Good Sayings

Repel what is offensive by the garment of goodness

Move evil from the heart of another by rooting it out of your own heart
              (Ali RA)

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Christmas Eve, Some recollections of mine

It would be rude if I did not say happy holidays to my Christian readers.
 Since I never heard of how X-Mas is celebrated in the southern hemisphere where it is hot weather so I do not know much. Here are some personal observations.
 After leaving Pakistan my first Christmas was in England I learnt all there was to know about what Christmas is in the West. Had not seen much in Pakistan even in Lahore where there are so many churches and cathedrals. I always remember waking up in Broom's Hostel every Sunday morning with the church bells ringing continuously (Not too far from the hostel about half way to the Mall.) The only other thing I recall was that we went on 31st of December to my friend Vincent Dulvy's house (within walking distance from where we were given the degrees of MBBS on Convocation held at the "future" Panjab University building and the foundation stone was laid down by Maj. General Iskander Mirza, then Governer General of Pakistan.
We had told Dulvy to keep for us the Christmas Cake (whatever that meant for him our good friend who was Christian)Days and symbols have been increasing I gather over a period of years , centuries and so in addition to the Christmas day we have Christmas Eve and also "boxing day" (English). Somebody rightly complains about "consumerism" more than religious. That brings me to the "religious" part of Christmas which  has almost died out under the weight of Big fellow Santa, the big Tree and the weight of all the goods bought as presents that is a Must even if you cannot afford (then keep paying for them in the next months until the next Christmas) and not to forget, "Scrooge". Such is the Holiday fever. I see the decorations depicting all kind of things, Angels, Raindeer, the "rednose" animal the whole vehicle of Santa flying toward the sky by the raindeers, the tree, the Santa along with Mrs. Santa, just blinking or unblinking lights of green ad red color, the snowflakes etc. etc. Of course there is occasionally seen Nativity scene (there has been some objection to such 'decoration' by some non-Christians).
 TV shows of Xmas the movies and that "Miracle on the 34th Street" Shop around the corner etc.The Christian Child grows up with all these mythical things along with the only non-mythical thing of birth of Jesus Christ PBUH and so I do not know  what the child thinks about it just like other Myths? I have not heard much about such things in discussions but I do wonder, if I was a Christian Child growing up with Santa dominating for Christmas celebration what would I think about Jesus PBUH especialy after getting to the age when "you do not believe in Santa" to be real


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Culture and "Guns"

The availability and affordability is definitely a reason in the USA Back in forties I was in my village, and whenever there was altercation "Daang chal Gaiee" (use of stick or staff) was seen as Daang (Stick) was the only assault weapon easily affordable. Later after partition occasional pistol or rifle started being used but "Klashankawf" did not hit Pakistan until Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Culture changed overnight and spread rapidly to even those who could not afford--everybody had Klashankowff.(Maybe an exaggeration) That has not changed since then except for being worse. All kind of guns in Pakistan are being used by all. They would go kill a family with guns to put terror in the hearts of the whole mohalla. No doubt in the earlier days if anybody had a gun he would proudly show it off because it would impress others about how rich you are. That culture has always existed among the men from times immemorial and there is nothing we can do about it. "macho", Manhood expression, whatever you may call it it is the same that expressed by a young man racing on his motorbike just like his earlier counterpart used to race his horse. Automatic or semi-automatic gun however is serious business because it does not kill one in a second but many. Going back to the "daang" days only one person can be killed or injured but automatic makes even a novice kill many in a second Surely there can be some control that can be applied to reduce the massacres from multiple deaths to may be single ones. I do not know what NRA might say but sure they live amongst ourselves and have the same sensitivities about human life that non-NRA have. Culture will not change but in the USA I am seeing so many innocent lives had to sacrificed before meaningful laws and their application was brought out otherwise I always heard more about second clause of Constitution and that it cannot be challenged or altered: more sacred than Bible!!
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Busy day of 12th December

Well nothing special of this day to be busy and not more than usual but this sure is 

 a very very special day

 Since the first of January 2001 I have been aware of a date each year when if you write month-day-year it does not matter if you are writing day-month-year or for that matter year-day-month etc. it would still be the same such as Year 2002 write second Feb or write March 3rd 2003 or April 4th 2004 and so on until we get to: yes you guessed it right--
today the date or day is 12; the month is 12 and the year of course is 2012 as there is no 13th month. from next year this will not happen
 Only 07/07/07 was a celebration of a friend of mine's son got married on that special day. One of my friends son (Ali Hasnain Yunus) is celebrating his 30th birthday

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SAINT 2

The picture (Published in the previous blog) shows my friend and classmate who was popularly known as Saint.
   His name was Qamar Zaman, a lovable chap. After a couple of years down the Medical school years we learnt he was so fond of the stories of "Saint", a spy kind of character in the stories created by the writer- Leslie Charteris (1930). I did not see those novels but that was loved by Qamar Zaman. The movies made from 1938 starred George Sanders but the TV series star was Roger Moore who was later contracted to play 007 when the original 007 player (Sean Connery) had stopped making those movies. When I was in England during the sixties, I frequently watched the series of "Saint" and that was when I became aware of what my friend Qamar Zaman, may God rest his soul in peace (I recently learned he died young, was practicing medicine in Lahore.) had fallen in love with. So he got that nickname of "Saint" and we never called him by his original name. Some of our classmates studied in Missionary schools of Lahore before coming to Medical school and they were exposed to such English books or literature more than us who attended regular schools where English teaching was done by non-English speaking teachers. Qamar Zaman represented such "English-oriented" group of students. Our other classmate with the same name (or probably Qamar-uz-Zaman) was a pathan from frontier who also died a few years ago, again a young death, and he was a well respected popular Obs-Gyn fellow in Lahore May Allah rest his soul in peace.

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SAINT

Please visit my Urdu blog at http://saugoree-bsc.blogspot.com/