Shopping at Khurana's

Come Ramadhan and shopping for new clothes becomes hot for Muslims everywhere in the world. Every Muslim is encouraged to wear his best clothes on the day of Eid. There are quite a number of places in Hyderabad where you can buy good clothes. But for some, it has become a tradition to buy Pathani suits from the well known Khurana's. From the time I have been in Hyderabad, I remember my dad taking me to Khurana's and buying me a joda. It is quite popular among our relatives as well and Khurana's gets loads of business from our side.

Khurana's, for all its popularity, is disadvantageous if you go at the last moment (the night of Eid). Less choice, more crowd. This time I decided that shopping as early as possible will have great benefits. For me shopping at Khurana’s is easy. Every time I visit Khurana's (which is generally once a year) I mentally decide what I will be buying the next year. So, when I do land up here, the time spent in selecting the appropriate joda is minimal.

This year, I went to Khurana's with my cousins. My uncle has a way with the people at the shop and him being along was sure to bring some discount our way.

At Khurana's

Going early meant there was very little rush. So once my uncle finished talking to the guy in charge there we were assigned a very good salesman and off we went to select our dresses. We browsed through quite a few sections. I had already decided upon my choice..you know Like LAST YEAR!!..so I was pretty sure where I had to go. First up Khaja Uncle finalized his selection(in the kurtha section), then we went ahead to the Pathani section. There we came across quite a lot of variety. Some gaudy, some weird. One set of clothes had a black top and a Blue pyjama some mistake on the part of the packers I suppose.

Shafi bhaiya looked at quite a lot of variety and then BANG!! One of them caught his eye and he chose that after selecting the size. Just about when Shafi bhaiya was wrapping up there was another Loud BANG!! (in my mind of course) as someone deposited on the counter a dress that fit like hand in glove with the image of "My Selection". I grabbed it, inspected and finalized it. But the salesman said it was one size too large for me ("Yeh pehne tho aap doob jaathey" - If you wear it, you will sink in it ). But no problemo, we easily found the exact same piece in a smaller size.

The precision was quite military like, where soldiers line up to get their rations, we marched ahead one after another and selected our choices with a lot of inputs from our salesman. And we were out of the shop in quite a short time considering we were there selecting six sets of clothes.

Shafi Bhaiya with the Clothes in a Complimentary bag

In the meantime, during the selection of Rafi bhaiya, there was something that kept us occupied. The Police visited the shops running late into the night. They came seeking permission letters but also something else. Moolah, Bribe..etc etc..You can see the Policemen in the photo Below just behind the Blue car

Me and Rafi Bhaiya (happy with his choice) and (police behind us)

Later we had a good discussion of how things go around with businesses competing with each other and how Police gain from every marketing ploy.

Busy in discussions

Oh yeah...before I leave you..lemme show your my selection..of last year that I bought this year

will update you on Eid of how I look wearing it.

THA BRATHAR

the breather brathar is a keeper

Thought interrupted

Being alone is a curse. Even greater a curse is being alone in a gathering.
Being alone can be taxing on the mind and body. With a growing urge of wanting some company, one can go about doing crazy things. Watching movies, listening to music, reading books. All tend to have some impact on the way the brain processes information present in the mentioned activities. These are also activities people indulge in while there is company. The same activities can be taken up to run away from gatherings.

When a person is really alone in a far away country, unable to speak in his mother tongue, it has various implications. You tend to speak less and less about things that are close to the heart. Speaking in a foreign language about such things doesn't really satisfy. It leaves a void in the mind.

Official

Aug 14, 2006 - 1 Photo

Firsting with Picasa Web Albums

HyderaBAD Traffic

In Hyderabad, there is traffic then there is TRAFFIC. Traffic is a man-made bane onto man himself as well as natures. Not only, does it affect Nature but also my nature.

It’s frustrating the way traffic in Hyderabad has gone and become the ugly face that I have to look at every day. Not many places I have been in my life but I am sure to a great extent that Hyderabad has a traffic unrivalled. Motorized, mechanical and pedestrian. None of these act in a way one would expect them to. I believe, it is another organism by itself. I have, over the past 9 years and more than 70,000 k.m. of it, come to understand the potent nature of the Hyderabadi Traffic. Within the City, it can be seen everywhere. Acting in a unique way. Unique to Hyderabad.

Knowing the way scooterists will swerve, the way the buses will suddenly stop, the way some unsuspecting auto-rickshaw swerves out from in front of you and lays bare a pedestrian crossing the road at any place other than the Zebra-crossing. It’s all there in my mind, programmed or hardwired, developing over the years. To begin to think that you know everything about it is the first step towards being crushed by it. No matter how experienced you are in driving in Hyderabad, it will surprise you to no end!!

People cross national highways as if it were their backyard. Drivers swerve like they are the only entity occupying the road. Diverse are the ways of the roads surprising you. Some lanes manufacture potholes in hours, some get dug up in a matter of minutes by various “development” activities. To think that telephonic mobility has to be achieved through chiseling scars on the road and patching them up with metal strips. Newly laid roads don’t look good!! They have to be dug within two days.

To traverse this mixed bag every day is like undertaking a soul searching journey. Too many times I have to bite back hard on my anger. Apparently, traffic rules are solely for decorating textbooks with red, amber and green. No one knows what they mean.

One question that always crosses my mind. What is the future of this? Where will Hyderabad be 2 years from now, leave alone the year 2020. There are some good steps the government has taken. Rooting out the evil broker from the licensing mechanism has to some extent taken out those ugly drivers. But still the enforcement is weak and a license less driver will go scot free by bribing a meager 50 bucks. This space will not be sufficient for discussing the variety of problems that keep cropping up. I leave that to the newspapers.

My purpose was to put down my frustration. The fact that I am writing this is proof that it’s not all that bad. You will live at the end of the day. I just hope people respect the rules and do their own little bit by stopping where they should stop. Just to make life a little easier, Just a bit.

This is the best Acknowledgements Section I found anywhere. This belongs to a friend of mine from Palestine. One of the best people I know. May Allah grant peace to the the Conflict ridden regions of the world.

Acknowledgements

ALLAH is the First and Last one to whom all my words of thanks go to; the One who has taught man that which he knew not; and the One without His will this work would not have seen the light. My parents are the ones to whom my special gratitude and respect go to. They are the ones who withstood my being away from them, the ones who always used to strengthen my will to achieve my ambition.

In fact, this page is exclusively designed to note my gratitude and respect for those who helped me to complete my project. So I would like to thank Dr. **** **** for his kind help, guidance, support and encouragement throughout my study. This project would not have been possible without his assistance and cooperation.

I am also grateful to my sponsors (ICCR) and University of Hyderabad, for providing all the facilities to complete my project successfully. I also would like to express my sincere gratitude to my classmates for their supports.

I extend my full gratitude to ***** ******, A professor at the Department on Computer Science, University of Auckland, who initiated the main idea of my project. I also feel indebted to the team working on OpenSSL Project and Paul Heilein who has written a very valuable documentation for using OpenSSL command line which helped me a lot. OpenSSL is a cryptography toolkit implementing TLS network protocol and related cryptography standards required by it.

I express my words of thanks and gratitude to TLS working group who are employed in IETF for their concern about the subject concerned by providing a mailing list by means of which people who are working on this field can get responses to their enquires.

As an expatriate student, I warmly extend my thanks to the peaceful country India which has embraced me as one of its sons. Thanks to the country where I found peace and settlement that I didn’t find in my country Palestine because of the Israeli occupation.

***** *****

Rafah,
Gaza Strip,
Palestine.

(Names have been blanked out to protect the privacy of the holders)

Wow...Ready to Take-off