'Excuse Me' Is Not My Name!

'Excuse me, can you please get aside?'

'Excuse me but can I please have your notebook for a while?'

'Excuse me but I think you know my best friend from school?'

We are referred to by 'excuse me' day in and day out. From morning till noon, and from Monday through Sunday, always called by an excuse me.

Take Pakistani government institutions for instance. Chances are most of your male colleagues (if you're female) and vise versa won't know your name at the workplace. Or so you assume. For what do they always call you by? Why of course, please Excuse Me!

Whether it is the guy behind you in class poking you asking for something or in a society meeting, always the two words to address. Sometimes when a person is sitting at a distance across the table from you and there is a cross exchange of 'excuse me's', you find yourself confused: is it Excuse Me#1 being called or Excuse Me #15? No one really knows in the medley of excuse me's and the exchange continues till the right Excuse Me# is found.

Alright I agree it makes sense for someone who does not know you by your first name to refer by an 'excuse me' accompanied by a nudge/poke. But with people who DO know you, it just doesn't make sense!

A lot of people know your name and there is never any harm in using it. In fact it actually feels good when someone addresses you by name, a feeling of importance and specialty.

Some people think using a name somehow has 'wrong' connotations and perhaps the person would take offence or something. That is not true by far.

So the next time someone calls you by the EM compound word, casually reply 'Excuse me, but Excuse Me really is not my name! Does it happen to be yours?'

Information Attitude

'We live in the digital age, the age of information'. Such a cliché; not a day goes by when we don't read this sentence in a blog post, a newspaper article, or a simple Tweet.

But really, attitudes toward information sharing differ from a place to another. While all of us may want access to information, or in it's more raw form, data, we are not always prepared to be the ones to share it. Institutions in some countries are willing to reach out to a global audience and communicate the knowledge they have gathered over their lifespan: the most famous perhaps being the edX initiative launched by the joint effort of MIT and Harvard University. The Khan Academy is another such online initiative wherein you can, as their website says, 'learn anything for free'.

This is 'real' information sharing: sharing lectures, having discussions and even getting your queries clarified all in real-time is a mind boggling concept. And to me, nothing short of a science fiction projection-turned-reality.

But in countries like mine, the situation is totally complementary.

Simple things like discussing a university assignment is apt to get you raised eyebrows and a pretend-I-didn't-hear-you look. Ask for a little help in completing the lecture since you missed part of it for some reason (usually outdoor-sy) and people change attitudes like they never knew you.

But come the exams and things are totally different: open your textbook and a whole swarm of people come to check up on what you are reading, what if it's something they missed? Just a hint that you've got some extra points jotted down for memory's sake and they come like bees on a flower with puppy-dog faces, 'can I please please please see what you have written too? You KNOW my preparation is nil!'

Just be seen talking to a teacher and hey, watch out! All eyes and ears are on you!

It all makes me think: if you are so loathed to talking about studies in everyday life and just so busy pretending you were sleeping in class/don't open you books at all/haven't understood a single topic and what-not, why such poking during the exams then?

It is perhaps the fact that we have a third-world status that we are so possessive about the things we know. Always the fear that what we have is not really 'ours' and we don't really 'own' it, and that someday someone can easily take it all away from us. And make it their own.

What I want to say is that we seriously need to change this kind of negative attitude toward 'sharing'.

MIT and Harvard are just two examples from the large swath of international universities and institutions involved in creating a 'web of knowledge' . They have been none-the-worse for creating such a network of shared resources and in fact have prospered even more so.

There will be no harm if you help out someone with work. Everything in life is really not about getting 'returns' or 'benefits'. Sometimes you have to keep the base instincts aside and just be free to work with anyone in anyway you can. You never know how much your little time may have meant to the other person. Everything is not necessarily about securing good grades.

There is something we all know about but have to be kept being reminded of: the simple good.

edX: https://www.edx.org/

Khan Academy: https://www.khanacademy.org/

Changes: Internship

My 6th semester is almost mid-way done and the issue of internship selection is upon us. Is this place better or that one? Should we go in for multiple organizations or stick to unitary? Private or government? Defense? I'm Electronics, you're Power: can we work in the same company? These and many more such questions are the common lines of conversation in university nowadays.

I was recently applying for an ESI in a company and filling up their form. Almost toward the end I realized there were no fields to fill in related to parents. I mean, back at school we're so used to being asked parent's names, phone number, working place etc. But that has changed with coming to university. In my 2.5yrs of university life I've filled countless forms, serious and non-serious and none of them asked for parental info. But it was only today that I 'realized' this missing part!

All of a sudden it began to feel strange. So grown up. The dawn of new responsibilities. The feeling that we are moving away from what our parents have made us to this day toward an 'individual identity'. Like I'm in control of my own life, my interests. My career. My life.

It was a mixed feeling. There was the fact that it began to feel like I was finally stepping into the 'real' world but right there in parallel was a certain fear: cut-off from the always-sheltering arms of mama; mama asking you to eat and sleep on time, dress up for school proper, brush your hair neatly, don’t worry everything will be okey, had your vitamin tablets? Have a good time with friends, keep your prayers in check, don't forget Allah he's always there for you, sleep on time, want a new dress?; baba ruffling your hair and smiling proudly, talking to his friends about your achievements, telling you about his university experiences and taking everyone out to a midnight dinner in the rain.

The things will remain but the essence changes somewhere deep down, everything becomes different. All of a sudden parents talk you as an 'equal' instead of as a child in constant need of reminders on eating habits, sleeping times etc.

I had a sinking feeling, it was too soon to grow up!

The brooding continued for 5mins. Then the skies of my mind cleared.

I'm the same person, and always will be. The same girl who laughs totally carelessly with friends and siblings. So what if the forms no longer ask for parental info?  I will always be mama's and baba's girl. Always the kid to my parents, Aani and Chachoo.

I finished filling up the form. And started doing what afterward? Watching 'Courage the Cowardly Dog' on Cartoon Network with my li'll cousins and laughing ourselves crazy. Who cares about growing up? That can wait till another day deep into the future!

Interviewing, haha!

Today was my first 'proper' experience interviewing students. It was for the SIEP, our department's native technical society.

I was a little apprehensive at first but soon transitioned into an interviewer proper. I had only a vague idea of what to ask. I was sceptical about the level of the questions I would ask since my technical knowledge as yet is quite lagging in phase to the senior students'.

Still, I braced. It was completely impromptu and I surprised myself with smoothly getting into the flow of talk! I asked Q's I thought were relevant. All of us in the panel of five were slightly apprehensive at the start, and each of us somehow asked only from a particular domain in the beginning. But after a few candidates were done with, the atmosphere changed visibly. We became more comfortable and began to pick up each other's points. For instance, one would start asking about the function of the stabilizer, and the others would begin the process of cross-questioning and somewhere in between, a new topic would pop up.

There were some funny incidents too. There was a guy who jay-walked in, literally; hands in pockets, shabby jeans, jiggle in the walk. Yeah, I'm an engineer. Right.

We asked him about the methods used for circuit analysis and he receded somewhere deep within as if on a spiritual quest. 'Umm, there's Thevenin, we just did Norton, I guess? Oh yeah, and there's mesh analysis too!’ Amid his talking we spotted the chewing gum in his mouth. It became visible at an odd angle and God!did we have a long laugh afterward!

Then there was another guy who didn't even know what the society stood for proper, and was like, 'Yeah, choose me. I'll see later what I can do'. 'Hmm, so can you pin-point a talent for which you should be preferred?' 'I don't know, is this the kind of stuff you ask?' I mean, :|

He was acting like he was doing someone a favour just showing up!

Today I learnt that keeping some things spontaneous without prior preparation has a charm all its own. And I cannot emphasize enough the unique beauty of the experience of a group-talk. And a little sheepishly, of confusing the person in front with rapid questioning!

Perhaps we haven't yet outgrown our ancestors' affinity for story-telling after all.

Sir Shabbir

It's been 2yrs since I've been taught in proper English by a teacher. The predominant medium of instruction in my university is Urdu, not to mention the frequent specks of Punjabi strewn about for humorous touch.  Language shouldn't be a barrier to learning, especially when one is taught in one's mother tongue. But as I've realized to great disappointment, that's not always true.

Being taught in Urdu while the textbooks followed and the notes to be written are in English is preposterous! The constant process of translation in the mind usually ends up in some fundamental part of the teacher's spoken sentence being skipped. No matter how hard I try to avoid it, something or the other of essence always goes missing and somehow it doesn't feel like I've actually understood much from the teacher's words. We speak in Urdu amongst family members and colleagues in university so it seems like anyone saying anything in Urdu has got to be talking informally. Since baba too speaks in English with us whenever describing anything of literary value, exposure to studies and all things related in Urdu has been zero.

But today for the subject ECD( Electronic Circuit Design ), we found that Sir Shabbir is going to teach us. We'd heard all sorts of comments about him: he was strict; tolerated no nonsense; taught in a way as to scare students away from Electronics; spoke in a way that was difficult to grasp…something of a learned tyrant.

All that turned out to be mere prejudice.

Just after our first class with him, I knew ECD had GOT to be one of my favourite courses! Sir taught in amazing English, and for the first time since A'levels I followed every word of a teacher. And not just that; he's one of the most proper and spontaneous teachers I've studied with. He kept the class in a highly interactive mood and was superb with the basics of the subject (though its true most of the class was just b-l-a-n-k to his questions which dug at square one of Electronics!) 

The first encounter whirled a jigsaw of memories from school in my mind and for a couple of minutes I was back in a different period of life. It thankfully didn't take long to recover from the memory-charm as Sir had started explaining some fundamental everyday Electronics jargon.

Though it's just the first week of semester, I know I'm going to have a great time with ECD. It's been some time since I felt so great with a subject and I'm hoping I won't be disappointed in my perception.

Change-ing NEMO

Mama asked us to clean up the CD rack after Iftar yesterday. My parents were in the other room and my sister was going through the day's Tabloid! not even bothering to look up at our frequent exclamations.

It's been ages since we used the CD's in any way, and somehow the rack always seems to go ignored every spring cleaning season. Out comes CD after CD, of games we used to play and cartoons we used to watch. Then a couple of pre-download-era software ones. After we've strewn about almost a dozen over the floor, an un-interesting one comes up; no label, just the BENQ plain original. I discard it and move on, not realizing that my brother has inserted it into his laptop.

All of a sudden the sound of a familiar tune fills the air. I place it immediately as belonging to the animated cartoon 'Finding NEMO', one of the very first of its kind. I whirl around toward the source, and there it is, filling the screen in Wide Mode. I know I'm going to sound like some kind of a brag in explaining its sudden effect on me, or may be like someone eager simply to exaggerate. But the flood of thoughts and memories the very first scene, the very tune brought out in me was astounding..

I was transported back to schooldays, a time when things were diametrically different from what they're now…and yet eerily, just SO similar.

Different because now I'm with new people. It's good to experience change as change is what spells growth. But confronting a set of bogus ideas strong as walls erected in the middle of nowhere, just to trouble passersby, isn't always the most fulfilling experience on Earth. The people, the setting, the whole aura of my life in a new country is the total opposite of life in the UAE. But, I'm still the same person. I'm still the girl full of opinions, albeit nobody wants to hear them now. I've still got the passion for books, but there's nobody to discuss and fuss over silly lines now. I'm still the person who wants to be helpful and 'good', but nobody has time to pay attention, to say that word 'thanks' which has the power to make a bad day turn sunny.

Friends are the glow-lights on the backdrop of life; connecting the dots completes a picture, lays down a path of companionship and manifests an idea. It seemed so simple before…just talk to the person next-seat, exchange the usual questions peppered with huge smiles and lo! you got yourself somebody to talk to, at least. Not so anymore. Think about this, consider that, oho! so-and-so is from that city, I should be careful what to say in front of them!

University has ceased to feel like the 'second home' we're taught institutions -> schools are. Everything seems just so fabricated, all the smiles concealing vitriol and hollow competitiveness behind them. Each look received is calculating; juicing; storing the gossip to be told later. It's much too much sometimes, and I fear turning into the sissy who's always moaning and complaining.

Change spells growth, yes, but it doesn’t always come easy.

Watching NEMO after a long time yesterday acted as an eye-opener for me. The tiny clown fish seemed to be saying to me: it's time to wake out of this gloominess, Alishba, and embrace the beauty within and without. That though some things may seem to be REALLY difficult, nothing is too difficult to endure because God burdens us only with what we can handle, never exceeding the crucial 'tipping point'.

God's symbols are strange sometimes. It's funny to think how much seeing the tiny clown fish again after a long time evoked in me; all I haven’t been able to understand in the past 2yrs conveyed in mere minutes.

So I've decided. I'm going to look for the silver lining beneath the clouds of my new skies. Moaning and complaining all the time is simply not giving life, this single chance we have, it's proper due.

The clown fish has given me a new lease on many things.

I'm beginning to smile already.

I will conquer; my life is my own to live, and who other than me to enjoy it?

“Change is inevitable, growth is intentional "

                                                                               -        Glenda Cloud