Stockholm First Impression

Touch down

So finally after a long wait I finally landed in Stockholm with my wife on 12th of september 2019. The first impression of Stockholm that I got from the Taxi drive to apartment was that how much Stockholm resembled Islamabad. Although it’s not totally like Islamabad but the greenery, the clean roads, the beautiful and clear sky everything reminded me of Islamabad. However one thing that was completely different from Islamabad was the weather. Its never that cold back home in September. I knew before coming that its going to be cold in stockholm, but I had no idea it was going to be this cold. When I later talked to Swedish colleagues in my office about it, even they were a little shocked about the early arrival of winters as well. So be prepared for the cold if you are coming anywhere between september to may. Because it stays pretty cold here almost all the time except 3 months.

Costs

The Taxis are really costly in Stockholm. Good for me that the trip from airport to my apartment was covered by my company. Otherwise it would have been a hefty 600 SEK  in 43 kms travel. Back home I could travel in Uber every day. But here I cant even imagine a single trip on uber unless there is an absolute emergency. Stockholm is a costly city and you will find each and everything to be expensive here.

Public transport

That brings me to the public transport which is surely one of the finest thing about this beautiful city. You have to buy a transport card reffered to as SL card to be able to use the public transport. The SL card will enable you to take busses, trains, and even some ferries that will take you to every inch of Stockholm. The quality and punctuality of the public transport is really admirable here. Bus stations and subways have electronic boards which will tell you the wait time in your transport. You can almost always peek the bus on the far end of the road whenever the board shows 1 minute remaining.  Most people use public transport for virtually all the purposes. The busses and trains are perfectly clean. They have priority seats available for older, pregnant or people with disabilities. Also space where you can sit with your shopping bags or with your baby in stroller.

Bicycle

Swedes also love to ride their bicycles. You will see a lot of people bicycling to and from their offices in suits and all sort of dresses. Even the CEO of my company and the senior partner, who by the way both happen to be wonderful ladies, bike their ways to work and home. When the swedes are not bicyling you will see them on the electrical scooties which you can find anywhere on the street. Their are apps for unlocking the scooties and paying by minutes of use.

Health consciousness

People take their diet and their health seriously. On the first lunch I had with the team, I was the only one that ordered a coke, everybody ordered plain water with food. Also I have noticed that people love coffee, but they dont add any sugar into the coffee. Also you will hardly find any obese person on the streets. I think its the combination of diet consciousness, appeal for exercise and also because of the fact that use of public transport demands a lot of walking.

Equality

You will find women equally participating in every field of the society in Stockholm. In fact with my limited exposure I am inclined to believe that the women are even more participating in the society than men. The CEO and senior partner of my company, the CEO of the relocation company that helped me with moving , the consultant of that reloaction company that helped me with the apartment, the apartment owner, all are women. Also if you will read the stats on gender equality, you will find sweden to be on top of the list.

Interactions

Before coming to Sweden I had read that the Swedes are quite reserved and its difficult to talk to them. But the experience that I have had uptill now does not approve of this stereotype. I met a swedish guy on plane and he was so friendly that we kept talking till we fell asleep. Then the first day I was using the public transport to go to my office, I asked a swedish guy for help, and he was so kind that he helped me virtually all the way to my office. Also everybody is quite friendly in the office. People do tend to work quitely with focus when they are on their seats. But they love to have a good conversation over the lunch or coffee. Also there is a beautiful walking track by the lake a few steps away from our apartment. We often go there and everybody that comes here is in good mood and love to greet with a smile when you pass by. I think that is quite friendly.

Charm

Stockholm is an exquisite place to be whether you like to be close to nature or you want to be in loads and loads of people. You can get a taste of both flavors in Stockholm. You will find a lot of greenery and wonderful lakes here, where you can swim or do boating or just jog around the lake.  And you will aslo find a lot of shopping areas and resturants crowded with people. The streets are really clean and the buildings have a beautiful aesthetic feel to them. You can only feel it when you experience it on your own. And the exquisite nature is not only limited to the landscape and buildings, you can witness that in the people as well. People are tall and good looking and they dress quite decently as well. You will rarely see some one dressed a little casually on the streets. Also, if like me you come from a region where average height is on the lower side, Swedish people can make you feel like a dwarf. I am just kidding there are short Swedes as well, the children. If you ever feel depressed about your height, you can always compete with Swedish children in height. Me and my wife often joke about how we are equal in heights with  children.

Apartments

The apartment in Stockholm tend to be quite smaller especially if you are coming from Pakistan. But on the other hand because of the small spaces, they have probably mastered the art of utilizing spaces. For example when we were apartment hunting there were a lot of apartments that had a special deck on top of the room to sleep and the rest of the ground was efficiently utilized for seating and kitchen area. The apartment that we have is 31sqm but has everything that a couple would require for a comfortable living.

These are my observations based on the first week only. Let’s see how they might change in the future with more experience and exposure.

Random Pictures

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

 

Umeed

چمن کو باغباں خود زیر کرنے پے اتر آیا
مسل کے گل انا کو سیر کرنے پے اتر آیا

 

لہو کی لت تکبر کی طلب نے لی جو انگڑائ
لڑا کر فاختہ کو شیر کرنے پے اتر آیا

 

قدم جلدی اٹھانے کا سبق دے کر ناجانے کیوں
امیرکارواں خود دیر کرنے پے اتر آیا

 

کئ برسوں کی محنت سے جو گھر تعمیر کو پھنچا
زرا سی چوٹ کھا کر ڈھیر کرنے پے اترآیا

 

ابھی بھی وقت ھے لوگو اگر تم چاند کو چن لو
تمھارا رھنما اندھیر کرنے پے اترآیا

                         

                          مصعب

Contemplating Time-off

These past few days have seen the politics of worst kind in Pakistan. From allegations of harassing massages to the claims of hidden marriage, Pakistan has had enough. Everybody that I talked to seemed exhausted with the news and wanted to get a break. But with the modern media and the social networks breaking news 24/7, getting a break from the current affairs feels like an impossible dream. But to be practical this is the right time and best chance to get a break and let your politics related brain cells rest and re-energize before the election 2018 strikes us again.

Sitting at home on a working day, trying to divert my attention away from the stomach pain, the ship of my thoughts sailed through the memory voyage once again. It’s been almost two years since I started my professional career as a software engineer. I cant believe how quickly the time has passed, I remember Back in the university days dreaming of having a job seemed like everything. Especially in final semester, job was all that we would discuss. Right after the senior batch passed out, we would often sit around together and try to recall the names of our seniors who graduated just shy of a 2 GPA. We used to be really happy if one of those guys got a job right out of university. Actually the happiness was not truly for them but for us, because if one of those guys could get a job, then chances were that the gods of jobs would show mercy on us as well.

I wasn’t sort of the guy who would study consistently through out the semester, neither were most of my friends. In fact I was quite far away from that, I remember in one of the start semesters me and my friend had this competition of  leaving quizzes (the one who misses more quizzes wins), it wasn’t a declared sort of competition but rather an unintentional one, somehow the number of left-quizzes kept increasing for both of us naturally. Sometimes we kept sleeping through the quiz times, sometimes we didn’t bother going to the Braber’s hall (That is where the quizzes and exams used to take place) because we could foresee the outcome of the quiz already. I don’t really remember who won the competition, but we both sure did end up with the probation letter in our hands.

I used to be really care free. I didn’t know the significance of a good GPA. Since I had already made up my mind that I would do a job after graduation, and as I had heard multiple people say that GPA doesn’t matter in our industry, I didn’t bother much about the grades. Rather it would be right to say that I made it a motto of my life to not get a good GPA. I remember during one summer, I picked up a course to improve, and got so lost in watching the season “LOST” that I actually lost the bet of exam and ended up with the same grade as before after the summers. I remember I slept in the mid term exam and as soon as the invigilator woke me up with a weird look, I handed him the paper and left. I was totally John Snow in that exam (The guys who don’t understand the game of throne’s reference, John snow’s girl friend kept telling him that he knew nothing).

That attitude wasn’t lasting however, I changed in my senior year. I wanted to make a good impression before passing out. I also realized that although a normal GPA doesn’t effect your job hunt, but the bad GPA sure does. So I worked and prayed to get a good GPA. I got really good marks in the 7th semester mid-term exams. My friends started to tease me that I am ending up on the deans honors list this time. Although they did that in a humorous way, I however decided to turn this into the reality and got serous about the quizzes and assignments. And when the final result came out, I had actually gotten on to the dean’s honor list. My friends were shocked. And I sure teased them back.

The funny thing however is that the dean had forgotten about the party that he had to throw for the toppers. So I went to him and discussed it with him. we finalized a date for the party. But then when the day came I slept through it and missed it.

However I have always been good about the practical stuff, even during the first semesters when I was clumsy about the studies, I enjoyed doing the programming exercises, and focused on the projects seriously. That is the reason that the responsibility of the coding part of the final year project was entirely put on my head by my group mates. They helped equally in the presentations and documentation part though.

It has only been two years and the university days seem far behind. My target at the time of graduating was to get my hands dirty with coding for two years and then plan for the future. Seems like the time has come and I need to re-evaluate my future plans.

Panama Rasgullay

There was a time when Mooti choor’s laddu were the most famous sweets in Pakistan. But since May 2017, the Panam rasgullas of two Khwajas of Noon league have become even more famous than Mooti choor. It is true that Mooti choor’s laddu are delicious beyond comparison but the value added quality that Panama rasgullay bring to the table are just unimaginable.

The biggest advantage that the panama rasgullay hold over poor Mooti choor is that their heavenly taste lingers on for exactly 58 days. The consumer can continue to enjoy the amazing panama delight for steady 58 days for the price of one rasgulla. And even after 58 days the panam rasgulla doesn’t stop to surprise you. If you remember a toffee from the childhood which used to be sweet in the beginning but would turn extreme bitter as you suck it a little, making your prankster friends laugh at you while you make funny faces, well that’s exactly what the panama rasgullas have brought for you. Right after 58 days they turn extremely bitter changing the taste of your mouth, giving you a sudden surprising diarrhea and gas. It sure feels a little uneasy and messy but its good entertainment for your friends and spectators watching you bloat and burp.

Another brilliant quality of Panama Rasgulla is that it makes you high. You don’t need to buy weed for straight two months after eating one rasgulla. All the troubles from your lives will just fade away and everything will look perfect as heaven. You will sing ,twist and dance for two months and will only be aware of the realities of life after two months. But no harm right? you can have another rasgulla after two months and experience high once again.

All the mithai faroosh of Pakistan are worried about this 3rd generation rasgulla. And are planning to give a dharna in front press club Lahore. Their only demand from is  Noon league to release the recipe of this magical Panama rasgulla.

Right after eating Panama Rasgullay.

After 58 days(Rasgulla’s turning bitter)

High on Rasgulla.

شب و روز

               دن گزرتا ہے گزرتی نھیں کیوں رات میری
شب کی تنہائ سے بنتی نہیں کیوں بات میری

                  کاردنیا میں ہی الجھا رہوں بھولا ہی رہوں
                     ہو نا پاے میرے ماضی سے ملاقات میری

تو جو رکتا تھا تو رک جاتا تھا نظروں کا طواف
تو جو چلتا تھا تو چلتی تھی جبیں ساتھ میری

                  چلو اچھا ہوا جانے سے تیرے جاتی رہیں
                  سب دعائیں سبھی حاجات و مناجات میری

                                                                                                               مصعب

Slash the cancer not the whole body.

The truth has finally become clear to the MQM supporters and voters, and if you think thoroughly, it is a big deal. Never in the history of MQM have we witnessed the MQM supporters denounce their leader in any case, they would go any lengths to defend Hussain’s stance no matter how smudged it was. We have witnessed many occasions when whole of the Karachi would be shut down if anyone dared to speak up against Altaf Hussain. Nobody would deny that the bond of MQM supporters was very different from any other political party and its leadership. People wouldn’t even mind turning to violence to stop voices against Altaf Hussain. It won’t be wrong to say that people loved Altaf hussain unconditionally, and didn’t even leave him even after he had broken their trust so many times, it was only after this irreversible incidence that they finally decided to give up on him, and all for good.

The question to ponder however is about the fate of post Altaf MQM. Many of people think that it should be totally banned, their national and provincial members be deprived of their seats, and article 6 be filed against the whole of MQM leadership. But is it really going to be helpful? Is it really going to be good for a peaceful Karachi and peaceful Pakistan?

We all know that Urdu speaking community of Karachi shares a special bond between them, they have a stronger sense of belonging to each other than rest of the ethnic identities. And this Urdu speaking majority of Karachi considers MQM to be its true representation. And we all know that whenever there is a trouble against MQM, it is considered to be a trouble against all of the Urdu speaking community of Karachi and it causes a sense of panic and frustration in all the Muhajir community. So the question that we should really ask is that is it worth upsetting all of them? Won’t it hurt us all if we push them all to the limit that they really begin to ponder if there were some reasons behind Altaf’s controversial stance?

I think the natural way is the best way, and if they are realizing it themselves that Altaf Hussain, once considered their identity is a bad omen to them, we shouldn’t stand in the way of the natural order of things rather we should show our support and love to them. It’s never a good idea to rub something in opponents face when he is already realizing that he was wrong. It could make him stick to his wrong opinion out of ego. And be assure that rubbing Altaf Hussain in the face of whole MQM would not benefit any of us.

We all know that it is an unprecedented event in the history of MQM, and we should not doubt their intentions. And if we do doubt their intentions then that won’t be fair on our part, and the reason that I say so is that in the recent past we did give a chance to the deviated ex MQM leaders who made a new party named as Pak Sar Zameen Party. If Mustafa Kamal and his colleagues have the right to get another chance after defending Altaf’s quisling speech in India, and defending MQM after 12 May, why Farooq Sattar and his colleagues shouldn’t be given another chance after they have categorically denounced Altaf and have broken all the connections with MQM London.

Another perspective on this issue would be to think of this situation as if you are in Sattar’s feet. If you are loyal to your community and if you want to help them, won’t you want to do the same thing? Would that be better to break the party and let the Urdu speaking voters wander around in hopelessness? Or would that be better to slash the cancerous part of the party and build the confidence of his people once again.

No matter how much we all hate MQM and their policies, one thing that we cannot deny is that there are some brilliant, young, energetic, educated and patriots who belong to the middle class in the party. They were given this opportunity by the party. We don’t know of many parties in Pakistan who give chance to the unknown middle class people to rise high among their ranks. These people have their affiliations and feelings attached to the party and we should respect it. And if they are willing to correct their mistakes, we should be compassionate about it. Long live Pakistan.

 

 

 

Crisis is a teacher, respect it.

Writing is what makes me feel liberated, it slows down the pace of my life and makes me feel free of all troubles. Past few days have been immensely hectic, with problems in production, the customer had made our lives hell. Days, nights, weekends were all alike and the fire fighting against the bugs continued regardless of the constraints of time and space. The times like these make you believe in the Murphy’s intellect and most importantly his laws:

1. Things will go wrong in any given situation, if you give them a chance.
2. Whatever can go wrong will go wrong.

There is no doubt about the above laws and that is why they are called Murphy’s laws and not Murphy’s theories. However I think, had Murphy been a Computer scientist he would have proposed another law:

3. Whatever cannot go wrong on your machine will and must go wrong on client’s machine.

Too bad he was an aeronautical engineer and missed on one of the most important law.

Anyways, in times like these when things are going wrong one after another, and you have a lot of pressure on you to fix things up, the probability of you making mistakes increases, and the cushion of making mistakes decreases. That is when your team matters the most because that is when you need your team the most. Now if your team is not helping at all and they believe on the philosophy of “every man for himself “, then you are all doomed. But if you are lucky enough to have a supportive team like me, then your problems become easy, and all of you together are able to put the fire out. Not only you are able to do your job well but you enjoy the thrill of fire fighting during all this period. No matter how much you complain at the outside, inside yourself you know that it was fun and that you have achieved something.

The things that you learn after the crisis has passed is that you start to believe in yourself , you start to trust your instincts and intuition, you know that if anything like that comes up again , you will be able to deal with it. And that is one hell of a quality to ask for.

The other thing that crisis teaches you is that you are at your best when you are calm, so whenever a crisis hits you and you are overwhelmed with the things , you should take a break. Sometimes a walk of few minutes can give you brilliant ideas to fix the issue, that otherwise you wouldn’t have come up with.

The last thing that you should know is that when the crisis ends, you should find a little time for yourself ,do whatever you like ,party hard if you want, or if you want to rest then sleep like a dog (I have no idea if the dogs sleep that long, it just sounded good so I wrote). And most importantly enjoy whatever you are doing.

 

 

 

 

From Drawing Rooms To Borders

During the general election 2013, Khan was the talk of town.He had such mammoth rallies that on occasions people died of stampede. He had successfully mobilized the youth of Pakistan to come out of their houses and support him. However, whatever it might have appeared on the outside, the inside realities were a little different. There was a second kind of voter group that was silent, it didn’t participate in rallies and conventions, it wasn’t vocal at all, but on the day of election, this group of voters marched down the streets on a massive scale, voted for Nawaz Sharif, and went back to their sleeping cells. This resulted in a landsliding majority for Nawaz sharif’s party, he had won the elections by clear majority.

The reason why all this silent voters chose Nawaz over Khan was that in their opinion Nawaz had been holding the reigns of state for long and had an experienced team, which would handle the affairs of the state in a mature manner.The mere degree or title of “Experienced” had won Nawaz sharif Pakistan for the third time.

However,  my curiosity is if that gigantic vote bank still holds the same opinion after three years of the government have passed?

A day back Afghanistan did unprovoked firing on the Torkham border which resulted into the martyrdom of a Pakistani army Major, and wounded many other soldiers. Pakistan in response attacked their basses and has allegedly captured several of the Afghani Posts. Afghanistan’s sensitivity and desperation with the building of gates and walls on the Durand line is understandable, but the question is what happened that shifted this desperation to the border from the diplomatic drawing rooms?

The incidents like these do not happen all of a sudden, the tensions take time to transfer from the diplomatic front to the borders. And the right question to ask is what has Pakistani diplomacy been doing to prevent this kind of severe strain to spread?

On the south side of the country, the ties with the inherited enemy India have gone to its lowest. From Mumbai attack to Pathankot, India has successfully portrayed us as a terrorist nation in front of the whole world and has played remarkable diplomatic games to isolate us in the region. Desperate efforts of PM Nawaz  to make things right with India have all gone in vain. Moodi has really taken his game to the next level, with Chahbahar port in Iran and the road in Afghanistan to connect central Asia to the Arabian sea, he has strengthen his roots into our neighbors. Today India enjoys better relations with Iran and Afghanistan than us. With India’s increased stakes in Afghanistan, and  Pakistan’s soared ties with the USA, India has been able to create great economical, political and military influence in Afghanistan. And it is highly possible that India will replace USA as “police” once USA leaves Afghanistan.

In recent past ISI has managed to capture Iranian spies who were involved in disrupting the CPEC project in Balochistan. Iran sees Gawadar as a threat and competition to Chabahar and has been trying to cause troubles. The ex Taliban commander killed in the American drone attack had also been travelling from Iran. The increased ties of Afghani Taliban with the Iranian government are also troublesome to the Pakistani game in the region. It is to be remembered however that in the past when Saudia wanted Pakistan to take its side in the Yemen conflict against Iran, Pakistan managed to maintain a neutral position and had denied to fight against the Iranian backed Houthi rebels. This had greatly affected Pakistan’s ties with Saudia and her allies, a minister from an Arab country even warned Pakistan of dire consequences if it didn’t take sides.
Although It did help save Pakistan from jumping into another war, but it seems that it didn’t help Pakistan maintain its relations with either Arab world or Iran.

Bangladesh on the other hand has always hated Pakistan since its creation and lately has been busy in hanging pro Pakistani activists of Jamat e islami.

The ties with USA reached its lowest when the congress disproved the deal for giving F 16s to Pakistan and demanded that the aid on the deal be cut down. The congress demanded that Pakistan should be pushed to do more against the Haqqani network and should be asked to pay in full for the F 16s. Later on, the ex Taliban leader mullah Mansoor was killed in an uninformed drone attack in the province of Baluchistan. Pakistan recorded its protest to the American high commissioner in Islamabad and the army chief General Raheel regretted this decision of acting alone by the USA.

It is famously said that a man is known by the friends he keeps, and same is the case with countries, a country is also known by her allies, and it clearly looks like Pakistan has been isolated in the south Asian region. Ex friends have either gone neutral or turned their backs on us. And the real question to ponder is that what has the experienced government’s diplomacy been doing. Last time I checked Pakistan still not had a foreign minister. The modern day state system highly depends on the allies you have, and it looks like slowly and gradually we are on a mission to loose them all. Only on one side of the border we are left with a friend, rest of Pakistan is surrounded by the conspirators.And not only in the South Asian region, but it looks like we have isolated ourselves in all the world. It won’t be wrong to assume that Pakistan’s foreign policy has totally hit the rock bottom and a total overhaul is required, and who else is to blame in the democratic setup than the elected government itself.

 

Welcome Aboard Mates !

Most of the software engineering jokes are totally lame but they do make us curve our cheeks a little. Like this one “There are only 10 types of guys in this world, those who understand binary and those who don’t” a normal guy would start wondering about rest of the eight guys, but a software engineer would look at this joke, smirk a little (not because this is funny in any way) but because it gives him a pleasure to know that only he could understand it.

Well I don’t mean to say that there are no good jokes, but most of them would make us only smirk a little bit and a very few of them would make us go “ha”. And to be honest I don’t remember the last time I heard an IT joke that made me burst into laughter. I guess only dirty jokes have this super power to make you ROFL. (On a side note I once caught a friend of mine red handed sending “lol” with a very serious face.I confronted him and he said he had caught me doing the same thing several times.Before that I used to trust lols, but not anymore)

In my professional experience of working with the first ever software house of Pakistan, I have noticed that there are 10 (two) types of guys in IT, one who are passionate about their jobs, they love what they do, the derive pleasure from it, they enjoy the company of their colleagues, go out and have fun with them and take everything lightly. And then there is the other type who are always and always complaining(complaining is a light word I should use whining) about each and everything, nothing in this world can make them happy, no matter what they get, they will always find out a reason to complain.These kind of people are always unhappy and unsatisfied and wherever they go they spread they carry this aroma with them.
Now when you are working in the professional environment you have to interact with everybody in your team and out of your team. You cannot just tell somebody “hey man you suck, I can’t stand your presence around me, go hang around with your own gloomy types”. There is something special about these types of guys though, they are really easy to talk, because naturally people like to complain a little, so whenever they meet you and start complaining about something, you will find it pretty easy to find reasons of your own and hence the conversation would be prolonged and you will kind of bond with them.But when you meet the next few times and they still will be complaining about how the new HR policy sucks, and how the manager did this and that, you will have a sudden moment of enlightenment and you will realize “Oh so he belongs to the gloomy caste ! I have been tricked”. And now all of a sudden their presence would start to become a burden on you, and you would like to avoid them.

On the other hand the fun guys would also complain, but they would do it in a fun way.Like in IT industry late sittings are very common, I have seen guys staying in office for several days without even leaving for a second, sleeping in the manager’s cabin for few hours, and working on the critical issues rest of the time.But they derived so much sense of accomplishment and pleasure from the completion of the task, that they would proudly tell everybody in a very fun way how they spent three days in a row in the office and how they accomplished the task. They would feel satisfied at the end, everybody would know they contributed to the organisation and everybody would appreciate their efforts and I have seen the rules being bent for these guys.

These guys bond with each other really well and enjoy their time at work, they understand it well, that time won’t always give you what you want, so you better find a way yourself to spend it in a good way. They know that complaining and whining about things would only make things worse, it will destroy the tempo of all the team.If they have a concern they share it with the right person at the right time.

When I was going home for the first time after my job, I met a guy who was also working in the same industry, he was sitting right next to me, I like to talk to people so we started the conversation, and during the conversation he poses a question to me “Isn’t job tough, I am tired of this routine ?” and I responded without a second “I don’t even want to think about this, because the day I started to think so, that day my job would become tough for me” and he was taken aback, but I knew I had said the right thing.

Now to all the guys who have just graduated, I would like to extend my deepest sympathies, I mean congratulation you freaks, you have done a great job, you have made us all very proud, just remember do what you love to do, enjoy every bit of it, and I have already warned you about a specific caste of people, don’t be like them, ever.Best of luck for your futures.

 

 

 

 

Being in his shoes

How difficult would it be if I told you to gather 1 million rupees? pretty damn tough right? Now imagine you had to gather tens of billions of rupees, what would you probably  do? You would go to people spread your arms in front of them, and ask for money. And you wouldn’t only have to go to a certain land, you would have to go to different areas, all over the world to gather that kind of money.Now consider you had other projects that also require tens of billions of rupees, would you have time left for doing anything else? No, you would be asking for money 7 days a week and 12 months a year.

Now consider all this money that you are gathering is not for yourself but for the social welfare projects that you are building. You would probably have the energy for gathering this kind of money for once, but would you do this every year, till you are alive just to see the smile on the faces of ordinary people?

And now consider you have opponents, and they are not just ordinary opponents, they are opponents with power, the strongest people in the whole country, and they are trying to malign you just for the sake of politics. They wrongly  blame you of being deceitful with people’s money, although you had never done so, and although you did all this with the purity of intentions, wouldn’t you be disheartened ? wouldn’t you be hurt?

You are doing all of this for others, not even for yourself, and yet the opponents are so disgraceful that they wouldn’t even leave your social work alone. But the important question is would you still go on and help other people in all this crisis? Even if you wanted to do this by heart, would you have the energy and stamina to still go on out of your way to help other people?

There is a man I know who does all of this.And I feel proud that he belongs to my country.Do you know him? If you do, I just want you to be in his shoes for few minutes in your imaginations.