Mein baray ho kay Ah-nold banoon ga

Saw this while waiting at Clippers while my cousin was getting a haircut. This kid is a visionary :D

Potty. Hawwwwww.

My friend decided to take part in an essay competition. The topic was 'Where is home for you, and why?' First prize was an iPad. He didn't have time to write the essay so he asked me to write one for him. If he won, he would keep the iPad. Either way, I was getting a 14th Street Pizza treat. Sure, I knew from the start I was the sucker in this deal. But I love Pizza, and 14th Street at that that much. Following is the essay. Definitely not my best work (didn't make it to the top 3 even...out of only 27 entries):

For a place to have the dubious honour of the title of 'My Home' as opposed to merely 'A place where I happen to do the 4-Fs', it has to fulfil certain characteristics. A Home must be a place where I can feel at complete ease and at peace with myself in a zen-like state (the litmus test for this being the place where you get your best ideas). A home must be my fortress of solitude, an area of refuge from the big, bad dog-eat-dog world. Home is where I am King and where I can set my own rules. Home should be the one place where, after a hard day's work, I can drop my load without fear of public censure. Home is where I am right now. Home is where my toilet is. That's right, the toilet. Now reread this paragraph in a new light. Let the potty humour begin.

A man can cover up who he is in public with a facade, adopt various pretensions to culture, wear fancy clothes and roll his 'Rs', but all this becomes irrelevant when the time comes for a man to bare his soul and buttocks, stare down that endless chasm and s(h)it on the toilet. Even the president of the Unites States, arguably the most powerful man on Earth must have to 'go' sometime. Death and Shitting are the two great equalizers. If this exclusive ability to bring a man down to earth, to release his inhibitions, to leave him at his most vulnerable, to force to him to adopt positions he would NEVER assume in public doesn't make the toilet qualify as a home, I don't know what does.

The above paragraph just shows how any toilet in the world can be called a home. But what makes YOUR toilet specifically home and not any other? Very few things in the world are as personalized and expressive of a man's true self as one's toilet. Where else can one find such a concentration of a man's excreta? Our own unique mix of chemicals that tell us what we eat (and we are what we eat). Every other place in the house was built on the false grounds of looking good, as supposed to personal need, which should be the prime motivator. This concept has been most excellently articulated by the veritable Ayn Rand in her seminal 'The Fountainhead' (Wow, Ayn Rand and faeces in the same paragraph, I bet she's turning in her grave). The toilet is the only remaining bastion of the philosophy that comfort precedes all else.

If immigrant grandparents reminisce to their grandkids about how life was in the Old Country, on their lips may be praises of the food, culture etc. but what they are really yearning for is that water closet they had to leave behind. “Ach! Confound these newfangled auto-flushing toilets! Move your tucchus one inch and they let loose!” grumbles the Jewish grandpa. The Sami people of Finland have hundreds of words for snow. Why? Because that's all they see, day-in, day-out. While the number of English words for the toilet are not as many, a Wikipedia search still yielded 24 words (my personal favourite: porcelain goddess) And that number may be even larger in languages whose speakers are genetically predisposed to Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

A brief history of the toilet in various cultures around the world will convince you of the central place this holds in our hearts and between our legs. The Romans, famous for (among other things) throwing some pretty wild orgies and bacchanalian parties, reflected their perversions in the fact that their places of defecation were public baths. The people of the Indian Subcontinent are known for their squatter toilets, where no part of the body directly touches the toilet seat, unlike the Western Commode. This reflects the philosophy that even touching the area where one defecates renders one impure. One can know so much about an individual from what he lets out from the nether ends of his body, for example, disease diagnostic tests, drug tests, paternity tests, diet etc. Hobos and nomads have no homes, ergo they defecate and urinate all over the place. Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street was the antithesis of hygiene. He ate, slept, drank, peed, crapped, copulated in one trashcan.

As I drop another big doodoo, I ask you to join me in singing Talking Heads' song 'This Must be the Place',

“Home, is where I want to be but I guess I'm already there...”

Riki-Tiki-Tavi

Last night I had a discussion at my university cafeteria with my friends Wasay, Younus, Samid and Kamran. We had been at the beach that day with the rest of the class, where some of us paid to watch a fight between a snake and a mongoose. At the time I watched the whole exciting encounter with no feeling of guilt. My reasoning:
1. This is simply a live version of what you watch on National Geographic.
2. It's not like what we're doing is unnatural or immoral for either animals. The mongoose and snake have a natural predator-prey relationship. It's a win-win-win situation. The mongoose gets to eat, the handler makes money off of it and we get entertained. And the snake? Well, pardon my French but life's a bitch.

However, the opposition, which consisted of all my friends ganging up on me raised a point that converted me:
What essentially are we paying for? We are paying to obtain a perverted pleasure from the death of another creature. It is irrelevant whether that snake was going to die anyway at the jaws of the mongoose. It is as perverted as watching two humans making out. What they're doing is not perverted (it's natural) but you watching them is. Paying to watch another animal fight to the death with another is just a toned down version of what was done in the arenas in Roman times. Men were thrown to the lions in the circus and the ensuing one-sided battle 'entertained' spectators.  It would be okay if you were viewing this to praise the beauty and observe the awesomeness that Allah SWT has put on Earth, but let's face it, that's not what's going on in our minds at the time.

So put a stop to this. Stop paying for this. Encourage others to do the same. What about the jobs you're killing off? Employment should never be an excuse for allowing decadence to continue.

My Life and 9/11

As I turn 20, I look back at the two decades of my life. I see that they can be neatly split down the middle by one event: 9/11.This event, although so removed from my world, has had profound effects (both good and bad) on my whole family and I.

I was born the year the Soviet Union went kaput (1991). The world I emerged into kicking and screaming was one of hope. 'Evil' had been defeated. We had a female prime-minister. Communism was no more. I saw this Old World Order hatred first hand when I once wore a Soviet Army shirt to my aged grandmother's. She was furious. To her, they were still the enemy. Terrorism to our grandparents generation was not Al-Qaeda but the Red Army Faction.

Before 9/11, my family was your average upper-middle class Memon Karachiite family. We weren't overtly religious, or as is the popular misnomer 'fundos'. Religion to us was the 5 pillars and abstaining from alcohol and pork. We had family board game nights and an inordinate obsession with Ghostbusters, Beavis and Butthead, Cartoon Network, MTV, Space Jam, Sega and Disney films. We listened to Vanilla Ice, and watched the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Every Friday evening, our nana (grandfather) would play Khaled's 'Didi' and all of us kids would dance to it. I had pool parties for birthdays.

I remember how everybody wanted to live the American Dream. You were an idiot if you hated America, the saviours of the planet. This love seeped into my 6-year-old brain and I made it my mission to collect enough money in my 'ghalla' (piggy bank) to buy a ticket Stateside and experience first hand the wonders of Disneyland (which I thought was all America was about) and see the 'white man'.

I remember how my mother used to read from 'The Stories of the Prophets' to me and sing Ahmed Rushdi's 'Do Akhiyan, Do Sakhiyan' when she tucked me in. I remember how the biggest news on TV was not a bomb blast, but how Princess Diana died, and what President Clinton used the Oval Office for ('He lied about having a girlfriend, and American Presidents are not supposed to lie' is how my mum explained the whole affair to me. Remember, I hadn't had the birds and the bees talk yet).

Those were innocent times. We weren't as cynical as a nation, or maybe that's what my child's mind perceived. The world was kind and just and I was going to win a Nobel Prize someday.

Then came 9/11. Before then, I didn't even know what the World Trade Centre was and thought the tallest building in the world was the Empire State Building. Within a year, our family changed. Before 9/11, my family and I had been gradually shifting towards the much maligned 'Wahabist' (for lack of a better word) version of Islam. 9/11 and it's aftermath accelerated this process. Al-Huda had its share in this change. Alhamdulillah, we stopped listening to music and celebrating birthday parties. I remember how I wasn't allowed to go to my grade 5 Halloween party, because my mother was upset about the Afghanistan invasion and felt that it was not right to party like this when our neighbours were suffering. I saw polarisation in society, where people were either putting more clothes on or taking them off. All of a sudden, America was the bad guy. It just so happened that around this time, I began to undergo puberty (Although this has nothing to do with 9/11, their happening at the same time has lead to the association).

All of a sudden, girls didn't have cooties and the sissies who played with girls in the past were now macho. Along with the hormonal changes, my outlook on life changed as it does when you become a teenager; the world lost its innocence and I became more cynical. I started asking questions that were taboo. Does God exist? Is the meaning of life, the universe and everything 42? Is Elvis dead? Our family's game and movie nights decreased in number and were replaced by meetings for social causes. We realized that life is short and we're here for a purpose. We stopped believing the news blindly and gave everything deep thought before accepting it. Logic and the desire to live by reason replaced irrational thinking and believing stuff just because it was the 'done thing'. Ayn Rand would be proud.

9/11 changed me for the better in some ways (religious IMHO) and for the worse (cynicism) in others. You may disagree with what my idea of a good and bad change is but you cannot deny that 9/11 changed everyone in some way or the other. That's what this article is about, in essence.

Goray Chittay (A sometimes vaguely derogatory term for a Caucasian)

My latest post at Perceptions http://perceptions.org.pk/blog/2011/11/goray-chittay-by-faisal-subhani/
And they spelt my name wrong. That's always been my pet peeve.

Analyze this!

AKU makes all its students meet the school counsellor once a year, to ensure that our noggins are fit as fiddles. First years have to take some psych tests before meeting the counsellor, an extremely delightful and ever-smiling lady. The following is an excerpt from my interview with her:
(P)sychologist: Soooo...What do you think of girls?
(M)e: *Baffled look* Ummm... What do you mean?
P: Do you like them?
(Tread carefully here, Faysal. These shrinks start off all blue-eyed but then descend to prove that you have an Oedipus Complex.)
M: Of course!
P: How much?
M: A lot.
P: Haan, but how much?
M: Like a lot a lot.
P: Why?
M: *Incredulous look* Why?
(Because they're there. Duh.)
P: Yes, why do you think you like girls so much?
M: Oh. That's easy. Hormones, of course. Plenty of them.
P: Hahahaha. I know that, but why?
(Because when a Papa bird meets and likes a Mama bird... Darnit, what does she want from me? The birds and the bees talk? A class on the four F's? I thought we weren't allowed to question evolutionary biology anymore! )
M: Because...
P:Acha, so tell me what kind of girls do you like?
(This must be a trick question. What am I supposed to say? Redheads, Blondes, Brunettes? Or do I be more graphic? I've heard these psychologists love it when you get all Freudian. Someone "untie" me from this chair and get me out of here!)
M:What do you mean?
(That's right, keep playing dumb.)
P: Ok, do you like introverts or extroverts?
M: Oh. Right. Uhh, introverts i guess.
P: Yes, I thought you'd say that. So Faysal, I'm sure a guy like you has had tons of girlfriends over the past.
(Are you kidding me, woman? Moi and the Ladies? Itchy and Scratchy got along better!)
M: Haha. Yeah right. I wish.
P: Come on, you must have had at least one.
(Not counting the lovely and unfortunately always-getting-conveniently-

deported-whenever-my-friends-ask-me-to-introduce-her-to-them Ivanka, the exotic Czech exchange student.)
M: Nope, not even one.
P: Why not?
M: Because it's not allowed in Islam
(Or at least that's how I console myself)
P: Ok, here's a scenario: what if there was one girl out there who said, 'Bas mujhe Faysal chahiye'. And she let you know that. What would you do?
(Well, then that girl is probably from a cannibalistic tribe on an island in the South Pacific yet to be discovered by the outside world. Or is that too much to hope for?)
M: Ma'am, the possibility of that is so remote, It's never crossed my mind.
P: But how would you deal with such a situation, if it ever did arise?
(Just then, the ruling Junta of neurons in my brain's logic centre immediately quashed any talk of a revolution by the freethinking neurons in the imagination centre. Or as they were better known: 'those damn hippies'. *Insert any '1984' or 'Farenheit 451' quote here*)
M: I don't think my mind comprehends such a possibility.
(That's right, repeat that in your best robot voice.)
P: I see. Dekho Faysal, my report says that you think too much about girls.
M: Alhamdulillah-wait, that's a good thing right?
P: No.
M: Oh.
P: So stop it.
M: Ok.
P: Did you hear me?
M: *Snaps out of it* Sorry, I think I was day dreaming there. Thinking about a fantasy date I'll be having later today with a girl from a cannibalistic tribe on an island in the South Pacific yet to be discovered by the outside world.

With the exception of the last two lines, which are just plain wishful thinking, all of the above conversation is true, word for word.
It's one thing knowing you're virile (to be politically correct). And it's  completely another thing being told so by someone with a Bachelor's degree who specializes in identifying such traits. After all, that was the take-home message, wasn't it?

Fear and Loathing in Karachi

I've been meaning to write this for quite a long time, but something or the other, mostly laziness, has kept me from doing so. But events in Karachi over the past few days have spurred me to pen my thoughts. Yesterday, I was coming home from my grandmother's with my parents when my mother piped up, 'Faysal beta, please be careful these days when you go visit your friends (as it's the end of summer, many friends are going back to college abroad, so I've been going around town bidding them adieu). I'm not forbidding you to leave the house, but try to meet them at their homes instead of at restaurants on the street, as 'they're' picking boys up at random who are never heard from again. Just the other day, your uncle was telling me how one of his workers' son was grabbed from the street along with his friends. Alhamdulillah, he escaped but the others weren't as lucky.' Now normally, my mum is quite chill for a mum. I've seen some pretty uptight mums so I'd say mine is the Ferris Bueller of them all. Dad takes our only car to work, so she lets me hop on public buses to go wherever I want (Once you get over the paan spitting, bad BO and filthy seats, it's not that bad really). Sure, she adds her fine print (which mum doesn't?); no bus after dark, Hassan Square is as far as you can go, and not on days when there's trouble in the city (since this is Karachi we're talking about, rule no. 3 keeps me grounded a lot of the time. That and my mum's refusal to let me go abroad for college makes me suspect she has empty nest syndrome (Read: She loves me so much. Awwww). Keeping in mind the mother I've just described, you can understand that I was quite surprised when she put a leash (albeit a thin one) on my city-trotting. At the time I just put it on maternal instinct, but later this incident got me thinking about what's been brewing in this fair city of ours. Let's be clinical about this. Let's put ourselves in the kidnappers' shoes for a bit. Either the kidnappers are serial killers, paedophiles or human traffickers or they have the sole nefarious purpose of instilling terror in the stout hearts of Karachiites for whatever sinister agenda(s). Whatever the cause, it's turned Karachi into a nervous, quaking wreck. And when people get nervous, they start acting irrationally. It is this irrationality that I shall discuss in this article. A quick google search shows that in 4 days 77 people have been killed in the recent spate of violence gripping our fair city. Another search shows that Karachi's population is approximately 13 to 15 million. Let us assume it is 13 mill. Therefore: 77/(4*13000000) = 0.0000015 That means that there are around 1.5 killings for every million people alive per day.1 million is the estimated population of Gulshan-e-Iqbal, a sprawling area. Everyday, max 2 people will get killed here. Out of a million. Factor in the fact that the violence is mainly limited to certain areas of the city only, and the probability decreases even further. There were 6 kidnappings on Tariq Road you say? Sweetie, have you SEEN the sheer number of people in that commercial centre at any given point in time? That means a BIG denominator, while the numerator remains 6. Low probability again. Which puts the problem in perspective doesn't it? In comparison, Tuberculosis is the 3^rd biggest killer in Karachi’s slums, well above homicide. Hence, we have more reason to fear germs than terrorists. But I don't see us walking down the street wearing facemasks. Why? Is it because in our minds, bacteria are microscopic, virtually non-existent critters while a terrorist is a gun-toting, big, bad wolf in dire need of a shave? We really haven't changed from when we were kids. We still fall for the 'Bogeyman-will-come-and-eat-you-if you-don't-finish-your-greens' story our grandmothers told us in our childhoods. Now the lion is the terrorist and eating your greens is milling like scared bleating sheep.

  When our relatives and friends abroad or even in other Pakistani cities telephone in panic, saying they just saw that 6 more people died in Karachi and are we OK, don't we laugh it off, telling them not to worry? Where's that composure now? What's interesting is that people in the States think that we have a pig of a time here, that we literally dodge bullets everyday in our efforts to lead normal lives. But we know it's not as bad as they purport. We probably think the same of people in Iraq and Palestine. But ask them what it's like eking out an existence there (I have), and unless they live bang in the centre of a warzone, they'll roll their eyes too. The media plays a big part in this mass hysteria. In order to sell their brand, they only report that which is likely to shock and awe. Telling us how many people did NOT die in Karachi today is bad business for them. If they did that, the news would take a lot longer to deliver. Most of us would switch to the shopping channel. Remember, fear is a powerful tool to keep the masses in line. We won't speak up if we are scared. And that's what 'they' want. Case in point: we still refer to 'them' as 'them'. Can we get more Orwellian than this? To quote Roosevelt, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. So put on a fresh pair of pants and be empirical about everything. There is comfort in probabilities.

Bubble Wrap Bonanza

I have an allegory for the types of pleasure, which I admit, is pretty neat.
1) Short term pleasure: You have a sheet of bubble wrap. You wring it tightly. You hear an avalanche of popping as almost every bubble is popped simultaneously, creating a divine bubble explosion. But within a few seconds, the sheet is just a plain piece of polyethene, completely useless.
2) Long term pleasure: You have a sheet of bubble wrap. You pop one bubble at a time. Maybe two if you're feeling naughty. Each pop gives you a mini eargasm each time. The bubble wrap lasts for as long as you want it too. You are not the bubble wrap's slave. It is yours. So which path do you take? Of course, all this can be circumvented if you own a bubble wrap manufacturing plant, but I'm quite sure there's something like a bubble wrap overdose. Either way, that's going on my bucket list.

Haiku

Faysal on his knees
With his 13 inch Mac Pro
Turning Japanese

But you know who can write Haiku most easily?

An OCD patient:

I will wash my hands
left right left right left right left
over and over

Miss Teen South Carolina 2007 Caitlin Upton:

I personally
believe that South Africa
ummm...uhhh..Iraq...uhhh...

Snoop Dogg:

Snoopy is my nizz
f'shizzle hizzle dizzle
i like my nizz...wizz?

Eiffel 65:

I'm Blue Da Da Dee
Da Dee Da Da Da Da Dee
Da Da Dee Da Da

 

Encounters with the Fourth Kind

A video of a Papuan tribe's first contact with the white man and the outside world.
P.S. sorry I couldn't embed the video since Youtube has flagged it as material unsuitable for anyone below 18, so I needed to be signed in, but I haven't a Youtube account. Yet, at least.
SubhanAllah. This has to be one of the most fascinating videos I've ever seen. Thank you Stumbleupon!
What we have here is an anthropologist's dream come true. The white man discovers a race of humans completely cut off from the outside world. They have grown up in what can be called a test tube, completely isolated from the rest of the world and therefore have NO form of external influence. They are a product, as is everyone, of environment. Their lives, culture, religion etc. are all dictated by their immediate surroundings, i.e. the jungle.
Why was this a unique opportunity? Because it would let us 'extraterrestrials' (to the Toulambi) differentiate, to a certain extent at least, between human habits, behaviours etc. that are innate and those that are learned (On the downside though, we may end up giving them a foreign disease. The white man is famous for that. Happened in War of the Worlds when a human disease is what wiped out the aliens and to the Red Indians, when their unprepared immune systems were exposed to smallpox for the first time, an exclusively European and Asian disease till then). For example, why do we kiss, hug and shake hands? How can something as ridiculous as two people touching lips evoke such a landslide of tumultuous emotions? It's not like we have any physiologic erotic receptors on our lips. Hence, what naturally follows is to find out if tribes like the Toulambi kiss. If yes, then either the kiss and its associated emotions
a) are innate,
b) by some remarkable coincidence developed in the Toulambi tribe on their own,
c) we have yet to discover erotic receptors on our lips.
A word of caution though: As a Muslim, I believe that Allah (SWT) sent guidance to all people from among their own. Which means at some point more than 1400 years ago, some prophet was sent to the Toulambi (or whatever they were back then). Ergo, if some of their habits are familiar to us, it could be entirely possible that this is a trickle-down effect of what that/those prophet(s) taught the Toulambi all those years ago, even if they did modify their religion afterwards (which is what happened with the Jews and Christians). Which also raises the interesting question: if they have been in isolation since before the arrival of Islam in Indonesia, that would mean they haven't received the deen (Islam) as yet. Hence, whatever religion they followed all this time was all they had. And since Allah (SWT) chose not to let the message of Islam reach them, whatever religion they have had would be the one they have to stick to. Would Allah (SWT) then judge them according to whatever they were following? Even if the tribesmen's ancestors changed their religion all those years ago? Something here doesn't sit right with me.
Of course, there are always the detractors:
http://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2011/07/toulambi-1976-contact-fact-or-fable.html
Even if the above video was orchestrated by actors (who then definitely deserve an Oscar), there probably were at some point and possibly still are such tribes tucked away in the remote parts of the Amazon etc. who have yet to make first contact with the outside world. Anthropologists should not miss out on any opportunity to study such people before globalization and the culture of conformity swallow them whole.
P.S. Interesting how everyone was skeptical and fearful until the Belgian brought out the rice. Then, there were smiles all around. Which proves one thing: the adage 'The way to a man's heart is through his stomach' goes back a LOT longer than we think. Oh, and I loved the Toulambis' reaction to the mirror.
Some more 'test-tube' tribes:
http://www.adventurebimbling.com/travel-articles/7-indigenous-tribes-of-indonesia/

What’s in a Name? That Which we Call a Rose by any other Name would still Smell of Returning Hajis

http://perceptions.org.pk/blog/2011/07/whats-in-a-name-that-which-we-call-a-rose-by-any-other-name-would-still-smell-of-returning-hajis-by-faysal-subhani/
This is another article I wrote for the Perceptions Blog. Do give the blog a visit, they're doing quite a good job mashaAllah!

Sex vs. Darwin

This post has almost nothing to do with what the title suggests. Now, there are two types of people in the world. Those who have left this post after reading the first sentence, since they now know that this post is NOT what they were originally hunting for when they opened their web browsers. And those like you, my dear readers who are still reading.
Tell me, did you click the link because of the title? Made ya look, didn't I? Evidently so, considering you're still reading this. To screwquote Malcolm X:
"My fellow Bloggers! You've been Had! Hoodwinked! Bamboozled! You didn't land on Faysy's blog! Faysy's blog...landed on you!" (It's eerie how much Malcolm X and black orators in general sound like Monty Python's Dead Parrot Sketch on paper)

Don't hum and haw. Don't be embarrassed. Don't hide your bruised ego. You subconsciously (or consciously; I'm cool with that) fell for the oldest trick in the book, one the media and those in the business of preying on the gazillion insecurities of men and women use all the time. Ray William Johnson, Shane Dawson etc. use this cheap method to garner more views on Youtube (hint: check out their videos' thumbnails and titles). And now, so am I (But this blatant exploitation is the subject of a future rant).
Irritated enough? Now let me fire my second exasperating salvo. Allow me to sound unintentionally condescending:
Your body is made up of many types of cells (billions of little things that you're made of). One of these cell types is the Red blood cell (found in, you guessed it, blood). Red blood cells are what make blood red (again, you guessed it). This is because they contain red pigment called haemoglobin, that binds to oxygen in the lungs and carries it around your body to deliver it to the parts that need it, simply put. Haemoglobin is made of 4 protein chains of two types, alpha and beta (2 of each). An inherited deficiency in any of these causes a disease called thalassemia. But before I go further, a 101 on genes. Genes are the "things" in your cells' DNA (which is the stuff that makes you who you are) that code for characteristics in your body like eye colour, sex (that's gender, you perv) and among other things, the alpha and beta haemoglobin chains. And each characteristic is coded by an EVEN number of 'alleles' (minimum 2). Half your alleles are from your mom and half from your dad. When the alleles combine, they make you. Regarding haemoglobin chains (which depend on 4 alleles for Alpha and 2 for Beta), the number of defective alleles will correspond to the level of thalassemia you have. i.e.
a) 1 or 2 Alpha alleles defective: not a big problem. Chances are you'll go through life without noticing it. Max you'll get breathless easily.
b) 3 alpha Alleles defective: major problem. You'll need regular blood transfusions your whole life. Sadly, such patients also have a shortened lifespan.
c) 4 alpha Alleles defective: you wouldn't be reading this. You would have died as a fetus, WAY before you were born, shortly after you were conceived.
d) 1 Beta allele defective: See a)
e) 2 Beta alleles defective: See b)
Which brings me to the main thrust of my post. I'm not an evolutionist in the popular sense. Alhamdulillah, I'm a creationist through and through. But I do admit, evolution in some forms can and probably has occurred (not as far as a whole new species being created though). The whole thalassemia case would be an example of natural selection and "survival of the fittest", to use Darwin's indelicate terminology. people with cases b) and e) are severely ill their whole lives. Most of the time, they expire early, don't usually marry and rarely, if ever, have children. Which leaves us with cases a) and d) they usually don't know that they are carriers of the disease. They live long lives, marry and procreate. Which is great Alhamdulillah (considering I am one of these people), but leads to a tiny problem. If they marry and procreate with another case a) or d), well, that's how cases b) and e) are born. To avoid this, before marriage and/or procreation, couples are advised to get their DNA tested for defects so that their children don't suffer from the disease. As society gets more educated, more people will learn to get their partners tested (which sucks for me, since I can't fall in love until and unless I've got the girl-of-my-dreams' blood tested, which elicits the necessity of backup girls-of-my-dreams). This will lead to a decrease in thalassemia patients and ultimately (barring the discovery of a cure for the disease, for which I, and ladies everywhere I'm sure, pray fervently) the elimination of the disease from the face of the earth. That's evolution for you. The weeding out of the disease.

Who am I kidding? Lust is a force to be reckoned with. People will continue to make babies, thalassemia or not. Abstinence is for monks. Nuts, Darwin.

P.S. As a reward for your patience, I've left it till the end to let the title make some sense.
P.P.S. If this ends up in my popular posts widget, my little social experiment will be validated.

It Came from Under the Sea

I love sharks. Their grace, beauty, intelligence and efficient hunting capabilities are parallel to none mashaAllah. I've loved sharks ever since I was a kid. Growing up, I was a bookworm. My idea of chilling after finishing the day's homework was going through this book, aptly called "The Big Book of Knowledge" my aunt sent from the States. This was the book that gave birth to my love of science and was definitely critical in my career decision making process. This book plus House is why I'm a doctor today. I still have this book and plan to pass it on to my kids inshaAllah.

So whenever I'd leaf through the book, I'd skip the sections on machines and jump straight to the parts on World History, Animals and Dinosaurs (I have kept all my childhood books on dinosaurs, cetaceans and sharks. I still leaf through them occasionally). The Sharks page was right after the page on Rays. The Sharks Page had the following picture of the rightfully feared and wrongfully misunderstood Great White Shark that I was scared to death of. So whenever I'd get to the page on Rays, I'd quickly turn the page so I wouldn't have to see the picture. But of course, my borderline masochism and desire to achieve an adrenaline rush would overcome my inhibitions and I'd always take a peak. And then I'd inevitably silently cry for a few minutes. Now, I dream of petting a Great White Shark. It's on my Bucket List.

Sharks are misunderstood. The movie Jaws has done a disservice to Great Whites everywhere. Sharks will only attack a HUMAN if they are really really really hungry, or if they mistake us for their usual prey, i.e. seals and turtles. Sharks have poor eye-sight. In fact, most shark attacks occur because the human is infringing on their territory. An attack is a perfectly natural response from an animal. In fact, of the 300 plus discovered shark species, only maximum 20 are dangerous to humans. Indeed, you have more reason to fear a mosquito than a shark.
Ive compiled some of my favourite shark photos. Take a moment to let their size and majesty sink in. And praise Allah (SWT) for His greatness in creating such creatures.

 Feeding Frenzy!

  This is for Vogue right?

 

My favourite photo of all time. Look at those eyes, how close the Great White is to the cameraman, and compare the size of the cage with the animal. Courtesy of Jeff L Rotman http://www.jeffrotman.com/

Ummm. this one's a joke. Duh.

See, who says sharks can't have a lolsharks.com of their own?

Kermiphobia

We all have phobias. Right? I have and have had for years a love-hate relationship with Jim Henson's Muppets and Sesame Street. I loved the show growing up, and my favourite channel was the Kermit Channel (the takes they did on the Fine Young Cannibals' 'She Drives me Crazy' and Surfari's 'Wipeout' were amazing, not to mention Manamana!). I always thought Oscar the Grouch had the ultimate bachelor's life, that Bert was a banana, that Miss Piggy was gross and that Big Bird was a girl. Yet, the Cookie Monster, that purple Count von Count, Snuffleuppagus and the rest of the crew kept me up at night. Indeed, one of the earliest nightmares I have is of Big Bird in a terrorist's bandana jumping out of the screen at the cinema and machine gunning my friends and I. And strangely, this is before I even knew what a terrorist was (subliminal messages ARE that powerful).
Why do I have this irrational fear? Because Muppets have NO EYELIDS. They don't blink. Their eyes bulge out (which is a characteristic they share with fish, of whom I also am slightly afraid). In fact, what I dread the most is being locked into Jim Henson's warehouse at night. All the muppets are staring at me like zombies, like they'll come to life any minute. Imagine that, and you won't be so quick to laugh at me.
The reason this came up all of a sudden is because the other day, my friend came to uni wearing a Cookie Monster shirt. And there they were, those HUGE goggly eyeballs. Now I was in a pickle. I'm trying to become a better Muslim and hence try to lower my gaze when talking to members of the opposite sex, in accordance with the Quranic injunction. But the problem is, everytime I'd look down, the Cookie Monster would stare back at me…with those eyes. So I'd look back up. Then down again, and so on. Now, my friend wears that shirt just to piss me off. In an effort to prove to me that my fear of muppets is irrational, she sent me this video:

Okay. So that's ONE video with a Muppet with eyelids. An EXCEPTION to the rule. Besides, if this video convinced me that my fear was irrational, my fear wouldn't be so irrational after all. Duh. And blind or not, I don't like Andrea Bocelli.

If I Were a Superhero...

Compiled by 2 friends (Raja Samir and Bilal Hasan) and I,

If I were the Hulk:

1. Despite the remonstrations of the censors, all pieces of my clothing would rip when I'd go green,
2. I would do steroids just to see what would happen,
3. Chuck Norris would take lessons from me,
4. My turn-ons on Shaadi.com would include Gamma radiation, bad drivers and people who ask too many questions (Geddit?)
5. I would be the Old Spice guy,
6. I'd roller skate on Hummers,
7. I'd be a pretty crappy spy.

If I were Superman:

1. My underwear would be on the INSIDE,
2. Red and blue would be the colours of my sidekick (I'll see if I can borrow that pimple-faced Robin) and I'd wear green and silver instead (so there's no mixup over who's alpha male),
3. Ironman would be my ride even though we both know I very well know how to fly,
4. Bahadurabad's mashoor gola ganda would be my Kryptonite (even a superhero can contract Hepatitis),
5. Too avoid any confusion and awkward glances, I'd replace the 'S' with its full form, Stare-and-scream-idiocies-like-it's-a-bird! (How will I fit it all on my shirt? Look, it's a fist!)
6. I'd lobby to get planes banned. Darn roadhogs.

The First and Last Human on Earth

I have an embarrassing, blasphemous confession to make. Ever since I could spell the word 'paranoid' I've had the nagging suspicion that I live in a Truman Show-like world, where I am Jim Carrey. Yes, I know it's egocentric and narcissistic enough to make even Trump barf. But there you have it, a part of me still believes that this whole world is some big coverup that would make the whole 'Jews-control-everything' conspiracy look as simple as executing a raid on a fort guarded by drunk cripples. Although such deviant what-ifs aren't playing hookey as freely in my mind as they did when I was a kid (one gets boring and forces oneself to conform when one gets older), they still occasionally bother me at the back of my mind. I have many theories, each more outrageous than the next to explain my paranoia:
a) Everybody is a bug-eyed alien and I'm the only human being in the whole wide world. History, the William-Kate wedding, the Cricket World Cup, my university, science, religion and everything else has all been set up by these aliens as a science experiment in which I'm the Guinea Pig (when people die, they don't die but retire from this experiment and are compensated by the government of their home plant Quazgaar with big pensions and country estates in the scenic plains of Shozhwink),
b) there really is such a thing as the Matrix,
c) the Truman Show theory,
d) the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy paradigm, where the world is an organic computer program being executed by mice, the most intelligent beings in the universe in order to discover the meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything,
e) I'm dreaming. What's worse, it's not even my dream,
f) I'm tripping on acid.

The (sensible?) part of me tells me that I'm being ridiculous and that it's all a figment of my imagination, but then that tiny part of me, who oddly sounds like Dave Chappelle pipes up, "That's what they WANT you to think..."
Of course, I've got all the weaker points settled (how would the aliens know when to change into human form immediately if I go somewhere randomly without announcement? If they have the technology to set up this earth, they OBVIOUSLY have Supersonic Hyperdrive Ominspecific sensors to warn and give them ample time to prepare for the unexpected imminent arrival of subject 1.
Sometimes I feel so alone because of this. I know it sounds ridiculous, but how do I know all this isn't a big lie? The problem with this conundrum is that you can't prove in anyway that any of these possibilities aren't real. One can't rule out something until one has disproved it. This huge scam is protected by it's very absurdity.
Maybe these (imaginary?) worlds I've cooked up are a by-product of a hyperactive imagination. Maybe I need to quit watching so many movies and reading so many sci-fi books. Maybe I need a sedative. Maybe I need to get pinched to wake up from this dream/nightmare. maybe a pinch isn't enough to wake me and more extreme stimulation is needed. Where's that knife…SOMEBODY GET ME OUTTA HERE!!!! *obsessively starts looking over shoulder, searching every nook and cranny of the house for bugs and hidden webcams*

The Makings of a Dexter (of Laboratory fame, not the TV Serial Killer)

Disclaimer: If you are/were a classmate of mine, I am not, I repeat, I am NOT writing this as a justification of my academic career or 'to help me sleep better at night'. Not that you'll believe me, of course.

Also, this article does not discuss important requirements for intelligence like emotional and mental stability so don't hate on me for that.

“XYZ is sooo smart”

If I had a gum-ball for every time I've heard that, I'd have died of hyperglycemic shock by now (sorry, little doctor humour there). But what do we mean when we call someone smart? What empirical tests to we run to decide if somebody is smart or not? Well, we mainly judge someone's 'smartness' by his/her score in tests like school exams and the SAT and occasionally by his/her ability to answer teachers' questions in class. But everyone agrees that although tests are the best method to gauge somebody's 'smartness', they are limited in scope. A test is made by a human being. Which is a problem right there; the test is limited by the 'intelligence' of the examiner. One way to overcome this is to have an examining board make the paper, so your career doesn't rest on the vagaries of one man/woman. But problems remain. Studies have shown no correlation between test scores and the usual indices of success. Google it lazy bones, I'm not citing all my sources.

Notice how I use the word 'smartness' throughout my post but refer to the examiner's 'intelligence'. That was on purpose. I differentiate between the two. See, I have a few theories on 'intelligence'. 'Smartness' is a subset of intelligence, in my humble opinion. 'Smartness' is a unique combination of 90% book-smartness and the remaining 10% being variably divided between street-smartness and creativity. This is the kind of person XYZ is. Our tests are 90% recall from the books and the remaining 10% require you to have the two other characteristics I've mentioned. Of course, this is assuming there are no 'past papers' and repeat questions from these in the test, which would further increase the book-smartness percentage.

Book-smartness, Street-smartness and creativity are what I believe to be the three facets of intelligence.

So what do these three terms mean?

Book-smartness: What the archetype nerd has. Yes, I know the archetype nerd only exists in the movies and that they don't really wear suspenders, get atomic wedgies, or their heads flushed in the toilets by bullies in real life. But urban legends are heavily distorted facts, like the one about swallowing a fruit seed and a plant growing from your crap (Fact: crap is a fertilizer. Fiction: the acid and lack of a million other things in your stomach will stop the seed from growing there), or the one about how saying 'pig' will rescind 40 prayers of yours (Fact: Pig is a naughty word. Fiction: You won't believe some of the lies elders tell kids).

Basically, if you have a photographic memory and can memories countless facts, then you're book-smart. In fact, you'll ace all the medical school tests. Which is not to demean book-smartness. Facts are important and there are some that must be committed to memory. But book-smart people tend to store all these tidbits in their brain's short-term memory compartment. To commit them to the long-term section is what is important. Most of the facts you learn are like the tide, they're there for a short period of time, but they gradually fade back into oblivion (excuse my poetic analogy).

This brings me to another theory I have regarding memory. When memorizing something, in order to commit it to your long term memory, you will try to come up with a mnemonic (the less successful method) or you'll try to relate it to something you already know (the more successful method). Taking the example of what I'm studying in Med school these days, if I am trying to memories the names of the blood vessels supplying the bladder, prostate and urethra (that's your pee pipe), I can come up with a mnemonic for it, but chances are I'll forget in a few years what a few of the letters in the mnemonic stand for. Or I can relate it to pre-existing knowledge that I have gained over my schooling years. In 13 years of schooling, there is some biology that I've done repetitively. For example, I've done the fact that your crap-hole is called the anus and above that is the rectum. So using this knowledge, I can remember that since the bladder is at the same level as and next to the rectum in males, one of the arteries supplying part of the bladder and urethra is the rectal artery. Now, someone who did not take biology in school but entered med school would have a much tougher time learning this piece of information. I have had 13 years of studying this, so my basics are quite strong. However, 5 years of med school requires me to digest whole textbooks of information, with little or no repetition, which means most of the info is in my short-term memory and I will forget it after med school. However, if medical school was say another 20 years with a lot of repetition, I wouldn't forget anything. Proof from my life is Mathematics. I took further math in my A' Levels. A year out of high school, and I've forgotten virtually everything in a subject I got an A in. I haven't forgotten addition, subtraction, simple differentiation and integration because practice makes perfect, but all the advanced stuff I learnt in further math I've forgotten.

My point being, book-smartness alone can only get you so far.

Street-smartness: I don't literally mean knowing how to deal with punks who infringe on your turf (that's always a plus though) but having presence of mind and decision-making powers. You can have all the knowledge and creativity up there, but when you're in a tight spot, you need to have the ability to connect the dots, come up with a plan and put it to action within a very short timespan. But you still need book-smartness to have the basic knowledge to come up with a plan that actually works, and creativity so you can deal with any outlandish situation. A good way to test this in people is to hang them upside down from the ceiling, make them slowly descend toward a tank of piranhas, giving them only a razor and a rope to use to escape.

Creativity: Books will have problem sets. A book-smart person will memorize these problem sets and pray that in real life, he only comes across the problems his/her textbooks have described. If only life were that easy. Creativity, innovation and initiative is the final piece of the puzzle. You need this to deal with new situations. Converting the formulae for energy conversion to the workings of a hydroelectric dam requires creativity.

These are what Noble Prize winners are made of (NOT that that's the golden standard of intelligence!)

The Bogeyman Syndrome

In Monty Python's movie 'Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail' (set in medieval times ;) ), there's one part (whose link I've placed above) where King Arthur chances upon a village whose residents are about to burn a 'witch'. It's in humourous vein but I think it highlights something I've noticed in our society, our fascination and gullibility for all things paranormal. Unfortunately, many people (definitely in the subcontinent; don't know what it's like abroad) have a habit of immediately ascribing anything we don't understand to the other world. It's strange how logic and all semblance of common sense goes flying out the window the minute we come across success stories of fortune-tellers, palm readers and other people in the business of making 'predictions'. It's exactly how in the olden times when people didn't understand why the phenomenon of lightning occurred, they ascribed it to the anger of the gods (which makes me wonder about the whole lightning never strikes twice at the same place saying :P). I like to call it the 'Bogeyman Syndrome' because it's exactly like the case of the four-year old who hears noises at night and ascribes them to the monster under his/her bed.

Now don't get me wrong; as a Muslim, I do believe in the supernatural, the Aalim-ul-Ghaib (realm of the Unseen). I also do believe, as hadith tell us, that certain natural phenomenon do have supernatural correlation. For example, Sahih Muslim reports:

‘Abdullah. Ibn ‘Abbas reported: A person from the Ansar who was amongst the Companions of Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) reported to me: As we were sitting during the night with Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him), a meteor shot gave a dazzling light. Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: What did you say in the pre-Islamic days when there was such a shot (of meteor)? They said: Allah and His Messenger know best (the actual position), but we, however, used to say that that very night a great man had been born and a great man had died, whereupon Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: (These meteors) are shot neither at the death of anyone nor on the birth of anyone. Allah, the Exalted and Glorious, issues Command when He decides to do a thing. Then (the Angels) supporting the Throne sing His glory, then sing the dwellers of heaven who are near to them until this glory of God reaches them who are in the heaven of this world. Then those who are near the supporters of the Throne ask these supporters of the Throne: What your Lord has said? And they accordingly inform them what He says. Then the dwellers of heaven seek information from them until this information reaches the heaven of the world. In this process of transmission (the jinn snatches) what he manages to overhear and he carries it to his friends. And when the Angels see the jinn they attack them with meteors. If they narrate only which they manage to snatch that is correct but they alloy it with lies and make additions to it.

I also do believe that the Jinns have powers that we humans don't (e.g. The case of the retrieval of the throne of the Queen of Sheba by a Jinn in the service of Hadrat Suleman AS). I also believe that the Jinns have access to knowledge that we don't. This is evident in the above hadith as well as the following one:

`Aishah (May Allah be pleased with her) said: Some people asked the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) about soothsayers. He (PBUH) said, "They are of no account.'' Upon this they said to him, "O Messenger of Allah! But they sometimes make true predictions.'' Thereupon the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said, "That is a word pertaining to truth which a jinn snatches (from the angels) and whispers into the ears of his friend (the soothsayers) who will then mix more than a hundred lies with it.''
[Al-Bukhari and Muslim].

My friend (coincidentally, now a source of my recent blogpost ideas) gave me this example:

In India, 10000 years ago there was a Brahmin astrologer called the Maharishi Bhrigu who penned the Bhrigu Samhita, a compilation that contains predictions on the current and future lives of people. They were written on palm-leafs but most were destroyed when the Muslims invaded India. Of the few that are left, the only authentic ones are said to be with some Brahmins at Hoshiyarpur. In my research, I only chanced upon 2 western accounts of the predictions in them. The rest were accounts from believers in the predictions, and therefore cannot be treated as neutral accounts.

Here are the 2 western accounts:

http://www.wandahl.com/Pages/Articles/VisitingBhriguSamhita.htm

http://dlane5.tripod.com/brigu.html

In the accounts, all the true predictions are actually of the past and therefore, available to any resourceful person. Then the money demand at the end makes them all the more suspicious. Also, since most of the palm leafs were destroyed, leaving the remaining few in the hands of a few individuals, it makes it all the more difficult to verify claims. Remember, the Jews and Christians kept their holy books in the hands of the clergy alone and inaccessible to the public (the christians kept the Bible in Latin before Martin Luther's influential German translation made it available to the common man. The Torah is still in the hands of the Rabbis and many Jews only see it at special occasions like Bar Mitzvahs).

I'm sure by now I've got you pretty riled up against me, especially if you believe in the Bhrigu Samhita. Believe me, it is NOT my intention to insult and offend you. I respect your beliefs. Indeed as I stated earlier, since I do believe in the supernatural, it is entirely possible that the Bhrigu Samhita's predictions are of supernatural origin. However, the point I'm trying to drive home here is the fact that in most 'supernatural' cases that our hyperactive imaginations get over-awed by, usually have simple explanations. Case in point: the story widely reported in the media a few years ago of a girl who desecrated the Holy Quran and became a monkey. Muslims everywhere were talking about how this was the clinching proof of Islam as the correct religion. When it was discovered that it was all a bunch of kids good who were good with Photoshop pulling a prank...awwwkwarrrd.
There was this colour quiz I once took (along with a couple of friends) where you pick 2 colours and it 'reveals' your personality. Initially I was shocked with the extremely accurate results. Then I compared them with my friends and some things began to unravel. Our results had some common elements. For example, everyone was told they were a mixture of introvert and extrovert. Almost all of us were told we found pleasure through sexual activity (No s***). What has to be noted here is the fact that half the trick is before you give the test. If you do believe that they will work, then whatever the results tell you, you'll search through your previous life experiences and remember one where the results were proved right, even if that trait isn't yours. The opposite will happen if you disbelieve pre-test. This, coupled with the fact that these 'predictions' about your personality are generally quite vague, makes such test all the more amenable to our minds. Having said that, the psychologists behind these tests know their stuff and have done their homework. There is some truth to these tests. But as we are swayed by the apparent power and 'accuracy' of these tests, we forget that they have limitations and aren't the final word on who we are.

To summarise, I do believe that such paranormal phenomenon are plausible. In fact, as a student of science, it would be extremely arrogant and premature of me to deny the possibility of this as there is a large body of semi-evidence for it (by which I mean a lot of anecdotal evidence, as it is quite naturally difficult to carry out a systematic scientific study on the matter) and little against it. But before attributing an improbable event to the supernatural, we must eliminate all other more probable 'this-world' causes. Here are a few:

1. The Law of Averages: This states that a highly improbable event in isolation is actually highly probable, and can take place in the history of mankind at least once, given the huge lengths of time and number of people involved. The media will take these highly improbable events when they do occur and parade and exaggerate them, since they need to make the news. Since, we implicitly accept the news as authentic, it becomes difficult for us to look at what is reported clearly.
2. Hoaxes: Bad people exist. So do idiots. The bad people want to make a quick buck off the idiots. Remember the Piltdown Man? A hoax at a time when people were desperately looking for and thus were open (give the zeitgeist of the time) to any evidence to prove Darwinian evolution. Then there were the Hitler diaries after World War 2 when people wanted to know what wen through the mind of the man who was behind that major world event. I tell you, when people want something, there will be a conman out there to give it to them.

My Bucket List

It's important to keep ones life as movie-like as possible. It brings novelty and keeps depression away. In either case, you have a great story to tell afterwards.

I hated the bucket list, mainly because Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman creep me out (the former's face contorts grotesquely and the latter's monotone gets on my nerves). But I loved the idea of a bucket list and decided to make my own. Keeping in mind the importance of the dramatic, I scribbled them on a napkin while sitting in my university cafeteria. Here it is in no order of preference (forgive me if it has the tone of a four-year old's essay on 'What I Want to be When I Grow up'):

1. Get married (Surprise surprise. Also coincidentally the one item on this list I am most likely to achieve. HEY! No cheap shots at my eligibility. You don't know my mother.)
2. Have a house in Kaghan or Swat
3. Own an 'Easy Rider' Peter Fonda Chopper and go on a cross country trip, Kind of like this guy:

4. Own a Clap-on Disco Ball (That scene from 'Accepted' was so cool)
5. Shop at Agha's (a fancy supermarket in Karachi with imported items), buy all the fancy imported foodstuffs I want and actually make some of the stuff featured on http://www.grilledcheesesocial.com/
6. Invent a dream manufacturing machine (So I can dream the items on the list I can't complete)
7. Learn Martial Arts
8. Be multilingual
9. Pet a Great White Shark
10. Own a convertible (Heck, even a Mehran with it's top ripped off is 'convertible' enough for me)
11. Have a menagerie, complete with Anaconda, Peregrine Falcon and Angler Fish
12. Live in a Penthouse complete with Swimming Pool on top of the tallest building in Pakistan (Whatever that is when I buy the penthouse)
13. Visit Jerusalem
14. Extreme sports, especially sky diving, zip wiring, bungee jumping and rock climbing
15. Start a youth programme for Pakistani youngsters (Like the YMCA!)
16. Play Ice Hockey
17. Round the World trip...on a luxury cruise.
18. Have a huge aquarium in my pad, like the one they have at Burj-ul Arab and the one Vector in Despicable Me has at his place
19. Own a Private Jet
20. Have a Persian and Siamese cat (My mum's allergic to cats)
    Naturally, this list is subject to change with the times and passing fads (though I'm pretty sure number 1. won't ever get struck off the list). When I go over it again, my Bucket List sounds more like a 'only in heaven' list (InshaAllah :) ). What's yours?

Fraternising with the Enemy

A while back a friend, and again more recently, another friend emailed me a TED talk by Sam Richards on empathy. Here is the talk:


Quite powerful, eh? I love the way he takes you through the whole exercise. I'm quite sure anyone other than the most deeply-entrenched redneck would be able to see the light after watching it. However, in all fairness, empathising with the plight of our Arab brethren is in vogue these days. The 'Free the Arab World' rage sweeping the globe today, the anti-American sentiment and the Israel-bashing zeitgeist has predisposed us to 'easy empathy' with the Arabs. So I feel, the talk's power is slightly blunted that way.
I think the real test lies with empathising with the likes of Bush, the Taliban, rapists and the rest of the scum of the earth. Whoa, whoa, whoa there. Don't bring the mob on me. EMPATHISING is COMPLETELY different from CONDONING. I'm not asking you to justify rape. I'm not asking you to justify genocide. I'm not asking you to justify the invasion of Iraq. Stealing is wrong, murder is wrong, there's no two ways about it. What I AM asking you to do is to delve into the why's of the crime. This is important so that you realise that no crime, no matter how inhumane, how perverse, is committed by human beings. And no human being alive today is entirely good or entirely evil. Mediocrity is human, perfection divine.
I'd like to relate an incident from the caliphate of Hazrat Umer (RAA), when a boy who was caught stealing food was not given the usual Islamic punishment of cutting off the hand. Why? Empathy. There was a famine and the starving boy stole to survive. The justice system took that into account.
What of the Australian Muslim cleric who compared raped women to meat left out for the dogs to eat? Whereas his choice of words were completely out of place, have you tried to, to quote Atticus Finch, 'delete the adjectives' to get the facts? In a world where scantily-clad hot women traversing your screens, billboards and books can only be seen but not touched by men, is it smart to live in the lalaland where they will still control their testosterone levels, not look at women as sexual objects and never lose control and never commit rape?  Empathy allows you to suppress your emotions when the time comes to deal out cold, impartial justice. That way, we don't exaggerate or downplay the issue at hand. Yes, it pains and frightens me no end to say this (I'm still undergoing training to become Empathiser Extraordinaire), but I include the likes of Hitler, Milosevic, Ted Bundy, Albert Fish, Karla Homolka etc. Everyone deserves empathy. As I said in an earlier post, we have a tendency to go to the extreme. We classify everything in the world into two neat categories: good and bad, instead of recognising the world for what it is, in shades of grey. There is a hadith:
“If a friend among your friends errs, make seventy excuses for them. If your hearts are unable to do this, then know that the shortcoming is in your own selves.” [Imam Bayhaqi, Shu`ab al-Iman, 7.522]
Sure, sitting in the safety of our homes, far from the madding crowd, it's easy to say that yes, we do understand where these criminals 'come from', attributing why such people turn out the way they do to a plethora of socio-economic reasons (e.g. troubled childhood, bad friends, born in Compton/Queens/Gaza, having me as a neighbour etc). But if we ever were, say, the victims of said scum, would we be as charitable? I'm referring of course, to the cliche 'Walk a mile in someones shoes before passing judgement on them'.
Let's apply empathy to our workplaces and institutions of learning (WAIL). As such places are centres of most of the human interaction one has during the day, needless to say, they are a large part of ones social life. We have our versions of the Nerds, Jocks, Goths, Cheerleaders, albeit not as neatly compartmentalised as these Hollywood-versions of social hierarchy. And it would be naive to say that these various social circles never have their altercations, just like their Hollywood counterparts (though we alhamdulillah don't usually descend to burning the homecoming queen's hair the day before the prom!). Every WAIL has some people who are universally despised, usually because they're 'different' in a not-very-nice sort of way. And we do gossip, pass judgement on and badmouth such people as well as other cliques. We never apply the empathy rule to such social misfits. Why? Because we are directly affected by them. We aren't exposed to the pressures the government of the US faces from its people when it can't provide them with cheap fuel for their SUVs and iPads. So its easy for us to 'empathise' with the Arabs and ironically, do the opposite with the perpetrators. We forget that Hitler was a product of a Germany that was hurting from the cruel clauses of the Treaty of Versailles. Which doesn't make the gas chambers okay, but doesn't make Hitler the devil's advocate either.
I'm lucky my blog isn't as popular as the Cheerleaders, or I'm pretty sure the comments below would be inundated with flamers calling me a 'Jew-loving Nazi Fag' (Yes, trolls usually aren't the most coherent people out there). Good think I can moderate the comments section, eh?

Happy Meal

In all fairness to McDonald's, they aren't the only ones dishing out monetary support to Israel. Just picked them for the poem because its easier to rhyme with Micky Dee menu items.

Lying underneath the Golden Arches,
The other day as I passed them by,
Lay the bullet-ridden body of a dying Palestinian child.
"Let me get help!" I cried,
"Hang in there awhile!"
But he shook his head
And bade me sit by his side.
"In a minute I'll be dead,
So I don't have much time.
Friend, hear me well
And let the world know.
You thought it was no big deal,
When you bought that Upsized Meal.
But the meat you wrestle down your throats
Comes from the human slaughterhouses of Gaza.
So the next time you're enjoying a McNugget,
Remember, friend, I ain't lovin' it."

Of Quantum Suicide and World Cup Cricket

I've always been passionate about physics. From the sciences we study in high school (Math, Chemistry, Biology, Physics), it's always been my favourite. Sure there are aspects of Biology (medicine) and Math (Statistics and Probability) that interest me more than physics as a whole, but as a subject overall, one can't beat physics. Why do I love physics? Because it's the science that chemistry and biology are ultimately based on. Something on a macro level, like why male pigeons puff their chests out to attract mates (biology) can be explained by reactions in the brain (chemistry) which can be explained by the movement of atoms (physics). Sure, at an even more basic level is math, but physics is the link between math and everything else. Physics is math with real world applications. Whereas in math, you can invent 10-dimensional spaces and go gung ho with the abstract, there is an unwritten requirement in physics to 'keep it real'. Every idea in physics must be matched with a real life phenomenon. Physics allows me to look around me and make sense of the beauty of everything I see at the most basic level. Why does the ball I kick into the air come back down? Why do I see a rainbow when Iight strikes soapy water? Physics explains it all.
This is why in school, I'd always go the extra mile for the subject. For everything else, I'd stick to the prescribed course. But for physics, I would use Wikipedia, Youtube, the works. Yet there is a branch of physics that has always stumped me. Despite all my attempts it's comprehension lies just outside my reach. My attempts to understand it is like the tide. The waves come crashing noisily onto the beach. They try their best to make it as inland as possible but they always seem to recede back to the sea right before they reach their goal. Almost…but not quite (Forgive my attempt at poetry). I refer to that branch of physics which everybody knows of but knows nothing about; that branch made famous by Einstein- Quantum Physics.
After working my rear end to make some semblance of this highly abstract branch of physics (almost entirely based on mathematics and thought experiments), I gave up. However, a recent event in the country has forced me, now a medical student, to revisit this sordid area of physics. It's no Rocket Science. Believe me, it's worse.
I'm not a cricket fan. I'm not a die-hard Pakistan fan either (as a child, I supported West Indies over Pakistan because i identified more with their skin colour than with my country). Big Brother, if he existed (no, conspiracy theorists, The freemasons haven't learnt mind reading yet), would go as far as accusing me of thought treason. The truth is, I'm just not a nationalist. But that's another blogpost.
Anyway, back to my story. Despite my ideals, pakistan still has a special place in my heart. After all, 19 years in the same country has to have some effect. So when I saw Pakistan lose to India in the semis, when I saw everyone around me looking like they'd just returned from a funeral, when I saw a dejected Shahid Afridi walking to the Pakistan team dugout after the loss, when I had to put up with all the loser talk on twitter that night (Remember guys, it's the journey that counts, not the result #nevermindpaks), I felt I had to do something. Throughout the match, I had been shouting at the batsmen to 'Run, Forrest, Run!', knowing fully well they couldn't hear me. It was the most helpless feeling in the world. I wanted to make my friends happy again. i wanted us to believe again. *breaks into 'I Believe I can Fly'*
And out of the blue, some things I'd read about long ago online called Quantum Suicide and the Many Worlds theory sprang to my mind.
So what exactly is Quantum Physics? I'm not sure, but it involves subatomic particles. And I do know this about subatomic particles. They are all around us in everything. Even light is made of photons, which are subatomic particles, that have no mass (yes, they don't weigh anything!). Stuff is made of atoms which are made of (among other subatomic particles) electrons. As scientists, we want to study them, for some reasons that I'm sure are pretty valid. Now the biggest problem in doing so, indeed the biggest problem of quantum physics, is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, named after, you guessed it, Mr. Heisenberg. Basically, it means that if you want to measure some aspect of a subatomic particle, you can't. Why? Because, you'll need light to see the subatomic particle. But light itself is made up of subatomic particles. And if a subatomic particle from light hits the subatomic particle you're measuring, it will move. And you want it to stay still so you can measure it. Never going to happen. Makes sense? probably not. it took me years to get it.
For example, scientists discovered that light has both, properties of waves and particles. How can that be? Waves are intangible, particles are tangible. When we carry out experiments to prove light is a wave, it is a wave. When we carry out experiments to prove light is a particle, it is a particle. So what is it? Is it both? Is it one? Does it change depending on the conditions we provide it with in experiments? Or is it something else altogether? And we can't really prove what it is. Why? The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, that's why.
Since we can't prove it by experimentation, scientists carry out thought experiments. Many have been proposed, such as the Copenhagen Interpretation of the following thought experiment, but I will only discuss the one our country needs the most in its current state: the Many Worlds interpretation of Quantum Physics.
Let's say a man wants to commit suicide. He has a gun and points it to himself. Now this gun is special. It's a sort of twisted Russian Roulette gun. It is attached to a subatomic particle. The particle will either spin clockwise or anticlockwise. The rules of the suicide dictate that if it is spinning clockwise, the man will die when he fires (Man, physicists are real pervs). If it is spinning anticlockwise, the man will live as the gun will just click when he fires. This will keep happening until the time the particle decides to change its mind- and spin.  So it has a fifty percent chance of firing and fifty percent chance of not firing on each shot.
Layman's sense (notice I don't use the word common sense) and some interpretations of quantum physics dictate that he either survives or doesn't on each click. But not the Many Worlds interpretation, nossir. That says that whenever the man pulls the trigger, the universe actually splits into two to accommodate both result. Why? I didn't get that part. So there is a parallel universe where he is dead, and a parallel universe where he is clicking away. You, as an observer watching the experiment only see one. But both have happened.
And therein lies the emancipation of the Pakistani man/woman. This post and complete waste of your time is dedicated to all my fellow countrymen who were glued to their screens on Wednesday. There. I've finally got around to my point.
Therefore, by the above postulations, in some parallel universe, Pakistan has won the world cup and its citizens have been winning the Colgate best smile award for the past 10 years. Unfortunately, in other parallel universes, so have all the other cricketing nations. And in some universe, I've climbed Mount Everest in record time, discovered a cure for halitosis and married a supermodel, in that order. Heck, in some parallel universe, I've married you.



(I would like to dedicate this article to every Pakistani man and woman, as well as my buddy Kaka, who will probably be the only one to understand this article)

The Long Road to Faith

This is an article I wrote for this great new blog, Perceptions. Do check out both my article and the blog. This article is about how Allah (SWT) led me to Iman (Faith) http://perceptions.org.pk/blog/2011/03/the-long-road-to-faith-by-faysal-subhani/

The Tycoon

He was your run-of-the-mill tycoon- eccentric, greying and slightly stooped with a whiff of cabbage about him. His was the run-of-the-mill rags-to-riches story. He was a Jew. Run-of-the-mill rags-to-riches tycoons usually are. Which of course means that he was the only survivor of the gas chambers in his village and that he escaped to the US of A aboard a luxury liner as a stowaway. Which also obviously means he started off as a lowly stable boy in New York, but used his street smarts, Hebrew good looks and dog-like perseverance to become Brooklyn's finest horse whisperer. He had made his first million by 12 and lost his first billion by 12 and a half (What happens in Vegas...) And the rest, as they say, is a rip-off of Jeffery Archer's Cane and Abel. He was a 32^nd degree Freemason and Honorary Shriner. He had the world's top engineers and architects flown in to construct the world's highest skyscraper, just so he could live in a penthouse at the top complete with helipad, swimming pool and clap-on disco ball. Because he was a recluse and generally hated mankind, he decreed that all the other floors of his Tower of Babel were to be kept free of people. So the floors were fitted with lighting, elevators, offices and condos complete with furniture, the works (there was even a Burger King on the 13^th floor), but they were kept Homo-Sapien free and instead peopled by mannequins (which gave the place the appearance of that nuclear test site in 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'). However, he forgot to apprise the top flown-in engineers and architects of his intentions. So they made their calculations assuming that the weight of all the human beings present in the building would stabilize it, shifting its centre of gravity to a fairly low point. Naturally, the building crumpled as fast as a pack of Made-in-China cards under the impact of the champagne bottle he smashed on one of its 4 walls at its grand opening ceremony (which was so grand, it made the Olympic opening ceremony look as exciting as the opening of an old-folk home).

At one point, he became acutely aware of the utter loneliness and lack of love and companionship in his life, so he went out and bought a dog. That didn't work out well for him, so he traded it with a 10 year old for her Tamagotchi. This Tamagotchi was the first and last love of his life. He would spend hours feeding it cake and taking it to its virtual bathroom to take a virtual dump, and he sobbed like a baby when its batteries ran out.

Keeping in line with the Run-of-the-mill Rags-to-riches Jewish Tycoon's manual, he was consumed with regret over how he had spent his life when he was diagnosed with Sammy Sosa's disease, an ailment where the core of your brain is gradually replaced with a substance not unlike cork (famous people tend to only suffer from diseases named after other famous people; they're pretty stuck up that way). So he set off on a journey of self actualization and discovery across many remote and exotic countries whose natives sang, danced, lived off the land and had lots of children. He hoped to learn their secret to happiness and Nirvana. He returned with a really bad case of malaria and an 'I went on a Journey of Self-actualization and Discovery and all I got was this Stupid T-shirt' T-shirt.

When he finally succumbed to his disease, his final words on Earth were 'Rosebud', which was the unlimited money cheat of his favourite people simulator computer game.