England's tour of Pakistan.

Well how about it!! Amazing isnt it that there is no change in the Australian tour when London was rocked by bombs. And the players are showing concerns touring pakistan.

It seems that the Asians dont have any value in the ICC although they contribute most towards the joy of cricket.

Aussies refused to tour SriLanka when there was little threat in Colombo and played on in the battle field showing their greatness to the english crowd.

It was a joke with pakistan playing its home series on forgin venues.

ICC would have banned any asian team having the attitude of provoking the feeling of cricket fans, but no sir, since its the "owners" of the game we are talking about such an action is out of question.....

Meter position @ Safari.

Saturday it was when we planned to go to the long delayed Safari trip. Heard about it last year and eventually we were going there. It was a long drive up to the primesis and we had to drive even further to see what i wanted. LIONS!!

A pair was lazily having a nap when we reached. Being so close to free roaming lions was something i never thought would happen. Khair anyways, it was thrilling but not enough until a lioness proudly marched to joined the pair.

Now that was something i cant explain. Yes, i've seen these kinda scenes on NatGeo a zillion times but this was totally different.

Later on we moved on to the other side of the lion den where there was an angry fellow in the cage. This one was imported recently and obviously wasn't very happy about it.

I snapped a lot of photos of the beasts and one bold lioness has her photo as my desktop. Also made a movie clip of around 4 minutes. Have uploaded the a few images on Trope.

365 days @ excels.com

This is it. One whole year marking my longest tenure at any organization.
This also marks my one year in the beuatiful city of islamabad. Dont have much to say except that it went pass like whooosh. Time flyes. It really does.

Regrets? NO! Thank you GOD for making my stay here a very stable and growing one.

and i now present....

Today, i lanuched my photo blog. Thanks to blogger for helping me do so.

I shall be putting up the images that i capture. Details within Trope

My School

St. Patricks High was the name. 6 huge buildings seperating the primary, secondary, techincal, cambridge, F section and labs. We had a hockey ground and a footbal field as well.

Now?? Squeezed in one residnetial unit, i dont understand why do they even call those things by the same name. Not even a play field let alone other things.

My school was like a schoooooool with requiring time to know what is where and these are mere schools. One glance and its all over. Khatam ho gaya bhai.

I remember of having my 10th grade fee as Rs.700/month and for students not studying science, it was Rs 650. Analyze that!!!

My 4 year old niece goes to "The Educators" and her playgroup grade fee is around Rs.1500 already!! Talk about getting "quality" education in reach of the common man.

Its Never Enough

Long long ago there was a blind begger in Baghdad who had a very odd condition of accepting anything which someone had to offer.

'Hit me on my head with a shoe' he would say and would not accept anything if the other person refused to do so. It was very odd for all but one bothered to ask the old man the reason behind it. He was denied the permission at first, but after the young man insisted he was told what was told never before.

I wasnt always blind, he said. I once served a saint for a long time and he then presented me with a gift which was about to change my life. Before giving it to me he took my word that i would not ask for more and accept what was being granted.

He had a bottle with some potion in it, a drop from which was poured into my right eye.......

I couldnt belive what i was seeing. I was able to see treasures of the world, it was amazing. Then a second thought came into my mind. I would be able to see more if had some drops poured into my left eye as well.

The saint was furious at my request and reminded me of the promise that i had made. He told me it wasnt good for me and that i would loose my sight, but oh no, how could have i believed that. He warned me that there would be no going back and i agreed to face the consequesces.
A single drop was enough to take it all away..... I pleaded, apologized and appealed but all in vain. Now i tell ppl to bang me on my head so that i may always remember my foolish wish.

EOS (End of Story)

Now, i dont know if this was true at all. I read it some 12 years back. But i like it in the sense that one should not always ask if 'yeh dil mange more'.

Ammi and Abbu

Today i discussed a lot about how parents take care of us. the hardships they face, the affection they have, the patients they have for our stupid questions.

Its tough, very tough!

Ammi and Abu, I love you very much!!! Thanks a lot for contributing 200% to what i am today. Thanks a ton.

Murphey's Law.

The law says that when something has to go wrong it will, no matter what you do to stop this from happening. I have something to add, that when this happens, more than one thing goes wrong.Here is what happened today.

• I got a mail from the US office that the deployment guide that i sent didnt help them setup the first itteraton.

• An error was reported in my code. Continued for hours to get it reproduced and later i was told that this is an inconsistancy in client data and not our problem.

Later in the day.

• Wajih Bhai wanted to buy a pair of shoes and Islamabad didnt have his size. One shop to another we searched. Firstly no design would inspire him and if it did the pair wouldnt fit. Blast!!

• I saw a great wrist watch and withoug thinking much bought it, only to realize that i looked more of a clock on my wrists. (IDIOT).Told the hawker to take it back and he refused (obviously) and i was forced to choose another one. Now this one didnt have its strap in a proper shape so the guy began to change it. After watching his efforts for 15 minutes, i decieded to take back the old one.
  

• Now we couldnt find a cab!!! What the ..!! Where did they all go? Finally got one and paid him more than we would have under normal circumstances.

Phew!!!! some day.

Pirates.....

Johnny depp's dialog in pirates of the caribbean just came to my mind.

Me? I'm dishonest,and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest...Honestly.It's the honest ones you want to watch out for,because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly...stupid.

Ulta Meter.

After requesting for about 2 weeks, we finally had our sub meter installed for the airconditioner at Choudry House.

"beta reading note kar lain" choudry saab told me and i did that. Lets say that it was N.


Next Morning.
I thought that i should see as to how much we utilized in one night.
To my astonishment, it was N - 7 units!!!! Now how did that happen??

Did we produce electricity by running the AC? WOW!!! :D

Later i was told that the wires were switched while installing the meter. While this was a relief to choudry saab, it broke all my plans for running the AC and helping the country overcomming its energy needs :D

Almost done.

Successfully clear the fourth paper alhamdolillah and become MCAD. Was planning to be done with it by the end of this month but i dont think it will materialize.

Khair anyways.

Lots of Work

A ton of work has been assigned to me for July. Yes, its PX again.
I wont be able to update the blog regularly as the working hours have been increased and saturdays are on as well.

The brighter part is that as soon as this project is over i plan to visit home.

ESII goes to picnic.

Atlast, the picnic plan becomes a reality. I was very much waiting for this so that i may test my camera :p
As per the route, we were to go to donga gali and walk one of the most beautiful tracks of the world. Then move on to Khanaspur for the waterfall etc. etc.

First Stop: Aabpara.
We had paraths here for breakfast and bought mangoes and not to forget the batteries which turn out to be faulty later.

Second Stop: Somewhere on the way.
Javed is victumized by nausea on a very good location (lucky for us). We hop out of the car and have a good time enjoying the view.

Donga Gali:
A brief stop and we move on to the track. It truly was amazingly beautiful. It took us around an hour to walk the 4 kilometer track, with me and rahat taking snaps all the way.

Khanaspur. (small town at Ayubia)
The track ended at Ayubia, the driver was waiting for us there and then took us on a qeust to find the waterfall which according to the locals was very near down the road. 'Yar nahin hai yahan par koi aabshaar wapis chaltay hain' someone said after we were through numerous dangerous turns and cuttings. But we continued and just when we were about to give up the search, we saw it.

Iced water was flowing through. The mangoes were freezed in the very water and then the mango party began. This is when the orignal batteries of my camera said goodbye and i switched to the new battereis i bought from aabpara. Pooof !! and they expire. :(

Ayubia.
We came back to have lunch and then moved for the chairlifts. Hmmmm nice view.
After spending a lot of time chatting at the upper end of the world. We plan to leave back only to realize that it would only be possible after standing behind a loooooooooooooooong line of other visitors. Khair... it happens.

Somewhere on the way back.
I demand tea loud and clear with only one other supporter, and we manage to find a place where we had 'pakoraas' and tea. It had started to get cold with breeze blowing. We eyed F11 Islamabad at around 2230 hrs.

Those who didnt turn out for the trip, Guys you really missed it....