How Arabs Eat

Have you ever seen an Arab eating rice ... ofcourse u haven't ...

Having worked among Arabs Egyptians, Saudis, Yemenis, Palestinians etc. for almost a year now i have gone for lunch with them many a times ... and i found their way of eating, rice in particular, very strange .. we all know its according to the Sunnah to eat with your right hand and there is one Hadith which says to eat in small bites, if i am not wrong ..

They are ok with the first part but small bites ... no ... either i am wrong or they havent heard of this Hadith ... they dont eat using their fingers .. they use the whole palm of their hand... what we eat in three bites .. is one bite for them ... and the strangest thing is , its common in all Arabs

I went out with a Saudi guy, he had studied in London and spoke English fluently, which is very rare here, and he dressed nicely and evrything ... but when he started eating.. it was like he is eating for the last time .. i mean .. it was totally barbaric ...

Real Time World Statistics

It says on this site that it is "managed by an international team of developers, researchers, and volunteers with the goal of making world statistics available in a thought-provoking and time relevant format to a wide audience around the world. "

"Sources are carefully selected to include only data published by the most reputable organizations and statistical offices in the world."

"The counters that display the real-time numbers are based on Worldometers’ algorithm that processes the latest and most accurate statistical data available together with its estimated progression to compute the current millisecond number to be displayed on each counter based on the specific time set on each visitor’s computer clock. "

Cool stuff huh! You can suggest a statistic for the next month. My suggestion was "Amount of food wasted every day".

Holy Crap!!

Once in a while I visit this place called Old Airport Area .... its mostly empty .... only a bunch of people here and there ... having huqqa , taking a walk etc. Its very peaceful there ....

It was very hectic today at work .... I had to go there .... so I was listening to the radio and just reclining in the seat and relaxing in the light breeze .... when I felt need for a smoke .... but I didnt have a lighter neither does my car lighter work .....

Seeing a car at a driving distance, I thought why not ask its owner .... It was a little dark there .... so I couldnt see clearly .... only a person squatting near the hood ..... I very slowly drove close to his car ... the man was staring at me all this time .. motionless .... then he flinched and did something with his hands in a quick motion .. . what was he doing? the guy was taking a shit!!

I moved onwithout coming to a complete stop.

Tere Bin

I was coming to work today in a friend's car and he was playing all of Atif's songs ... Tere Bin , Ham Kis Gali Ja Rahay Hain etc. and instantly I remembered a memorable trip we had in our University.

We planned to go to some Water Sport Park which was outside Karachi and Uzair said he knew the route very well. We rented a car on a Sunday morning and everyone was ready in no time. Awais and Ubaid were on Ubaid's bike.

The trip was long and with "Ham Kis Gali Ja Rahain Hain" playing it seemed longer. We had an incident with the Tullas where the driver did not have licence ... but our Navy cards saved the day ....

We kept driving and Uzair kept saying "Just a little bit more ... I know the place like the back of my hand" and after driving like this for at least 2 hours we reached a place where the urdu alphabets were not used ... ok i am being too dramatic ... it was Sindhi but it was weird ... we had reached Thatta ... damn you Syed Uzair Rafat!!

Anyway we decided to eat something .... what could we get to satisy our hunger without wasting much time .. fruit, biscuits and stuff ... there for the first time in my life I saw fake money being used .. ON US! ... ok .. after filling ourselves drive back to that Mystery Land ....

Half way back we found that Park ... and someone had pointed out that this is it but Uzair ....
But we were glad that we finally made it ... Little did we know what was in store for us ..... we got down ... got ready... "The Park is closed till April" were the first words of the guard ...

All in all .. a great trip and I have Atif Aslam to thank for making it so memorable.

I Was Right

The Oscar night has passed and we all know the winners. As predicted all the main BAFTA winners took home the Oscar too except Sean Penn.

Sean Penn won for Milk which is based on a true story of California's first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk. He has also won an Oscar for Mystic River. I have watched both of them, Milk only recently .. and even though Mickey Rourke (for The Wrestler)was the favourite, having won the BAFTA and Golden Globe, I knew Sean would win.

I would recommend everyone to watch it ... And NO I'M NOT GAY!!

Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

I witnessed something the other day which is a perfect example of the title.

There are two phases of our project. Phase I and Phase II. Both are totally separate from each other and no one from this phase has any relation with the other phase. There is this Indian guy who is QA/QC Engineer in Binladin for Phase II. He visits our office almost daily. Our office seats site managers for both Phases.

So this guy came to see someone from Phase II. He did not find him, but he found one of our site engineers from Phase II in the office of Phase I Site Manager (Nael Narouz). He went in and sat on Nael's seat rather awkwardly. "Krich" sound of something breaking. The back of the chair was towards the PC and there was a USB plugged in.

"Oh I'm soooo sorry.. I did'nt see the USB" ... "Ekhrib Baitak ... This wasn't my flash ... what am i going to tell him" The arabic part means ... tera satsyanas ho

Then they tried to make it work ... pluggin in and removing repeatedly .. nothin' it wasn't detected ... it was a disaster already ... when, that clumsy dude hit a cup of coffee and spilled it all over the table with important paperwork on it ...

His face went red and Nael's too but for different reasons !! Nael became mad ... he started throwing all the papers on the floor like crazy. and I .. I couldn't stop laughing ... while they were trying to soak up the coffee with tissues ...

I told the guy to leave.. he was reassuring that he will bring a new flash drive ... I said " Leave now before u fumble something else" ... "How much worse can it get?" ... "You could kill someone!!"

Taliban of Saudi Arabia

I met a friend yesterday after a month or so... I dont see a lot of him as his job requires him to travel to different cities ... Riyadh, Makkah, Madinah, Unaizah, Jizan and QASEEM.

When I asked him about his last trip to Qaseem, his first words to me were "I must have commited a big sin in my life .. thats why i was sent to Qaseem". Here's his story...

He is an RTU Commissioning Engineer and obviously it requires a lot of physical work and mental stress.. so at the end of the day he relaxes himself by "chic hunting".

First let me make it clear what "chic hunting" means here ... it just means to see a woman's head uncovered and to appreciate her curves that is if u find one ... thats all ... So the first day after work he went out for his sacred duty ... and what he finds ... first of all there werent many to look at ... among those who were in the market not a single woman's face was uncovered .... the only "skin" he saw was the thin line of uncovered eyes.

Then one day, he was driving around with a little music playing ... and Mutawas (religious police) stopped him and started searching his car ... he was told that Sound Systems weren't allowed ... he didnt have one as it was a company car.

Then one evening he tried to enter Geant Shopping Centre ... and he was denied entrance .. In Jeddah, singles arent allowed only on Fridays "Families Only" day. But in his case it was a normal working day.

Anyway, he is very relieved to return to Jeddah and now he is posted to the same project where I am.

Qaseem is known for its Radicalism.. Most of the Imams here are from this area ... and u r sure if an Imam is Qaseemi he will make long Duas against US and Israel not only in Friday prayers but also normal days in Fajr and Maghrib prayers ... just like they did during these recent Israel aggressions ... I am not against the Duas ... just to give u a clear picture..