We bake our own bread.

Hmm..so finally i started dieting.. Did i ever narrate the story about the sweet tummy of mine.. The story starts in summer of 2003 , when i realized that there is nothing wrong in continuing eating when all the others have finsihed their food... People dont mind it ...I also realized something about eating the left overs of others..there is nothing wrong in it..infact, it looks kool... so I started it with these two rules ..Later i developed others like:

• Rule 1: When you are involved in physcical activities, you dont get fat if you overeat....
• Rule 2: Eating food makes me happy..
• Rule 3: Happiness is a gift of God and i must always be celeberated it....by rewarding myself with a good food..
• Rule 4: Home made food is good for health and eating home made food wont make me fat..
• Religiously..it is better to fall in love with food as that keeps a believer away from the love of other sins.. (This is not mine... It was literally said in a religious gathering i once attended long ago..honestly...)

These new rules messed up somwhat..and mutated into some stupid logic: Description follows :

• RULE1--> When i am standing , i am doing a physical activity..so i wont become fat if i overeat while i am standing..This means that if i keep sitting the whole day working or playing warcraft 3, i wont get fat if i momentarily stand up to eat something
• RULE2--> I have lived past few years shifting many jobs and places....that made me sad...:(..so i had to do something to make me happy... and beleive me eating a cup of vanilla icecream takes away all my tension..(Btw..this property of vanilla flavour has been proved scientifically)
• RULE3-->At times it was difficult to get out of the cycle of rule 2 and rule 3.. i.e ....eat ---> become happy----> celebrate the happiness by eating more---> become happier---> celeberate more by eating more.----> REPEAT..............
• RULE4-->The rule 4 got messed up when i found that MAMA ICECREAM is a 'home made icecream'.. the rule says that the home made food never makes me fat...so i ended up in having Mama icecream as frequently as having atleast one cup daily for a very long time...(After all!! Whats wrong in having just one cup a day!!! ??) There are nearly 36 flavours of the icecream..Offcourse i have tried all of them...'Cookies and Cream' is the best one..This year i had one cup on on 20th Jan and the other on 9th Feb... .. :(.. without MAMA, I am really missing all the fun of life......
• RULE5-->Well.. I used to be very religious..and at that time i made it for sure not to fall in love with anything but food..It somehow became my prayer.....a prayer that i regularly offered to keep myself away from the horrible wordly sins.. It was basically an attempt to get Sawab.. so that i may go to heaven.. To have the delicious food available there..

These were the 'few' logical mistakes that transformed me from a slim and smart Sameer of 33'' waist to a fat but smart Sameer of something between 38" and 40".. (Please note the intentional use of smart in both the descriptions)

Anways, i was talking about the story that started in Summer of 2003... The story has different episodes..telling different phases of my life.. telling that i have lived alone for a long time...When you are alone you try to find things that can keep you happy.. For me the search resulted in Computer games and Food... So i fell in love with Starcraft , warcraft 3 along with Rahat Bakery and Mama's icecream.. I used to have lunch in office.. and then at night i wondered like zombies in search of any new 'untried 'bakery or a new good restaurant...It really feels like a loser When you go and sit all alone in a restuarant to have food ..but who cares!!!......Intially my bicycle used to be my partner in crime... These days my princess Subaru is carrying me to far away lands for the sole purpose of trying a 'NEW' taste..... Most of the times i am already full when i TRY something new, .. but ....well!! you know ...curiousity !!!!....It even killed the cat.. ...

My food story also tells about my improper knowledge of food constituents ..i.e i have never able to learn what is protien , what is fat , what is a carbohydrate...etc..etc..( now dont be surprised..i cant even differentiate between chicken and beaf sometimes ) ..so many times i ended up in eating a FAT rich diet that i thought was a PURELY PROTEIN diet.....Impressed.. :).. example: many times I have had maionese rich salads thinking they will help me in dieting.. (Chicken pineapple is still my favourite)

My food story marks 1st April 2004 as the day...when The desire to look smarter.. (Note: I intentionally used the word 'Smarter' and not 'smart')..made me start a daily walk from my the then office..PTA..to my..the then home... It was a long walk from from F-5..(near secretariat) ..to G-9 .(.Peshawar moore)...Now thats a long walk...a really long walk of 2.5 hours... I used to take the blue area route ...walking continuosly along the busy jinnah avenue used to be fun.... This continued for 3 months..... Did i lose any weight.......No.!!! .... really??.....Yes.!!!...Why???Wasnt it too much of a physical activitiy.???... ......Oh!!..! i guess i forgot to mention that there used to be a stop in my walk.. Accidently at Rahat Bakery.. It 'somehow' happened to be exactly in the center of my walking route..... So a stay at Rahat Bakers for half an hour simply balanced the equation..and so i remained in my shape even because of the 3 months of walk..

My walk ended with a foot infection that made me rest on bed for 2 weeks.. :(

After the foot infection recovery, i joined a Gym..October 2004... Gave some 4000 bucks for 3 months period.. went there for only 4 or 5 times in those 3 months.. It was really boring ...and when there is anything boring .. i have to keep myself happy....you know the rule 2..which results in rule 3 ..which results in rule 2...which results in rule 3..which results in...............................

The story recently had a new episode .. I joined a Martial Art club ( Its called Kyo Kushan).. and i also started wearing a weight-reducing-belt regularly.. I had seen its ad on TV... The ad shows a houswife working in kitchen and mysteriously a sales woman enters into her kitchen and asks her to try the new belt.. The housewife wears it and after an hour of wearing it , says she has lost an inch of her waist... so now I am trying the belt..and mind you..this is different from the infamous Suana belt whose ad is shown a lot these days on TV.... The very idea of Suvana belt is quite pathetic...One is supposed to sit near a power plug all the time while wearing it as it is not battery operated.... I heard some people got burns on stomach because of it...

Anyways, i was narrating a story...The story now tells you about this weekend ...25th and 26th Feb..

FRIDAY NIGHT (24th Feb)

After my kyokushan class, I made a visit to SUBWAY on the firday night.. You know!!!..they bake their own bread..they happen to have a board of neon lights saying so.. It was the first time i was 'trying' it.. When i ordered, the guy asked..Which bread will you like to have... At first it seemed a stupid question.. then i got the idea that they probably serve different types of breads..and i just guessed that if there are different types of breads then there will be a 'plain' one among the too....so i said.. the plain one.. it was a fluke...a correct one.... They guy took a long bread from oven and asked me wether i would like to have 6" or 12".. The question had the potential to offend an innocent person like me....but i remained kool and told him to give me 6"..He cut the bread into half and made me a 6" long burger.. (and i was thinking of having a burger 6" in height..:( .. )..It was really fun watching the guy fill the chicken roasted burger with a chutki of chicken pieces and then flling it with all kind of vegetables and sauces. The act of picking precisely three slices of tomatoes .. then putting only two in the burger .. throwing back one..then picking up three cucumber slices..putting two in the burger and throwing back one..and then repeating the same act with all vegetables .. did not make much sense to me..but i guess thats an art of burger-making which an amateur like me can never understand..

Anyways, i had the burger..It was good..really tasty... though i believe that with all those vegetables and sauces, it would have tasted the same had i ordered someother burger... The burger didnt really fill my mighty stomach..but i liked it...and it did gave me an idea of starting the search of this new type of food.. The diet food..

I went to DWATSON.. had a look at the shelf of diet foods... bought skimmed milk powder..and an expensive cereal (It was Bran Flakes:Post Healthy Classics) that promised to make me lose 10 lbs... :) ... Later , i read that it promised to do so in 12 weeks.. :(.....i.e if you eat only and only this cereal for that long.. along with increased physical activities...

SATURDAY (25th Feb)

From morning till night , I had the cereal some 6 , 7 times..though it is supposed to be taken only twice a day..and that too as a complete replacement of food.. Good dieting right!!!.. but i suppose it is rich in fiber so i wont be putting up by overeating it.. At night, i had another Subway burger ..This time i ordered a different burger and as expected had the same identical taste...this time i looked at the ingredients carefully.. On my way back , i brought frozen shami kabab, brown bread and some vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, salad kay patay, onions, Shimla mirch etc)...and at home i made a real wonderfull Subway sandwitch .... ate two sandwitches...(reminder: i had just returned from Subway).... Good diet right!!! .. and then I had a cup full of cereal before sleeping..

SUNDAY -(today -26th Feb)

Sunday morning..I changed the whole shape of my room.. How!! Oh i just cleaned all the mess..The process took my whole day.. Had the left over Shami Kababs and a lot of Diet Cereal as lunch......... At night , i went out and brought some more vegetables and 'K&N chicken patties' assuming they wont have any fat.. ....Made and ate two mighty SUBWAY style sandwitches..Made two for tomorrow ..which i will have at lunch ...

And i forgot to mention that i bought two sauces to help me continue having this diet food ..These are Mustard sauce and Mitchells Mexican Salsa ..Mustard Sauce is my all time favourite...I didnt like its taste ealier but there was a time ...a GIKI time...when i made it bound on myself to eat the 'Double Hot Dog Burger' ...Since it had double i.e two sausages so i always opted for it..As a result I got very much familiar with the mustard sauce which was alway more in the Double Burger..

I didnt like the Mitchells Mexican Salsa..yukh!! its a mixture of onion, garlic and chillie cooked up in vinegar..

OK..now i am leaving to make a cup full of cereal ..with the Skimmed milk of course ...i will have one now...This will be my night cup...and one in morning before going to office.. that will be my morning cup.

May God bless me and my dieting.. May my story have a good end..

And yeah!! i really hated the Mitchells Mexican Salsa sauce so you can have it from me anytime...

Protests in islamic world against the cartoons

This is the first time i am writing about my views on something..It might be somewhat difficlut for me..as the thing i am going to write about is very sensitive and i do not want to hurt anyone.. I believe in freedom of speech but not in insulting people.. All human beings should be respected..

One very important thing: I am not going to comment on the act of the Danish News paper.. Whatever they do is their act.. My views are about the reaction to it.

Ok.. here it goes..

If any body ever disgraces me or my beloved... then this is my nature to get angry.. so i do get angry...Every human being does...but , if i love the targetted person, than i try my best to keep the insult secret..I will not go out in the streets yelling and telling everyone that i or my beloved has been called with such such words .. This will mean that i am adding more to the the initial insult. What the muslims worldover have done is that they made so much cry that the cartoons become the talk of the town. and thus it became possible for those millions of people to see the cartoons who would not have seen it otherwise. We told everyone that we have been insulted...adding a lot more to the initial insult..


Islam is a religion of peace and it orders the followers to control their emotions at all time.. Our prophet was a great person.. someone who had a very difficult life... Giving a paradigm shift to people is really a very difficult job ..and people always get offended when someone tries to do that..but the prophet kept doing it his whole life...... Moslty he used to go for preaching alone.. ..and this made him face all kinds of people , all kinds of comments and all kinds of tortures.. People said him bad words..people said him nasty words..people threw garbage on his way..on him...People tortured him as much as they could...and it used to be his response that made him win hearts of his opponents...He was able to withstand all kind of tortures and was able to respond to it gently..There was once a time when he went to Taif , gave his message there, told the people about what they never wanted to hear and then faced the most torturing time of his life. When he returned from Taif , he was completely wet in blood....from head to toe.. An angel appeared in front of him asking his permission to destroy the whole of the Taif.. Taif is a valley ...located between two mountains.. The angel offered that he can crush the valley within the mountains... Considering all the humiliation, the prophet could have desired for a complete wipe out of the people who had given him so much pain but..the prohphet did the best thing with the people...He forgave them..


I understand that there are people who would say that there is no comparison in the two situations.. though I see a complete mapping...The incidents of the Prophet (SAW) are there to guide us ..to make us understand the kind of behaviour we are supposed to adopt in different situtations.. Prophet (SAW) would not have responded to the Danish Cartoons.. He faced worse things in his life and his responses were really great . We are supposed to follow his examples and not the wild beast within us.. Religion is all about taming our wild instincts .. If we can not tame it , if we can not make it behave the way the religion wants to then there is no point in praying to God.. He is not in need of our prayers . The kind of people He likes are those who can make his religion prosper by doing good and great.. through their actions...and not through their words..

Preaching doesnt mean standing in the middle of an already selected group of people to talk about the pre-agreed facts of the group to get attention and a temporary respect. In my opinion , preaching is done through your actions in extremely bad conditions... your behaviour in anger shows what you are .. like the prophet who preached by forgiving the people of Taif after all the torture and humiliation....Thats the real act of preaching...the real person hidden within us comes out when we are angry...and it is this person who preaches the true teachings .....It is the sound of actions of that 'real person' who effects the hearts of its audience..

There is an important thing about the difficult situations that we face in our daily lives... the way islam wants people to interpret thier difficult situations is to consider them (the situations) as a test... Its like a question paper in an exam.. He makes easy questions and he makes diffcicult questions.. so no matter what kind of question you get..you are supposed to answer it...you are not supposed to make angry comment on it...cause Cursing the situation is like cursing your examiner... whenever you are giving a paper and you get a difficult question, You do not curse your examiner ...instead, you try to answer it , making sure that you get the best marks for it..thiking about it more than the other easier questiona..but you do not yell on the question.....Parallel: The current situation is something from God for the muslim..with the sole purpose to think of an answer to it.. not to go out in the streets to complain about it.. The rule is that you accept the God's given situation and then you see how are you supposed to behave... ...Complaining never helps.. Muslims are supposed to see the whole matter with an open mind.. They must see where they are going wrong.. What do the cartoons mean.. Why arent they . the Muslims, being respected... .. Based on the analysis , they must correct themselves... They must set their paths straight... every criticism leads to an oppertunity to become a modified being.. so the criticism should always be welcomed..

The cartoons accuse mulims of violance..They do not say anthing against the prophet..(Infact, i believe there is nothing anyone can ever say against the prophet(SAW)...but that is a whole seperate issue)....and what the muslim do is that they come out in the street , burning buildings , cars , markets and killing their own people... Thus, showing violence ..proving the point ..


The whole Islam's philiosophy (or perhaps all religions') is to refine oneself....to get better and to act in the best way possible.. Islam doesnt dictate us how we should be treated..it tells us how we should treat others....so the rules are for us.. The world outside the muslim domain is allowed to do whatever they want, they have not been given the responsibility.. We have been ...We are the responsible ones... It is us who have to set things straight.. Not them... It is expected from them to make mistakes ...but not from us.. 'cause we are the muslims and we come packed with a whole set of responsiblities..


When you properly follow a religion for sometime , a time comes when the religion becomes a part of you.. You start doing the religious acts without even knowing them.. At that time, you dont have to follow the religion... why? because then there is no need to.. You become the religion..

I wonder why we are failing to reach that level.... May be because it requires thinking and the way we are brought makes us stop thinking..We are clearly told not to think on the religious issues as that can make us go stray..in reality, when you think about something with an open mind you become more clear about it.. Seeing something from both perspective makes us see the real thing... It does not really have to take us to the wrong side... And those who are afraid to take such a risk are afraid and are not sure of their religion.. They are not sure that the religion is strong enough to pull them back..

I say..if the aim is to have people having such kind of a religion ...then there is no need of such religion..a proper understanding of the religion is what makes people able to make decision at run time..in their angry moments...in their frustrated moments.. in their down times...thats what makes the inner person behave like a human being ..

I said earlier ..that i wont comment on the act of Denamrk's press..I should not..They are not muslims and they are not supposed to act the muslim way.. but its us who are supposed to act in the muslim way... Islam does not tell us how we should be treated...Islam doesnt dictate to non-muslims about what they should do and what they should not..It is for us.. the muslims...It gives orders to the muslims only ...

One thing that really amazes me is that we are full of hate against west.. ..we are told in our childhood that west is evil.. When i grew up and when i joined a big religious organization , i was repeatedly told that life of the people in west is like some shit packed in a shiny tin container.. The container shines from outside , looks attractive but from inside it is shit... (A lighter note:later i used to think: wow!! so there are people who are attractive.. atleast from outside.)

I am not very much in favour of the west life...or the west people...cause I have never seen how is the life out there...but i am strongly in favour of the realization of the idea that the Muslims are responsible for every thing here.. They are supposed to bring peace here..they are supposed to spread islam by preaching through their acts...they are supposed to show how to forgive and to sacrifice and to win respect for themselves...that is our purpose ...thats why we are here...

Me busy

In the past few weeks ..time passed like a moving bullet .. Too much do to.. Too little time.. Sitting late in office has become a habit now... A few things that have happened to me are:

• I passed my first Teradata paper...There are 6 papers which everyone in NCR has to pass; i passed the first one.. gave a test after a very long time..It was my first CBT (computer based test) ever.....I was EXTREEEEMLY TENSED before the paper..(getting tensed is my habbit since the time i started appearing in exams)... but i got 97% marks..WOW..!!! will be giving other 5 papers soon. After that i will become Teradata Master and i will be awarded with a Jacket (not with my name on it , but 'Teradata Master' on it) by the company.
  
• I was able to 'maintain' my body figure and weight for an year.. I remained 95 Kg heavy and enjoyed a 38-40" waist ...but now once again my weight has become directly proportional to time so i joined a Kyo-Kuschen club as an equal and opposite reaction .It is a 'mixed' martial arts club..where i will be working out 3 days a week for nearly an hour..I have been to such clubs before but couldnt continue..I have been to only 1 class uptill now..and i really enjoyed it...
  
• I am getting emotionally connected to the cartoon protests that are being 'performed' all over the country.. It was shocking to know about the destructive steps that people took in the name of religion. I have developed very strong opinions about the whole Cartoon issue which i will write later whenever i'll get time..
  
• Most important: i finally managed to configure the world's smallest camera (the shop from where it was bought ,claimed so ) after 2 years of buying it in 2004 ...Its not that I had been working on it for all that time ..I just got enough time on the Muharram vocations ...This means that my blog will be having pics soon.

Thats it.. I plan to give the next NCR/Teradata paper on the next saturday so i might not be able to have time again..cause this next paper is more difficult and has 2 books and a web based course to study..Apart from that i have my laptop harddisk full of movies (KingKong, Scrubs Seasons etc.)..so i will remain busy for a long time..