Kaleidoscope

Closure Announcement

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Wed, 11 May 2011 03:29:00 +0000

I will keep this post to the point and small. So here I go.

1. It was about 3.5 years ago that I started this blog, I wrote some really good posts and then I wrote some really bad posts but I am thankful to everyone who read my work and encouraged me to write more, you guys probably have no idea how much your short comments meant to me.

2. I am also grateful to people who wrote some of the most obnoxious and weird comments. Again you have no idea how happy you made me, it was always a great feeling to know that there are people in the world who have all the time to wrote all this just about me. It made me feel like a kind of small celebrity.

3. So the tone up till now must have told you that I am closing this blog. I think it has served it's purpose. I have moved on in life and though this blog is close to my heart but I truly believe it has lived it's life. This is my last post.

4. I am experiencing new things in life, meeting new people, taking up new adventures and it's time to share them in a new way. If you hated this blog then you can go and do your happy dance, if you enjoyed it then let me tell you that I haven't stopped writing.

5. My new blog is available at www.beenishkhan.net/blog .

6. The new blog is more like it's first version, I am still working on finding a good theme (any recommendations can be mailed to khanblog@gmail.com), on the Tech section and many other tweaking. But I think it's good for the world, if I had waited to make first version perfect then as Jeff Atwood said 'I would have been too late.'

That's all and thanks a lot for being such great readers.

There's funny and then there's Hot Funny

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 00:46:00 +0000

If you don't know then let me tell you right away that I adore Tina Fey, if I would get one wish then all I want is her sense of humor (okay..okay... that's apart from making enough money to retire early.) She is hot, she is intelligent AND she is funny! She is like ...she is like...Groucho Marx gone sexy. And she seems to have some very good values (which is a rare thing when it comes to Holywood walas.)

Yes, that's the last of 'hot funny writer' species! He doesn't make these anymore.

Recently she wrote a book namely bossypants (which offcourse everyone should read!) today I came across an excerpt from her book and as expected it's very funny and very true. It's a mother's prayer for her daughter and the truth is that it's the prayer of all modern mom. I have highlighted the parts that I enjoyed the most. But before that, here are some comments about Tina and her book,

Review

Once in a generation a woman comes along who changes everything. Tina Fey is not that woman, but she met that woman once and acted weird around her.

PRAISE FOR TINA FEY:

"You'd be really pretty if you lost weight." (College Boyfriend, 1990 )

"Tina Fey is an ugly, pear-shaped, overrated troll." (The Internet )

"Mommy, where are my pretzels?" (Tracy Morgan )

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR BOSSYPANTS:

"I hope that's not really the cover. That's really going to hurt sales." (Don Fey, Father of Tina Fey )

"Absolutely delicious!" (A Guy Who Eats Books )

"Totally worth it." (Trees )

"Do not print this glowing recommendation of Tina Fey's book until I've been dead a hundred years." (Mark Twain )

"Hilarious and insightful. Laugh-out-loud funny -- oh no, a full moon. No! Arrgh! Get away from me! Save yourself!" (A Guy Turning into a Werewolf )

And here's the excerpt,

First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels.

What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back.

“My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

HEC needs your voice

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 14:19:00 +0000

When I joined FAST, we inter fellows had one edge over A-levels dudes, thanks to the brilliant inter Maths Book we knew calculus and they didn't! So when A-levelers' eyes would turn glassy while making a hang of what's written on the board and their hairs will go astray while trying to solve an integration problem, we metric walas will be happily submitting assignments on time without even listening to anything in class. That was a good time. But unfortunately the story of our success (w/o. any efforts) sadly ends there. In everything else, A-levels walas were much ahead of us, I am not even sure from where to start the story of their superiority.

It's a known fact that they approach problems logically while our solution is just to memorize everything blindly (there is a reason why medical schools in Pakistan prefer inter students,) they were masters of MCQ style papers while all we knew was writing long and droll answers. Our English was no match to theirs, we had exposure to very limited set of subjects while they had studied every other subject on planet Earth. I still can't forget that after months of hard work, I could barely pass in Accounting while my A-level friend scored a 4.0 without ever attending any class. That was a sad time. Privately I swear to myself that my kids will go for nothing but A-levels.

Looking back, I do wonder does our final GPA actually makes a good comparison between ourselves, what about all the head start which A-levelers had ? What about all the catch up work which we had to do ? Personally I think this was a litmus test for me to see the efficiency of our educational system. The system I choose failed me, I made a wrong choice. But then why did I had to make a choice, why wasn't there one system for all ? Today we have a Sindh board, Punjab board, NWFP board, federal board, GCSE, Agha Khan board and I don't know how may more. For a medical school examination, a Karachi kid has to compete harder in comparison to a Baluchistan kid because he is expected to have a better system. And let me tell you it's not a pretty picture when merit fights quota.

Something was needed to bring in a standard across the country and after half a century of pain last government made HEC (Higher education commission.) HEC not only brought in some level of standard, it did something else too. It partnered with countries like Australia, Sweden, China etc. etc. and gave the largest number of foreign scholarships. Many people from my circle went to these countries for MS/PHD scholarships and since I know that they all come from either middle class or poor backgrounds, I can understand that this is something they could never have dreamed of. On the lines of GRE, HEC also made a common test for admission in universities across Pakistan which was much cheaper than GRE. HEC was brave enough to stand in front of current corrupt government and declare the ministers fake degrees as fake. HEC was the institution that delivered what it promised.

Current government, in it's quest of keeping the whole Pakistan illiterate and under their shoes, has struck again. Initially they cut down all the scholarships and now they have dissolved HEC claiming that there is no need of it now that 18th amendment is there (no idea what's the connection between the two) and now the provinces will take care of their own education matter. In a country where years have gone without making any decision on draconian blasphemy law or Hudood ordinance, it's amazing how swiftly they dissolved HEC. Today both we and HEC need each other, the middle class students need it and above all our future generations need it, so please raise your voice.

Raise your voice without thinking what will be the result, raise your voice without wondering if anyone will hear it, raise it and raise it again, a constant effort never fails! Write letters to newspapers and T.V. channels, to your MNAs and MPAs, to your area counselor, to Prime Minister and even to the President, to your Pakistani embassy in case you are abroad, please please please write and register your protest, please show that it did hurt you. Please write that letter now so that tomorrow you can tell the future kids that you did play your part to the fullest.

In the end I just want to tell you about a larger than life personality, who was imprisoned in jail for 27 years as a political prisoner. Whenever his jail warden made it too tough for him to live, this noble man will write a letter to higher authorities, even to the warden himself telling him about his injustice. This man was Nelson Mandela, he just kept protesting and protesting and in the end he won!

Here you can read the letter from Dr. Attaur Rehman (the original head of HEC) :

http://www.facebook.com/notes/higher-education-commission-pakistan/message-from-dr-atta-ur-rahman/10150516280755113

So Please close this page and write that letter now.

Congrats India!

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 03:30:00 +0000

- Just want to congrats everyone who supported Indian team this year. There was a time when I supported them fully and completely (Dhoni's coolness was hard to ignore) and rest assured they lost that competition in very early stages. In case you are wondering which tournament was that then it was the T20 WC Pakistan won! So apparently my support for them or the lack of it does have quite an impact on their performance.

- The guy who impressed me the most is the philosophic Dhoni, loved his almost Buddha like calmness, his leadership and his attitude of being on the front. 30 years of age and have won both T20 and ODI WC, how many captains can boast about that? It sounds odd to say this but here is one more person I want to meet before I die. No I don't want to meet Sachin, Steve Waugh or even our own Afridi, I want to meet Dhoni.

- So India indeed is shining!

- BTW, during Pak/India Semi, does anyone know what the heck Misbah was doing ? (Yes, I am still not over that!)

It's okay to loose the match but one question

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 23:02:00 +0000

- We lost the match but never mind. In fact I am happy that we made it to semi finals, everybody was entertained and we eventually lost to an average (but better than us) Indian team. Pak did exceed expectation.

- Afridi : I am now your lifetime fan. Great job with bowling and captaincy. As for your 17 runs in today's match, trust me, they too exceeded our expectations!

- Regarding Gul's apparent peace deal of offering as many runs as India want, don't worry Gul, you have won many matches for us, we can live with a bad day.

- Younis Khan mistakenly took it as a test match but fortunately his painful innings lasted just 40 balls.

- Everybody was eager to help Sachin make his 100th 100 but then being helpful is better and easier than handling pressure.

- We lost our 5th WC match with India and it's nice to know that history is intact.

So overall I don't have any complaints or queries. But there is one person who I want to ask a question and that's our almost-Captain Misbah sahab.

So Misbah : what the **** were you thinking when you were batting ? I mean really, WHAT. THE. ****. WERE. YOU. THINKING ? So yes, that's all what I want to know, great match team!

The Match and the Myths

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 23:25:00 +0000

There are a lot of myths surrounding 30th March Pak/India match and I just want to dispel them. So here they are,

Myth 1 : We are happy as long as we have a good match of cricket.

Whoever is saying this either they don't know what the term 'happy' actually means or they live really really sad and miserable lives. We are happy only and only if Pakistan wins. We are happy even if the match ends in 2 hours, Pak bowls India out under 50 runs, Afridi hits a 10 ball 50 and we spend the rest of the day watching highlights again and again. (Pakis : Come on! Won't you love this ?)

Myth 2 : We believe in the end cricket should be the winner.

Okay this is said by the same guys who give long opening speeches which nobody really listens to, their opinions long ceased to matter and nobody even give them a second look. What we really believe is that in the end only Pakistan should be the winner even if that means playing no cricket and beating Indian players with sticks hailing from Sialkot. The match has to be won at any cost, if that means finally making use of ISI for a 'noble' cause then so be it!

Myth 3 : It's a major game of cricket, mother of all finals.

Now that certainly this match is NOT. It's a clear cut f****** WAR, it's just that this one is sponsored by multi national companies and there will be live commentary. And off course we will be playing Noor Jehan's war songs all week long! Winning the match will be enough to make us drunk without consuming alcohol and loosing it will make us want to set the world on fire.

Myth 4 : Pakistan will loose b/c. they are not good in handling the pressure.

Is that a joke? We are the guys who see suicide bombing every other week, we do not have clean water or electricity, our every single minister is corrupt, we have a war going on in almost all the parts of the country and from spot fixing to run away cricketers, we have seen it all! After all this what's a few thousand wild Indian supporters armed with plastic bottles? Now team India, beat this! And for records Pressure is now a maid of every Pakistani household!

May ~~the best team~~ Pakistan win!

The Ugly Stranger

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 00:36:00 +0000

While coming out of subway somewhere behind me I heard a raised voice saying 'Hey Maa'm, excuse me Maa'm,' the accent, the tone, the usage of word Maa'm had Desi stamped all over it. Now why anyone would like to stop me in this land of strangers? probably I left something on the train, maybe a new immigrant needs directions or I broke one of the zillion laws unknowingly. In any case I turned to find a very fat, very short and a very dark Asian man, he wasn't the epitome of ugliness but he wasn't the prettiest thing either. Wearing dirty and cheap clothes , sporting curly oily hairs which had an extra layer of dust upon them, pants slipping down yet stuck on some last curve of the belly, with yellow eyes on a face which had that look that makes you wonder if he spends his free time on the darkest corners of the world wide web, now that's not a personality you would like to excuse at the end of the day. I choose to reply with a terse 'Yes'

Stranger : Maa'm is your name 'Zoobi'

The question stung me, I mean from which angle do I look like a Zoobi? With an apology to all the Zoobis around the world, its a name from the 70s!! If my parents had ever dared to give me such a corny name rest assured that the world would be burning with my fire of revenge. But then only fat and shoddy strangers could come up with such insulting questions. I thought oh well he do seem to be somebody who could know a few Zoobis, maybe the sister of a friend or some faraway relative, so let's not be angry and I politely told him that I am not ...mmm...Zoobi...I am not (and Thank God for that!).

With an incredulous expression he confirmed again if I am not, I stressed my point after all if I was a Zoobi, that would have been a traumatic enough experience to ever forget it. Stranger decided to share his story which was even more traumatic,

Stranger : Actually I have this internet girlfriend...

Me [thinking] : Has she seen you in live ? hmmm...I doubt!

Stranger : her name is Zoobi...

Me [thinking] : Gawd, she has Zoobi for the name and you for the boyfriend, she is either a poor miserable soul or just plain cuckoo.

Stranger : She resembles you a lot...my...errr....internet girlfriend....Zoobi....resembles you... a lot.

Me [thinking] : Oh dear God. Oh dear God. Zoobi, you unknown resembling soul, you had zillion boys to date on internet who must be handsome or decent enough to look at and it would have been such a pleasure to talk to them in case they mistakenly find me resembling you and all you could hook up with is THIS short, fat and dirty guy!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!!!

Stranger : So I thought...

Me [thinking] : Hold that thought, for the love of God just do not share it with me!!!

Me [out loud]: I am not.....err...that girl (and only God knows how thankful I am for that, maybe I should go home and offer prayers of thanks)

Stranger seemed adamant to share his thoughts so I decided to pointedly look at the station master, fortunately that was enough for the internet hero. Walking back to home, all I thought was only if Zoobi had better taste in boyfriends if not in names.

The Celebrated Dictator - Answer

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 16:53:00 +0000

So you had to identify a dictator using the hints I gave. Adeel Javed gave the correct answer and the additional part of 'Duhh' did made us laugh.

The correct answer was "Julius Caesar." Let me explain the hints a bit.

1. He took the throne and eventually went on to title himself as 'dictator for life.'

Caesar brought many reforms to put Roman republic on the road of becoming Roman empire. With lofty ambitions he figured out that he needs more control and gave himself this title (apparently all dictators do think alike.)

2. One of the 12 months is named after him.

It's July. And thank God for that since previously it was named as Quintillis! Now why Quintillis ? It was Caesar's birth month.

3. One of his mistresses was herself a world renowned Queen and is usually taken as a standard of divine beauty.

Who else but Cleopatra!

4. As it happens with most of the dictators, he was assassinated. One of the assassination conspirators was the son of his mistress, this lead him to saying a historical line which in turn made it's way to the pen of an almost equally famous writer.

That historical line is 'You too Brutus!' written by Shakespeare. It refers to Marcus Junius Brutus, who happened to be second in line to the throne. Saying that, historian claims that Caesar never said this.

A Celebrated Dictator

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 15:38:00 +0000

I wasn't planning to write this post but with dictators being a hot topic these days, I ended up recalling a very historical and celebrated dictator. Let's see if you can recall him, don't worry we all have heard his name since childhood.

In addition to the above hints, here are some more, so now make a guess!

1. He took the throne and eventually went on to title himself as 'dictator for life.'

2. One of the 12 months is named after him.

3. One of his mistresses was herself a world renowned Queen and is usually taken as a standard of divine beauty.

4. As it happens with most of the dictators, he was assassinated. One of the assassination conspirators was the son of his mistress, this lead him to saying a historical line which in turn made it's way to the pen of an almost equally famous writer.

So can you guess who is this?

* No Google *

Why January is Named So ?

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 14:40:00 +0000

So I asked why January is known as January ? In case you didn't know the answer then shame on you, I mean you see this month every year! :P On a serious note, answer is very interesting and very symbolic.

January is named after a two headed Roman God 'Janus.'

In Roman mythology, Janus is the god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings, endings and time. Most often he is depicted as having two heads, facing opposite directions; one head looks back at the last year while the other looks forward to the new, simultaneously into the future and the past.

See, everything has some story behind it! :)

Now do you know out of the four temperate season, which one is closest to the definition of January, depicts rebirth, renewal and new hopes ? I am not going to answer this one, figure it out on your own :).

J for January

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:12:00 +0000

So before we knew it, January has ended. Wow! that was fast. On a separate note, do you know why January is named so ? Leave a comment if you know without googling, else wait for the next post :)

A Perfect Sleep

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:46:00 +0000

After years and years of aching eyes, sore muscles and 24x7 tired looks, I have finally figured out the perfect formula for sleep. Not the sleep where you lie on the bed for some hours and wake up as tired as you were last night but the sleep which leaves you brimming with energy, make you jump out of your bed at 6, happily make your breakfast while humming a song, make a joke with your sibling and have a subtle dance to your steps while walking towards office, yes, I am talking about that blissful sleep. I now know that sleep and enjoy it every night but it wasn't an easy journey to get here, let me tell you the whole story.

It's no secret that I have always been hard with myself, so through out the uni life I would work all night to happily complete coding assignments or projects. I took forward the same attitude to my job and had no idea what a peaceful sleep is. It reached to the extent that having even a 4 hours sleep sounded like a luxury and anything beyond it only brought a lot of guilt. But once in a while when I did manage to get a whole night's sleep, I would still wake up extremely tired. I blamed it on everything from the window giving sun's clear view to the mattress to late night T.V. habits of my siblings, I even made my mother bring me a brand new mattress worth 14000 PKR but problem didn't resolve.

I moved to Canada deciding to go easy on myself and bringing some much needed peace in life. Initial months took some time in settling down and I thought a nice good sleep is just around the corner but all I got was much worse sleep problems. I would now take 12 hours of sleep and wake up more tired than ever. What was the reason? I had no idea, so I tried different things. I changed my pillow, switched to changing bed sheet everyday lest it's a pollen issue, I changed my bed's directions 4 times just in case it's some hidden supernatural reason, I started taking milk before bed as they told me calcium helps in sleeping, I thought of changing the mattress but it was expensive and I had no idea if it would resolve the issue, the tired look was etched on my face, my soul, my life ... and then finally God showered his blessing.

I use to sleep with my room's door closed in order to not be disturbed by all the noise made by kids, one night I forgot to close my door and that was the night I slept like a dead python. The next night I forgot it again and again I slept like there was no tomorrow. Fortunately I noticed the relationship between the two and for the sake of experiment, closed the door the next night and managed the same old bad sleep! From that day onwards, my door is open and I sleep peacefully and am up at 6. A little more of this sleep and I'll probably be a morning person!

Now what's with peaceful sleep and open door? the reason is simple and it's a shame that despite being a student of Science I overlooked it. Homes in Canada are closed for the sake of heating and it's hard for air to enter, a closed door meant nothing more than a slit for fresh air to come in and less and less resources of oxygen. So no matter how much I slept, my body just didn't get enough oxygen to do the work it needed to do while sleeping! And with ample new supply of oxygen, it was happily completing the job. Isn't our body just a wonderful piece of machinery ?

So if you too are facing some issues with sleep, do check that you are having your correct supply of oxygen while sleeping.

What Not To Read

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 04:41:00 +0000

If there is one thing to remember in this world then that's 'popular literature isn't necessarily good literature' e.g. ~~the tale of exceedingly beautiful zillion years old blood sucker and a retard girl~~ Twilight, where the only two marriage proposals heroine received were from a werewolf and a vampire, how very normal and charming! Now I know popular isn't good and I try my best to keep clear of trash like 'New York times best seller' or apparently-intellectual-but-highly-uninteresting booker prize winners . But then I have just one life with limited time, I just can't pick unknown books by equally unknown writers hoping that they will turn out to be good, in the end I too have to ask for recommendations or consult the 10,000 or so recommended reading lists. I am also naive enough to believe my friends who will happily recommend a book swearing that this specific jumble of paper made them cry and die and reborn and if I am dying tomorrow then the only thing I need to do today is to pick up this miracle in paper form. Probably that's my sin, picking up books recommended by others and fortunately or unfortunately I get the punishment right in this world by wasting time on a miracle turned piece of sh*t in paper form.

In the recent past my experience has been beyond bad. The crap that I am reading in the name of being popular makes me say 'oh dear humanity!' But well my precious time has been wasted and nothing can be done about that but let me at least save your time. Avoid the books that I am about to mention, do not hold them or put close to your body, nor look at them directly, whoever recommends them to you, feel free to beat him with these same books (keep the gloves on!) No need to mention that they are very popular but don't get deceived by that.

1. Bridget Jones's Diary

200 + pages about the eating habits of a fat girl with no self esteem, who remarkably lacks any heroic or unheroic characteristic. No man in his right mind could fall for this girl and if she gets her very own Mr. Darcy by the end then that's totally a generosity on the writer's part. Never in my life I could imagine that somebody could take up a story like 'Pride and prejudice' and disfigure it, butcher it, beat it and still manages to sell it! Jane Austen must be having a very hard time in her grave.

The good thing was that I bought it for just 1 $ but now it sits smugly on my work desk and that's a very disturbing fact in it's self.

2. Rebecca

It could have been an acceptable book if the pain in the a** heroine wasn't always oh so ready to fall in useless thoughts, eg. if a servant would bring her a letter, that lady with nothing better to do will think about how the servant must have felt while picking up that letter, how he must have switched it from one hand to the other, how he took one step and then the other, how he took one breath and then the other and on and on and on... The only thing she didn't think was 'oh this isn't moving the story at all and reader is pretty pissed so let's not do that' Let me give you an example,

Beatrice remembered her promise of a wedding present. I snipped the string excitedly, and tore off the dark brown paper. It looked like books. I was right. It was books. I could see her going into the shop in Wigmore Street and buying them. Looking about her in her abrupt, rather masculine way. 'I want a set of books for someone who is keen on Art, ' she would say, and the attendant would answer, 'Yes, Madam, will you come this way. ' She would finger the volumes a little suspiciously. 'Yes, that's about the price. It's for a wedding present. I want them to look good. Are these all about Art?' 'Yes, this is the standard work on the subject, ' the assistant would say. And then Beatrice must have written her note, and paid her cheque, and given the address 'Mrs de Winter, Manderley. '

For the love of God woman, somebody sent you a gift, just accept it and don't show us your crazy imagination. It's a classic but again don't get fooled by that. If you insist on reading it then simply read Jane Eyre!

3. The Time Traveler's Wife

Oh dear God! What to say about this 'noble' book, it might help if you know that the same writer has another book by the name of 'The Three Incestuous Sisters,' now can you imagine in how many 'wonderful' ways this writer's mind can work? It was as if the writer thought about the most absurd and sick situations and then created a story around them. The supposedly loving hero comes across as a 'pedophile' and heroine is a dumb Lolita. Sometimes characters need to use crude language but who could have expected that artists and librarians having violinist and sopranos as parents, fluently discussing French poetry and yet very casually using extremely vulgar language to describe their love life. If somebody would read this book on T.V. then all you are gonna hear are the endless censor tone.

But that's secondary, importantly, it's a flat story with a very expected end. I read the book and after 20 pages I thought 'oh my God, there are 500 more pages to go!' To be honest the main idea was fascinating but the execution was beyond appalling. Characters were so 2D that even my niece's toys will come out as more 3D. And don't even get me started on how it make a mockery of feminism.

That's about it and you are all most welcome.

An evening with a writer

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 03:22:00 +0000

When they told me that he is coming to Toronto, my first reaction was 'What?' and then after a pause of 1 minute, my second reaction was 'What ?' In response to my iterative query, the informant, while clearly having concerns about my mental and hearing abilities, mentioned again that yes indeed he is coming to Toronto to promote his latest book, would read an excerpt from it and will be interviewed in live and if we want we are most welcome to attend this session. After listening to this clear an answer, my response was ....'Sorry...what?' Clearly, just knowing about his upcoming trip reduced me to the level of a broken record.

Truth is that there must be like more than 50 genuinely fantastic writers around the world and there must be like thousands of not-so-genuinely-fantastic writers around the world and all they could invite was .... him??? The one guy who solely managed to broke the diplomatic relationships between two countries, the one guy who is the villain of our lives from the second we are born, the one guy whose books you would have to read with a newspaper-cover on. Oh God but this is the same guy who wrote this fantastic book with amazing use of magical realism, the one book, the only book which won a certain prize not once or twice but THRICE!!! Now the poor me is in this great dilemma of making a choice between heaven and hell, between good and bad, between $1.56 coffee and a bored evening at home and that, my friend, made it easy..... in this cold and depressing a winter, I choose the perfectly priced, hot coffee. So on that faithful Wednesday, after finishing my office, I took the subway and found myself in a very long queue which was followed by a warm seat, a strawberry cookie, some hot coffee and a good evening.

That evening, for the very first time in my life, I heard a story-teller telling a story and it was beautiful, it was mesmerizing and it was as good as I always expected it would be; and I thought to myself 'so you do not need great movie sets or fast-changing theater stages, nor would you need big budgets, great actors, music directors or producers, in order to tell a great story, all you need is a good writer reading from his book.' It was a great experience and all I could wish is that someday I could read like that.

The writer was very funny, very entertaining and engaging; for every question, he had a funny answer ready at hand and they weren't just plain funny answers, they were properly performed funny answers. Eg. when he told us what a German guy said to him, he switched to a German accent, when he said 'then with gritted teeth, I told my son...' he actually said the next sentence with gritted teeth. Therefore it didn't surprise me at all when he later mentioned that he did in fact took a course regarding method acting.

One part of the conversation which could be very helpful for upcoming writers was again told in a funny tone, but I don't think that humor can be captured in writing, so you would find these sentences serious but try to use your imagination to think how he delivered it in a way that made the crowd laugh very very hard. It's not word to word but it captures the essence,

'Monotheism is tedious, you know there is one good God sitting there all day, asking you to be good. Now polytheism is where all the fun begins, there are gods who aren't good, they are really really bad, they do things like running after goddesses, killing their family members, having thousands of wives, now this is where you find material for your stories.

When old religion cease to exist then they are available to us as literature, nobody discusses if it was right or wrong, everyone study it as a fascinating thing, like Greek mythology. Now when these religions have no followers, their gods are discarded gods. And it must be pretty sad that one day you are omnipotent and the next day you are a jobless god, no follower to follow you!'

I took some great tips from the session and it was amusing to figure out that how your perception about people changes once you meet them. But still the dilemma would remain there, he is certainly one person I could never like even now that I want to.

New Comic Strips

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 03:15:00 +0000

So here are a couple of new comic strips which I made last week (okay they are not new if you are connected with me via FB.) One day I'll get the time to put these strips on the right blog but right now I am too lazy to do that, so let's just move ahead with what I have.

For bigger font : http://bitstrips.com/r/GG89L

For bigger font : http://bitstrips.com/r/8VS7L

And again I am too lazy to add further details to these strips so I would like to think that they are pretty self explanatory ;).

Fewer Managers, More Developers

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 19:41:00 +0000

Today, reading a blog post reminded me of a year old discussion with one of my very talented friends. He was a little unhappy with the way his fellow developers were coding and my job usually was to listen to his long vents and provide sympathy wherever required. So during one such session he told me ‘you know what; all the managers should be fired so that we can get good developers.’ Since I myself happened to be a manager(though development was pat of my job) therefore I felt the need of raising my eyebrows and demand an explanation. So here’s how the conversation went,

Friend: Managers should get fired because they are expensive. Once they are fired, their salaries can be use to hire better developers.

Me: Managers are important; you can’t just fire them, if they aren’t there then exactly who will push developers to provide results? Who will manage the projects? Who’ll make sure that even lousy developers deliver something?

Friend: Developers can do all that by themselves; they don’t need managers for that. And as for lousy developers, don’t hire them just b/c. they cost less, if you have them then fire them. Hire developers who can manage their work by themselves. Assign a manager to a team of 20 developers whose job would be to just take care of things like ‘be the point of contact for anyone outside team‘ or to be an umbrella who saves developers from all other non-tech sh*t. Everyone needs fewer managers but more developers who can do the actual work.

So the formula he was suggesting was something like,

• Fire lousy developers

• Hire only good developers, all of them will manage their own work and will own the complete responsibility of it. A procedure like Scrum can be use to get rid of the formal task assignment by the manager.

• Have a flat team model

• Hire few managers and assign them to a big set of people

This is similar to the approach they follow at companies like Microsoft and I think it’s brilliant. The truth is that no matter how much you work on a lousy developer, he can ‘never’ deliver as much as a capable developer can; let me make a claim here and that’s a manager and a bad developer combo will always deliver less output than one single good developer, while both models will cost the company more and less the same amount. I can also make a very safe bet that the creativity in the talented-flat-team model will be much higher since no one is spending time on managing others’ work and the developers have all the time to focus on the tasks at hand. If I would ever have a company, I know this is the team model I will go for.

Everyday when I go to work, I don’t just go to work, I go to do work which I can proudly reflect back on later, which teaches me new things and makes me come the next day and with this background, the only model that raises my pulse is ‘Fewer managers & Only good developers.’

Being the youngest

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 07:18:00 +0000

Sometimes when people meet me for the first time, some part of our conversation goes like this,

Other person : So are you the youngest ?

Me (a little uncomfortable): errr....yes, I am.

Other person : Oh I can see that!

Me : How ?

Other person : You know you have that thing...

Me (a little irritated) : What thing ?

Other person : you know ..... the ..... thing.

Me : No, I don't know. What thing ?

Other person : well...you have...that...thing, I can see that.

And I swear to my dearest God, to this day I don't know what the heck is this 'the' thing which their extra hyper eyes can see but I can't! I have tried being extra formal, casual, sober, serious, rude, silent and every other body language/tone which a normal human body allows but still that 'thing' is somehow visible to the whole human race. Obviously I don't like it when people figure it out on their own (and you should know why.)

So with this great mystery about what exactly people are seeing, I came to meet the hubby of a friend of mine. After getting impressed with his personal telescope (something on my personal wish list for years) and after looking with awe at the tattoo on his hand and shamelessly asking 'is that for real?' and after having some more chit chat with him, I couldn't help myself but asking him........'so are you the youngest in the family ?'

Tattoo guy : oh yeah, how do you know ?

Me (after some thought) : you know you have that thing...that thing of being the youngest.

Tattoo guy : what thing ?

Me : I don't know...I could just see that.

Tattoo guy (after some thought) : You know what, I think you are the youngest too.

Me (with a sigh) : yeah...I know...I have that thing too :S

And I swear to my dearest God, to this day I don't know what the heck is this 'the' thing! We the youngest in the family are cursed for life :S

How to be really knowledgeable

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:33:00 +0000

Let me declare it that I want to know everything. To put it sanely, I figured out that God created the world so that we can appreciate His work and not because He wanted us to wonder about the perfect size of beards, so I always wanted to know everything that He created and the fact is that the more I learn about His creations, the more I am able to appreciate Him.

I did a lot of things for that, I read books and I read books , I read newspaper, I browsed internet as much as my schedule allows but no matter what I did, I just didn't know everything! Somebody would say something and I would go like 'Oh I did read about it somewhere,' or 'I do have some idea about it but it has gone completely out of my mind!' I blamed it all on my memory...until a few weeks back Faisal Khan gave me the formula of really knowing it all.

The mistake that I and million others do is that we read something or come across something, gather the immediate information but never do we think to check the background story and it's the background story that really matters!

eg.

1. Yesterday is a great Beatles song, listen to it and enjoy it but it's the background story that tells that Paul McCartney came across the tune in one of his dream.

2. Before you and I came the Big Bang...background story tells that even before Big Bang came Singularity and the easiest way to witness Big Bang is open your T.V. and see an empty channel. (Interesting huh ;) Let me know if you want to know more about it.)

3. Tuesday is just another day, what is there to know about it? Well the fact that it's named after a one handed God 'TiW'!

In short from something as simple as days of week to something as grand as Big Bang, everything has a background information and that's what one need to check to really know it. I am applying this formula for past 4 weeks and I guess I know more than what I learned in past 4 years. I know I would never know everything but now I know how I would know 'almost' everything :).

Note : I attended Infinity888 - a personal training program and had the honor of having Faisal Khan as my instructor. (More on this later.)

That's not choice!

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 19:26:00 +0000

Note: This post is dedicated to my sibling who is having some ‘fun’ with a dislocated joint.

So how many Muslim Pakistani girls get to choose their life partner?....NONE.

Now don’t get all started to wage a war against a women chauvinist like me, I hold nothing against society or our culture, it’s just that being a mathematician I only believe in numbers. Numbers are good, honest and extremely correct. You can fight with logic but you can’t fight with numbers. So here are the numbers.

1. Unless you have hooked up with George Fulton, you can’t have a foreign miyan (hubby,) so no matter how much you think that Pakistani men are just dark and never really tall and handsome, you really have to pick one of these small, dark and not-so-handsome. Now you can just simply assume that all the non-Pakistani men have been nuked…I guess probably by Taliban or maybe Zaid Hamid in order to save the Muslim race!

2. So how many men and women are there in Pakistan?

48% Men : 52% Women.

In simple terms if there are 100 people in Pakistan, 48 are men and 52 are women. Let’s for the sake of simplicity assume that everyone is a nice religious heterosexual, off course except for those 4 extra women who would naturally get eaten by a giant squid for being such infidels!

Men left to choose from: 48 Hmmmm…a lot of choice there!

3. Considering that every Pakistani generation had nothing to do except for increasing population exponentially so we always have this large pool of kids. Total men population below 15 years: 40%.

Men left to choose from: 29!!!

Seriously a whole generation did some horrible family planning! Or rather they did no family planning!

4. Now off course you can’t marry an illiterate man! After all that’s their punishment for not studying. There are total 63% literate Man above 15 years.

Men left to choose from: 18

5. Unless you are an 18 year old girl who likes nothing but Bollywood, who else would want to marry a jobless and thus useless man? Unemployment rate: 15%

Men left to choose from: 16

6. Then off course you can’t marry a non-Muslim! Let’s assume that just one man is non-Muslim, and my guess is that this infidel is probably Superman who somehow survived the people/state/Taliban and their desire of making Pakistan a 100% Muslim population.

Men left to choose from: 15

7. If you are Sunnie Muslim then there is off course no way to marry a Shia, Ismailie, bohrie and men from any other Muslim sector. Same goes for all other sectors. 70% population of Pakistan is Sunnie. So for a sunnie Muslim girl,

Men left to choose from: 11!!! ….that’s not even a dozen!

Shia girls off course have a tougher competition.

8. In some cases you can’t marry out of cast!!!! Or you can’t marry some specific casts (I have been informed that us Yousuf Zais can never marry Ansaris, Qureshis and Sheikhs!!! Now talk about Hindu’s cast system!) There goes probably 6 more men.

Men left to choose from: 5

9. You can’t marry anyone poorer than you and you can't get anyone richer than you! There goes probably 4 more!.

Men left to choose from: 1

Now this is not what you call choice!

Disclaimer : Numbers are good but mathematicians can be evil and can mold numbers according to their choice ;) but I hope you have got the message.

Some Foreign Songs

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:00:00 +0000

A sad Romanian song,

The child that is dead was ever sweet and fair.
Now younger sister the same smile doth wear.
She saith to their mother: "Oh, Mother, dear,
My good dead sister told me not to fear.
The life she might not live she gives to me,
That I might bring fresh happiness to thee."
But, nay, the mother could not raise her head,
And sat a-weeping for the one now dead.

A Bulgarian song,

The hero lay dying at the top of the green mountain.
The hero lay dying with nine wounds in his side.
O, you falcon, fly to him and tell him his man are safe,
Safe in the mountains, all his men.
The hero had nine wounds in his side,
But it was the tenth that killed him.

An unlucky Bulgarian song

The dragon came down our valley.
He burned the crops and took the maidens.
He frightened the Turkish infidel and protected our villages.
His breath dried up the rivers and we walked across them.
now we must defend ourselves.
The dragon was our protector,
But now we defend ourselves against him

These songs are taken from the book The Historian.

Back

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 18:44:00 +0000

ahhhhhhh...don't ask where I was for the past few weeks, there is a very long story behind it. In short this is what happen when you juggle between a job, 3 different training programs and some major family events.

With a 20 hour long working day I somehow managed to finish Benazir's biography 'The daughter of the East.' I wasn't lucky enough to have ample time to sit on a comfortable couch and read the book in the silent hours of weekends, I had to switch to reading while commuting, during load shedding hours and while waiting for computer to reboot and finish the scan. So you can guess how tough it was and why I had no time for blogging. On a separate note, I am now reading 'Songs of Blood and Sword' and wondering if I should do one post addressing both the books....hmmm.

But well....after an almost impossible schedule, now things are getting back to being good. It's not that I am dropping any of the activities that I took up, it's just that I have got hang of my new schedule. I think this should be good enough to explain the reason of my absence. Now let's move on to other things.

Some readers asked about the story that I was writing, update on that front is that you will hear something soon. Another update is that I have got my domain name beenishkhan.com, so now I have to put up my personal website, let me know if you have any suggestions to make on that front.

And finally June is here. It's almost one year since I decided to make some changes to my life, it's about time to sit back and see what I achieved and where I stand. And there is another list of what I need to do in the next one year.

That's all...I had a long day doing work and entertaining 2 dozen guests, tomorrow I have a exam for which I haven't really prepared! (Let's pray that it rains tomorrow!) So I really need to go and get some sleep. Bye for now, will write soon.

A moment to celebrate

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Sun, 23 May 2010 14:43:00 +0000

As a nation we have crossed a major milestone, a historic milestone which unfortunately went unnoticed. Let me copy the news piece from DAWN,

It was Wednesday, April 14, 2010. The last pages of the 22nd and final volume of Urdu Lughat (Dictionary): Tareekhi usool par came out of press. The editors and staff were jubilant. Sweets were distributed and everyone seemed intoxicated — though no toasts were proposed — for after 52 long years of terrible labour, to borrow Winchester’s words, 22 tombstone-sized volumes of Urdu Dictionary were fully and finally complete. But no prime minister is here to celebrate the greatest feat of Urdu lexicography, for there are apparently more important tasks to attend to than expressing gratitude and admiration to the compilers of a 22-volume Urdu dictionary, notwithstanding the fact that compiling the most comprehensive dictionary of a language is one of the most important accomplishments in the history of a nation and should be a source of national pride. It is an achievement that has made us as proud as winning the 1992 cricket world cup or, perhaps, even prouder. The mere thought that Urdu is now ranked among the major languages of the world — along with English, German, Arabic and Persian — that have such comprehensive dictionaries, fills us with pride and joy.

Culture and arts have never really been a strong point of Pakistanis, thanks to a whole array of dead minds, minds who do not have any aesthetic sense and eventually decides to cover it with religion's ever so solid blanket. While other places of the world get titles like 'Cultural capital' or 'musical city,' we get titles like 'training grounds for terrorists,' our nation's biggest achievement is assembling a nuclear bomb and the second biggest achievement is ....well....winning a cricket world cup. That's all what our historical achievements are. But on a second thought that's not true, our cultural achievements are more than this, it's jut that as a nation we never really learned to appreciate them thanks to our atrophied minds.

I love English literature and language but this is a fact that if not for Britishers' countless colonies around the world, English language itself never had the power to be this popular. It doesn't have the rich language structures/grammar like other European languages or even Urdu, a simple example would be the lack of gender concept for things, for them everything is 'it'. In contrast Urdu provides a much richer set of concepts and ways to have a conversation, in concept it is in fact closer to languages like German and French. A majority of us are off course unable to appreciate the beauty of our language, nor do we understand that what literal and symbolic importance a national language has.

I am bitter because I am tired of my countryman's obsession with atomic bombs, missiles and off course their own brand of religion. This nation achieved such a big milestone and no T.V. channel had anything to say about it and we had no national level celebrations declared by the government. When we had no major celebrations, nobody in the world noticed that as a nation we are capable of achieving positive milestones too, we received no congratulatory notes from anyone.

But let's put the bitterness aside and let's be happy that we speak a language which is the fourth most spoken language in the world and which now has a complete lexicography. May our nation see many such milestones and may we learn to appreciate and celebrate them. And lastly I would like to show my gratitude to all the man and woman who labored hard for 52 years to complete this most difficult of the tasks.

A short story

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Tue, 18 May 2010 20:41:00 +0000

Today this Ernest Hemingway story of six words kept coming back to me,

For sale: baby shoes, never used.

I find it disturbingly sad. And that's all I want to say.

Last Post Archived

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Sun, 09 May 2010 13:39:00 +0000

The post I shared yesterday has been archived that's it's not visible on the homepage anymore. However anyone who has the link or would search for it can access it. There isn't really anything serious but I will tell you the reason at some other time.

If you have missed the post and would want to read it then you can always drop me a note.

An Era Ends

noreply@blogger.com (Beenish Khan) — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:43:00 +0000

Before getting to the point :It's 2 a.m. here, I have office tomorrow morning but right now I am having the most fantastic experience of having a toothache, if you know what I mean! But don't worry you are not about to read a rant b/c. no blog rant in the world could do justice to a toothache! This post is about something else. It is to thank an old friend and to celebrate the beginning of a new era. I am sharing it here in the hope that it might just help somebody who is going through something similar.

For very long I have toyed with the idea of 'there must be some reason behind my existence,' I mean it's hard to believe that one would go for a simple cycle of birth, education, marriage, kids and death. Many of you would probably claim that they feel the same, that we all are looking for one big cause behind our existence, or as the cliche goes, to find out some meaning out of life. The truth is that it proved out to be the most tiring experience of my life, not only tiring but frustrating to get up every morning and blaming myself that I am not working hard to find that one big goal. But today, even without a goal, I feel the search is ..... over.

Let me share an email I wrote to a friend sometime back. I have made minor changes to it to remove the context specific information and then I could have made this text more nice-to-read but I think sometimes it's best to write things just as they come to you.

For long I have thought about what's my aim in life, where exactly I will get the opportunity to do something meaningful, I read books thinking why am I reading this when it doesn't even concern me. And I'll say it honestly that I have actually lost quite some sleep on all of this. But I am so much at peace now thanks to you.
After my first discussion with you it just dawned on me that whatever I am doing, whatever experiences I am gathering, whatever knowledge I am gaining is preparing me, I am getting prepared so when the opportunity comes up, I am able to deliver. Suddenly I feel that there is no hurry, I do not see any goal but I see that I need to continue the preparation so when the goal is in front of me, I am able to achieve it. I am finally at peace with myself. I am no more interested in searching around for a goal and meaning out of life, I now believe it will come to me whenever I am ready. And if I never got to it, even then I am happy that I am and I would continue to improve myself and hopefully leave the world as a better individual than what I originally was. It's certainly no loss either.
I just wanted to Thank you for helping me in realizing this. You have no idea how much better and happy I feel, suddenly life has started to make sense.

So today, I mark the end of an era, the most tiring era of trying to find out a reason behind everything, of thinking that nature has bigger and better plans for me, of thinking that I need to find a goal - that era has certainly ended! I might not be in peace with myself when it comes to that one missed bug in code or that extra high calorie cheese cake intake or an unnecessary rudeness with someone but I am certainly in peace that I have no hidden reason to figure out.

With nothing to search for I am left with more time to appreciate my love for Maths, literature, cinema and hard work. I am no more interested in reasons and goals, I am just interested in getting prepared and if luck will be with me then my preparation will meet an opportunity.