The Word of mAn[S]o0r

“the next three days, keep your evenings free honey.. you are with me!” she said…

“good, at least that takes care of it, but i wonder what she’s planning” i think and say as much…

“you’ll see…”, her eyes twinkle mischievously. i love when her eyes do that “its a surprise!”

just how did i come to be so lucky, i’ll never know… for someone to come up with something elaborate to put the ’surprise factor’ on me is a huge thing. i’m the one who does the surprising.. the elaborate planning and the seemingly random sequence of events which constitute a complete experience… but i hadn’t come across anyone else who would, or even could, for me… then she comes along, with her twinkle and her smile…

“wake up!!!!!!!” its sunday evening and after having slept the whole day, i groggly open my eyes to see the phone lit up with her name and her smile (picture calling id is a wonderful feature!)

“huh?! what time is it?” still not wanting to come out of my reverie

“its 5! and you have places to bbeeeeee!! get up and get ready na!!!” things are slowly coming back to me, reliving Gilligans island as she calls it and the reason why im so bushed!

“what places… let me sssllleeeeeeeeepppp!”

“you have to goto the airport, say good bye to your cousin and come get me! remember?! your evening is mine!!”  suddenly, all traces of sleep vanish, the gleam in her eyes remembered and the adrenaline rush of the ’surprise’ coursing through my body.

“sounds good! i’ll just go get ready..”

it took another hour to get ready though, since my brother wasn’t home yet and he had the car… so i took in an episode of prison break and took my sweet time in the shower.. finally at quarter to seven, was ready to leave. too late to goto the airport, i headed straight to pick her up.. during this time however, there was another conversation…

“so what is my surprise??????”

“why do you want to know sweety? just remember that its sweet na”

“tell me na! atleast i’d know how to dress for it”

“dont act smart mister! i know you’ve figured it out and are now just leading me on!!”

“nope, haven’t figured out anything yet….. didn’t really try cuz i wanted you to show me”

“well, i said next three days to are mine, and between the bonfire night and the club music night.. there’s only one night which is left.. tonight…”

“yes… and… we’re going to dinner kya?” i still couldn’t make out what the surprise was…

“umm.. yes, dinner is also on the agenda, but thats not the surprise na”

“hhmm…? then?”

“what else is on today..? something you really wanted to go to”

“i dont know…….” thinking hard….. still drawing a blank. maybe the mind still hadn’t cleared up..

“honey, we’re going to see  Bring the Funny”

“NO! GET OUT!!! seriously?” im flabbergasted! and remain silent for almost the next two minutes…

“yes sweety! we are” she giggles “i knew you wanted to so bad, ever since it was out, but then we couldn’t… so i decided that we’ll go, just the two of us. so i went and got us tickets! now go get ready in something appropriate sweety! ”

…

“dont hope for miracles…  plan for them” said a teacher at the Art of Living course i did earlier this year. the trick is to realize that miracles aren’t necessarily waking up the dead, or turning water into wine, but rather its when the seemingly impossible happens when all your doing is wondering what hit you in the first place…

thank you baby, for making this miracle night happen. if it wasn’t for you, i would still have been at home, watching tv and nursing the headache :p

ofcourse, when again you have the right place, new friends by your side, and having good delicious (with all its fattening goodness) food… even then right there seems like a miracle!

Coming up next: How the funny was brought! Review of Sami Shah’s performance at the PACC.

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Everything said and done, you realize that you’ve just evolved from who you were just a few months back, and that now.. the same old discussions just dont appease you anymore.

In fact, the very fact that the discussions are the ’same old’ are kind of a put off! I met my friends after two months yesterday, and i felt as if i hadn’t missed a beat with them. Still up to the same three-four activities they used to do, day in and day out…

Some people find solace in it i guess… making things remain the same… indeed, laws of physics suggest that a body in motion will remain in motion until acted upon by an outside force, but then.. do those laws apply to the human life…. should those laws apply to the human life?

Am i wrong to think so?

Or have i just become haughty? Looking down at them for remaining the same, while my own life takes twists and turns so wildly, im still reeling from the effects for over 3 months…? Has conceit crept into my mannerisms? Questions haunt me… making me wonder, making me question my own decisions, thoughts and actions…

Where will life take me? What is my destination? What will i eventually become?

I guess i’ll never know till i reach the end… till then, better to just sit back and enjoy the journey.

Seriously?

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There are some people who come into your life for just a fleeting moment, yet leave behind a profound impact on how the course of your life runs. Such is the story of the role Rear Admiral Tahir Waseem (late) played in my life.

He was the person who first introduced me to the world of the internet, teaching me the basics of Internet Explorer and websites like Yahoo, back when i was 13 years old. He was the one who ‘gave’ me my first modem, a 14.4 Zoltrix Internal modem costing an arm and a leg in those days. (I later found out he gave the bill to my dad after i had gleefully installed and configured it on my machine. :p)

Before he came along, my computer experience was pretty much limited to a standalone system, running a few BASIC programs and writing a few commands here and there. He somehow challenged me to be better than that, to learn, to innovate and to find solutions. His natural way of teaching and transferring the enthusiasm he had for all things technical made me decide this was the field i wanted a career in. I even recall him giving me my first lessons in FoxPro, (which wasn’t even visual in those days).

Years later, i found him once outside a computer store looking for the latest version of MS Visual Studio, so he could learn it and develop a few office applications to help at his new post at Karachi Port Trust. An office which didn’t even have a fax machine before he arrived, and had a complete internet/intranet setup before he left. He was also one of the persons instrumental in bringing a corporate intranet to Pakistan Navy, managing to convince many a senior officers to give the project a go. Later i learned, he was the project manager on one of Pakistan Navy’s biggest software project,  PNS Dockyard Automation system. There are among the many feats he had in his career, feats which enabled him to rise in the ranks of the Navy and reach one of the highest ranks an officer can hold.

Even on the personal front, he was a gem of a person. Not being able to have his own children, he and his wife adopted a child and raised him as their very own. The joy the child brought to their life was unmistakable, even when he suffered from major illnesses and was in and out of the hospital alot. He was right there by his bedside the whole time. It was a joy to see the love they shared and gave me hope of a better world, had more people like that existed. He was fun loving, jovial, had a great sense of humor, and was one of the few friends of my father i could sit and talk with for hours without feeling uncomfortable.

Tahir uncle, you were an inspiration, a teacher, a motivator and a role model. If i have any place in the world today, rest assured you played a major part in it. I am sorry i couldn’t visit you much lately, and i that i missed out on the opportunity on every trip i made to Islamabad.

I will miss you terribly, and remember you always in my prayers.

May God give you your rightful place in Jannat, alongside the other greats of this world. Amen.

–

Rear Admiral Tahir Waseem, Director General MTC Islamabad, died in a road accident while returning from Attock after attending the marriage ceremony of his niece on 21st October 2007. He succumbed to his injuries before reaching the hospital, while his son still remains critical condition at CMH Rawalpindi. Other members of the family in the car, including his wife, escaped unhurt.

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