You will not be alone

I am sure most of us have played with the worm as in the above picture as a kid. (If you can't see the picture search for "Millipedes" in Google Image search). They curl when touched and so the fun for a child. So, have a great look at it....

I remember an incident where another kind of worm has creeped in our washing machine. My mother was filling water into the machine using a water pipe. After a while, when it was half-filled, my mom noticed something moving in the water. It was a four inch long, multi legged worm trying to save itself by swimming to the surface. Mom was horrified and tensed. She somehow managed to get rid of the worm but minutes later she started crying. And it was a cry out of horror and fear where the tears never stopped flowing. As a kid I thought my mother was unnecesarily worried, it was a harmless worm afterall. She cried for minutes without stopping. After a while when she stopped she told me, 'yeh sab kal hamaare kabr me milenge, saanp, bhichu, gojar hamaare upar chalenge, iske baare me soch kar hi darr lagta hai, ai Allah hamaari kabron ko inse mehfooz rakh, humey bachale.'

(We will come across these things in our graves. Snakes, scorpions, worms will move over our bodies. I am horrified just to think about it. O Allah! please save our graves from these creatures, save us.)

I understood her feelings today when I attended a funeral after the friday prayers. We said the funeral prayers and I followed the procession till the grave. The body was laid down in the 5 feet deep grave and covered with wooden planks, thus forming a triangular space for the body to rest. I was horrified just to think that I will be sleeping in such a congested place one day. And when it was time to fill the grave with earth, I saw the worms, here and there, moving in the mud. I threw one worm away from the grave but alas! I cannot remove all the creatures from it.

Once the grave was filled and the final supplication was performed, we moved away from it and the only one thing moved in my mind was now the person lying in it has only one thing with it and that is his deeds. If his deeds are good, his grave would be like one of the gardens of Heaven, and if his deeds are bad his grave would be like one of the ditches of Hell and his companions would be the creepy creatures. As narrated in the Hadith.

It is important to remember death more often, as it is the only inevitable truth. Remembering it renews our faith.

So, have a great look at it.... as this is the one of the creepy creatures that will share the space in our graves.

May Allah save us from the torments of the grave.

Heights of Opportunism

What is heights of opportunism?

Following an Ambulance on a busy road to surpass traffic and red signals.

Sensex-2012

The other day we heard a statement on CNBC, "the Sensex will see 12000 before 21000." The Sensex was at 16000 level at that time.

Yes, that would be on 21-12-2012, haha. (Ironically, dates have same numbers; isn'i it a sign? lol).

During the morning market, people will sell in panic reaching 12k and by the end of the day (not the world!) people will buy bringing it to 21k. (Assuming SEBI will not block trading).

Jokes apart, I wonder will the prophecy will be fulfilled?

Yes, If not in reality then the panic created will definitely have an effect. I wonder what most of the people (who believe in it) will be doing on that day. Lets wait and watch...

ChaCha Choudhary - Movie

Hello all,

Here is a video I made longtime back from one of the ChaCha Choudhary comic books. Was searching some old CDs and found this... Have a look... :> Its in Hindi.

And "No need to Comment!!!!" Ha ha ha

Emotionally Real

Last night I nearly wept while watching TV. The thing that made me weak was the fact that the 'story' I was watching was as real as death. No melodrama, no re-enactment and no actors. The story was simple.

It was a program on NGC, an old classic actually, called as RoadRaj. It is a documentary on road traffic of Bombay (as disclaimer said: a program made when Mumbai was still called Bombay). It ran parallel stories of different people and their families. It was about a fire-fighter who aims to become the best fire-fighter in Bombay, about a young girl who just started to learn how to drive a car and wished to own one one-day, about the Bombay traffic police training, about a greedy and emotionless taxi driver and his taxi cleaner and about a young boy who ran away from his village to step his foot in the land of dreams survived only because of a generous man.

As the episode came to end, it showed how the man made the runaway boy ready to go back to his village and meet his father and ask for his forgiveness. Not only did he persuade him to go but also was ready to accompany him to his village to persuade his father to forgive him. And so they board the train. Upon reaching the village and traveling in an auto to his house, the boy expresses his anxiety, nervousness and his fear. The first person he meets is his grandmother.

His grandmother, sitting on the ground outside their house sees him from a distance and a gush of emotions ooze out. She is an old lady, who has lost her strength she once had, her skin held loosely on her face showed a feeling I was not able to interpret. I know, old people, especially from villages and especially women let all their emotions out at once when they meet a close one after long time. I could see my grandmother in her. This itself was so touching when I heard the narrator say, "His grandmother has a bad news for him. His father and mother had died."

And then the program ended with the boy being handed over her 3 year old sister. The expression on the boys face made me shiver. I knew he was not an actor and this was not a performance. This was real.

Hang till death

I was watching the movie "LUCK" yesterday and I came to know about this rule in India... that a criminal, who is announced capital punishment, while being hanged survives for some reason, as little as a slip of rope or loose knot, should not be hanged again. And added to that he is not only pardoned from the gallows but also condoned of his crime and set free.

Can anybody confirm about this rule??? I tried to search over the internet but could not find it. Also please let me know if such a rule exists, whats the reason behind it??

Logically I think, if it is true, it is because once the rope is around the neck of the person and the black cloth over his face shows him the inevitable darkness ahead, for at least once he realizes that the crime he had done was brutal and inhuman and how it the victim(s) would have suffered. A feeling of remorse takes over him.

My search over the internet took me to some of the execution videos that are being circulated over the internet as a campaign against Iran. It says, Iran is hanging people ruthlessly, they are strangulating rather than hanging, they are killing teenagers below 18 years of age, etc etc.

Death is never pleasant, its always painful. Using electric chairs, or lethal injections or tightening the noose, whatever method is argued to be the most humane method, still it is painful.

The point is as a normal human being we are bound to feel compassionate when we see death, or more aptly killing, even if it is the execution of the most notorious and dreadful serial killer, Ted Bundy. And such videos serves as a good tool for people who wants to abolish capital punishment. Common notion is that the killer is always bad and the killed is always helpless. But it should always be remembered that the person who is executed is a criminal, no....a harsh, ruthless criminal (otherwise the punishment would be less severe).

India also has a rule, which says Capital punishment should be given to a criminal in "rarest of rare" cases which gives a little more confidence for people to commit crime.

Anyways please answer my query...thanks....