Moving and Painting

Hey everyone, I'v been a bit busy and will be for another couple of days because I'm moving into a new place, Here is the view from my new bedroom.

Also I figured I'd get some feedback from you folk, I started a new hobby in my old age, can't do the things I used to anymore, so here is my first oil painting ever that I did a couple weeks back, what do my readers think?

1. Base and starting.

2. A little progress.

3. The finished painting.

Ramblings

I recently became a year older and I was just thinking of everything thats been happening in my life, how time is or has been passing me by, of the things I have achieved, things I would like to achieve or should have achieved till now. I’ve had some dreams, some ideas of what I'd like to do, some of those have been accomplished while some have been put at the back of the closet that is my life, this closet mind you is quite messy right now and needs to be organized in a big way.

I believe in fate and destiny, I believe that whatever happens, happens for a reason, sometimes fate knocks on our door with an opportunity and says "The ball is in your court lets play tennis" fate has a court, it brings you the balls and the racket too, it might even bring along the ball boy and you say no I'm not interested in playing right now, you walk away from that opportunity, close the door on fate. On the other hand you might be wanting to challenge fate at a latter date and try to go to its clubhouse with all the equipment, it might just not be interested in playing with you no matter how much you try. You try so hard you give it so much that fate at that moment will laugh at you and say "I’ve come playing so many times and you’ve said no, lets now see how hard you can fight". That is when you have to decide if you want to keep knocking fates door until your knuckles are raw and you're left with nothing but a wounded soul or if you want to go back and wait patiently for fate to come back to you when its ready to play. It is decisions like these that pave the way of our life, sometimes the judgment can be wrong and we have to be strong enough to face our own decisions.

Visa to Heaven . . . Don't educate your daughter

Looks like "Maulana Fazlullah" a notorious cleric from Swat in NWFP Pakistan has setup his visa issuing counslate that has been making promises of heaven to the poor uneducated masses of the region. Maulana Fazlullah is another product of the Afghan Soviet War, the remnants of which to this day are haunting the lives of millions of people in Pakistan. A known terrorist who is wanted by the government on numerous charges has to date, eveaded arrest; he was the only voice of support to the Lal Masjid Clerics and has sicnce the operation gone underground.

Maulana Fazlullah has made headlines in media all over the world by his claims that the Polio Eradication Program of WHO is a "conspiracy of the Jews and Christians to stunt the population growth of Muslims" he claims that polio vaccines cause impotence and thus the villagers should not get their children immunized. His propoganda has been quite successful and thousands of people have stopped vaccinating their children, there have been several attacks on medical teams in the area that have gone in to vaccinate the villagers.

His Latest Cause:
The maulana has now taken upon himself to stop the region from educating its women, after 60 years of independence, education was just starting to spread to the region for their women, the first generation of girls had started school and this idiot announces that education for women is unislamic, he has illegal short range FM stations running in several villages, and he uses them to spread his word that he clains is the word of God. Not only does he spread his word but he uses simple pshycology to have villages compete among themselves for entry into heaven by taking more children out of school. His drive has been quite successful with the region again falling into the dark ages. He has been successfully able to extinguish to light of education from the lives of thousands of young girls full of potential.

This nation has been used and abused by everyone for their own vested interests, the people have lost their will to florish they are merely existing, Where is the voice of reason, who is there to say something about the situation and fight for a cause withour fear, Why is no one doing something to silence this voice of darkness and bring light again into the lives of these simple folk who don't know right from wrong, may God help us all.

Back

Its been months since I wrote here and I did'nt think I would be back. Last few months have been quite heavy with work and family. Work had suddenly created a lot of tensions and though most of it is ironed out there are still a few things that are giving me headaches hopefully they will be sorted out soon. In the mean time I will try and keep posting on here. I just got back to the UAE last week after a 2 week break in Pakistan.

The whole time I was in Pakistan the "Red Mosque" saga was taking place, every TV station had the depressing scenes repeated every day 24 hours of the day. This was the firt time I was in Pakistan that I was'nt really happy about being there. Most situations in most countries improve with time but it seems Pakistan is drifting back in time, instead of things improving things are getting worse, whatever you look at, whatever you see is going bad like a crate of mangoes set out in the heat for a couple of days. It hurts to see where Pakistan is today and it hurts to know and feel that probably nothing is going to change. Those in whome we believe tend to let us down, I had hopes with General Musharraf when he took over, I had hoped that he would be the agent of change but alas he has like a million others fallen prey to the political and social culture that is Pakistan. I can only hope for a better tomorrow because hope is something that no one can take away from us.