A visit home

Will be leaving for home tonight for vacations and I hope to spend some good time with the family.
There are some crucial decisions to be made as well and i am looking forward to it. Also expecting to have a lot of fun with my nephews and nieces.

Plan to be back after eid and if the government grants a holiday on November 09, then the leave may be extented by another 4 days :p

Lets see what the future holds.........

Allah Waris
MA.

Working Hard

Yes indeed, its true.
They have been flying for long hours.

Why Ramadan?

Many people including me were very disturbed on the fact that the quake had hit us in Ramadan. Many elders fail to remember a large scale destruction in this month. Its the month of blessings and the first ten days are more close to the blessings of Allah. Why Ramadan then ??

Did this mean that we were getting negative blessings from HIM. Was this what HE had for us as his blessings ?

I was stumped and so were many others. Until I fell in a discussion at the university. A batch mate made said something which cleared many doubts.

"It was good that it came in Ramadan" he said. "The effects were mild. The blessings of Ramadan may have made it cause much less damage than we deserved or that could have happened if it would have been any other month." he said.

Although this is no more than a theory which my friend had but it was enough to convince me and some others.

Maybe its a blessing that it came in Ramadan. But if this theory is correct, then I fail to describe the degree at which Allah is cross with us.

Maybe it was a warning. Maybe its a test. [But I don't think that we are pious enough to be tested]. Whatever be the case, may HE guide all of us the right path and may make us learn from our mistakes. Aameen.

Quake day!!! [Worst diaster for Children]

Was watching Aaj TV when an interview of a Russian doctor was telecasted. He said that he had been to numerous countries in similar situations and that his organization has been involved in such operations from the last 50 years. He said that this has been the worst disaster for children that they had ever witnessed.

A whole generation was lost according to many and all agree that children suffered the most.

It got many in schools and colleges. Many.

400 were under one school's rubble in Balakot alone. I personally got to hear the survival of only 4. Countless such cases were reported.

Daily Jung published a poetry on October 14 which literally made me cry

[Aik basta hai jo baaqi hai - Dr.Hilal Naqvi]

Kahan kho gayee school ki ghanti
k jo chutti ka ik ailaan ban kar un thakay chehron ko mehkati

Faqt ik moat ki aawaaz hai jis nay
abadi neend kay saaey main sab to lay leeya

Na ab school ki ghanti
na wo boorha sa chokidaar baaqi hai

To phir aay dosto !!
kia ab koi aasaar baqi hai?

Nahin, koi nahin.
Faqt aik pencil hai, aik basta hai jo baaqi hai

To aaao ik naya school phir kholain

Magar pencil say bastay say kahan school kultay hain

To jaao, phir zara jaa kar naaey bachon ko lay aao
Gaya to tha

Magar is gaaon main koi bhi ab bacha nahin baaqi
Faqt aik pencil hai, aik basta hai jo baaqi hai

Magar pencil say bastay say kahan school kultay hain......


May Allah shower his blessings upon us....

Quake day!!! [What made it worst]

A lot has happened since October 08. Although the collapsed towers were a tragedy but it appeared to be nothing when reports started coming in from northern Pakistan. As i write, casualty speculations have gone passed 100,000 mark with Mr.Edhi claiming it to be a further multiple of 3.

May Allah shower his mercy on all.

The countrymen have shown their feelings and what appeared to be a group people living together have expressed their nationalism. Wrong are the people who say that Jinnah was able to get a country but failed to make a nation.

Everyone i know has contributed whatever they could. Time, money, food stuff, ideas....everything.

However, the situation is still grim. A UN spokesman excepted that the task is far more intense and tough than the Tsunami which hit far east earlier this year. The reason is that it was coastal area through out and whatever damage done was by nature in one go. People who lived the incident had better chances of living as aid was reaching fast with the areas being accessable. [ I dont mean to say that it was a samll incident by any means]

Here on the other ther are numerous issues.

• One is that the road access has either been blocked or completly damaged due to the land slides which occoured as a result of the quake. So it took a lot of time to open those up. Meanwhile the source of any effort was limited to the army choppers.
  

• Two. The army has a limited supply of cargo hilos as per their requirement. Plus tension is Waziristan and on the Afghan border has also kept the army busy on the western side of the country. It is also said that the army itself suffered serious losses in Kashmir due to the quake and the first thing done was to secure the border once again. [With the distruction magnitude there are reasons to accept this theory as well]
  

• Three. I have been to these places and there are villages where no road leads to. People have to walk there and one who has been doing this since birth takes around 2 hours to reach on foot. Imagine someone belonging to Karachi or Lahore trying to reach there in these conditions where even the paths which the locals followed are not available. Plus there are a lot of places with only a few hundred people living in very remote areas.
  

• Four. There are such valleys where even choppers cant reach. There are!!!
  

• Five. The weather is getting severe day by day. By getting colder it has helped in the prevention of deseases but survival has become even more tough for the injured. UN has said that 300000 tents are required for the effected people but i think that by the time they arrange for that conditions will make those tents virtually ineffective.
  

• Six. It rained heavily there almost the same day. And belive me when it rains there in this weather its not easy to live there in the open. Let alone the fact the you are injured and have most probably lost a family member.
  

• Seven. The administration has also been wiped off. No one would expect an officer to camp and try to manage situation where his wife and 2 children are under the rubble and assumingly alive. This is just one case. Almost everyone faced similar tragic cases.

I am not defending the government in any sense. Just trying present facts which have made it a challange not only for Pakistanis but for the entire world community.....

Quake day!!!

It was like someone shook my bed with awesome power. Up I was, my eyes met with WB's eyes and we were like "ZALZALA!!!". "Ashar, getup its a quake!!!" and we were out in the open a matter of one second. (never managed to get up this fast for the office)

We couldn't stand without support of the stair railing. It sounded like heavy gears of a big slow machine. "GRRRRRRRR. GRRRRRRRR." I couldn't think of anything. Nothing.....

Everyone was reciting the Kalima "Laa ila ha illal llah"

Our room is in the basement and intensity we witnessed there would have been more than I nightmare to anyone living in a high rise.

Imagine the stupidity, that we didn't move up and out of the house!!

After it was over, we did do that to see scores of ppl out already. We go down again after commenting on our experiences. Choudhry saab said that this was the worst quake he had experienced in his life.

Minutes later, it strikes back. This time we move out for good.

We are told that a building has collapsed in sector F10. Boss takes out his car and we get on to confirm the news. It wasn't fun at all, but I don't know why no one of us sounded or looked very scared.

But this didn't last for long. It was true!! Choppers were flying over the surviving high rise towers and we saw the rubble of the collapsed one.

I called home and informed about the jolts. I wanted them to know this after I couldn't inform due to any reason.

Boss didn't want to stay there at all and threw us back at the hostel. We found a party heading towards F10 to assist in rescue. We hoped in and were back at the scene. It was frightening. A multi story changed to an old "story". Fear was on every face, the roads were getting blocked, the civilians were in control of the rescue operations.

The police was there, but obviously they are not trained for this. Ambulances were making a lot of noise. Military personnel were getting into position.

We head back to F11 and go to the park. All were being advised not to get back into buildings. We stayed there for around an hour. After shocks were striking on the average of half an hour. A lot were out in the open and the park was getting crowded with time.

We get back to the hostel with the hope that the TV cable was back on and it was! The world was talking our experience.... and it came back!! We rushed out again.

We all felt very sorry about the collapsed tower residents. It was Saturday and everyone would have been home. Old, young, men, women, children. We soon got to know that the quake had struck Northern parts of the country and conditions there were far more intense and severe.....

[End of part 1]

Happy Ramadan

Ramadan 1426H is here. Yet another year is passing by with great pace.
Hope this month brings everlasting joy, happiness, ease, comfort and peace for the entire world. Aameen.