Eid-ul-Fitr…

OK, so here is the second part of my end of Ramadan post…. I have blogged a couple of times about Ramadan – I think it’s time to introduce Eid to you guys!

Eid ul Fitr marks the end of the fasting period, and is essentially a Muslim festival recognising this. It is a period of rejoicing, yet keeping in mind of the achievements and the personal changes made during Ramadan.

Muslims follow the lunar calendar, so the months are based on the sighting of the new cresent of the moon. When the new cresent is visible to two or more people, Eid is effectively declared and the period of fasting terminates.

We begin celebrating this festival by first saying a special short prayer early in the morning.

The day then moves on to spending time with close family, meeting and greeting friends and relatives, and if you are south-east Asian – feasting on the traditional meal called Biryani!

I am celebrating Eid today, and it has been a good day so far…. You all are welcome to join in, to feast my moms wickedly tasty biryani – but if you can’t, don’t worry – I will think of each of you as I enjoy my meal!

Eid Mubarak!

It’s almost done….

So, here we are…. in the home straight, as Ramadan comes close to an end for another year; it’s actually been excellent month in terms of experience for me. I can’t remember looking forward to fasting in Ramadan as much as I have this year, and there were a number of things which drove this.

For newbies, here is a quick recap – Ramadan is a very important month in the Islamic calender. One of the reasons that it exists is to try and bring all human beings to the same level (not that they should exists differently otherwise) – same level in the sense that we fast from dawn to dusk, and spend as much time as possible praying to god, and trying to improve ourself and become better people (amongst many other things). At least in theory that’s what is supposed to happen; in reality – of course it turns out to be very different.

I know for a fact that a lot people who will read this post are not muslims, and (being a bit bold here) may not be in touch with their religion. All I want to say about this is that – please dont judge me or slate me for following (and perhaps blogging) A religion. In fact, I hope it can be educational, or in line with raising awareness (in Arabic, this is called da’wa).

This year was great for me because firstly, and I think very importantly, I have got in touch with my spiritual side again; not that I got away from it, but you can say that I had begun to drift away a little. I began praying regularly, and reciting from the Quran again – this is very important for every Muslim. Let me explain why this is very important for me – over the last 10 years or so, I have faced a number of challenges in every aspect of life, and I have tried numerous ways to work my way through different situations with a very very varying level of success. Then there have been other times where all I did was prayed to god to help me. This is where I want to clear up what I am trying to say – god doesn’t have to be Allah, it can be whoever you believe in.  Prayer is a form of meditation I guess, and brings out a different and possibly more positive and concentrated side in a person. Every time I prayed to god to help me through something, I have found success. For those who want to mock me at this point – I am not saying that god made something happen using super powers etc – but through prayer, I had greater inner strength and belief to work my way through the obstacle which I was facing. This is why prayer (or regular prayer) is very important to me, and its a habit which I have worked hard to re-instill in myself.

This year is the start of an interesting cycle – I guess for most Muslims. Ramadan has now moved into the summer months (it gets earlier by 10 days every year – lunar calender effect). Although the summer was pretty cool, I think it has brought an understanding as to how tough it will be to fast for long periods of the day. This year our fasts were as long as 15 3/4 hours and would be as short as 14 hours. This of course will increase for the next 7-10 years. A lot of people assume that when fasting, hunger and thirst would trouble us. Truth be told, if your mind is away from worrying about the fast its not that bad! I can definitely say that throughout the month, there was not a single day that hunger or thirst affected my daily routine.

I also lost a fair bit of weight this year, 5kgs to be precise. for whatever reasons, I cant shake off anymore, but I will work on that. I have also got into a healthier routine of eating, and have not been scoffing food when its time to open the fast.

Ramadan also teaches something very important which most people don’t recognise. When you begin the fast, one must refrain from quite a few things so that it does not invalidate the fast (you might as well do it correctly if you are putting in the effort! ). A couple of these things are controlling your tongue, and being tolerant. Now – I think it is the duty of every human being to watch what they are saying and how they speak (swearing, cursing etc). Also, it is very important to be tolerant towards others. If you do it right – watching your tongue and being tolerant are only training you to be more patient, and also mindful of what you say or do. It is simply the control that the mind mas over humanly matters. I think this is very important that subconsciously, one actually tries to become a better person by just observing a simple rule. I think I made some major ground here too. I have always been a patient person, but fasting this year has helped me be that extra bit cautious and make sure I don’t step out of line at any point at all.

Wow, OK I have said a lot! This Ramadan was brilliant for me. It enables a person to learn more about themself and also about becoming a better person. Most people do make a conscious effort to bring in the changes. Hopefully, one day – the others will catch up too.

Here’s to a great month and experience, and the hope that the experiences repeat themself in the future too (Inshallah)!

For my next post, I will talk a bit about how we celebrate the end of the month of fasting with a festival called Eid-ul-Fitr.

This is who I am…..

I picked this up from Auburn Kat and posted a lil’ something something which almost accurately defines me…. unfortunately due to how (non-hosted) wordpress deals with HTML/JavaScript/Widgets, you guys will have to click on the image below and view it on the actual site….

One of those days….

You know the feeling that you get on some days at work – the ones which make you think “Damn! that was a tough-ee”, the ones which make you think that you earned your bread today….. yeah? well I had one of those today. At one point I realised that I hadn’t walked away from my seat for about 4 hours…. and it’s only when I stood up and stretched did I realise the true extent of it…. there was a lot of joint clicks….

For some reason, I actually enjoyed today.. the office was quieter… I got through more than I had planned at the start of the day, and some of my work got the ball rolling for others (which is a good feeling on it’s own!).

When you are fasting, and have one of these days, it makes you look forward to opening your fast too – not from a hunger point of view, but more like the sense of achievement and satisfaction as the day draws to a close.

T’is been good today……

How has your day been?

Chocolate Fudge….

Like Umm Ibrahim, I am crave chocolate like crazy! So when she posted this recipe of fudge, and it seemed so simple…. I had to make it!

This is what it looks like….. *picture was supposed to go here* well….. we ate it all in about 4 hours….. (That’s a lot of fudge!)

I can tell you…. it tastes FAAAAAANNNNNNNTAAAASSSSTIC!!!!

I spent part of my Sunday catching up on my Google Reader; I can’t believe that I have hardly been online this week – it’s something very unusual for me! I still have 109 posts to read….. getting there slowly….

I would recomend every chocoholic to go ahead and make the fudge…. it was truly wickedly delicious!

Milestone….

Over the last 2 days, I feel as if I have been through 10 rounds of Heavyweight Championship boxing with Muhammad Ali; I have had quite a rough cold! However, I feel as if I was defending my 49-0 record, for this is my 50th post (woo hoo)!

I didnt think that I would make it through 50 posts, have 128 comments made on my words, and more importantly have 2,195 people visit me over the last 112 days! So once again – thank you for reading my stuff – especially to the regular commentators both on the blog and by email (and on 20something  bloggers)!

Milestones are very important to me – I guess they remind me of achievements and progress to be made in the future. I have been thinking of re-shaping my front page, possibly adding a dash of colour as well…. not a bad time to start thinking about changes….

Next stop – 100!….

Credit Munch…. or Credit Crunch?….

Lying in bed all day and listening to the radio in between recharging my ill batteries is great blogging fodder! I was contemplating what and how I was going to post this, but events this week are helping me out big time…

So it all started at the weekend…. Picture this as a Tarantino script

I had finished our weekly shopping on Saturday afternoon, and as I was about to pull away from my parking spot, my mom called me on my mobile and asked me to pick up some powdered custard. “But I am almost out of here…” I said, but my mom was having none of it, and I trudged back into the store….

Meanwhile, across the pond, a big US bank (bUb) was trying to find folks who had some spare change to bail them out of the sticky situation that they were in. A few organisations, both in the States and back here in Britain, were interested in funding this historical institution…

So, I navigated myself around the other shoppers and picked out the two packets of powdered custard, and again slalomed between the shoppers over to the tills to pay….

bUb by this time had lost all hope in anyone bailing them out. All interested parties had walked away from the table – the risk was too high and the debts too great to handle; bUb had no viable option other than to file for Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy code….

The till attendant scanned the two packets and told me that it was 48 pence (85 US cents?). I opened my wallet and all I had was a £20 note and 22 pence. Great. I did not want to split my 20; I really try and avoid the shrapnel if I can. At the same time, who pays 48 pence by credit card? I stood there umming and aahing, contemplating how to pay. I eventually paid the impatient attendant by credit card. As I was leaving, the attendant told me, I guess sarcastically, “next time, go to the bank and get 48 pence to pay for custard….”

I got out and for whatever reason began to compare both these situations. I guess they are on a different scale but are very similar. bUb effectively lent vast sums of unsecured money which has got them into this situation. In the same way credit card companies are letting me spend without really having any particular protection in place – I mean bUb employees have no jobs – how will they pay their bills? In the same way – I work in a sector which services companies like bUb; without them – my job is “threatened” (not quite, but it is), and I guess we are part of the whole big system. I guess what I am trying to say is that I made a mistake by going plastic.

The credit crunch has kinda screwed up my second half to the year. earlier in the year I did a fair bit of work as part of getting bUb as a potential client. In fact, my company was looking to gain their business on four different fronts, but that would seem very tricky now because bUb’s functional assets would be sold off to predators looking to capitalise. To make matters, big Insurance group (bIg) is now testing the dangerous waters; I am currently doing some work for bIg, and I can do with them not getting screwed – it’s a decent opportunity which has come my way, and the credit crunch is really biting my ass in terms of opportunities!

Maybe it’s time to fry some small fish…. wait for the storm to settle down…. and go in head first in calmer waters…. Only time will tell….

Dead man walking…..

My youngest brother is a dead man….. why you ask? well he has only given me the mother of all colds! (I feel nervous of using the “The mother of all….” line since Gustav paid a visit across the pond) I went to bed on Saturday night feeling all OK, and woke up on Sunday morning to begin my fast feeling as if a ton of bricks has collapsed on me.

I have a post which I have been working on… but I will put it on hold for now…. it was so going to fit in with the collapse of Lehman Brothers – it was kind of related to to them as well…..

Either ways, I think I gotta rest…… and try and remember to kick his ass when I feel better (we share the same room, but my memory has been fragmented off lately…)

On a completely unrelated note…. I have been managing my eating when I am not fasting, and together with the fasting, I have managed to lose 5kg in the last 22 days! I now weigh 79kg; only 6kg more to reach my target weight and ideal BMI!…..

Russian Roulette….

I am going through a phase at work where I want to climb a step up in everything I do. I guess I am being “ambitious”, but also I have certain personal aims, certain achievements, and certain goals which I want to gain for the sake of my underachieving past. What all of this does is get me into the “perfectionist” mode.

Ordinarily I am quite a patient person… also when things go wrong, or if they are touching a nerve, I normally count to 10 and calm myself down (I normally don’t get past 4 or 5); but at the moment I seem to get really irritable when people are not “working”* as they should be; I mind when I don’t see things being done “correctly”*.

I know for a fact one of the teams in our company is under performing a little. It’s sad that certain people with experience are not quite cutting the mustard, and its gone unaddressed for a while. I have seen people drop off to the other side** after lunch, people carry out personal tasks like creative writing for example, or “excessively” surf the web when they should really be working. Now, I guess its wrong to object to surfing the web – everyone does it, I do it; but I think it’s more than a co-incidence that almost whenever I walk down that stretch of the office… these things are happening at their desks.

I guess, while I am in this mode, I may be noticing these things more than I normally would have; but the bar is set high for these guys – and I don’t know if they think about their work, and how they would like to achieve things.

I believe in achieving success in a work environment. I know its hard to always have an environment where efforts can be appreciated. However, ours is one where they are; and I know know this because I have experienced success personally. But I think it is up to every “mature” individual to realise that. I guess it’s also about ambition and what one wants to achieve, and looking at certain people…. I just don’t think they wanna…. and it makes me feel sad because I was there not long ago, and I know that they are not doing their jobs any justice.

All being said, their performance indirectly affects me too. Fairly frequently I see basic procedures not being followed, common sense not being applied…. I feel like a gun with the bullet in one of the chambers. I don’t want to be the one to pull the trigger, but one of these days someone will… some guys have to be told to get their act together.

I don’t like blogging about work because I want to keep it out of my personal and virtual life…. but sometimes its hard to blow steam without tooting the horn… I guess this is my horn for now….

* – working and correctly are very loose terms and open to different interpretations – depending on your style of work!

** – you know…. ZzZzZzZz……

A lil here… a lil there….

Even though I have 3 drafts waiting to be polished and posted…. I am posting a filler post – just so that I can scratch away at my itchy blogging fingers….

I saw this on Amanda’s blog, and I had to share it…. it HILARIOUS!

I have also noticed – most of the people who I read (I would say 80-90%) and are on my reading list are democrats; this makes me wonder…. does this reflect on my political views? Or is it that the democrat supporters are really rallying behind their party and get everyone (including those on the fence) to vote for Obama/Biden. I guess only November 4th will tell!

On a more serious note, it’s the anniversary of 9/11 today. I remember being at home (it was the last few days before university started), and my uncle (with whom I was living while at uni) came home early from work. I asked him “what happened, why home so soon?”… and he replied – “Haven’t you heard?” To which my reply was “Oh my god!! The queens dead?” (I really said/though that)….

We switched on the TV and stared in bewilderment as the events unfolded….. a movie script couldn’t be this good.

Seven years on… let us reflect and pray for those who died on September 11th 2001, and lets work harder and together to make our towns, cities and countries a safer place to live in.