Where is Bin Laden?

Hello friends,

Last week, I watched a 2 hour documentary on Osama bin Laden presented by Christiane Amanpour on CNN, and by the end of it all, it became clear to me that the reporter Christiane Amanpour had totally absolved Osama of any wrong doing, and by tracing his footsteps from childhood has instead brought out the other men in Osama’s life who created, fashioned, brainwashed and influenced him to be the man he is today. Amanpour described Osama as a shy and private boy when he was studying in school, and by following his steps into adulthood, we see how the more influential, radical Islamists had changed Osama into being the ultimate rebel. The documentary also exposed the weaknesses and failure Osama went through, especially when one of his battles in Afghanistan came to a dismal failure.

Osama is undoubtedly one of the most wanted man on this planet, and the documentary also talks about how the US has failed to catch him since the 9/11 attacks. Either Osama must be:

1. a genius evading the US military, or
2. the US are very careless, or
3. the US is deliberately not trying to catch Osama in order to bomb Afghanistan to pieces, or
4. God has a hand in this trying to safe guard Osama.

I am strongly led to believe in option 4. Why? Here’s why.

In the compound I lived in Jeddah, one of our neighbors, and a man we would meet at the mosque every Friday would be Osama’s brother. Not his step brother, but his own biological brother. On the surface he condemned his brother’s hand in the 9/11 attacks, but underneath he described how he supports his brother in the larger battle of trying to put a stop to the attrocities the West is creating in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.

He related an incident to us.

His mother, Osama’s mother, had a dream once where Prophet Muhammad came to her. The mother was crying heavily in her dream, and the Prophet asked her why she was so upset. She said that she was scared of the whereabouts of her son Osama, whether he was dead or alive. The Prophet told the Mother that she shouldn’t worry because God is protecting Osama, and that she should be proud of him for the way he has been standing up to the oppressor.

As Osama’s brother related to us this dream, he said that his Mother is not sad any longer, and instead claims as this dream to be a divine sign from God to her.

It is indeed a wonder why Osama hasn’t been caught for so long.

Mansur

Car Wash

Hey friends,

So ever since I got my car, I realized how often I needed to get it car washed because the weather here is so dusty. Every two days, I would be driving myself through the car wash, and again, it would be dusty and messy. Below my apartment building, there are two men who wash cars every night for all the tenants. One of them even approached me and asked me if I would be willing to pay him to have my car washed each night. I thought about his offer, and said no.

So, last night, at 11pm, I went down to my car with a bucket full of soap water and a wash cloth and proceeded to wash my own car. One of the guys there looked at me, well, more like started at me. He approached me “sir, why are you washing your own car. Let me wash it.” To which I replied, “No thanks. I want to do my own washing.” And I noticed how everyone that walked on by looked/ stared at me for washing my own car.

What’s wrong if I wash my own car? So what if no one else washes their own car? Don’t people wash their own cars in the West? Why can’t I do the same here? Why do I have to rely on servants to get my job done here? Yes, I still haven’t hired anyone to clean my own house. I do everything on my own, from doing my laundry, ironing my clothes, washing dishes, dusting, mopping, doing the bathrooms and so on. So, when I can do all that, why can’t I wash my own car?

Mansur

Rain Dance 2006

Hello friends,

This past Thursday all of us went to this thing called Rain Dance. It was organized by the same tour company that took us to Hatta the week before. None of us had ever gone to a Rain Dance before, but the tour company promised us it will be a fun filled evening in the desert where they will have rain under which we can dance. So the eight of us gathered at the meeting point. Two more people were to come but one of them had a sprained knee, so she opted out much to our disappointment.

The bus took off from Dubai at 9pm, and no sooner were we on our way when N started another documentary for my video. She introduced everyone in our group much to everyone’s laughter. There were about nine more people at the back whom we didn’t know. M snapped her iPod in, and we all clapped and sang to the Arabic songs!

N grabbed hold of the microphone and went to the front of the bus, where she welcomed us all on board. “In any case of turbulence, the exits are located at the back and two at the front…” she proceeded to tell everyone on the bus hand signalling like an air stewardess would. “In case of any emergency, please jump out of the nearest window!” None of us were sitting with a straight face as N made us all laugh like crazy.

She went on to give us the itenary by asking the driver. “What’s for food?” she asked. The driver doesn’t know. “OK, he doesn’t know what’s for food, but whatever it is, it’s edible.” More laughter erupted from the back of the bus. “There will be rain there, and G will be showing off his amazing rain dance which he has been preparing for years!” More laughter. N also gave everyone on the bus a chance for feedback. M wanted to know when N will be showing us her ballet skills. Another Filipino guy at the back wanted to know why N was so beautiful, to which N replied “plastic surgery!” It was a constant time of laughter and N was extremely funny with her antics on the microphone!

An hour later, we reached the desert camp, where we moved into the 4×4 jeeps, and we asked for the same driver Mohammad Ali, who took us to Hatta. This time Mo Al was in his hip hop gear and not the local traditional dress. With hip hop music blasting from his jeep, we made our way deeper into the desert while bashing up and down the mini dunes. Two people were not particularly fond of dune bashing, and so many screams were heard from them.

Finally we got to the camp, where we did a bunch of activities. We rode the camels. Held the falcon our hand. Touched a live snake. Tried on the Arabic clothes, where in one case, I pretended to be a terrorist terrorising M! The girls wore the guy’s dress, and the guys wore the abayas! We also got henna tattoos made, and I got one made to. The lady putting the henna on me was flirting so openly with me. “Such a handsome guy deserves a big tattoo,” and she went on to make the largest scorpion I had ever seen on my left arm!

Dinner was served (which is usually never great at desert safari) and after eating, the dance floor in the middle of the camp came to life. The spotlights went off, with a few disco lights on, and under a million stars visible, people danced under the rain. A few of us got up there, and soon more joined us. It was a lot of fun getting wet and dancing to Arabic, English and Punjabi music. We danced for more than 3 hours. There was also a belly dancing show which was quite amazing.

All in all, by 2am, all of us were tired, and had a long drive back home. The night was still young for those left behind at the camp where they were doing the limbo dancing. Everyone enjoyed it so much (except for the part where one local drunk guy in his shorts was harrasing the ladies with his water squirt gun!), we are looking for the next rain dance which is coming up soon in Dubai.

Mansur
PS Again, I have about 60 pictures, so email me at mansourahsan@gmail.com if you want them.

Movie:: Click

Hey people,

Last week I saw this movie called Click, which has Adam Sandler, Kate Beckinsale, ChristopherWalken, David Hasselhoff and Sean Astin. The movie must be good, I thought with a cast like that. Well, yes, it was a good movie and I enjoyed it, despite it sharing a Bruce Almighty-ish theme.

Adam Sandler is an over-worked architect (!) who has no time for his wife and two kids. He hasn’t complete the treehouse he started for the kids, and now he doesn’t have time to go camping with them. Even at the family barbecue he is on the phone with his boss, who offers him a lucrative deal to get him promoted in the company. Stressed out and tired from his family, he heads to Bed Bath and Beyond, where he sees a small door with the signboard saying Beyond. In goes our man, to meet with Walken, who gives Sandler a universal remote.

With this remote, Sandler can control the people and situation around him by pausin, rewinding, forwarding, muting and pausing them. He mutes his barking dog, fast forwards his wife’s constant nagging, rewinds to his past to remember something for the present, and slo mo the sexy stuff. Everything seems to be going well, till the moment where the remote feeds into its memory the most repeated action by Sandler, and auitomatically fast forwards his life.

Sandler finds himself growing older and older, to the point where he sees his little kids all grown up and his wife leaving him for another man. Sandler becomes old enough to suffer medical complications and before we know it he is at the end of his life. At the cost of forwarding through his life, he realizes that he has missed out on quality time with his family, and wishes he could go back and spend more time with theminstead of making it big in his career.

Being a Sandler movie, this movie is not without the typical Sandler gags of farting and kicking in the groin parts, but surprisingly enough, barring those scenes, Sandler is actually playing an endearing man with emotions. One of my favorite scenes is when he rewinds to the part in his life where he ignores his ailing dad and tells him to leave. It was an emotional scene to see him rewind that part, and tell his dad, who is in a paused moment, that he loves him.

One other scene which got me thinking was when Sandler realizes that he can view any part of his life, and that reminded me of the Book that God keeps on our life. On Judgment Day, everything that we have done in our lives will be exposed, and as the Quran says, every little good and bad thing you have done, it will come out in the open. When seeing Sandler go through his past life, I realized there were some parts of my life that I would like to keep hidden and not re-visit, but wil have to one day.

Don’t read too much into the movie- just enjoy it for what it is: a comedy about spending more time with your family because “family comes first!”

Mansur

Tagged by Nash!

Hello people,

Nash tagged me with the following questions, so here goes. Pretty interesting questions.

1. Are you happy with your blog, the template and what you write?

Yes, I am very happy with my blog. It’s been just two years, and the more I write on it, the more I feel my blog is evolving into what I want it to be. I am not happy with the templates situation though. As you may have noticed, I change my template more times than a peacock has its feathers! What I write on my blog is really different than what I had anticipated I would write, but I am happy with it.

2. Does your immediate family know about your blog?

Yes they all know. My dad is not very net savvy, and so he has seen it only once. My mom has seen it from time to time, and my siblings see it when I want to share an experience with them.

3. Are you embarassed to tell a friend about your blog? or do you consider it something personal?

No, I am notembarrased. My blog is who I am. If someone doesn’t like it, they can leave. I did consider it a personal thing initially, and after realizing that people from all over the world are reading it, I am more conscious of how personal I should get on my blog.

4. Did blogs brought a postive impact on your thoughts? If the answer is yes, give examples.

Yeah. By interacting with other bloggers out there, and getting feedback from others on carious articles brought about healthy debates and discussions. Some of my favorites ones have been free will vs predestination, burj al arab being a cross, freedom of religion among others. It has also helped me see what other people think of the way I think.

5. Do you only visit blogs that visit you or do you explore other blog?

Yeah, I do check out other blogs from time to time, and the ones I like, I add them on my Reading List. However, there are some people who start off their blog and then stop it.

6. What the does visitor count mean to you? and do you think its important to put it?

Initially, when I put the visitor count, I measured the success of my blog based on the statistics. When the numbers would fall below my expectations, I would think my blog is failing. It took a while for me to get over that visitor stats. Now, I don’t really concern myself with the statistics. I do think that if you want to put something like that, it should only be used for informational purposes, and not used as a basis to judhe how successful you are with your blog.

7. Do you try to picture your friends in blogs?

All the time. Sometimes I feel like I am the only one out there putting my picturtes up there. Sometimes I have a certain picture of people in my head and I like to keep it that way.

8. Do you see a real benefit from blogging?

Writing has always been therapeutic to me. I maintain a written journal as well, and that’s where I write my more personal thoughts. However, blogging is a lot of fun, it’s therapeutic to me, it helps me connects with others out there to share and discuss ideas.

9. Do you think that the blogging society is an isolated society or it reflects whats happening around us?

Bloggers are a rising phenomenon. It was a little scoiety initially, but now it’s growing to be a large one.

10. Are you bothered with criticisim? or you feel its healthy?

I am ok with both positive and negative criticism as long as its not targeted personally at me. In 2005, there were some people out there who were targetting me personally and not my articles, and that did upset me. Criticism is healthy as long as the person itself is not criicised.

11. Are you scared of Political Blogs?

No, I am not scared. Everyone is entitled to their freedom of speech, and they can talk about what ever they want to. Yes, the only danger is that such blogs may contribute to the brainwashing of young impressionableminds to subscribe to their political ideas and beliefs.

12. Were you shocked by the arrest of some bloggers?

Yeah, I was shocked, but then this is the Middle East, where freedom of speech is restricted. Even my mom warns me not to write provocative articles regarding Saudi Arabia.

13. Did you think of what will happen to this blog when you die?

I know for sure, I will be compiling a book called Life of Mansur, comprised of all my articles and the comments that go along with it. Maybe in 10 years time, I can look at this book and remind myself of what my life was like.

14. Whats the song you would like to link it to this blog?

It would have to be a happy song, maybe Shiny Happy People by REM.

15. Who would you like to pass it to?

To everyone in my Reading List (that includes the defunct and temporarily cancelled bloggers!)

Mansur