Life is short, have an affair!

They say men are polygamous by nature or for them monogamy is not an option. And no matter how educated or illiterate they are, almost every man happens to have a few skeletons in their closet. If they didn't had any extramarital affair then it's probably because they never got a chance or they were just plain too ugly to have a second look at. And well it's fun when their private stories become public and everybody likes to judge them and enjoys the latest spiced up stories telling some of their darkest and shameful secrets. But it's interesting how people decide to punish some of them while embrace others. Let me put forward two cases.

Tiger Woods doesn't need an introduction, nor even a link to Wikipedia article, I have just added it out of habit. If you don't know about him then.....come on, that's not possible!

So this legendary golfer agreed that life is short, so he didn't had just one affair, he had like a dozen of them. Now this guy had it all, fame, fortune, a beautiful wife and two kids, still he was clearly too worried about the shortness of life. In late 2009, around 19 women claimed having an affair with him and as the media pressure increased, within a month he eventually admitted infidelity and asked for apology. He was adjudged as habitual adulterer and had to join a sexual rehab program. He paid large sums of money to many of his mistresses and his wife (to make her stay with him,) then he took leave from golf, he lost majority of the endorsement with companies terming him as 'not the right representative' for their product. In my personal opinion, even if he can't find a future in golf he still has his options. He can be asked to give lectures around the world explaining the right techniques of handling so many mistresses along with a wife and that's at the same time. I am sure many men would like to attend these lectures.

The important thing is that Tiger's fans were not happy with these affairs, Gallup survey showed that from 85% favorable rating, he plummet to 33%. Gallup editor termed it as an unprecedented drop considering 'for many years, Tiger was the most positively rated person.'
Clearly only 33% of the voters were either too happy with his dexterity at managing sexual affairs or termed it as his private affairs. Poor woods.

Now he is not the only public personality to have an extra interest in the fairer sex. If you happened to be in the nineties then you would remember a certain Bill Clinton who showed more than some interest in one of the interns working for him that's a certain Miss Lewinsky. That was probably the affair of that decade. But she wasn't the only name in his list of mischieves. The list includes Paula Jones , Kathleen Willey , Juanita Broaddrick , Gennifer Flowers, Elizabeth Ward Gracen, Sally Perdue, Dolly Kyle Browning. Clinton showed a patteren throughout of his career of having extramarital affairs but accepted only two of them that's Lewinsky and Gracen. In the case of Lewinsky, this is what he had to say to the people of America,

Now, I have to go back to work on my State of the Union speech. And I worked on it until pretty late last night. But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people. Thank you

Look at the tone of this statement! Mr. President is working for the people of America and should not be disturbed with false claims. Eventually he had to accept and this lie lead way to President's impeachment on the charge of perjury. As Hillary Clinton's biography (which is BTW the most boring piece on some of the most interesting events in the history of world, kudos to her for achieving this unachievable task) suggests, she too was mad at him and well it certainly takes a Hillary Clinton and her ambitions to pardon a cheat like Bill Clinton.

More importantly, irrespective of how much Republicans tried to use the sex scandal to sabotage his image, most of the Americans felt that this is a private matter of the President. As Gallup showed, at the start of his President-ship his approval rate was in 30s. In his second term and at the time of this renowned affair, his approval rates were around 50% and as the aftermath of impeachment's proceedings, they rose to a whooping 73%! He was eventually included in Gallup's list of most admired people of the 20th century.

So let's see, the head of the state lied by giving strong statements like above and obstructed the way of justice and..... American people were not just okay with that, they actually ended up liking him more!

So ...my only question is , what was wrong with Woods ? In fact his misdeeds are not really of national level, it's not like he is having an encounter with Lewinsky and then giving instructions to fire a missile on Osama Bin Laden. Is it the charisma of Clinton's personality or was it their party's mantra 'It's the economy, stupid!' ..... I have no idea. I am confused at the double standards showed here, either they both should have been forgiven or they both should have been punished. All I could say is , Poor woods, he didn't know it takes the looks and connections of a Bill Clinton to pull up a sex scandal.

So if you too think that life is short and you need to have an affair then you first need to call up human rights activist for equal right for philanderers.

Note : The title of this post is actually a tag line of a dating site who claim to provide means to have extra marital affairs, flings or just plain affairs : : http://www.ashleymadison.com/. Now open it on your own peril, if your partner saw it in your browsing history then they will either beat you or..... you might just end up giving them ideas, if you know what I mean ;).

God or No god

The good thing about God is no matter how much the Maulana Sahib, Pundit Jee or the priest tells you about His wrath and the level of decorum you should follow while talking to Him, in the end it's always between you and Him. None of these holy personalities could ever know how you share with Him your latest fantasies about the girl next door or every other idiotic and meaningless thing on planet Earth. Unlike His creations He has quite a sense of humor and doesn't really take things that seriously as everybody likes to claim, I mean if He did then sinners like us should have long gone.

While Muslims and Jews are busy in fighting over who is the chosen nation and Christians sending them both to hell while working hard for a heaven of their own, it is indeed very interesting to know that saving prophets God chooses those people to move the world forward who either refuses to believe in Him or have a problem with the conventional ideas of religion and a god who is more interested in punishing or rewarding. Let's check out the list,

Thomas Edison, one of the fathers of modernity, was an atheist. He mentioned

Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the religions

Alan Turing, the father of Computer Science was an atheist and on a side note, a gay too. The death of one of his love interests and friends made him stopped believing in God.

Albert Einstein, the father of modern physics, termed himself nor an atheist neither a pantheist but he too refused to believe in the normal concept of God. He said,

The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.

Sir Isaac Newton believed in the Almighty but he too refused to believe in the conventional concept of God and instead preferred the one where He designs along rational and universal principles

Steve Wozniak , Apple's co founder who is considered as someone who contributed significantly towards the personal computer revolution, is a very well known atheist.

Noam Chomsky, the father of modern linguistic mentioned,

if you ask me whether or not I'm an atheist, I wouldn't even answer. I would first want an explanation of what it is that I'm supposed not to believe in, and I've never seen an explanation.

Bruce Lee, the most influential martial artist did not believe in God either. He believed that any knowledge ultimately led to self-knowledge, and said that his chosen method of self-expression was martial arts.

Warren Buffet the most successful investor in the history who even inspired Bill gates claims to be an agnostic.

Bhagat Singh, the well known Indian freedom fighter, dropped his religious believes upon witnessing Hindu-Muslim riots who were initially united in fighting against Britishers. From his cell, he in fact wrote a paper 'Why I am an Atheist' and claimed that he used to be a firm believer in The Almighty, but could not bring himself to believe the myths and beliefs that others held close to their hearts. In this pamphlet, he acknowledged the fact that religion made death easier, but also said that unproved philosophy is a sign of human weakness

Jawaharlal Nehru, the architect of modern India, a leader during subcontinent's freedom fight against Britishers and the first and the longest serving Indian Prime Minister was in fact an atheist. This fact is pretty interesting considering subcontinent's obsession with socially correct religious concepts and the social stigmas attached with being an atheist.

Lance Armstrong, the cyclist who first beaten cancer and then went on to win Tour De France Race for seven consecutive years. Lance, who is an inspiration to millions around the world is an agnostic and mentioned,

at the end of the day, if there was indeed some body or presence standing there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged on whether I had lived a true life, not on whether I believed in a certain book, or whether I'd been baptized. If there was indeed a god at the end of my days, I hoped he didn't say, 'But you were never a Christian, so you're going the other way from heaven.' If so, I was going to reply, 'You know what? You're right. Fine.'

Mark Zuckerberg, the youngest self made billionaire may not be as revolutionary as the name mentioned above but his product that's FaceBook has certainly changed the way we socialize today.

These people believed that there is no god interested in counting your good and bad deeds, and this belief empowered them to do some groundbreaking work for the mankind, they never expected a god to come forward and clean up their mess and thus worked hard towards their goal. So God doesn't really take things that personally, I mean He doesn't say 'Oh you don't believe in me so I am going to make the world a hell for you.' In the end He valued the individuals who spend their time and efforts on understanding and appreciating the world He created.

On the contrary we who claim to believe in Him spends time in reciting some verses blindly or gathering meanings of our own choices. God's outdoor is of no interest to us since our afterlife is of more importance, our calculators are always on with the stress of adding as many good acts as possible, a 10 rupee note for a beggar could make us feel good about ourselves all day long, our five time prayers are our ticket to heaven. We are conventional and we are mediocre and ironically we claim to believe in a God who is omnipresent and omnipotent, who created the world and it's laws and the many galaxies beyond it. I mean shouldn't we do much greater things as we claim to have support of an omnipotent creator ?

With us having a strong belief in Him, why is it He doesn't choose us but some nonbelievers to do all these revolutionary things ?

I leave this question without an answer because it won't make any sense to minds who are worried about length of beards, religious attires and calculated prayers. We are born mediocre, we would live like one and this is how we will die.

Vote for me....please :)

Blog awards are taking place in Pakistan and my blog has been nominated for "Best Individual Blogger." No need to send me congratulatory notes, it's not that they 'pick' the blog, it's more like blog owners 'make' the submissions! so yeah , I submitted it by myself :P but that's a closely guarded secret and you gotta keep it to yourself, for my far away cousins, the fact will always be that they 'picked' my blog ;).

So well if you enjoy the blog then now maybe a good time to send in the compliments, that's by casting a vote (which needs just one click, no sign ups required.). If you don't like it then I beg you, please remain away from the vote page, let's just pretend that me and my blog never existed.

In order to cast your vote, you can go here : http://blogawards.pk/2010/01/12/individual-blogger-beenish-khan/

But their voting criteria considers comments too , so I will really appreciate if you just post there some comments like "This blog is open 24x7 at our desktop," or "I will commit suicide if they won't let me read it."..... Okay that's a little over. On a serious note, if you have anything 'good' to say about the blog then again...now maybe a good time. Comments need to be posted on their site : http://blogawards.pk/2010/01/12/individual-blogger-beenish-khan/

So that's all :)

A fulfilled Dream

When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was to become a scientist, something like Thomas Edison. During one summer holidays I in fact kept a small lab of my own. I took hold of one of our store rooms and placed the foundations of my first ever lab where there was nothing much apart from some lentils, spices and empty egg shells which I actually stole from my mother's kitchen. Outside my lab, I put a sticker saying "Beenish's lab," and though it was made with some old yellow paper which I plastered on the wall with home made flour gum, I still think it was one of the coolest ideas I ever came up with.

I 'created' this whole lab and then I had no idea about what to do next... but that isn't something which could stop a ten years old aspiring scientist. So while everybody else would be playing, I would visit my lab where I would try to mix the lentils with spices, would add some sand in the hope of discovering some completely new scientific phenomenon, but all I could come up with was liquid mess which for some reason enrages my mother .... I was clearly the worst amateur scientist/daughter anyone could hope for....sigh.

The lab eventually got behind, maybe I got tired of spraying red chillies on egg shells and then observing it silently or maybe my mother washed it away in one of her annual grand cleaning campaigns. But one destroyed lab couldn't dent my ambition of becoming a scientist! I still wanted to be somebody who could work on complex equations, make major scientific discoveries, serve the mankind and off course have a separate big lab of her own .... oh well, I was always a show off!

So overall I had no idea how you can become a scientist, how you get a lab where you could do all these experiments. How could I become an Einstein ? How could I be the next Edison. I asked different people around me but didn't really get a clear answer. It sounded like a complex job, unlike a doctor and engineer it didn't seem to have a degree program, a program where you would study for four years and they would give you a degree of being a scientist who could invent the next big thing.

Many years went by. This childhood dream started to sound more like a voice from a past life, I now knew that you need to do some research under some good professor, that you need to get a Ph.D. degree and write some papers in the hope that some good names will agree to publish them. It sounded like a lot of work, after all I wasn't a ten years old aspiring scientist anymore nor it was as simple as stealing useless egg shells from my mother's kitchen. It was all tough and was definitely not for me. So I was never going to invent something which could serve the humanity.

But eventually I realized that I couldn't have been more wrong, I never needed a Ph.D. or a big clean lab to make new inventions which could server the mankind, all I needed was the enthusiasm and faith of a ten years old who could create a cardboard lab in one of the dirtiest store rooms, who thought that a start is necessary to see the end. All I needed was the will for doing whatever I wanted to do. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said,

Not everybody can be famous. But everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service. You don't have to have a college degree to serve.
You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You don't have
to know about Plato or Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's
theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of
thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace and
a soul generated by love.

Today, I may not be a scientist in the truest sense, but I am a creator and an inventor trying to serve humanity or rather a portion of it. Everyday, I write code, invent solutions which some people eventually use in their lives, for some it means their dream college admission and for some others it bring a hope of finally getting a job in this recession. I am not an Edison nor I am an Einstein, I am not even a junior researcher, I haven't even seen the graduate school but then...not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, all you need is a heart full of grace and soul generated by love.

So as I said sometime back,

Dream a dream and live it...because life is too long to live without a
dream and life is too short to have a dream and not to live it.

Comic Strips

I am sorry guys, I know lately there are very few updates on my blog. And it's more because of so many other things happening on personal front (Professionally things never really change, they are either just tough or ...just more tough.) It's not just blogging, my overall internet activity is much lesser these days. And I think for a while, it's going to go like this
:(, I said I am sorry!

On a separate note, I am working on some comic strips, well they are a little quicker to create than writing a good post that's if I keep the drawings simple. I use to get all these dialogs and imaginary conversations in my head which were pretty useless unless I decide to write a novel, I think these comic strips are using all that redundant information in my head pretty nicely.

So if you have nothing else to do, go check http://gocomicstrips.blogspot.com/. Yes, I know I need to get all my sites centralized and hopefully I will do that before resting in peace. But till then, if you want you can check the strips on this separate site. I am making no claims about them being funny, and I fully accept that drawings are pretty horrible....but well apart from the fact that I am not a professional cartoonist, there is also this well known secret that the only subject I ever failed in my life is Drawing!!!! I SUCK at drawing, I can't even draw a straight line on paper. So maybe just be nice and bear with me :).

Reading between the lines

It's funny how every other day we all use some cliched sentences while almost all of us means something totally different. Over the period we Pakistanis have created quite some euphemisms (if that's what you can call them) of our own. Here's a list of all such phrases and their true meanings (that's just in case you were living under a rock and had no idea about them.)

1. I am a Law Abiding Citizen : I have no choice but to follow the law....only if I had the guts!!!


2. I am a Tax Payer : Shit....I am a salaried person, now I would HAVE to pay this tax. Ahhh only if I was a businessman...

3. I am an MPA/MNA (Member of Provincial/National Assembly): Either me or one/many/all of my relatives are thieves, dacoits or rapists.

4. I hate USA : I applied...but they never gave me the visa!!!

5. I still HATE USA :@ : I applied again, but no, still NO visa :@.

6. I hate USA (By Politicians) : I will make sure that my whole family resides there.

7. Pakistan Khuppye (May Pakistan prosper) (By Zardari) : Pakistan for sale - first come, first serve, all you need to do is ..... show....me...the..MONEY.

8. Save Democracy (By Politicians) : Dear Army , Do whatever you want to, just don't throw us out. Pleassssssssse.

9. I promise the nation I will do XYZ (By Zardari) : I'll do anything BUT XYZ.

10. There is just too much vulgarity on T.V. these days, no good Muslim can watch it: Yes, I make sure to watch all those vulgar programs, how else would I know????

11. I am not married b/c. I haven't found the right girl : My family has seen 10000 girls....but it's hard to find Ashwairya Rai's replica.

12. We don't need a dowry but if you want to give anything to your daughter, that's your choice : We off course want the dowry, a grand wedding and everything else in your home, except your dirty under garments.

13. I want to marry a boy who lives abroad : I want to live as far from my in-laws as possible

Karachi Tragedy

New year is here and the last year couldn't have a worst ending. Whatever else I had to say can wait. What happened in Karachi goes into history as another one of the many massacres this amazing city has seen. A loss of billions, many dead, many more injured and no words of mine or anyone else's could do justice to it.

Karachi saw a tragedy and all the karachites are in a state of mourning. It's useless to ask government for an explanation of such a major security failure, they obviously were never capable of doing anything about it. And honestly speaking, I don't want to degrade the martyrs by mentioning scums who are sitting at the top.

I hope and pray that those who have lost someone will eventually move on, I hope that injuries will heal, that this won't give birth to brand new talibans or prostitutes, that this coming year life will be much kinder to us all and that soon Karachi will be back to it's cruelly fast paced life. And I know it will, because the best or the worst part of life is .... that it eventually goes on.

My prayers for all those who lost their lives in the Karachi tragedy, who lost their businesses and I request everyone to support them in every possible way.