Are women mentally suppressed in Pakistan?

Being a 'woman', and being a 'woman in Pakistan' are two different things having completely different meanings!

There are many shortcomings of our society that we do not even realize easily. There have been many questions to which I fail to get a sufficient answer, initially I used to think that Islam suppresses women, but later on came to know it is Islam which empowers us. It is our society which does not give women a healthy atmosphere. These are not minor factors as these factors limit the horizon for women, its like women getting a quarter of the canvas! How can we expect women to be having healthy minds and thoughts unless they're given a healthy environment to   live. Here go my questions (these are not with reference to the few selected elite living in main cities of Pakistan or those living in gated communities)

1. Why can't a girl travel by her own bicycle to her institute? I always wanted to do so whenever i used to miss my bus, and i used to dream if only I could clamp my books to the carrier of a bicycle and paddle all the way! and we would often scoff about this situation, but we can't change anything!

2. Why can't women girls/women go to a nearby park to play? why can't I play badminton in the open? or any other game? are women lesser humans?

3. Why can't women/girls walk or exercise on their own at a public place? I have always been dreaming of plugging in my headphones and going on a steady walk! but of course I can't! but why?

I so want to go out someday, sit on some bench under shady trees and read a book for as long as i may like but that seems a distant dream!

There are the, like many others, opportunities which we don't even think that we could have had, Me being active supporter of rights of women would like to see some positive change in our society so that women should be treated something more that just 'objects'!

[Related Post]

A Leak About WikiLeaks!

When i came to know about this book, it made its way to my must reads! It is always fascinating to read about the details behind big projects and getting to know how things were being done behind the scenes.

Before reading this book i knew nothing about what actually was WikiLeaks (WL) and the ideology behind it. All i knew was the leaks regarding Pakistan and America! But actually this book not only gives an insight about WL but also about the world and the frauds going on.

What is WikiLeaks and how it functions:

Basically its a website that is driven by many volunteers who contribute through the system provided by WL to submit secret documents and donate money as well. WL is a non-profit organization. And they have it hosted at different location through out the world.

The ideology behind WL:

Apparently the underlying ideology is that all functions of governments and its organizations should be transparent and should be brought in knowledge of the people. Its a fight against censorship and a fight to bring true facts in the limelight both.

Audience who might like to read it:

It is a good book to read for all the people lives stuck in IT. Its interesting how the writer takes the reader through his journey at the WL, the book is like a real fiction!. At some places one feels that Julian Assange has been too much criticized and at others you feel that maybe the writer was a bit too much involved and impressed from the guy and had a lot of expectations. He sure was impressed which can be seen in the starting of the book where he explains Julian as someone he was really impressed from his personality and airs. Julian was formerly a hacker known as "Mendax" in the hacker community.

Wikileaks, as reported by this book, is a web application that started its functioning with very little resources and they kept pretending in front of the world that they have a fleet of lawyers and enormous resources and that it was hard to challenge them!

Some notable info from the book:

Some interesting information that i got from this book was about Scientology and its founder L. Ron Hubbard who tells people that he is millions of years old and has been travelling from planet to planet to see if everything is OK.The author says that at first people would laugh at him but later on with the magic of his speech he would actually convince the people.

Its also worth a read that how they collaborated their leaks with their sources how they ensured the safety and anonymity of their source and how they collaborated with the media and journalists.

the story of the video called "collateral murder" is captivating and its amazing how they got all the things done, and one thing is for sure that there are a lot of bloopers behind every project but the bloopers behind their project could cost much and they knew this!

One thing that might be out of context but worth mentioning is that Iceland is a country which looks like a  photographic negative!

Attitude takes you places:

Recently from BBC site got to read this news update:

24 Oct 2011 – The whistle-blowing group Wikileaks says it is suspending its publication of classified files due to financial problems.

One nothing noted from Daniel's account of Julian is that the only hurdle that might prevent him from reaching the top could be his attitude, he somehow lacks the guts to work in a team (though he already is an achiever but could go higher).This news update confirmed my views. By the ways the Daniel suggests that Julian didn't like when others were called the co-founders of WL as he himself wanted to be the only "founder" furthermore he fantasized being arrested!

OpenLeaks:

The author has promised at the end of the book about another whistle blower site that has been registered as "OpenLeaks" upon the same foundations and with the same aims as WL.

Last thing that I learned from this book is that WL tries to expose the cruel world we live in!

What Pakistan can learn from China

Image Source

The motivation to write this post comes from the book I have read pretty recently called “Chaltay hou to Cheen ko chaliyay” a travelogue by: Ibn-e-Insha In this book he narrates the story of his visit to China as a part of cultural delegation from the government.

China has come a long way, and has struggled a lot to come to the place where it is today. Its an economic power which is expected to help in euro-zone crisis, though the countries are afraid that China might take over their market but as an editorial in a paper read "Beggars are not choosers" hence they have no other option but to seek help from China.

Though there is no comparison between China and Pakistan due to the fact that they are a lot maturer than us as a nation because Pakistan was formed in 1947 and the Long march in China dates back to 1949. This means that almost when Pakistan was formed there was a revolution in China. This fact makes China much more mature as a state and nation.

If we briefly go through the history of the land now called Pakistan, the people have been ruled by invaders sometimes the Aryans sometimes the British. In other words we have always been waiting for someone to come from outside and rule the region! And we can see the glimpses of foreign rule even today!

Fundamental Difference between China and Pakistan, which I have felt while reading the book, is that China’s cultural norms and traditions are aligned with their national goal and this has been a key factor in their success, whereas here in Pakistan we follow the trends and traditions of India, dressing is inspired from the west and our deeds are not accordance with our religion but our nationality is ‘Pakistani’! I feel we are in a state of confusion! This confusion can be overcome by strong leadership which provokes nationalism in the people and earn their commitment and dedication. Unfortunately we don’t lack but are somehow devoid of a strong leadership.

In China, as told by the author, dressing is decent and simple, and everyone seems to be dedicated to his/her work/study/profession. Whereas what we can notice in our country is that universities are becoming fashion houses! And such dedication cannot be seen in everyone but few.

He further says that there were thousands of doctors in China who had left luxurious life in America and Europe and came back to their country to serve their own people. Moreover writers, Doctors and intellectuals have to spend two months per year in villages. I wonder what would be the reaction if such a condition is imposed in our country and I further wonder if any such thing would ever be implemented even if imposed by law!

Health standards are very high in China which is a result of healthy habits in which drinking hot water is top of the list and continues with healthy food.

Though China has a leader behind the revolution but the prosperity has been taken forward by the people at the grass roots and their commitment and dedication, which continued even after mao tsi tung. A leader can only give a vision which needs the power of the people (willing people) to implement the vision. If this vision is empowered by ‘public will’ then the results would be pretty similar to China!

Caricaturing the Sacrifice

        Each year on Eid-ulAzha we sacrifice our dignity, sense and respect by making fun of the sacrifice by all means. From adverts to dramas the sacrificial animal is used to sell the channel. And that is what we are teaching the next generation about this event.

Today I got this message from Ufone:

       

 “Win a blackberry Bold 9000! Just MMS funny videos of your sacrificial animals to ….”

This was enough to make me write this blog post!

       And I am pretty sure that the Eid transmission of various channels would be full of people mimicking the sounds of animals and making fun of the sacrifice by all possible means, and frankly to me (I need to use some harsh words here) these programs stink. Sacrifice has become a matter of fun, a  matter of competition and show off, which is against the very spirit of sacrifice.

        Humor is something very positive and constructive as i have stated in another post earlier,  but there has to be a line that divides the things we need to make fun of and things we don’t make fun of. Airing all such programs dramas and adverts even , do we have any right to protest against Islam being caricatured by other religions? No! we don’t, we first need to set our rules and vision right.

          Hazrat Ibrahi A.S. was a Prophet of very high stature, the Quran uses the word 'Hanif' for him, i.e. focused & committed and his commitment was nothing but oneness of God. He spent his life in trials and tribulations but he never let go of his cause. He was the ambassador of oneness of Allah for the ancient man. Even he did not give up in front of a powerful ruler Namrud, which for he was sentenced to be thrown into fire, but that fire could not bear the fire of tauheed(oneness of God) in Hazrat Ibrahim A.S. and turned to flowers.

Reminds me of some urdu poetry:

Be-Khatar Kood Para Aatish-e-Namrood Mein Ishq
Aqal Hai Mehv-e-Tamasha-e-Lab-e-Baam Abhi

Translation:

Love fearlessly jumped into the fire of Namrud
Intellect is absorbed in the spectacle from roof‐top still

The sunnah of such a Nabi of such high stature must never be made fun of.

We need to bring the true essence to the lime light, make the people realize the sunnah better and enhance the knowledge of the new generation on this rather than laughing at the idea and hence let the world laugh at us!

 May there be 'sacrifice' in every ‘slaughter’!! Ameen.

Developers VS. Engineers

My perception is that a developer’s job starts where an engineer’s job ends. Though an engineer’s job does not end literally, but when design is in a shape suitable to be handed over to the developer can be termed as ‘end’.

Accepting the fact that a developer is not just a code writer or a syntax specialist, he would also review and modify the design, so the jobs of both overlap but are clearly different. Just like the jobs of a technical and creative writer are totally different but of course both have to ‘write’.

A designer has the eye to see through a design whether it is easily modifiable or not. For example when implementing user roles the designers concern would be what if a new role has to be added later on? Does the design allow this change easily or not? What if a role has to be removed? Whether all the roles present in the real time domain should go into the software system at all? An architect’s concern would be how to manage the interaction of modules and layers and which architecture to follow reviewing the trade offs related to speed, modifiability, etc.

So if my perception is correct and ‘design & architecture’ is different from ‘development’ then should developers call themselves engineers, when they are not fulfilling the role of an engineer? I would not prefer to call a job an engineering one unless it is related to whole lot of design decisions, architectural decisions and their documentation and modeling. Starting off from the domain model, use case model, vision document ending up somewhere around class diagram and partially final architecture diagrams. An architect may or may not take part in coding.

I remember when I started my internship I was given an individual project to start with and was expected to come up with the database design first up, and I was a kind of shocked that how am I supposed to jump unto database design before having gone through the ‘analysis’ phase, or without design documentation. However I fast forwarded through the design diagrams for my own understanding. But this was actually how work is done practically, and I find there is a gap in how things are being done in education and industry.

Later on came to know the same from other friends who were working at software houses that things are not done practically as we are taught in university. Most people think that they don’t have this much time, where as in books we have read that time spent on design and architecture is the most beneficial. Many people believe that documenting or not documenting design is not a concern on professional level, as both ways bugs are produced!

My question here is that all that we learned throughout our degree, and all that we drew so much, are they just fairy tales? Or can they really be implemented in real time settings and larger scope projects? Are these methodologies (RUP, Agile, XP) actually followed or is it possible to completely follow them? most importantly: Does the industry differ between a developer and an Engineer? (If the answer is yes, then why are universities offering two lines i.e. computer science and software engineering?)or do they (the companies) just need 'code writers'?

Time Value of Greeting Cards

Once in financial accounting class I was surprised to know about the 'time value' of money, i really disliked the concept that 'money' is already given lot of value and its value should not be incremented with time, however those were hard facts of material world! same is the case with greeting cards their value increases exponentially with time, This fact was disclosed unto me once i came across a bunch of cards in my possession!

Academic Evaluation

‘Evaluation’ in our academic system seems to be taking its roots from the concept of ‘day of judgment’ in Islam. Evaluation expressed in the form of ‘marks’ is based on just one big day, and that big day is all about jotting down what you have been asked and what you know, and if the student is not physically or mentally well that day or on that great day your thoughts are not co-operating well with words or you can’t turn up in the battle field then its your personal issue  the authorities or the teachers are least concerned and you ‘have’ to fail the course/subject. And the student has to wait for the same great big day next year! And trust me if you’re a chosen one then the same might happen to you the next year too!

Well, getting out of this nightmare, let’s see how to alter our system to correct this problem. A student should be constantly monitored and evaluated this would keep the student in action throughout the session and a lot of involvement from the side of the teachers would be required. This way stronger areas of the student would be explored and weaker areas be addressed. This sort of evaluation would require teachers’ attention towards each and every student and the students would really need to show their efforts.

The effort and focus of the student should be evaluated rather than outcomes in the form of words jotted down.

Methods should be revisited, competitions, quizzes, creative and collaborative work should be promoted. The teacher should impart interest in his subject and teach the student how to explore and learn themselves. Right now teachers impart horror rather than interest; they would tell the students how horrible it would be if they fail. And lets make a note what failure means here: its falling short of marks! Even if you have enough command over the subject, even if you’ve tried to learn.

Evaluation should not be about gauging how well a student can memorize and express himself rather it should be about the command of the student over the subject the knowledge base the student has developed over time. This knowledge base cannot be solely measured with written examinations, because two students having the same level of knowledge might not perform the same in written examinations. Every student does not have the same capabilities. If the same knowledge is input to a number of students(assuming they have absorbed it all) the outcomes would be different from learner to learner. Some might write well, some might come up with practical implications of the knowledge and some may speak very well about it. So writing is not the only faculty to rely upon alone.

Quitters never win!

We are so used to some habits that we never realize being habitual to it.

Whatever goes wrong in our country there is one clear demand that surfaces from people in general: ‘resignation’. We demand people to quit where change of faces can give us nothing when we need change of policy! And it’s a general trend to appreciate quitters. Those who resign are appreciated by everyone, though in some situations a resignation really is required but it is not a generic solution to every problem.                  

This attitude continues at personal level, for me at least, when I initially started my job my immediate reaction to stuck work used to be ‘I am quitting’ without realizing that it is easier to find a solution then to cry over the problem. This goes on, something goes wrong and I would de activate or delete my Facebook account assuming that I can’t face the world, I can’t answer what people would ask, such and such xyz people would remind me of such and such xyz incidents, and justifications go on.  Every time I would seek refuge in deleting or deactivating my account to get distracted or to hide whatever. Which was wrong totally wrong, they say winners never quit and quitters never win! True indeed. One should rather face the music rather than hiding from situations.

So I have decided one thing if one is good at quitting then one should quit being a quitter.

Bomb Psychology

I happened to see my nephews and nieces playing one day, they were all ready for some sort of an act, their seriousness made me observe more closely (without having been noticed of course). All of them are under seven years of age, here goes their scene: the youngest of them was walking when suddenly the other one made the sound of a bomb explosion! The passerby fell down then everyone else rushed to help him, pick him up and one of them very thoughtfully stated making the police siren sound!! The little bomber also ran with them and was seriously prompted by the eldest that “you’re dead; you’re not supposed to wake up” though a lot of innocence was involved in this act and they looked so cute while performing but this was really shocking to see.


I was really astonished to see their familiarity with the whole process! I mean they knew that first a person blows himself up, the police always comes ‘after’ the incident, and people get hurt.  For once I literally thought someone should play Rehman Malik in this scene!

To me this is the bomb psychology that this generation is growing up with; they are being brought up with this insensitivity towards the value of ‘life’, promoting the general attitude of not bothering unless you are actually a part of it! After all it’s their childhood game. Unfortunately, this insensitivity is gradually being promoted among all of us in Pakistan.

And we don’t even see the writers, the thinkers from the new generation to come forward and jerk the sleeping humanity. We have seen lots of work from the poets, writers, thinkers belonging to the pre-partition era though the situation we face now is even worse, but no one bothers! Those who dare to read at all are more inclined towards the likes of wasi shah and many have yet to return from the world of harry potter, while other have got their headphones on so they might not be in a mood to think or do anything! and not to mention thoe virtually living in bollywood. Our attitude needs to be revised.

But still lets appreciate when someone tries to make us think, this video and song is artistically done, ‘mein to dekhonga’ is an absolute click! Though ‘dekhonga’(I’ll see) should be replaced by ‘karonga’(I’ll do), still it has awesome lyrics especially the punch line ‘jab roti sasti hogi aur mehngi hogi jaan’


The effects in this video paint the picture of a desert, sunny and dried up, but they talk of hope! hope for the future! as they have the next generation in front of them. 

And we have learned to laugh!

           Ever since the Musharraf regime started to allow licenses to private channels the options of channels to watch from continues to increase. This welcome to new channels by the then regime was very good, Media has urged the people to think and learn, though this has not been their objective! Media does at times get misleading and controls the focus and attention of the people about various issues. But overall this media boom is beneficial for the people as the ‘poor and the plenty’ do get a chance to voice their concerns. Economic benefits are also visible as it flourishes as an industry.


        In the quest to compete, better sell their channel and come up with something different few channels came up with some sharp, witty and humor filled shows about the political scenario. These shows would show the exaggerated and sometimes true version of the situations our country was facing. Which was good, as humor is the only way to say it all without saying anything or without pinching.

I am a firm believer of the fact that ‘humor’ should be really taken seriously, specially at academic level such activities should be promoted. At times you realize that some time pass activities in the classroom ‘every one tells a joke’ really are useful. This is the best way to make students think about new and funny aspects of the things. Making someone laugh is a creative activity which requires sensibility. Plus humor also allows us to ‘laugh off’ many complications in our life and one would probably take a relaxed back seat.

There was a time when you got the feeling that we really have ‘learned to laugh’ while highlighting the issues on media. Later on this became a success formula for any TV show i.e. mimic, caricature everything everyone, every situation! And the show will sell out very well! The situation now is that in some shows the anchor persons and participants laugh at serious issues, they laugh to the extent of insensitivity! Sorry if I am being harsh but this laughter seems a little hysteric! This approach has become somewhat ineffective in bringing issues to the lime light. The practice of mimicking and caricaturing as increased pathetically and showcasing our non-seriousness to the world! And probably those who were being laughed at have started to laugh with us!

The element of ‘ridicule’ has overshadowed humor. Putting aside the fact that people being ridiculed are worth this, but moral values should not change from situation to situation or person to person. ‘do-nots’ for a person or organization should be according to self-standards not according to others!

Such shows should be continued and no way ‘stopped’ but they should definitely be ‘controlled’ as excess of everything is bad!

Apologize, Forgive and Smile!

Mannerism and etiquettes have always been the defining feature of us ‘humans’ and the reason that we think and can differ between right and wrong dictates us our values.I remember bouncing into many people while rushing towards my class in university and even though my immediate reaction used to be “Sorry!” but I seldom got a: “Its OK” or “no problem” in response. The problem in our society when you apologize is that people assume that you have done something wrong which makes you guilty and apologize in return. This thinking is most probably due to the fact that ‘apologizing’ is not a common practice and hence when some one does apologize he/she might get a deep glare in return rather than few nice words! This reaction is not just seen in minor incidents but also in bigger issues of life. If this habit of forgiving gains roots then this would not just merely be general mannerism but it would change our attitudes for good. I think that every apology should be followed by forgiveness. An apology should not always be treated as a confession! It could be a gesture as well! An effort from someone to make you happy and the positive side goes on.

The little issue with forgiving is that we do forgive but we don’t forget because we don’t want to forget. Some hard core freak in us keeps us reminding that such and such happening must ‘not’ be forgotten and that simply means that we had not forgiven in the first place! All we need to do is to tell this hard core freak that this can and should be forgotten. This does not in any way mean that you should forget the lesson you learn from someone’s behavior but this is about how to think and minimize grudges, as they say that “a grudge is the heaviest thing you carry around”!

All that is said about apology was only when some one does apologize! Interestingly most of us feel really bad about apologizing and we find it extremely difficult to admit that “yes, I was wrong” This is the outcome of extremely rational and mature behavior that one has the courage to admit that he was wrong. Such brave people are bound to improve as improvement begins from realization.

Many philosophers and thinkers have been thinking about happiness, how to be happy or satisfied in a complicated world today. To me happiness lies in simplicity, the simplicity in you, your thoughts and conduct. Sometimes we complicate the things and situations around us unnecessarily. We are inherent to go for a complicated approach where a simpler one would fit in better. This simplicity would cause us to thank, forgive then forget, apologize and consequently smile!

Living in the Year 13 AG

We are right now witnessing the year 13AG (After Google) where google is more of a verb than a noun! And information on an awful lot of subjects is avalaible justa few keystrokes and clicks away.

Google is not just a search engine, now it’s a phenomenon. A reachable, fast and efficient and ever improving serach engine. Just as I had started to wonder that maybe now google would be focussing more on search optimization at the backend, as what more could features could the search engine put on but then Google came of with ‘Let me google that for you’,  intellisense, a callout showing the preview of the search result color based search in images and so on. The intellisense not only suggests you search keywords but also shows you the number of results against each search string! And that too within seconds. The callout showing preview of the page also saves you a lot of time as you can easily shunt off the irrelevant pages.  It seems pretty understandable that, in university,  one of my fellow presenter enlisted ‘Google’ as the only reference on the slide to show all references! Because google really is the ultimate reference and today search means ‘Google’!

Google does lead you to scores of data but validity still remains an issue.

With google googling with Maps, Translation tools, Google Sites,  Google documents, Google desktop, Gtalk, Gmail, Buzz, Chrome, Picasa, Android and now an OS for those who live their life online! Also other endless services provided by google: Blog, Currency conversion, weather, AdSense,  Adwords and so on The people at Googleplex never seem to stop. And this age can truly be called as google’s age. We would be seeing more of the expansion of google’s empire.

Each of the product presented by google has a trademark feature of efficiency and simplicity. Be it their browser i.e. Chrome is extremely fast, image editor Picasa, search engine, Google Desktop each of the products has the google effect i.e user friendliness, simplicity and remarkable speed.

As a developer one thing I have noticed is that Google still uses HTML frames! When many of us think that frames might have become obsolete but tell you what, Google is using it!

Lessons from Egypt

The egyptian nation came out of the 18 days long struggle victorious when on 11^th feb 2011 President Hosni Mubarak Steped down.

This was a moment of pride for us muslims that a Muslim country had shown so much discipline and character and remained steadfast to achieve their rights.

Those moments in Tahrir Square were simply not explainable when the news about the ouster broke, Thoug at first the televised address by Mubarak  a day earlier greatly shattered the spirits of the people and ignited their wrath but later on their efforts did pay off.  All of the noteable international television channels kept airing the celebrations live.

The few very impressive aspects, as I have noticed, of this struggle are worth mentioning:

 Conceived and Led by the Youth: The youth had came forward and using the internet and technology gadgets led this movement in a very organized manner. The most important factor behind the success of this movement was the ‘vision’ of the youngsters which was really clear and they knew they were fighting for their own rights and they used all possibles means to do so and turn up with a massive movement.  A youth when questioned that what did the president do which brought the nation  to protest, In response to this he said: Its not about what he did its about what he did not do and should have done!

Peaceful protest:The protestors showed their class and showed that they valued their people and their asssets and remained very disciplined and peaceful.  This was again due to the clarity of their vision they knew their objective was not to spread violence and unrest but to get their rights.  This vision led them to success.

Army/Police remained neutral:This was acknowledged by a protestor while talking to BBC news amid the celebrations.This is the right thing that the law enforcement of any country should do when people are protesting, they should just strive to maintain peace. The youngster was kean to go back to his friends a become a part of the celebrations but the host managed a few minutes of attention  from him. He said that the army remained neutral and was out there just to maintain law and order.  He also added that this was a people’s struggle not particular of any faith but of the nation.  

Islamabad painted Autumn!

Natural beauty is normally associated with greenery and water, but nature knows how to play with Autumn colors and re-create the green scene. When natures paints Islamabad Autumn, the photographer in you wakes up! The shades and hues of Autumn create such a beautiful effect that everyone is bound to notice the scenic beauty.
A few captures follow

Nature's art beautifully shaping the branches of the tree

Its lovely walking on roads carpeted with dried leaves

The hues of Autumn on an otherwise green tree

The beauty of a tree does not die if it loses its greenery

Team work does it all!

Many thinkers and critics have lots to say about education and how the method and content of teaching be varied, as Pakistan stands as a suffering lot when it comes to education. From methods of teaching, to teacher training, to classroom environment, to evaluation policies to academic policies everything needs to be changed and revisited.

But the point here is although a small one but has a grave impact. ‘Teamwork’ is something that has tremendous effect on your personality, your ability to co-exist with different mindsets and beliefs. Team work is about recognizing and celebrating ‘diversity’. The diversity can be in thinking, behaviors, beliefs, perceptions, experiences, backgrounds, attitudes, opinions, interests and so on. Interestingly inclusion of team work in education does not require any resources or investment just some management is required. As for the current education scenario students never experience working in a team unless they pursue higher education. By that time it is really new for a student to work collectively in a team, moving from independence to interdependence is difficult for most of them. If a student has been working in a team since his early school years then this not only helps him into teams but also makes him a balanced individual.

Co-existence is very important either you study, work or you stay at home, because no individual can live in isolation, you are bound to interact and deal with people. That is why behind every successful venture, project, relationship there has to be a “we-worked-and-we-cooperated” and no “I-worked”, if a person has brilliant ideas and skills but cant work in a team then those skills and ideas are simply good for nothing most of the times. Now let us have a look at how team work does it all!

First of all the individual has to shift from ‘me’ to ‘we’ actually this is the basic attitude shift which teamwork is all about. In a team you learn to be with the team, and you should not expect the team to be with you!

Team members have to share their ideas and thoughts they must be able to communicate and express what they have in their minds, your ideas might get a unanimous ‘no’ from the whole team or you might get a ‘vow! Yes!’ a lot depends on how you convey, if you are being bossy people might not like hearing whatever you say, and if you don’t put forward your idea in a strong enough or confident enough manner then you would probably be ignored most of the times! So once you get along the team then you get to know a bit of the art of public speaking. For example rather than saying “lets do this” or “we should do it like this” one should say “why don’t we try this?”, “should we consider this option? Because being assertive never helps, in a team opinion of each team member is equally important before reaching a decision.

This thought sharing process is very helpful for building speaking and listening skills, because referring to public speaking some of us just speak, i.e. we are not willing to listen to what others have to say and some of us just listen!

Respecting each others views is also very important, because if you don’t listen to anyone then no one will listen to you as well, so you not only have to listen to and discuss but seriously consider even the most stupidest of the suggestions! In this way team members give each confidence to express themselves and taking part in the decision making process.

The most interesting and teaching aspects in working in a team is ‘conflicts’ this is a point where the team members could be heading on opposite directions where the team should be collectively moving together, and its only about time that team members learn that in order to move forward we have to ignore a lot and keep our common goal in focus. This common goal is something which can get the team out of the darkest of times. Resolution of disputes is the critical factor, and both sides should first of all agree that the dispute should be settled in the interest of the team. Once this is agreed upon then a solution is bound to evolve through mutual consultation and discussion. But it is very important to openly discuss issues if any. Another thing worth mentioning here is that a team cannot avoid disputes they can only resolve them because we have many conflicts even within ourselves so when people interact they are bound to encounter clash of opinions. In order to solve a problem it must first be recognized as a ‘problem’. Conflict in team is a vast topic and a domain in itself and much research has been done on it and whole of its details can not be dealt with in this scope.

Conflicts are beneficial as well because through them new things are thought about and the team discovers new ways and as a matter of fact conflict is the very base of ‘thinking’ so the team should not fear conflicting rather they should resolve them and keep figuring out via medias. 

Responsibilities need to be shared, in order to produce results every team member has to recognize and fulfill his responsibilities to prove himself as a constructive member of the team. Team members learn to focus on their own responsibilities rather than wasting time and effort in blaming each other.

When you are working in a team, your mistakes are more exposed and you have to admit what you have done wrong. But the good or bad consequences have to be shared! But everyone learns from each other’s mistakes. Every team member has to let go of his/her personal desires and goals as personal objectives are overshadowed by team objectives. A team should straightaway focus on ‘recovering’ rather than mourning the loss!

Gradually a group of people emerges as a ‘team’ and give each other the due space and start to co-ordinate and co-operate but this comes of time. Adjustability of a person increases tremendously once he/she is exposed to teamwork, as he learns to discuss, decide and work in a group. But it is very important to establish balance of power, there has to be an authority for final decision making to which the team members turn to give the final word. A good team leader leads from behind and manages the activities of the group without being authoritative like the leader should impart instructions not only through words but through deeds! Leader keeps himself informed without interfering. There are endless qualities of leadership which are again out of the scope of this article. At student level leadership gradually emerges as unknowingly there is a leader in the team which the members sometimes don’t realize but there is one member who tends to lead and makes the rest follow!     

Finally, Sharing and coordinating being the name of the game, in short, team work helps to build personalities and groom attitudes. It can be used as an effective tool in our education system and should be incorporated as a regular feature. But this is only if those educating really want to educate and groom healthy thinking minds!

Thinking about the poor and the plenty

        There still are people who think beyond their personal wishes and goals, and such an example that captures your attention is seen in the sector F-6 in Islamabad.

        This person Mohammad Ayub runs and teaches in an open air school. He runs a roofless school amid lavishly done pieces of architecture in the posh sector of Islamabad. Children from a katchi abadi nearby benefit from his free school.

        This unique school one of its kind has a history of 26 years! It all started when Ayub offered two children in supermarket to teach. These young boys were cleaning cars.

        Mohammad Ayub born in Bhera near Sargodha, studied in Mandi Bahaudin’s degree college till FA. Later on he did a teaching course and left studies incomplete when he was a student of Allama Iqbal Open University. He probably is more ‘educated’ than many of the degree holders who pass put from well known universities of our country!

        Initially Ayub was the only teacher here but later on as many of his students graduated they also started to join the noble cause. Now this school has almost 330 students.

        Most of the children are taught between 3-5 PM and later on Students of 9^th and 10^th class arrive and Ayub reaches home around 11PM. His ‘home’ is a store in his office in secretariat where he works during the day and earns Rs.9500.

        This school continues to operate in open air even in Chilly weather as of now, There is an offer for a bigger place for which he needs Rs. 150,000 out of which Rs. 25,000 have been paid by him.

         There is lots to be learned from this example for everyone especially for students who complain about their institution and teachers who complain about their wages, we should also stop complaining and start doing! As our efforts can change the lives of the deprived and underprivileged whose sufferings never seem to end but are equally human.

        Even if we can’t be like Ayub still we can be amongst those who support his cause and help him out.

Location: Street 9; F-6/3 Islamabad (Near Hill Road)

The 'Person' today

Society consists of interconnected interacting individuals. There is a wide array of the reasons of interconnection, and not talk about the ever increasing modes of interaction with the passage of time.

Technology has empowered this ‘individual’ to his full and the person today is not what he was a decade back. Despite the intentions behind technological advancements is not concerned with the betterment of mankind but is a result of ever increasing competition and race to be ahead or to leave others behind. This empowerment comes through media, communication technology and internet. So let’s have a detailed look at what this empowerment means and how it can be beneficial.

One is more connected through ever increasing options of communications. You can virtually meet your relatives living abroad through a variety of free software through which you can talk to and see the person at the other end without having to pay for it. All you have to pay for is the internet! Moreover telecommunication is becoming more and more affordable. Telecom companies offer competitive packages and deals for their customers.   

Being connected the person today is more informed about what is happening around him. Information and news reaches each and every individual through media, internet and most interestingly text messages. Many news channels now provide the facility to get important news through messages. Apart from news information is the cheapest commodity today, though validation of information is slightly an issue for researchers. Name the topic and you can get plenty of information and opinions within a few clicks.  Despite the fact, that media has its own agenda and follows its own vested interests, it definitely has encouraged people to think and speak.

Short messaging is gradually emerging as a phenomenon and many a time one comes across very though provoking and meaningful messages, which in turn helps to initiate a thought process within an individual. Many important issues regarding society, religion, governance and so on are raised by these messages, so much so that our interior minister had to take note of it!

                People are more opinionated today, a decade back most of us either knew nothing about something or even if we knew, the meaning was never clear. But today a person likes to have an opinion; the availability of information urges the person to think. We can scan through a variety of different opinions and thoughts presented by people. But there arises another implication that once you have an opinion some thinking then our feelings require to be conveyed and the person wants to be ‘heard’. Most importantly media represents clash of opinions, which is something really vital to make a person think about his surrounding and circumstances.

An individual is ‘being heard’ today, if you have feelings or thoughts then there are plenty many exhausts, text it to your friends in bulk and the message would definitely reach many people easily and if you want to go global then facebook, twitter, MySpace are always there. Sharing is so easy and flexible now, thanks to the internet. Post your thoughts as your status message, a note, a tweet or start a new group on facebook, start a blog and you will get response and more insight from what others think and perceive. Plus media has taught people that they should and can protest and they will get exposure, though media has its own agenda and goals but still it has taught people to think, and speak for their rights. That is why we see on television people protesting and presenting their demands. Now the maturity to protest peacefully would come of time. The first step was learning to protest and the next hopefully would be learning how to protest, because if not in the correct way the protest won’t get you anywhere!

Now the utilization of this empowerment is left to the individual himself, either the individual chooses to capitalize the opportunity or leaves it unnoticed! This rosy part of the picture also has another side, the side we should be aware of.

Today we are more exposed than we were ever before, intelligence agencies, or other government organizations can turn to social networking web sites to gather information besides the security loopholes these websites pose. Privacy policies of social networking websites are continuously revised, most users are not aware of this, so users should continuously review them. Social trends and mindsets can be clearly seen from these websites. So, one should be very careful before making your information public.

People can now pretend more, that web gives a person undue anonymity and one should not take unjustified advantage from this anonymity. A person can pretend more in this age and can pretend to be any one anywhere and fool others. It is a nice practice to comment on Blogs etc with your real name. If you have something to say you should be able to say it from your true identity.

Besides pretention one can be miss-understood more, your tone can never be clear in the text you write,  that is why an ‘n’ has been added to etiquettes and a new term has been evolved called:  netiquettes. Briefly it tells how to make your tone clear in your text like using emoticons, avoiding upper case text (it would be taken as shouting!)  And so on.

Gradually we are becoming more and more impatient and intolerant. We unintentionally demand mechanic precision and accuracy from people as well! And want the speed and authority that only a machine can give!  Furthermore people are becoming more anti social; the need for social interaction is reducing as a new mode of so called social interaction is emerging, the interaction through social networking sites, which is to the detriment of our social existence.

Now the person should learn to fight with the drawbacks and exploit the advantages of present age on him.