No Sunday, this year......

1. A researcher has no Sunday when he has lots of work to do.
2. The job of a researcher can never be routine job with routine hours like 9 to 5 pm.
3. When you do research, you should be ready to dedicate your time with full devotion whenever needed.
4. Until and unless, you are well prepared to do research, you should not start research and once you initiate, you should be ready to utilize your full energies for it.
   

Yes, these are not my sayings, instead these are the sayings of my supervisor which she keep telling us whenever she feels that we are taking research as not a serious matter.

And, I am one of the most non-serious ones among the all, whether in studies, research, writing or reading, ah even in the case of household works, nobody would be more miserable than me. Sometimes people say I am lazy, sometimes that I am not fit for anything to do, sometimes they comment I am the most unpredictable person they have ever seen; and yes, I am hundred percent agreed with all of them.

I don’t want to be called as a perfect person because I am not; I am unpredictable because I love my freedom; I am lazy because I don’t want to make things feel to me like a burden, I take my time for each and everything; and yes I am inconsistent because I think that life is beautiful and sometimes stagnancy decreases its beauty.

So, I have always my own reasons for everything and people also say that they always fail to convince me to change my reasons, and I always win over them; my fate.

But this time the situation was different. The lazy, inconsistent and unpredictable Urooj was ahead of all. It’s just the matter of time, matter of state; I don’t claim that I am strong, hard working and intelligent but I have done it well.

Well, I was trying to occupy December and to prevent the month to occupy my nerves, so, decided to preoccupy my nerves with loads of work. Fortunately, the month came with the loads of work; there was a workshop that was being held by our Center and the list of pre requisites was very long. Everyone tried hard for the successful arrangements of the workshop, but I had to do some extra because I had some urgent and important lab assignments along with the workshop.

So, I cheerfully accepted every load and occupied December finally. Thanks to God that the workshop was held successfully even after the Bomb Blast in the KU last Tuesday, we continued the workshop as per schedule, and yes during these days I was fully engaged with the other facilitators and demonstrators as I had also to conduct few sessions of the workshop and to anchor the concluding ceremony due to which my lab work stopped which should have not in the normal situation.

And then, when workshop ended at last but then this Friday strike made me intolerable as I have to submit the results of my experiment on Wednesday in any condition. Yesterday, the things were moving in a slow pace as in Scientific Research nothing remains in our hand sometimes and everything is situation dependent. So, at last I had to decide what to do…….? Time is moving away and the work is still incomplete.

Finally, me and my senior colleague discussed the scenario yesterday afternoon and took a brave decision; to continue our work today that means on Sunday.

I must tell you that people also say that I take decisions very quickly without thinking about the results, but I guess that is the most sensible thing in me that I don’t waste my time by thinking very much. I just do what I feel is right according to the situation and thanks to God that most of the time my decisions are proved to be right.

So, me and my colleague went today and did our work without any lab assistants; I myself unlocked the labs that we had to use, tissue culture, cold room, resource lab bla bla…. The University was like a desolate place, empty and uninhabited.

We worked four hours continuously, and then we had to leave the experiment overnight at one stage, we stopped at that point and now we will continue tomorrow morning.

I left home at 9 a.m. in the morning and came back at 3 p.m., can never imagine to ruin my Sunday like this in normal condition; to wake up early on a Sunday, the only holiday after a fully tiring week, could never be possible before today but things change and today was a day of change.

I woke up early in a winter Sunday, oh it was too difficult for me but I did it, and when I returned home in the late afternoon, I was so tired but satisfied.

Now, I am just thinking that the first Sunday of this new year was no Sunday for me; would it mean that I will be having no Sunday this year…..hmmm what to say?

This year is going to have loads of hard work for me, I feel; but I am glad perhaps in this way, I would be able to achieve some of my goals I have set for my life. I am glad even if it is like that, because the only thing that pleases me, is the Accomplishment no matter what energy I would have to utilize for it.

So, No Sunday….No Holiday; the gift from the New year for me.

Goodbye December......!

December always remained important during my whole life for me. The reason is not that it is my birth month, instead the reason is something else.

December whenever comes, brings strange things for me; things I can never give them any name; strange feelings, desires and thoughts. The cold and sad evenings bring an unknown sorrow, hard to describe the details of that sorrow.

The sunset of December looks always very beautiful but it is rather scary sometimes, winds penetrating into body change the whole set of mind of mine. I kept thinking the irrelevant things; the stupid and silly things (you will surely call them if you know what do I think?) that have no importance for me in the rest of eleven months of the year.

Sometimes, I fear from December; wish it not to come and pass without entrance; the thought is itself very silly.

I never waste much of my time in eleven months how much I waste in December; in a single month; kept thinking for hours without a reason and the thoughts are always purposeless. They never gave me anything fruitful; they just remind me that I have not done anything during the whole year and ruined it like the previous year passed it as a labor.

It's odd to think that nobody loves me; while I know many people who love me so much are around but I use to think like this in December. The month brings a state of mental and spiritual restlessness which makes me arrogant, senseless and sometimes harsh in behavior; the reason is still unknown.

I am sharing a poem, I have just written yesterday night and it has the same strange and odd feelings like my odd behavior in December.

I wish the next December would be different, would not like this and would not change my thoughts and my attitude; however I know its just a wish perhaps........

Well, but now December is going; so, Goodbye December!

Love is just Love

To define "Love" is may be the most difficult task in the world for anyone or at least for me it would be very hard to define the "Reason" of this Universe that is Love for me.

But then I think that what if we don't define the Love, Love won't matter it at all.

Love doesn't need any explanation for its existence, it does exist because Universe needs it, life needs it, we need it. It is the beauty that has over-casted the Universe since the very first day of its creation and thus it is the real reason for this universe to be beautiful, created due to Love, with Love and for Love. It glimpses in the eyes like light and reflects into tears, it giggles in the child's laughter and beams into old's smile. It defines the hardness of the stone, redness of the rose, coolness of the air, flow of the waterfall, greenery of the trees, shining of the sun, lightening of the moon, heaviness of the clouds, courage to survive, desire to breathe and live a living life and all of above it defines the Universality of the universe. Perhaps these all things also define Love in their own specific ways, so Love has no definition or it has unlimited unique definitions with various applications but every definition is based on the same principle: "Love is just Love, unconditional, unreasonable but selfless, courageous, enthusiastic but patient, passionate and determined."

So, if you are observing beauty all around you and finding peace and prosperity, believe me you are in Love with the "Love".

The call for help...........

Following is the detail of the update of Flood relief work from our group "Friends Indeed" which I have posted on my blog http://helpingfloodvictims.blogspot.com/

I am copying the same post here as this blog is read by more visitors as compare to that blog and so, the word will be read by more people.

As earlier I had posted that we have now started the rehabilitation process for the flood affected people. And for the first project, we have successfully helped to built six houses for almost forty people to again start their routine life in the area of Sajawal. These are some pictures of construction of those houses.

We further want to continue this rehabilitation work as more families are still in need of help in order to rehabilitate their lives once again, but we are short of funds. Also, there upcoming the winters and flood victims are in urgent need of warm clothes and other necessities as we all know that Nights in Sindh are so cold during winters. We have also planned to collect funds as much as possible till the Eid-ul-Azha which is coming in mid of November and to provide as much aid to those flood affected people as we can. I therefore request to all of you that please don't think that there is no need to help further, still there are thousands of people who are suffering for a single meal, the change in weather also has spread some serious diseases and they still are waiting for our help, so please spread this word and join our hands to facilitate them and their needs.

Democracy according to Iqbal (VII)

The Allahabad Address (1930)

Indeed the first practical step that Islam took towards the realization of a final combination of humanity was to call upon peoples possessing practically the same ethical ideal to come forward and combine. The Quran declares, “O people of the Book! Come let us join together on the ‘word’ (Unity of God), that is common to us all.” The wars of Islam and Christianity, and, later, European aggression in its various forms, could not allow the infinite meaning of this verse to work itself out in the world of Islam. Today it is being gradually being realized in the countries of Islam in the shape of what is called Muslim Nationalism.

The conclusive remarks

"Islam has the ideals that can lead humankind to the ultimate destiny. Like Inductive reasoning which is a moral Ideal, democracy is the ideal for the politics. Democracy in Islam gives the right to women, slaves and Plebeians for development of society, because every human is supposed to be a centre of latent power. Europe helped the Muslims to restore their democracy, but Islam has better ideals than Europe."

Democracy according to Iqbal (VI)

Islam and Ahmedism (1935)

During the nineteenth century were born Syed Ahmad Khan in India, Syed Jamal-ud-Din Afghani in Afghanistan and Mufti Alam Jan in Russia… It is not possible here to give a detailed account of the transformation which these reformers brought about in the world of Muslim thought and feeling. One thing, however, is clear. They prepared to a great extent the ground for another set of men, i.e. Zaghlul Pasha, Mustafa Kamal and Raza Shah. The reformers interpreted, argued and explained but the set of men who came after them, although inferior in academic learning, were men who, relying on their healthy instincts, had the courage to rush into sun-lit space and do, even by force, what the new conditions of life demanded. Such men are liable to make mistakes; but the history of nations shows that even their mistakes have sometimes borne good fruit. In them it is not logic but life that struggles restless to solve its own problems. It may be pointed out here that Syed Ahrnad Khan, Syed Jamal-ud-Din Afghani and hundreds of the latter’s disciples in Muslim countries were not Westernized Muslims. They were men who had sat on their knees before the mullas of the old school and had breathed the very intellectual and spiritual atmosphere which they later sought to reconstruct. Pressure of modern ideas may be admitted; hut the history thus briefly indicated above clearly shows that the upheaval which has come to Turkey and which is likely, sooner or later, to come to other Muslim countries, is almost wholly determined by the forces within. It is only the superficial observer of the modern world of Islam who thinks that the present crisis in the world of Islam is wholly due to the working of alien forces.

Democracy according to Iqbal (V)

The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (1930-34)

The idealism of Europe never became a living factor in her life, and the result is a perverted ego seeking itself through mutually intolerant democracies whose sole function is to exploit the poor in the interest of the rich. Believe me, Europe to-day is the greatest hindrance in the way of man's ethical advancement. The Muslim, on the other hand, is in possession of these ultimate ideas on the basis of a revelation, which, speaking from the inmost depths of life, internalizes its own apparent externality. With him the spiritual basis of life is a matter of conviction for which even the least enlightened man among us can easily lay down his life; and in view of the basic idea of Islam that there can be no further revelation binding on man, we ought to be spiritually one of the most emancipated peoples on earth. Early Muslims emerging out of the spiritual slavery of pre-Islamic Asia were not in a position to realize the true significance of this basic idea. Let the Muslim of to-day appreciate his position, reconstruct his social life in the light of ultimate principles, and evolve, out of the hitherto partially revealed purpose of Islam, that spiritual democracy which is the ultimate aim of Islam.