Crank Callers III: Handy Software

You must be thinking that I am so after crank callers, but to be honestly speaking, every other day new things come up and I do not like the new discoveries to be restricted to me. So folks! Here is the new idea! (Though for this you should have Nokia S60 series cell phone)

Search for “Inter Active Voice Call Manager”, the handy software, on website:www.dotsis.com, download it, and install it on your cell. Now, using the software, you can add the numbers of crank callers on the black list. The members of black list can easily be ignored now because if they dial on your cell again, depending on the option you have selected, they will either be listening to the continuous beep sound indicating that the cell is in use, even when it is not, or the message that the phone is powered off when you might be talking to someone else! What do you say? Isn’t it cool?!

Electronic Testing

After writing my previous post, it came to my mind that why not English or other exams requiring intensive writing get computerized?

It would be so easy to type the whole composition in a short time while sitting on a dumb terminal instead of getting tired of scribbling away notes on paper. Secondly, the corrections could be made without making the paper messy and also, assessors will not have to waste time trying to figure out illegible handwriting. In order to please the teachers and parents, software could be made that do not give the option of thesaurus, spell check and grammar, etc. In this way, according to the mindset of our superiors, student’s true ability could be tested. The electronic copy of paper can be emailed to the examiner or printed out. The cost of printing and other charges can be collected from the students.

Since lots of us have gotten dependent on computers, it would be a very good option. However, it will take a long time before our examination system gets revolutionized and somehow our country relieves itself of the electricity crisis. What do you think?

LIFE UNEXAMINED IS NOT WORTH LIVING

I’ve learned my lesson to not to ever take such type of topics to speak on. Seriously, it took the hell out of me to write this speech! And one more thing: the next time if I’ll particiape in a competition, I’ll make sure that there are not “two” teachers to edit my speech. Believe me, there was so much confusion. One wanted to add that and other wanted to get rid of it and add his own stuff. And it was because of all this I got my speech a day before the Big Day. And I was then not too enthusiastic for it all. Result: I was the only contestant who forget her speech, though no regrets.
Anyway, following is what I had written.

Mr. President,

“Life unexamined is not worth living”, is an unequivocal statement of Socrates made 2400 years ago. Though it is still applicable in this 21^st century, yet how many of us really examine our lives? How many of us self-question ourselves about what our mind holds and what our body carries out? How many of us challenge ourselves instead of just flowing with the river of life?

Sir, it is a pity that the answer to all these questions is that a majority of us spend our lives without scrutinizing it. We are so lost in materialism that instead of filling our lives with meaning and making it worthwhile, we are constantly filling it with the shiny objects of comfort! How pathetic! I mean what matters us the most is money, and money and yes, once again money. We are so entangled in this vicious cycle of avarice that we hardly pay attention to our own selves. In doing so, we keep ourselves at a loss. Let me explain.

All of us know that life is a precious little time full of experiences. It is, as Ralph Emerson Fordyce says, a succession of lessons, which must be lived to be understood. However, if we do not reflect upon our lives, learning the lesson is a far fetched idea, we will not even realize that something new has crossed our paths! And so, all our life will be a mere repetition of our past. Committing the same mistakes again and again, never realizing the failures, we lose the chance to improve ourselves. In my opinion, pursuing such a life is all but meaningless.

Sir, personal growth involves examining one’s life which reveals the patterns of behavior. On further contemplation, he understands how the elements of his life fit together. His example can be taken as a man with a map, who has a better chance to reach his destination compared to the other without any map. He will not be wasting his time in taking U-turns.

Sir, it is not just in philosophy that a man is told about examining his life, some religions including Islam has it that one should spare sometime and evaluate himself, his life and everything associated with it. He should not just parrot the cultural, familial, or generational party lines; rather he should understand the reasoning behind these ideologies. Same goes for his beliefs, values and opinions.

You must be wondering as to why that be?

Well, you must have heard of people who get red-faced when asked the reasoning behind the truths they hold to be a priori. They consider them to be true just because they are true or because the majority is following that belief. They never critically examined it, meaning they haven’t thought about whether their beliefs are true or false neither they want to know. They are just blindly following them and staying willfully ignorant. Now, if we suppose what Buddha said was right i.e. a person’s future is determined by his actions which depend on his beliefs, it would be so awful to be reincarnated into a cockroach just because of the absurd beliefs one is having. Ha!

The point is it will be quite unfortunate to keep ourselves saddled with these dogmas and never know where we would have been without them.

Finally, we should utilize this short period to make our lives worth living by analyzing ourselves. It will allow us to take control of our reins instead of letting others pull it for us.

I conclude my speech with this quote:

Lives, like money, are spent. What are you buying with yours?

I thank you all.

PS: This post is way too long!! 

Save Yourself From Getting Ruined!

Where we have dirty politics, dirty business is yet another characteristic of our country. Corruption, cheating, hypocrisy are underlying factors of everything that is associated with this society of ours. Please do not get taken away by my little patriotism for this godforsaken country or my negative thinking, I want you to know something that is seriously important.

Following the footsteps of West, girl friend-boy friend has become a common trend. Having so-called love bird/s is fun, but with this, if not careful, a person enters the world of agony as well. Females, clever may be but not sensible, are the main victim of this pain. They get easily deluded by the “love talks” of guys and fell an easy prey to the rapist mafia. The mafia is ripping them of their dignity to its fullest extent: first by abducting their innocence and secondly, by making a video clip of that entire scene and selling it in the market. Furthermore, some guys make these pornographic videos with their cell phones for the sake of fun (I would love to use the “f” word for them but can’t). These clips are uploaded on internet for an easy access and some mobile shops transfer these into the cell phones of their customers for a price ranging from hundreds to thousands. Karachi, Lahore, Dubai and Mumbai are the main markets for the local porn videos.

It will not be justified to put the entire blame on males; females too are responsible for their doomed fate. When they know there is a huge cultural difference between East and West, why bother bedding with their “thought-to-be-price-charming”? Knowing that we have male dominancy here, why to go for something that is bound to humiliate them then their opposite sex? True that physical temptation is hard to resist, but then they should be ready to taste pain of endless miseries.

All I have to say is: whatever you do, the consequences cannot be ignored unless you commit suicide and shut your eyes forver.

I Like Writing!

The following article was written by me for the essay contest at school. The results are still not out yet. So, enjoy reading!

IF I COULD CHANGE ANYTHING IN MY LIFE, I WOULD CHANGE…

Reading news on internet, I came across this headline depicting Pakistan as the most dangerous country on earth. Though it isn’t new that the world has tagged our homeland as “a haven for terrorists”, but it was saddening for me. I just could not help stop wondering as to where we are going. To me our country’s future was all bleak, full of gloom and darkness. Nothing could be done about it if the existing situation continues to prevail.

Talking about current status quo, our beloved country has descended deep into the political instability and the military regime of General Busharraf-oops! I meant General Musharraf, has further crippled the entire system of governance. Acting as a US puppet, our President is more concerned about staying glued to his chair then paying heed to even the serious matters encircling the nation. For the sake of political mileage, there had been lots of suicide bombing and the people to blame are the so-called Islamic fanatics! Talk of being a cheat. It is not just that. In near future, we are going to have a Corruption Minister-oops! I did it again! I meant the “Prime minister”, Benazir Bhutto. She has strike a deal with Musharraf about power sharing and all her previous criminal records are brushed under the carpet. It is such a bad luck that a country found in the name of justice has fallen in the hands of utterly fraudulent, selfish and treacherous rulers.

It is true that this military leadership has boosted our economy; there is still massive poverty in the country. The rich is getting richer and the majority of Pakistanis have slid even beneath the poverty line. Our staple diet: wheat has its prices sky high. The result of inflation has been that more people have come on to streets, begging for money when they could have been doing something far better. Definitely, this is the example of cruelty in its own.

The story does not end here, there is even more. The rural areas of Pakistan are still not part of the development and the poor, especially females, are still subjugated. When it comes to avarice, the landlords can stoop so low as to rip a female of her dignity to get a small piece of land owned by her family. I was so shocked to read that a girl of my age was sexually abused and all the police officer could say, to close the case and protect the powerful rapist, was that the girl was a “habitual fornicator”! Oh my, God! How can people play with others life? How can our leaders sit with their eyes closed? What has happened to the conscience of those in power? Are they so blinded with the lust for money and power that they cannot see they are devastating the life of an innocent or even more?!

This is all too distressing to even write about. Imagine the suffering of those who are actually meted out with such a fate. Truly horrible, indeed. When I look around myself and brood over my country’s current condition, I so wish I could change it. I so yearn for a chance that will allow me to restore stability to my country and ensure that every single citizen get justice. Also, with a true patriotic spirit, I will make it possible for my country to have a bright future, and the Pakistanis would be once again respected for their nationality, instead of being bullied abroad, or being tagged as a terrorist just because their homeland is Pakistan. And so I am waiting for the chance…

What The Heck!

Today, I was standing with a friend waiting for my car when I saw a kid perform a stunt with his bicycle. He looked so cool doing wheeling and I had the urge to learn it and do the same. I conveyed my thoughts to the girl standing beside me and she was like, “Hello! You are a girl! You don’t want people seeing you do that!”
Now, that was something that really annoyed me ( though I did not show it at that time). Eventhough what my freind said was right, as in people would gibe at me, but the thing is: why having restriction on one’s action when it is entirely harmless? If a girl does something out of the normal circle of activities of females, she is bound to face criticism. I hate it when people cannot stand others to be different from them. They, normally, class them as nuts.
All this reminds me of a story I had read in a book. The story follows that there was a magician who hated the people of a kingdom, and so he mixed the poison in the well from which the people drink water. The next day, all the inhabitants had drowned the poison down their throats and became mad. The Royal Family, however, was saved from drinking water. The King, seeing the odd behaviour of his subjects, issued the order to the health ministry of providing his people with some medication. Since the entire nation was suffering from the poison, they considered the action of King to be insane and marched to the fortress for his abduction. The King was about to give up when Queen told him to drink water from the well and become like the others. The King then ruled till his last breath.
The thing to be understood from the story is that out there in the world people have drunk from that same well and want others to live the way they want. They would throw all the criticism at someone who acts out of so-called normal. What is to be done is so give a tad about what poeple have to say and live the life the way you want.

So, if I ever get a chance, I will learn how to do the wheeling, and I will do it while not even sparing a single thought as to what people will think of me!

Education is Must!

Day before yesterday, dust storm had every inch of my room covered in dust giving it a new look. However, the maid intervened and she cleaned the room excluding the area occupied by my computer table for there were wires all over the place. Since she was afraid of electric components, she did not bother taking the risk and left my computer table as such. In the end, it was me who was left with this tiresome task. It took me full one hour to tidy the outcasted place and in cleaning up all the hardware including the interior of my mouse, when I could have been doing something important!

During cleaning, I was thinking that cleaners should be Matric pass or at least they should have studied “Electricity” topic in Physics. They would be then literate enough to realise that fully insulated wires cause no electric current even when current is passing through them (I am not making it all up. Actually this is exactly what the maids think!). Also, it would save others all the trouble of going through the boring job of making things speckless when something far better awaits their attention.

So, what you people say: slightly literate maids would make a good job or should we restrict ourselves to the old ones and get our precious time wasted (no eyebrow raising for I have become a bit time conscious. Cheers!)? However, such literate servants would be hard to find.

PTV SUCKS!

A lot of gossip had been taking place about chief justice’s case in the previous days. All media was covering the details of the case except for the one and only channel: PTV. I was really shocked to see a man singing merrily to the audience while the most organized city of Pakistan, Islamabad, was in chaos. On the other channels, people were having a hot debate on what was going on or at least they were providing some piece of news on current events. On the other hand, PTV was fooling its viewers and providing entertainment as if nothing had happened!

The majority of the viewers of this main channel of Pakistan are the poor people which contribute to more than 70% of Pakistan’s population. Since they cannot afford having a cable or dish antenna installed in their homes, they are forced to stick to PTV. It is such an irony that the majority of the population of Pakistan is deprived of knowing the painful reality. They are kept under the darkness which then allows the high-class people to get things running in their favor and exploit the country to its fullest extent.

Say ‘NO’ to Tension!

what is it that will at first disturb the peace of your mind? what will gradually deteriorate your health condition and cause a sudden fall in your weight? what will promise a quick end to your wordly life and provide a shortcut to your grave? surely, it could be nothin but tension with a capital t. tension is a like a venom, it can kill you quite easily. so before you become a victim of this ultra fatal thingy, let me make one thing clear to you. the trend of this world has definitely changed. the goody-good type people are replaced by selfish ones. people will worry about themselves alone. they would not spare a single thought about you even if you care a lot for them. for instance, if there is a guy and he is so after girls that everyday, he is loading Rs. 300 to just to talk to girls on cell phone, then you cannot help it. there is no point in getting tensed about him, as in by doing all that, he would become notorious in the family; he would eventually lose his respect; he is having his future destroyed; he would not be looked upon as a good person; he would bring dishonour to his family, etc, etc. guess what? even if you do tell him that what he is doing is no good, he would turn a deaf ear to what you are saying. actually, he would not stop until his conscience tells him that what he is doing is wrong and would result in his own doom.so concluding it all, i must say that if you really want to live this life of yours, then follow this rule:

‘tension lainai ka nahi dainai ka…’

Excuse me “GIRLS”!!!

Girls tend to wear guy’s clothes and cut their hair short to look like a guy. Mostly it is done to attract males and to be called a tomboy. They might get successful in becoming a magnet for males but it is not right to call them tomboys.

If the reality is revealed, you will find that these ‘wanna be’ tomboys turn out to be typical girly girls spending hours manicuring their nails and staring at themselves in the mirror. Give them just a nudge and you will see how ‘tough’ they are.

In my opinion, tomboys are the girls who are so not sissy type. They possess the interests of guys and enjoy being carefree and being tough and rough at the same time. Now if these tomboys do not put on on manly outfits, they can still be rightly called tomboys. The point to be noted is that it’s not the appearance that contributes much to the tomboyish ness; it is actually the interests that count.

So, here is an advice for girls. (Don’t lose this golden chance and go for it! It is rare to find people like me helping you without charging you.) If you do not fit in the definition of tomboys, better don’t try to be one. It is good enough being called girls than pathetic ‘wanna be’s.