would surprise people in Karachi by opening their first outlet in the heart of city that is BOAT BASIN. Thank God, we won’t have to travel all the way to Nazimabad, battling traffic, kaala dhuwaan, and honks from truck drivers to finally find solace in a hamburger that lacks what you call “SATISFACTION”. Yes, the billboards along the way keep you motivated but it isn’t long when you realize it’s a far cry from what you were expecting.

Coming to Burger King, I am a true fan of it especially their fries. The scrumptious, crispy fries and just the right combination of ingredients that make a burger worth the guilt and the time you spend in queues listening to your husband’s grumblings, is what I am expecting from Burger King.

The only reason I can think of why they kept The Burger King Issue such a secret is that they were afraid of the Karachi public and especially those living in Defence and Clifton Area. Even people living in far-away places like me are “in town” on Saturdays. Probably they were just afraid of their newly built restaurant being bombarded with a throng of people hungry for burgers and fries. Who knows, they might even ruin the place, or so they must have thought. I heard it was bombarded already; “word of mouth marketing is the best type of advertisement”, a friend told me.

Another reason comes in my mind as I think about my rumbling stomach and my taste buds craving for a bite of scrumptiousness; they might have been afraid of people hailing it as haram even before its launch. Oh please, if anybody is planning to do that, don’t tell me anything until I eat there. Just keep MUM until I tell you. I’ll post a status on Facebook “Me eating Burger King” and then you can bombard my phone with all the messages about Burger King being haram. Just don’t do this zulm before I get a taste of it. It has been ages…

To My Dear Sony VAIO Laptop…

I hope you could see how sincerely sorry I am for cheating on you for I have been looking for a new companion now… You have been my loyal companion for over five years. You have suffered several blows and hits when you just stop working and your buttons seem to stuck. You have endured my curses when you freeze for what seems like ages. You throw me into a fit of frustration when you complete an half an hour task in 2 hours. When the document I type has all the “As” missing because later I find out that there is a grain of rice stuck underneath the ‘A’ key and so, all the time I have been hitting the key, it wasn’t responding. Now, when I have to correct it all over again, you surely stomach some more curses.

Whatever I eat or drink, I feed it to you too. Please don’t take me wrong, I just care for you. It hurts when you are so hungry and thirsty doing all the work for me while I am always chewing, sipping and munching on something. Well, now you have got a taste of everything. I know you love green tea because whenever I am sipping it, something always seems to happen and I drip it on you. And you go thirsty very soon! I have told you many times water is not good for you.

You have also served as a drum for my son. How can I forget that? When he watches a movie on you and a song plays, he bangs you to the tune of the song. But when something goes wrong and you throw him into a fit of frustration, he goes to the extremes and bites you. But remember how many times I have saved from those tragedies? And how many times I was just a bit too late?

Your CD player is full of dust. I can’t even dare to open it as I am allergic to dust.

Oh yes, and your battery is long dead. You just don’t work more than 5 minutes without a socket.

Coming to your appearance, you have grown old, my dear. You were silver when we first met. A shiny, silver-grey but now you have got blemishes and aging marks all over your body. You are no more a pretty sight to look at.

So you see, it’s clearly time that I move on. I hope you could see how much I am grieving right now for I know I am going to miss you… *sniff* *sniff*

For all those with a DSLR – SHOW IT SOME DAMN RESPECT

Go to Kolachi or any other Do Darya restaurant even the cheap Noorani Kabab House and you will see youngsters roaming around with huge DSLRs hung over their shoulders. The trend of owning a Nikon or a Canon has spread like a wildfire in Pakistan. It’s the next NEW thing out there. I wonder how Sony cyber shots are still in business. Someone told me “cyber shots are gone now. It’s the age of DSLR!”

Oh my God, do you even know what DSLR actually stands for? Yes, the salesman was saying something and he gave me a manual too but who cares? I have a DSLR and I can’t wait to tell my friends. I’ll post a status on Facebook. No wait, I have an idea. I’ll post a picture of my own reflection in the mirror holding the DSLR. The news will spread!

Hahaha.

According to Ovais Munshi in his blog at Express Tribune, “Having a DSLR is like having the best backpack in the 2nd grade, and the best Pokemon cards in the 8th grade.”

It’s the new iPod and owning this gear suddenly makes you the most popular person in your neighborhood. Having a DSLR hung over your shoulder suddenly exalts your status. Oh, I am so sad my tiny cyber shot will look like a keera in front of your DSLR. L

Ovais Munshi says, “It doesn’t matter whether you take a picture of your friends striking awkward poses or a picture of an open sewer line, they will be filed under the same folder. That folder will ingeniously be named ‘Randoms’. No matter what picture you upload, it will be showered with praise. The pixels will transcend all worldly boundaries and attain a level of absolute beauty. Plato will roll over in his grave.”

Yes, that’s the worst part. They have absolutely no photographic talent.  

And the most laughable part is, when you ask them what settings they use, they say “we use automatic.” Ask them about shutter speed, focal length, DOF, ISO, or white balance, and they will frown at you HUH? WHO CARES?

JOKE OF THE CENTURY. It’s like you use a smartphone but don’t know what internet is. It's like getting a stethoscope just because you want to hear a dhak dhak. 

Oh, come on Pakistanis and especially Karachities, you don’t need to get crazy after every other NEW thing out there. At least show some respect to this professional gear. This isn’t a 3-piece lawn suit by Sana Safinaz that you must get if you want to be accepted by your friends. This isn’t even the new iPhone 5, which costs around the same as DSLR. Believe me, you will look more prestigious with an iPhone 5 than you do running around with your DSLR, “poking it into random areas and trying to look sophisticated, adjusting settings (of course you are just fiddling with the buttons figuring out their functions.)”

Oops. Sorry for the sarcasm.

But don’t worry. Most of these guys with DSLRs have no interest in photography at all. They show no real interest in learning the techniques of photography and improving their skills. And hence, the demise of this crazy trend will soon happen. Their DSLRs will soon be forgotten. They will soon realize that a cyber shot is just as good as a DSLR if all they want to do is shoot their friends or perhaps the 'open sewer lines'. And that their pictures aren’t really as oh-my-gosh as they think. Lucky for those who are still loyal with their cyber shots.

But for those with a DSLR, please be kind enough. Take out some time to learn the basics of photography. Your DSLR will give you dua. Warna qayamat ke din ye bhi bolay ga “AGAR ISTIMAAL KARNAY NAHI ATA TU KHAREEDA KIUN” Sorry, Humaima :p

Credits: http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/7860/buying-a-dslr-doesnt-make-you-a-photographer/

Do Not Buy SLIMING Herb!!!

By saying NO, I mean IT!

Go to any big superstore and you will see this product everywhere. The storeowner will tell you “yes, it works”. See the reviews online and it is really the most popular weight loss product worldwide. But still, I say DON’T BUY IT! You will be doomed. After all, you don’t get bathrooms everywhere.

If you look at the box, there is a slim silhouette of a woman in a poppy field and the name “Sliming Herb” is written on it. See the bottom and it’s written German herb (Thai) & Co. and you would think a bunch of German guys manufactured it who probably didn’t know the correct spelling of Slimming and named it as Sliming. But you, knowing better, would probably spell it and pronounce it as Slimming. But that is your first mistake. Those German guys knew what they were doing. They realistically named it as SLIMING not Slimming. And that is what you will realize when you actually sip this tea and undergo the trauma that will follow.

See the back of the box and it says “FOR THE OVERWEIGHTED PERSON WHO DO NOT WANT TO CONTROL HIS DIET”. Well, that’s you, so you grab the box and since it’s so cheap, you go to the cash counter and buy it. That is your second mistake.

Then the third mistake is when you follow the instructions and bear the ordeal of the nauseous taste and smell of this tea. You are probably thinking, “it’s a weight loss product so obviously it will taste bad” OR “the bad taste is bearable as long as it helps me lose weight”. If you are new to the product and don’t have any idea how bad it will taste, let me illustrate. Take a bit of tree bark, dip it in water, stir it with your toe, and wait for three weeks. That’s the same taste. If you can bear it, well and good.

But your last mistake is when you leave your home after drinking the tea. Halfway down the road when you are stuck in a traffic jam, your stomach suddenly goes on fire. Amidst panicky tears, you hunt for adult diapers in your car hoping that maybe a miracle would happen. Not finding any, you scour your surroundings for any public bathroom. There are no bathrooms but you spot a kachra kundi at the end of the road where a pathan is already slouching. Although you have made fun of pathans throughout your life, at that panicky moment, you are ready to do anything that would cool down the fire. But you are stuck in a traffic jam with no space to park your car and join the pathan.  

So, crying in agony, you wonder one thing; IS THIS DEAL REALLY WORTH IT???

Hooked On Sour Mango – A Delicious Mango Daal Recipe

While the onset of winter brings a completely new cuisine, which includes a lot of spicy and fatty dishes, it all gets replaced in summer by a few things. High temperatures and the first hot, dry winds have already hit Karachi, which brings different meanings for the people in Karachi: lawn fever, MANGOES, beaches, and monsoon.

I could have posted a 1000 word post or perhaps more on lawn fever alone. But I can’t: I AM NOT INTERESTED IN WHATEVER I WEAR whether its Asim Jofa or Peri-peri. It won’t be surprising for me if the next brand I get to know of is called Peri-peri. :P Imagine, Peri-peri lawn :D

Anyway, my topic is sour mango. Because it is cheap and I can easily get it from the vegetable vendor who sets up his stall right outside our gate. I can even send my Masi to get sour mangoes for me for a mere 10 rupees. So, its a lot easy you see to get sour mangoes than any 3 piece lawn suit. I know that’s a faulty comparison but hope you get the point. No? Never mind.

So, the point is I am hooked onto sour mangoes. And this is the first summer in my entire lifetime that I have truly found this natural fruit totally relishing and delicious. Ripe and sweet mangoes are still a NO-NO for me because of all the carbs they have. Even sour mangoes have a good share of carbs, which might explain why I am growing so much these days. But still, they are worth it.

I can never eat sour mangoes as they are. I remember my sister plucking them from trees and eating them right away. But I don’t have enough guts to do that. So, I have been searching for good sour mango recipes on the internet. And I found a truly amazing recipe of Mango daal on a blog. I tried it that night only and it tastes just amazing.

You can find the original recipe of mango daal here. But here is my own Pakistani version:

I couldn't take my own picture. My camera is not working. so here is the credit for this picture:
www.saffrontrail.blogspot.com

Ingredients:

½ cup Mung ki daal

½ cup Masoor ki daal

Few Curry leaves

½ teaspoon Cumin seeds

4 sour mangoes, small ones

Salt to taste

Turmeric ¼ teaspoon

2 – 3 Green chillies

1 teaspoon Garlic ginger paste

Coriander leaves for garnish

Method:

Cook mung daal and masoor daal together in enough water with salt and turmeric for about an hour until both daals form a paste. You may use a blender here or just use your spoon to mix it well. I prefer using the spoon since I like a thick consistency.

Chop sour mangoes and green chillies. Heat oil in a pan and put in curry leaves and cumin seeds until the seeds turn brown. Then add garlic ginger paste, sour mango and green chilli paste and cook the masala for a few minutes. Then add this masala in the cooked daal and mix it well. Add coriander leaves and serve hot with roti or steamed rice.

Mango daal with mango pickle makes an excellent combination. My mom sent a generous amount of mango pickle for me. I’ll post the recipe soon. In the meanwhile, I am enjoying the mango pickle three times a day, every day of the week. <3 It’s finger-licking good!

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi – Makes Sense Now!

For the first time since its release, this movie made any sense to me. In fact, I found it really heart-warming. I don’t know why I found it nonsense when it was first released. The message portrayed escaped all logics at the time. But when I watched the movie yesterday, it made all the sense in the world to me.

The gist of the movie: Shahrukh Khan changes himself for his wife to please her and he was hoping to make her fall in love with him. It doesn’t take him a lot of time to be successful. But then it suddenly occurs to him that his wife should love him the way he is; she should appreciate and value his love for her and there should be no need for him to change.

This point escaped me several years back but now it makes sense. This is what true love means. A person doesn’t have to change his entire personality to make someone fall in love. A person can’t even do that. Changing your physical appearance and your entire personality can be a temporary thing but not permanent. Losing your own-self to make someone fall in love doesn’t make sense.

While in a relationship, there should be enough flexibility in each person to change himself to make a relationship work, it doesn’t mean the person has to change ENTIRELY and lose himself in the process.

I don’t believe in “made-for-each-other” couples. Everything requires effort and so, does a relationship. If you have problems in your relationship, it doesn’t mean what people say “it wasn’t meant to be”. It just means you need to put in more effort to make it work. And effort requires changes. You need to change the way you communicate with each other, express your feelings and perhaps work out some tactics to make it work between you two. Effort requires working out strategies that will help you to ignore the indifferences between you two.

However, these changes do not mean you should change yourself from head to toe. Every person has his own unique personality and you can never change his personality not even expect such a thing. Neither can you change nor your partner. So, you both have to accept and love each other the way you are.

So, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is indeed a heart touching movie. And now, I can understand why Shahrukh Khan reverted back to his original personality and original appearance.

<3 <3

Best iPad App For Teaching Phonics to Kids

Phonics instruction helps children learn to read by recognizing the sounds of the spoken language. Children are first taught to recognize the sound each letter makes, pick out the beginning sounds and ending sounds of words, and finally combine different sounds to make words.

Interactive tools not only motivate your child to learn but they also make learning more interesting. Your child may not be willing to sit down with a paper and pencil but he may just love to play educational games on iPad or iPhone. I wonder sometimes if Apple already knew how their products would benefit these young people the most.

Since my son would never sit with me and play with flash cards *peacefully* like some other kids do, I have been fishing for the best phonics app and here's my catch:

Abc Pocket Phonics

Pocket Phonics is a simple app that teaches children how to write, recognize, and spell out common and most frequently used words. This app will surely give your child a head start in learning and will help him develop early literacy and reading skills. 

The design and interface of PocketPhonics is rather simple. There are no bells and whistles and no colourful interactions like in other children's apps. Despite that, it is still my favorite app so far and I am clearly impressed.

This is how this phonics app teaches your child to develop phonics recognition and reading skills. 

• The app demonstrates how to write each letter, saying the letter sound at the same time. Your child is asked to trace a set of letters with his fingers. This tracing quiz is good for developing penmanship skills. The small cartoon figures that cheer up after successful completion of this level will motivate your child to trace. 

• Your child is asked to recognize the letter from the sound that is played in the recording and pick it out from a set of 5-6 letters. This quiz helps your child learn phonics and letter recognition.

• The recorded voice then shows how to spell out common words with the letters your child picked.  

A unique thing about this app is that it doesn't introduce letters in alphabetical order. Instead, it teaches in sets of letters that are more useful and more frequently used. This will help your child in starting reading sooner.

Verdict

This is a must have app for every preschooler eager to read and write. The price is only $2.99 and it is totally worth it!

Get it now!

Bad Sleeping Habits – Sleepy voice at 10 am???

I know it’s common around here in Karachi for people to keep sleeping past noon but still I always hate it when I call someone at 10 am and I am greeted with a sleepy voice!!! And when this happens at noon, I really want to go kill that person.

Should I change myself and be considerate towards those people who have such sleeping habits or should they change themselves? I know it’s them who need a wake up call and really need to improve these bad habits. But if you got to live in Karachi and get along well with people, then it’s the other way around. This means, I really need to control myself when I feel the urgency of calling someone in the morning. I should perhaps assume there is a time difference between me and all those people out there who sleep until late.

I know that in Karachi our mornings start very late. I know that you keep sleeping late in the morning. But for the love of God, can’t you just pretend you weren’t sleeping when someone calls you?? At least show some embarrassment at sleeping so late!!! Whenever I am greeted with a sleepy voice, I really want to hit that person in the head but instead, I always end up apologizing. Because, I have to live in Karachi.

Once, I called my best friend at 1 pm hoping for a nice and lively chat, only to find her screaming at the other end of the line. She was actually angry at me to call her at such an early hour. Huh?? Get a life! Its 1 pm and my day is half finished!

Maybe even foreigners are aware of our bad sleeping habits. A few days back, I got a call from a US university about a scholarship application I sent to them *accidentally*. They called me at 1 am at night when I was fast asleep. I don’t know what I said to him because I was half sleeping but I only remember the last part when he said “Good day”. Huh? In one way, he was right because in Karachi, people are actually very very awake at 1 am, except me.

The last thing I can do is hope that one day all my dear friends and family will understand the importance of “early to rise, early to bed”.

But in the meanwhile, keep expecting my calls at such early hours. Because I can’t delay MY work because of this…If I need to call you, I will do it, although I will never expect to have a nice friendly chat with anyone at such hours. My apologies to everyone in advance J