Category: general

phir koi jaadu hai

Interesting morning today.

At McCowan RT station I spotted an old friend who I haven’t seen for over a year, and the last time I saw him was on the subway as well. We were both entering the RT at the same time, I paused and motioned to let him in first, he thanked me, but didn’t recognize me. So I followed him and sat across him, “Hello Joshua!”.

He gave me this, “you can’t be Adnan, wait you are Adnan!” look. Then he did say out loud, “Your hair, look at your hair, it’s never been this long! the beard I’m used to, but the hair!”. But it was neat, getting to catch up with him, we went through high school and university together (different programs in university though).

“I see you’re still wearing your iron ring”, he tells me. Actually, I lost my original iron ring while bowling a year ago. It just flew off  during a release and we couldn’t find it. So only just last Friday did I go to the Iron Camp One and get a replacement ring. Like the original this one is also actual iron (and not stainless steel), and it’s also half a size smaller (so it won’t slip off so easily).

We moved onto the subway train, still catching up. We talked about where the last year went, and how we spent it pretending to be busy. Joshua used to love playing the cello, so I asked him whether he was still playing music. He wasn’t, being busy being the excuse again. He asked me if I was still doing magic, “not as much as I was doing before, in fact I just recently started carrying a deck of cards again!”.

I pulled out the deck and started to do some flourishes and fans. I was sitting near the subway doors, Josh sitting in the middle seat and there was a lady sitting beside Josh. I did what’s called a colour change to one of the cards and this caused both Josh and the lady to react… in words. “Hey, that was amazing! you’re a magician!”, she says. “In certain moments, yes”, I smiled back.

I continued to do flourishes, and when I did a one handed fan with half the deck, she literally reached over and grabbed my hand in delight! I’ve had people grab my hand in the middle of an effect to disrupt it, but not in sheer excitement. I continued to do more flourishes, and then put the cards away. Then the three of us got into a discussion about magic, and how the lady thought she’d never be able to do it. I told her with enough training and practise that she too could do magic, she would have none of it though. “You kids on the computers and keyboards, I could never have that type of dexterity”. Yes, yes you could. I had no idea I could do magic before I started either. That’s how it works.

She started to talk about professions, “yes we work with/in computers” we said. She mentioned her 25 year old son who did his undergrad from York in music and was going on to do a masters. She was worried about how he would make a living/money with his music degree but was much relieved that he was doing a masters and would possibly go into teaching. She went on to talk about her 21 year old son who into business.

I started to notice how sometimes I don’t make friends, I make strangers. Josh and the lady both were getting off a couple of stations before me, but as they were leaving the lady couldn’t help but pat me on the shoulder a couple of times saying, “thank you so much, you made our day”. Hmmm… you just made mine, thank you! and God bless your soul!  =). I also like how she said “our” and not “my”. That’s neat.

I haven’t posted a magic story in a while.  Initially even when something happened I refrained from posting it, and then I wasn’t doing much magic for something to happen.

We’ll see what happens next…

like winning a new life

I’m in the drive-thru line, waiting for my turn at the mic. As fate would have it, I didn’t get this turn. My window was stuck from the wintery freeze coldness, and it just would not come down. Undeterred by fate, I parked in the lot and walked into the actual Tim Hortons. Ordering a medium hot chocolate, a croissant and a chocolate glazed donut to boot (to eat actually).

Of late I’ve been finding things that I’ve been looking for, so I thought it would be really neat if under this rim was a “winner” sign. Unlike other folk, I have no issues finishing my cup before checking. I can wait… for as long as it takes.

I don’t remember where exactly I found out, but I sensed inexplicable joy when it happened. On my first try! When I got to work I placed it on my desk. People walking by or coming over for a chat asked, “oh did you win?”, “I did, I did, I won!”, my excitement still not translating into words, but holding its own in my eyes. “oh yeah? what did you win?”, I could see anticipation building in their eyes now. “I won another coffee!”, my excitement still high and rising. “oh, just a coffee? I thought you won a boat…”, anticipation body count: 4.

So what if I didn’t win a boat? Is my excitement not justified? First of all, I won on the first try. Second of all, I won another cup! It’s like winning another life, one cup from another cup. This is awesome. I don’t understand why folk are disappointed by my level of excitement.  Why don’t /you/ go win a boat? I’ll enjoy my moments with another life. Thank you very much.

But my luck with the cups doesn’t end here. Two “please try again”s later, I won again. Guess what I won? Don’t try too hard, I’ll just tell you. Yes, I won yet another life. That is 2 wins in 4 tries. Those are very very good odds.

Though the second time, to avoid killing anticipations, I kept the winning cup safely hidden. I’m yet to claim my prizes.

peace train

“What do you want Adnan?”, asks random coworker, let’s call him T.
“Hmmm… it would be nice if we had a better version control system. But you know what I really want? I want to go on a long train ride. That’s what I really want. Also a bucket load of money. Actually two bucket loads. Let’s make it three, three should be enough.”, my response dragging on slightly longer than expected.

This a couple of weeks ago. Now I’ve converted the want to a need. I need a long… long train ride. Clearly the TTC is not happening. I need something like from Toronto to Vancouver. A two or three day train ride. The destination not nearly as important as the journey. This is what I need.

“Why don’t you drive?”, asks my brother-in-law.
“Have to concentrate too much on the driving, train is free-er.”, I says. But really with a train, you’re not in control. You don’t control your turns; you can’t slow down or speed up. You don’t decide when you stop and when you go. I need to not be in control. I need to let go. I need a long train ride. That is what I need.

Another plus side with the train is… I couldn’t possibly get lost. I could get a GPS system for the car, to help with my directional disabilities. But why not just spend that money on a train ticket? Well… I could get lost within the train, but that would be sad on so many levels that we don’t discuss it here/now/ever. =)

In some ways I want to be lost. Maybe not lost, just away and disconnected. Though I’m not sure what I’m disconnecting from. Maybe it’s the location? my surrounding area? I know it’s not the people. People are fine. I’m not sure what it is. Maybe it’s myself? It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to know.

I could take a bunch of books with me to read, or to use as paper weight. (Aside story here: when I was in India, in a bookstore picking up “Zen”, the Dilbert book and Blink. The dude at the counter asks me, “You should also buy The Tipping Point, what type of books do you read?”. I told him I don’t read books. “So then why are you buying these?”. I tell him: “I’m going to use them as paper weights”). I will have a deck of cards or two, or three. I will have a deck of cards or three. Might be a good time for me to do magic for strangers. Get over that shyness factor, ever so slightly. Who knows? I might even bol in public. =D

Via Rail has details on the ride here. Seems like Toronto to Vancouver is pricey. I might cut the trip short and go as far as Edmonton. Say “hi” to Basit. Hold hands for a while. Then jump back on the train the other way. Ride to Edmonton is still 2 full days. Yes Basit, I’m considering visiting you simply because it’s cheaper. This is what our relationship has come to. This whole train ride thing seems like it will require planning.

Hmmm… planning. yes. When do I go? I’m thinking maybe in the summer sometime… June/July/August maybe. I think I need to get this out of my system this year though.

Yes. This is what I need.

jaadu hai kya hai?

jaadu hai kya hai?, what is “jaadu hai”?

Literally “jaadu hai” means “magic is”, or “there is magic”. “jaadu hai”, this can also be seen as saying “magic exists”, confirming its existence and more importantly its presence.

The whole notion of “jaadu hai” came about when I performed magic for a group of people and afterwards stuck around to answer their questions on magic. During the discussion I explained that “magic is not something I do with my hands, the magic is in your eyes”.

I later translated that into urdu in the following format:
“mein in haathoon se jaadu nahi karta
tumhare nazroon mein jaadu hai”
or
“mere haathoon mein jaadu nahi
tumhare nazroon mein jaadu hai”

“tumhare nazroon mein jaadu hai”. wow. This is an example of where something gains in translation. This doesn’t really translate to “there is magic in your eyes”, it means “there is magic in the way you see things”. wow.

The last two words, “jaadu hai”, is how jaaduhai.com came about. Confirming for me the presence of magic.

Just a note: I have been referred to as “mr. jaadu” on the internet and in person.
But how can I be magic, when all I do is see magic?

In either case, this is way back in December of 2006 (I brought the blog back at adnanali.net in October 2006). Unreal how long ago that feels now. I remember at that point really really badly wanting to add more lines to “jaadu hai”. I also remember trying and thinking. But there was nothing. I was blank. And I really really badly wanted to.

Then this year (2008), as lines flow… all of a sudden, “jaadu hai” flows as well.

so here are the lines:

mere haathoon mein jaadu nahi, tumhare nazroon mein jaadu hai
dil jab rukh ke phir dhadak ta hai, tumhare us dhadkhan mein jaadu hai
saansoon mein tere, tumhare khamooshiyoon mein jaadu hai
chand ki roshni mein nahi, us ki gheyraiyoon mein jaadu hai

yeh jo jaadu hai rukhta nahi, bas har ek pal mein jaadu hai

open letter to winter

winter, winter, winter. hello.

I like you, I really do. But I don’t know if I love you yet. You cause me so much pain. Yes, yes, pain and love aren’t always mutually exclusive. If love and hate are two sides of the same coin, then pain and joy are the intertwined ridges on the rim. So it’s not always which side you land on, but also how you spin. But, winter, you also cause confusion. No, no, please don’t rationalize yourself to me. I’m not making a logical conclusion or a reason, I am expressing a feeling. And know this, that when you are not with me, I will miss you. I like you, I really do.

I carry no gloves, to liven that sense of touch. No toque, so that the snow nests in my hair, then turns to rain. But you take advantage of this. Fire warms and you cool, but you both burn. So much.

You shower us with your anger and your love. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. The less fortunate freeze, but I suppose the summer with its heat waves is not much different.

You change things. You change so much. You’ve changed me. Your cover knows no bounds. You cover grass, bushes, trees, ponds, roofs, roads, sidewalks, driveways… and my car. You make things difficult, but I still hate it when people bitch about you. Don’t they know you’re coming? And you come every year, at the same time. Year after year, after year, and yet we still complain. As if you are a stranger, as if we don’t know you at all. That is not fair to you.

You alter the contours of my sidewalks. I have to re-learn familiar grounds. I feel your curves against the sole of my feet, and there is pain. But this is the pain that familiarizes me with you, how else will I learn to love you?

You confuse me. Winter, in you this year, I have slipped plenty, but fallen none. That, in more ways than one. So much confusion. This is part of why I will miss you, and this confuses me.

You surely leave your mark. As you mark the end of a past year and the start of a new one. You’ve marked an end of a past me, and the start of a new one.

I think I do love you. I don’t know what more to say, so I will listen. Tell me, how have you been?

reading

“I don’t read books”, I hear myself saying that over and over for years. I don’t know what it was about reading books. Why would you read one if you didn’t have to, like for a book report or a text book?

I think I was okay with the plays, I liked Macbeth and Hamlet, as both stories and written words (what little I understood). But reading novels was, and to some degree still is, beyond me. Stone Angel had to be the most boring book I never read.

I remember this one English class (OAC English) where the teacher distributed a poem and she asked people at random how we felt about that poem. People gave their answers, answers that the teacher wanted to hear. Though the answers may have been sincere, they felt constructed, custom made and packaged to get grades. So, as what I consider punishment, I was asked to tell everyone how I felt about this poem.

“right, so I just read this, and I don’t really feel anything”
“really Adnan? do you want to read it again”
“no, I read it already, and I’m just being honest, I don’t feel anything”

It turns out that honesty does not get you good grades in English class. It’s not as if I was a total dud. I got nearly perfect grades on the Heart of Darkness quizzes and essays, my skit based on Grapes of Wrath was awesome. But I can’t be expected to manufacture feelings. You can ask me what I think the poet was trying to convey, and I’ll make things up, but don’t ask me how I feel and expect anything short of honesty.

Another time, this girl had made this thing for a project, it was a chair with rose petals on it, all enclosed in this see-through cylinder. This was supposed to symbolize a key theme from the book she was reading. I remember the English teacher saying, “See, isn’t this beautiful symbolism? And [insert girl’s name here] has only known English for [x] years”. This annoyed me much. While the symbolism may have been fabulous, how is creative thought process a subset of the English language? As if people who think in Spanish are incapable of abstract thought and symbolism, and there is a correlation between creativity and the number of years you’ve known the English language. Oh please, get over yourselves.

I’m not sure why I preface this post with that. But I did. I suppose it has to do with the type of analysis that is required in English class, at least at a high school level. Where we read so much between lines we might as well write between them. Maybe it was the highly speculative nature of this analysis that turned me off. How do we know that the role that women played in Heart of Darkness is a direct reflection of what the author thought of women? Why could the roles not have been carefully designed and crafted that way to fulfill a purpose in the novel? disconnected from the author’s personal (and supposed) prejudice? It could be either, but how can you say no when you do not know?

In either case, I didn’t read much if it wasn’t for a book report or a text book. Then during my PEY internship (2004), I bought books on Perl and read them from cover to cover. I had bought books on Java during high school, but that was for reference purposes or to learn something specific in a certain section, not for cover to cover reading.

Through out my PEY internship year I purchased a number of technical books and read them cover to cover, books on the Apache Web Server, MySQL, PHP, Code Complete, Design Patterns, XML, XSLT and a slew of other tech books. Over $1000 in books. That’s how I started reading with a cover to cover mentality. However, this was all still tech. Not that tech is bad, most people in tech don’t read tech. They think that coming out of school, they know what they need to know. Yeah, well you don’t. Go read a book. Later, while I was working part-time, I gave one of the interns Code Complete in a very “here, read this book” kind of way. In conversation with him a couple of years later he told me, “you were the biggest mentor I had, just by giving me that book”. So if you’re in tech, you’re not as clever as you think, go read a book and get over yourself.

Anyway, back to my PEY internship year. On Fridays, I still went to pray at Hart House, because that was familiar territory. On the way back to work, I dropped by at the UofT bookstore and started browsing. I happened to come across the single copy of Joel on Software. Joel on Software is a collection of blog posts Joel has made over the years. These articles range from technical material, to user interface, to writing documents, to managing people, all over the board. Joel on Software was my gateway drug into non-tech software books. I went on to pick up books like Mythical Man Month, but not at the same pace as I had picked up the tech books. (Haha, if you can find me 5 college students in your city that have read this book, I will hire at least 3 of them).

Fast forward to 2007, where I find myself in India. Books in India are much cheaper than Amazon. So I went to downtown Mumbai with a co-worker to check out the books. We found this one bookstore that had a number of books I had wanted for a while. So you can understand my excitement. So much so that my co-worker said, “there was this look in your eyes, the only time I’ve seen someone that excited was when [use your imaginations here people]”. So I bought about 11 books, however I wanted to come back again for more. So I did. I went back and picked up about 14 more. These weren’t just tech/programming books, they were also management/project management books. Books like: Peopleware, Death March [death march], Catastrophe Disentanglement.

I had to purchase another suit case just to carry the books back. Just so people understand, software development is not just about technology and geeks (a large part of it is), but it is also about people interaction and communication. Most projects fail not because of the technology, but because of the people (though let’s not kid ourselves, projects do fail because of bad technology as well). Above and beyond anything else the software industry will benefit from learning how to listen, then to write down what was heard. The problems that plague us now are the same problems that have been there for decades, but we don’t learn, because we don’t read.

Out of the 25 books, I did purchase a novel. While in India I met someone via Facebook, and she recommended a book. Finding myself in cheap book land, I figured “why not”. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I tried to read it at that point, but I couldn’t. Something wasn’t clicking, so while I was reading the book, I was not reading the book. More on this later. If you’ve read this far into this post, pat yourself on the back, stretch, take a deep breath, go make yourself some tea or coffee or water. I will also take this opportunity to make special mention of Scott Adam and his Dilbert books, the ones I’ve read so far are: The Dilbert Principle and Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel: A Guide to Outwitting Your Boss, Your Coworkers, and the Other Pants-Wearing Ferrets in Your Life. Does the latter sound like a book a certain blogger would be interested in? =)

I stacked them up in my room, the books, and thought to myself, “I probably won’t buy another book for the next two years”. I was wrong. It doesn’t stop. I can’t stop it. I’ve bought over 20 more books since I’ve come back. I find that the more books I have, the more I’m inclined to read them. I don’t read one book at a time. I will read Book A on the subway to work, and read Book B on the subway ride back home, and then Book C at home. It’s the way I get them read, cover to cover. Some may find boring the batch of books I read, and that’s fine. But understand that these books are from a different ecosystem than you are used to.

I have a huge chunk of my books at work. Every so often I will send out an email to all of staff letting them know what books I have available so that folk can borrow them. It makes me happy that people do come around to take the books, and that they read them. One of the reasons we don’t read is because it’s not always dead easy to get a book. Sure you say go to the library and pick up a book, but some folk won’t even do that. So when you make something so easy available, people will respond (this is a lesson in more than just books, when you make something more easily available then it was, you’re gaining a new audience, this is good). This book availability email happens often enough for people to call me “the library” at work. So here I go, from mr. “I don’t read books” to mr. “the library”.

Fast forward to end of 2007 and start of 2008. I went through an interesting mind shifting experience (it was for me). I was able to break patterns in my brain and free the occupied territories in my mind. Someday, I’ll write about that. But interestingly enough, I felt/feel the need to get away from all the tech and management books. I didn’t go out to buy books, I went to a book I already had. Zen. I’m reading it now, and I’m liking reading it. What didn’t click before is double-clicking now. What I don’t like is that I’m a slow reader, I need to find ways to improve this.

For the birthday, the siblings bought me an Amazon.ca gift cert. So now I’m scouring the Amazon for my next batch of books. This set will include books on design/creativity and books on improv. So I’m expanding my reading scale.

This is a good time to recommend a book, got any recommendations?

[If you got this far, go ahead and drink the tea/coffee/water you made]