Thursday, August 23, 2007

A perfect description

"My friends and my road-fellows, pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion. "Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own winepress. "Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful. "Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block. "Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking. "Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again. "Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation."
-- Kahlil Gibran

Thursday, August 16, 2007

On "Trousseau full of books"

Last Sunday, I read an article in Books & Authors section of Dawn. And for the first time I was laughing with all my heart. Why? Because I actually went through what the writer was saying. While reading the article, I felt that I was going through a page from my life written by someone else.

Books! An alien word in our society. Books! Given the lowest priority. People have money to spend on luxuries, time to spend in having 'fun' but when it comes to reading, they are are just too busy or living on budget.

Few years back, I had read similiar type of article in the same newspaper section and that inspired me to write an article on the wonderful world of books. Books, with them you can be yourself, the time flies and you never get bored, you give a good workout to your imagination. You can go anywhere, be anyone you want, do anything. It is all upto you. I am surprised, sometimes, how people 'live' without reading.

With the way things are going, sadly, I haven't been able to read anything at all and I feel this deprivation, something missing from my life. There was a time I used to go to every bookfair that was held in the city, which were three, and made sure that I never come back empty-handed. But it's been three years now and I haven't seen the face of a bookshop, let alone buy a book.

HP7, was waiting for it for a year but for what? Haven't bought it yet.

What do I want to read? The list is long but the top of the list are (in random order):
HP7
Tilism Hoshruba (So many volumes!)
Mathnawi of Rumi (Urdu version)
HP6 (have read the online version and dont remember a single word of it)
Tuzk-e-Taimuri
Darbar-e-Akbari
Ain-e-Akbari
Tareekh-e-Hindustan
Guzishta-e-Lucknow


Sang-e-meel has some of the interesting publications. Tried to order online but it was expensive and time consuming and not to mention unreliable.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Being a teacher

People say that the teaching profession is the easiest thing in the world. Why? Being in this profession for the past seven years, I say it is the other way round, provided you are true to your profession.

Yes, it can by very easy if you just go to the class, give lecture and leave, but that is not the true essence of being an educator. If you really lose yourself in this profession, you will realize how stressful it can be. Being an educator is not simply giving lectures, which are made once and used many times. It's about learning, teaching, polishing minds, empathising, being there, being supportive and what not. It is hard because you are expected to be someone one can look up to.