Apples are HARAAM (Forbidden), indeed

This true story was told to be by a friend of mine. It contains lessons of intelligence and logic, which are two very rare commodities in our world. It was told to me in Urdu and I am posting it in English, for the readers of my blog. So without further ado, let us get to the story:

One day a man (Tariq) was praying in a mosque when all of a sudden a strong stench of burning tobacco hit his smelling sensors. He turned around a saw a man of 40 something, getting ready to pray. Since there were only a few people at that time in the mosque, Tariq was certain that the centre of this nasty odor was this 40 something guy. Since Tariq could do nothing about it he went back to praying and concentrating on what’s more important, bowing down to the Almighty.

Soon after he heard a voice coming from the back row and turned to see that a young guy, in his mid twenty’s was greeting the smoker with the traditional Islamic greeting of Assalaam-o-Alaikum. The smoker replied and the young guy straight away in a blunt tone asked him, Sir, don’t you know that you are not allowed to offer prayers after doing something which is deemed Haraam in Islam? The smoker was a bit shocked and taken aback by this show of complete disrespect. The smoker surprisingly says, boy, watch your tongue, I did not do anything Haraam, to which the guy replies, sir, I don’t think you know but smoking is deemed Haraam in Islam. 

The smoker after hearing this from the guy gets infuriated and the arguments starts heating up. The smoker is visibly angry at the guy and says; show me one verse in the Quran which explicitly says that Smoking is Haraam and I swear I will quit this habit forever and for good. Just then the Muezzin announces the call to pray and the argument stops for a few minutes.

After the prayers were offered the guy turns to the smoker and says, sir ‘Smoking is as Haraam in Islam as eating Apples’. Now this blows the lid off the smoker and he raises his voice and says, boy who died and made you in charge of giving nonsense and Un-Islamic Fatwas. Who gave you the authority of declaring things Haraam, which were deemed Halal by Allah? It is because of people like you that Islam is suffering all over the world. I doubt that you are even a Muslim seeing that you think Apples are forbidden. The smoker was previously feeling a bit embarrassed because of all the unwanted attention but now was very happy thinking that he has cornered the guy and now this guy will get off his back for good.

The guy calmly lets the smoker speak, and then says, show me a verse in the Quran which explicitly deems Apples to be Halal and allows Muslims to eat it.

The smoker gets what the guy is getting at and smiles and says, well done boy, I promise I will try to quit this bad habit and also to avoid further embarrassment and the hands of a youth, from now onwards, I will avoid smoking before entering a mosque.

Karachi, a Synonym for Awesome

Some and i mean some of the things/people/places/activities which add to the awesomeness of Karachi are:

The dedication and vision of Syed Mustafa Kamal
The awe inspiring web of Flyovers
The Sleek Underpasses
Bugging shop keepers while window shopping at Tariq Road
But actually buying at Light House and Macchi Miyani
The hunt for bargains at Bohri Bazar and Gul Plaza
The guilty pleasure of dating at Bagh Ibn-e-Qasim
Spending quality family time at Safari Park
Traveling in the world famous W-11
Visiting history at Empress Market
The honorable presence of Abdul Sattar Edhi
Witnessing Miracles at the Shrine of Adbullah Shah Ghazi
Eying eye candies at Zamzama
Relaxing after a long day at Sea View
Forgetting the routine troubles of life via a Boat ride at Kemari
Satisfying Faluda cravings at Baloch Ice Cream
Juicing it up at Agha Juice
Shopping wholesale at Chhadi Lane
Paying respect at  Mazar-e-Quaid
Dealing with Karachi Police
The Grandeur of Jinnah Terminal
Searching for and buying automotive spare parts at Shershah and Ranchor Line
Meeting people of different backgrounds and ethnicity
Battling and surviving the traffic at M.A Jinnah Road
Studying while avoiding politics at Karachi University
Visiting and harassing Turtles at Turtle Beach on the night of a full moon
Thanking God for everytime for the easy availability of Pirated cheap copies of different software's at Rainbow Center
Devouring more than delicious food at burns road
Enjoying cool Gola Gandas at Dhora ji
The presence of historical churches and Mohatta Palace
The feeling of serenity while feeding the fish from native jetty bridge
Imagining freedom while feeding the pigeons at the Sindh Assembly round about
The look of Karachi and the way the Buildings look after it rains
Witnessing random acts of kindness by people from all walks of life
The naturally charitable nature of people of karachi who are forcefully labeled as being poor, when in fact they are the richest in the world in terms of humanity
And last but not the least because i live in Karachi

(The awesomeness of Karachi is by no means limited only to the above mentioned facts but this is all i could come up with)

Every one who lives in Karachi automatically qualifies as awesome by extension, a city with a never say die attitude, a city which is the mother of all cities in Pakistan, a city which is unfortunately no longer the city of lights but its heart still glows with the light of kindness and a caring nature which only a mother possesses and i want to end this piece of text on the note saying " I LOVE YOU MA, I LOVE MA KARACHI"

Programmed Excuses

Here are the top 25 excuses used by programmers, developed by programmers for the programmers.

1. Strange..., i took care of it already
   
2. It works fine on my machine.
3. I've never heard about that, must be a new technological innovation.
4. I swear it worked yesterday.
5. Well, nothing's perfect, so what if the program needs some fixing?.
6. How is this possible? Eureka, its a new discovery.
7. The machine seems to be broken, please order a new one.
8. Has the operating system been updated? (If the answer is in affirmative then the reply by the programmer always is "I told you not to let it update" and vice versa if the answer is in negative.
9. The ignorant user does not know how to use this and that has caused an error again.
10. The test data is not what it's supposed to be.
11. I did not develop that module! Check with the new guy.
12. Yes of course, the deadline will be met.
13. You have the wrong executable, again.
14. Oh, that is a feature i incorporated, not a bug.
15. It's almost as ready as it was 2 weeks ago.
16. I just have to do these small fixes, no biggies
17. It will be done in no time at all, don't you worry about a thing
18. It's just some bad mojo or unlucky coincidence, nothing wrong with the code.
19. I can't test everything, can i?
20. THIS will never do THAT.
21. Didn't I fix it already? Damn my memory is getting worse under too much work load.
22. I am already finished with that, all that remains is the testing.
23. It works here, not too sure about the live environment, needs more testing.
24. Somebody must have messed with my code.
25. There is a virus in the application software which causes malfunction.

My Condolences

The misguided anti Muslim, anti Islamic, anti Human, anti God, pro Lucifer, followers of Abu Jahal and Abu Lahab struck yet another disastrous and deadly blow to the nation and the ummah by attacking the shrine of Hazrat Abdullah Shah Ghazi (r.a) today. May the souls of the deceased rest in peace in Jannah, may the injured recover quick back to health and may the worshipers of the devil, perpetrators of such a heinous inhumane crime burn in the deepest darkest corner of Hell for eternity (ameen).

Mother Road

As i walk on the road of life heading towards my unknown destination predefined in the books of destiny, i can't help but wonder where are we heading as a nation? I mean we are a nation of people who are unnaturally attracted towards the road itself and the least bit bothered about the destination. Our fascination and fixation with the road began as soon as we chose to travel on the road to freedom in the August of 1947.

With the passage of time a sad road centric culture has unfortunately developed in our country. For example we record our protest on the road, we celebrate on the road, we take our frustrations out on the road, we express anger on the road, we throw garbage on the road, we spit on the road, we use the road as a latrine, we pray on the road, we burn tires and vehicles on the road, we fight on the road, we hold naming ceremonies for the road as if it was our own child, we rename the road as per our requirements, we rally on the road, we use the road as an income generating machine by digging and rebuilding it, we express joy on the road and often we use the road to travel from point A to B.

For us the road to happiness is the road itself, for our political parties the worst case scenario is having no M.A Jinnah Road to lead a protesting mob, for our small business owners the road provides ample opportunities to encroach and establish a business, for our police men the road provides for them "Bhatta" from the "Theas" and public transport buses, for the beggars a good spot on the road means a handsome monthly tax free income, for the homeless the road provides shelter, for the hungry the road has enough food to feed them and for our leaders the road is a perfect place to lie, cheat and steal.
 
Come to think of it the road is very much like our mother, it provides food, clothing and shelter for us and loves us unconditionally and we in-turn show our gratitude by hurting and destroying it whenever we feel like doing so similarly like we treat our real mother's. I hope our fascination with the road ends soon so we can focus and concentrate our energy on the things which are more important than using the road for our own demented personal objectives.