Crow's Nest...

Love is blind indeed. But the worst part is when it takes away your ability to see and makes you blind. That is a pity indeed. Then again those who have had the experience might want to differ from this; Their own prerogative I hold no bars. I would like to talk about the love of a sister for her brother here and nothing more. Yes, for all those love birds love has many different facets hitherto unknown to your gullible minds. For a sister a brother is the ultimate truth that can never be denied. For her he is the superman who can overcome any and many obstacles without so much as a sweat on his forehead. He is always right. All the wrong things he does are not his fault but a consequence of fate of which he has been the unlucky target. His words are sacred than the ten commandments. His deeds amounting to those of deity worship. His don'ts an absolute no go area and his permissible the only allowed things in the religion of mankind. A sister can go to any lengths in pro...

Did the dew today, first time after AKU. Back then it comprised an important part of my breakfast, lunch and dinner with a few tosses in between. Any cold drink would do then. But since the time my stomach started sending signals in an adverse fashion to the acidic effect of these cold drinks I have had few and those too in limited quantities. Anyhow I did the dew today and very very surprisingly it didn't taste good at all! I do remember there were times when every so called Muslim in this country vehemently recorded his expressions against these foreign cold drinks. Many arguments were sighted in favour of giving up these acidic drinks. All of a sudden it had stared to matter that these caused various ill effects on the body and teeth rotted away. Most of the prevalent diseases were in one way or the other the result of these poisonous liquids. But now things have changed back. Now there are locally made sub-standard substitutes available in the market (The foreign brand...

I take one about everyday now. Not the usual walk in the park, as the phrase goes, but the unusual one. It is a bit brisk on the pace and has no green grass under my feet. But still I would prefer to call my thirty minute exercising routine a walk in the park. The endorphins are euphoric and bring the stress levels down considerably. Besides that my body gets time to get out of the wedlock that it has with the study chair. This is a true prototype eastern wedlock. Both are happy and unhappy with each other at the same time. The study chair has to embrace my body and there is no way out while my whole self starts aching after a usual day of rocking. Numbness that overcomes different areas of the body is not ecstatic at all yet the movement of the limbs is surely not to be missed for a dance of a sufi soul. Water is a powerful and obstinate force. If it falls on the rock for a long period of time it gets its way eventually. Similar analogies can be seen in human mentality and ...

Robert Fisk has a magnum opus out and it has been reviewed to my liking in this week's DAWN. The title is The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East (ISBN 1-84115-007-X). Some of the excerpts from the review point towards the nature of the content and I must say they are interesting enough to make the book reach my wishlist. ...As a war correspondent, Fisk has covered every war during the last 30 years in the Middle East and on its periphery from Afghanistan, Algeria and Nagorno-Karabakh to the Islamic heartland between the Gulf and the Mediterranean, a land drenched with blood: the countless Israeli raids into Lebanon, including the 1982 invasion, the Lebanese civil war, Hafez al Assads crackdown on Muslim Brothers in Hama, the Iranian revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, the Kuwait war, Hizbollahs resistance to Israel in south Lebanon and the Iraq war. It is a personal account of the wars juxtaposed with history... ...Fisks magnum opus is more than a history of...

Where is my pencil? Heck! It was here just a moment ago on my table. Oh! It must be under this book. No! It isn't there. OK then it must be under that book. Hiding from my searchlights. But Na! not there either. Try looking for it in your graduation mug which holds all your writing ad highlighting weaponry. Alas! can't see it there. Hell where has the damn pencil vanished? Its not a needle and nor is my table a haystack that I can't find one simple looking pencil. Then there is only one more possibility and that is you must have dropped it off the table. It must have slipped or something. Oh no! Now I will have to move myself _my so important self _ and look for it under the table. Well I am not ready to undertake this huge task. Atleast not now. It is a gigantic, mammoth of a thing to move myself and look for it down there. Understandably I am not ready for this endeavour right now. Let us postpone it till some other time and use a spare pencil for the mo...

23rd March 1940 was the blessed day when Pakistan resolution was passed in the annual convention of All India Muslim League. The foundation stone for the country was laid and the struggle for this piece of land started in earnest. God be our witness we accomplished a gigantic task in no more than 7 years from the day this resolution was passed. 23rd March 1940 was really a turning point in the history of Muslim nation in the sub-continent. We won what was rightfully ours to begin with _ freedom. This freedom came at a costly price but still it was worth it and if our short history is any measure most of us have cashed in on the deal pretty much in lust and dollars. It has been a win win situation for the rulers and loose loose situation for the common man who is yet to see the real side of freedom. The disturbing news is that more and more people are joining the ruler class and starting to tear at the pieces of this land. May God guide us to the right path. If army rule is cons...

Anxiety has gripped my entire soul. I have been rendered useless and completely bland. I am not able to concentrate at all. There is complete panic and the worst part is that no one can help me with this problem. I have to find a way out myself. If only Allah will help me now. The pathology is getting out of salvage and into doom. Frightening facts for me but very true and more alarming. I have realized, much to my discontent a myself, that over the past three years or so i have lost all abilities to concentrate on a task rather i have been living a livid dream for the past three years where all i did was neglect and ignore responsibilities. I have mastered the task of shrugging the shoulders at my duties. All i need are distractors and internet serves one such distraction. There is not much that i do but still it is taking its toll. Prayers are needed but i guess now it is beyond that too!

As most of you know by now i am blogging blindly in blogger. Since the GOP has not raised its unsolicited and uncalled for ban on blogger websites i and many other PAkistanis are not able to visit any of the weblogs hosted by the famous weblog host blogger. A petition has been created to help the cause and if you stumble across it please take time to read and sign. http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/no_censorship_in_pakistan

22nd March is the birthday of my younger nephew. He will turn one today. I haven't had the previlage of playing with him in my lap as of yet but i hope to soon inshaAllah. His nana, nani and mamoon wish him a very happy birthday and a prosperous life years!

Putting to effective use the vocational skills of a nation is a skill in itself. Certainly many who have taken the hot seat were not very apt in this skill. This is unlucky for this collection of 144 million people. The political scene in the NWFP and Balochistan provinces of the country is getting worst by the day. I smell a long and tedious civil war. Much to the delight of all those who do not wish well for this land but to the annoyance of many die hard lovers of this land of the supposedly pure. Just the other day a police convoy in DI Khan district was blown to pieces with a remote controlled device. Seven lives were lost in a click of a button. The perpetrators of this crime are evil criminals and no earthly punishment can serve them justice. But then again the governance of the region is not something to be proud of either. Evil begets evil. High tech devices are for the rich of this country only. Being a collection of beggars we can not afford to equip our security ...

It is the love of my life, so to speak. It is one thing that I so very desperately wanted to have on my desk for so many years. It is one thing I like since the time I have gotten accustomed to the art of writing _ well not really _ or maybe! We are all aware of the pains it gives to sharpen a pencil time and again just to keep the lead rubbing the paper and turn all that is white into black. Singular problem with lead point pencils is that they are very high maintenance. Their lead keeps on breaking and one has to sharpen them again and again. Now there are two ways of sharpening a pencil, that I know of. One use a knife and two use a mechanical sharpener that fits on your desk nicely and lives forever. Anyhow of all the methods that I know the former is the best and most reliable method. Pencils sharpened through knife seldom give way to case of broken lead in the middle of writing. But as they say no gains without pains. The knife should have a solid iron blade. It should...

One interesting phenomenon that I came across was that statins are not recommended for merely lowering lipid levels but for reducing atheromatous plaque disease. Although raised lipid levels are a risk factor but statins are given based on the risk stratification of the patient keeping in view the age, sex, smoking history, weight, prior cardiovascular event, diabetes and blood pressure. Infact there is a table for doing this risk stratification that we read during our medical school days. It is called the Farmingham table after the famous Farmingham study. The recommended target levels for patients in whom statins are initiated varies from LDL-C Statins that are patented with multinationals are very expensive but almost equally efficacious to those that are free of this problem of patents. The price difference is almost 10 fold. This is remarkable for those who have to use these drugs for a very long term. Simvastatin is one such cheap drug. Lovastatin is another. Both drugs a...

I will be mirroring my posts at http://moiz.wordpress.com/ till the time ban remains in force on blogger.

   That is the name I have given to the playlist that runs while I am studying. It is exactly 4 hours 2 minutes and 40 seconds long. The time that I am studying for in the morning shift. It is the same playlist that plays everyday non stop to provide a useful environment while I am going full throttle on my daily quota of USMLE prep material. Since rock and roll was the corner stone of my life in the university hostel the list starts with a number by Guns and Roses where they are 'Knocking on the heaven's door'. Although I have this song by every great singer who has sung it but I particularly like the one by this group. This sets the pace for the day elevates the mood and gives me five good minutes to finish my coffee cup. By this time The Doors come into play with their 'Roadhouse Blues', 'Love street', 'Spanish Caravan' (my personal favourite for a long time), LA Woman and Riders on the storm. About 20 odd minutes of true rock it is about ...

My tour de France has come to a miserable end. Last week I set out on a visit to multiple cities in pakiland. The reasons for the visits were multiple social obligations. During the visit I had a chance to visit the friendships of my friends and relations of my relatives. Junaid and Usman were ever excellent hosts in Lahore and Murtaza and Uzair in Islamabad. When they are around you don't have to worry for anything. Everything comes taken care of courtesy all four of them. I also met Waheed, Fawad, Hussain and Ali. Life seemed to be back on the AKU track atleast for a day or two. Lahore visit was cut short owing to family commitment. The very same obligations took me to Islamabad. I had the chance of driving my family to Islamabad on the motorway for the first time. I was travelling without my license and that made me overtly cautious. Negotiated the deadly turns of the salt range quite successfully and managed to over take a few vehicles with my over loaded car. Whi...

So Lahore it is. After a long break we have gotten together in Lahore this time at Usman's brother's wedding. It is not so much the wedding that brought us together but the urge to see each other, meet each other. Thus far it is going pretty good. Updating each other on our daily routines and sharing anecdotes on managing USMLE prep stress within its bearable limits. Life is strange and so are its turns. We can only hope but can never predict what destiny has in store for us. This uncertainity is the spice of life that makes it so colourful yet colourless at the same time. We may wish to be together much more than we actually do but this is what life has in store for us in greater quantities. Movie time so i have got to go!

This makes a perfect suicidal note, Maybe I tried reaching out for something that was too far. Maybe I have lost the game even before I started. Maybe I am not fit for this game. Maybe I am too confused. Maybe I am bewildered. Maybe I will never be able to regain confidence in myself. Maybe all this is fake. Maybe all this is true and I am a looser. Maybe, just maybe, its all a dream _ a bad one. Maybe I will never wake up. Maybe my dream will turn into reality just because it will never end. Maybe all realities are never ending dreams or dreams that never end are realities. There is no purpose to my life. Maybe I am not meant to have a life. Maybe I am wasting my life and time. But then again time is not mine nor is it mine to waste. Maybe this is the end for me! eh looser!

Our nation is such a perfect example of acedia, sloth but not indolence. We want to be the masters of this earth and whatever is beyond the skies. We want to conquer and subdue not only each and every inhabitant of this world but also any aliens that might be hovering nearby. We think it is our birth right to be born as leaders who are fed with a golden spoon in their mouth. Not a single soul will you find in this country that does not utilize his/her working time in day dreaming about becoming a hero. We aspire a lot yet fail to deliver. There can be two reasons. First we will explore the easiest of the explanations. We are not sincere in our aspirations. We might say that we want to become whatever we say we want to become but we really don't want to. Deep down inside we know our two penny worth and have an idea, even if vague, that we are not even capable of living an independent life. Sincerity is obviously lacking. And this is not only true for those who aspire to ...

In my last post I talked about the problems that I was facing in opening some of the webpages. It turns out that our Govt. is actively blocking the IP address of the blogger domain. The reason they give is that some of the sites on the blogger blogs contain objectionable content. This is completely absurd and uncalled for. In any case the censor is too weak and there are a million work arounds. This is what my ISP wrote to me in response to an enquiry about this censor I have got the response from our Network administrator I.e All the subdomains of the blogspot hosted on the server 66.102.15.101 are blocked from the ITI on the strict instructions from the FIA because of the unathorized and anti Islamic contents so they have block the IP of the server rather then URL blocking. We are getting many other complains for the said IP and webhost. Our written complaint is already submitted to the higher authorities of ITI.

I am a lucky soul. I have parents to take care of me and help me and most importantly guide me. Society can be a pretty stressful entity. It requires of an individual a lot of input in terms of right attitudes and behaviours. Also taxes on individuals capability to show restraint and composure. Society is very sensitive too. It has to be given the right amount of importance or it demolishes an individual in more than one way. All these skills of handling society are not innate to any human beings. We are all animals afterall. We are not born with this golden spoon in our mouth. We learn all these things from our parents. First when we are young we do so by the mere act of copying whatever our parents do. Then as we gain rational insight the process becomes more of a dialogue with our inner self and what our parents act expect us to behave.    Having said and thought all that think for a second about a child who has lost his parents at a very early stage in lif...

   Is it just me or everyone else using blogger? I am not able to open any blogger blogs for the past two days. Tried pinging and the request timed out. I traced the route to my blog and the request could not go beyond the lahore Paknet. There seems to be a problem with Paknet. Since everything is working pretty well from here. The strange thing is when i mask my IP address i am able to open blogger blogs. I hope i am not being blocked. Even the posts could not be posted before i started using the anonymizer. This is pretty strange. I will contact blogger about this. Things are getting suspicious here. lol!

   Have you ever had a situation when you think that you are having a deja vu while you are not really sure if you are having a deja vu? I have that so often. the feeling of Deja vu and not having a Deja vu at the same time.    Yes, USMLE prep is coming to me now pretty hard. Worst than ever before. I am having all kind of things that tell me that times ahead are not so sweet. Its just three more months before I take my Step 1. I have just finished my first read. Tomorrow will be the beginning of my second read. I am expecting to put in double the time and quadruple the effort. I know I will never be able to do that but still there is no harm in shooting for the stars is there?    One serious concern being my aching neck. The pain has become unbearable and is causing fever early in the morning. There is some tough inflammation going on in my backbone. I have been taking NSAIDs for the condition with very little relief. I know I n...