Bitter Melon...

Another one of my most favorite vegetables.  It has numerous benefits just like green peppers.  It's a good treatment for blood boils, controls sugar level, improves asthma, bronchitis etc....sounds better than sugar which causes diabetes and helps cancer cells to grow faster.



http://ezinearticles.com/?Bitter-Melon---Benefits,-Uses,-and-Research-for-Diabetes-and-HIV&id=78796

http://www.nutrasanus.com/bitter-melon.html

Freedom

A true believer is a symbol of freedom.  He neither accepts slavery from anyone nor bounds people to fulfill his desires.  This is equally true for women too.

base of progress...

 Acquiring knowledge is not bound to a particular person, place, field or thing.  The process has become much easier for any person who knows how to read, living any where in the world, from any religion, with any family background, working in any professional field.  Thanks to all hi-tech contributors, who used their knowledge and talent to bring technology up to this advancement.  All we need to do is to use it properly and positively to take maximum advantage.  Reading ability and a will for betterment is the base of all advancement and progress.

I Love Them All...

 

 

 

The Crescent and The Star...

 It was eight years ago, when I was forgiven and embraced by my soil, when the land was made spacious for me, when I found myself breathing in confinement the same way I was in the so-called world of freedom,...then I came to know the true meaning of motherhood, found out how friendship works and realized the passion of a soldier at war.

Nim's Island...

I liked this movie, my daughter thinks that it's an okay. What I admire the most is the powerful imagination of a writer who writes adventures.  She can talk to her characters...and communicates to the world on her laptop.  She seems to be a coward who never steps out of her house.  An e-mail from a child who was stuck on an island urges her to get there and help that kid.  She was writing the story about the same island and this is how she becomes the hero of her own story.  

We have too many beaches in Karachi.  Can't we build something adventurous there for kids to have fun.  May be some day.

Meal Timings...

My daughter's favorite weekend breakfast "paratha".  It's a simple roti (bread) fried in ghee (vegetable shortening).  I roll the dough and spread ghee over it, fold it again like we roll the rug or a paper, make a ball and roll it again with a rolling pin and fry it.  Easy now but I still can't make it 
 perfect round.  


 Usually she eats it with half fried egg but some times for dieting purpose she just eats it like that, with tea.  People think that paratha is a heavy food with lots of calories.  They are wrong.  It doesn't effect the weight when eaten early morning with a gap of lunch at 1 'o' clock.  






One thing that really annoys me here is that how can people eat breakfast after ten in the morning, lunch after 2 'o' clock and dinner at ten in the night.  That's ridiculous.  The perfect and healthy meal timings are breakfast right after Fajr (from dawn to 8 '0' clock), lunch between 12 and 1:30 and dinner right after Maghrib (right after sunset till 8).

I'm a honey bee...

I sting because it's natural, I'm protecting my honey.

My breakfast this morning...

For me, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, it can make my day awesome or awful, so it has to be my way.

This is rusk (crunchy toast) with malai (fresh milk cream).

Malai reminds me of my grandfather, I was very little, he used to give me malai with sugar in it.
I can take same lunch and dinner for days but not the same breakfast.  It has to be different every other day.

The best breakfast of my life was with Alicia, she invited me early morning the day before my flight.  We were served with pocket pita filled with cottage cheese, scrambled eggs, grapes, orange juice and tea.

Mustafa Zaidi...

 One of my favorite Urdu piece of poetry...

ہر اک زبان پہ  ہے ادعائے بے گنہی
مجھے خبر نہیں مقتول ہوں کہ قاتل ہوں
ابھی یہ بات مجھے زیب بھی نہیں دیتی
ابھی تو میں بھی صف دشمناں میں شامل ہوں
جو فرق ہے تو بس اتنا کے دوسروں کے لیے
شب جزاوسزا ایک بار آئے گی 
   میرےضمیر سے لاکھوں گواہیاں لینے
یہ رات ہم نفسوں باربار آئے گی
یہ رات میری ہر اک نظم کو طلب کر کے
کی ہزاردنوں کا حساب مانگے گی
میری زبان میری تربیت میری تہذیب
میں مر گیا بھی تو مجھہ سے جواب مانگے گی
میری نگاہ میں ارضی عدالتیں کیا ہیں
یہ شاعری میری سب سے بڑی عدالت ہے

مصطفے زیدی

Life in trance....

I transferred my dreams to, 

I transcribed my thoughts to,

I transported my feelings to,

I transformed my beauty into,

I transfigured myself into,

......a better version of mine.
I transmuted my lead into gold,
I'm old.

My Hope...

My sight and the dreams in my eyes that I believe they will never die.

My words that I once blurted out in my ignorance, they have filled the blue sky.

My heart beat that composes the song of love that I can never deny.

My mind so enchanted with my vision that I always glorify.

My soul keeps absorbing inspirations from all around, I have my spirit high.

My hope is my life, so restless, so wandering, so whimsical that I can only enjoy.

Green or Blue Passport....

"We had a Turkish maid named Fatima whom we respectfully called Hanim, meaning "madame:--thus, Fatima Hanim.  Our parents made it a point that we show respect to elders regardless of their station in life.  We were not allwed to call our domestic staff "servants"-- they were employees who earned an honest living and deserved respect.

Fatima Hanim was an old, uneducated woman, quite a simpleton really, but extremely hardworking.  We would tell her that the earth is flat and that Pakistan is at its edge and when you look down you can see paradise.  Either she really believed us or she went along with out game, because she always insisted that we take her to Pakistan so that she could look down and see paradise." 

Clint Eastwood played Frank Horrigan, failed in guarding President J. F. Kennedy.

Al D'Andrea: You okay?

Frank Horrigan: No, I'm not okay.  I'm sick, I'm tired, and I'm armed too, so be careful.

Al D'Andrea: You're also may be a genius.

Frank Horrigan: Huh - not to be recognized in this life time.

Pure and Simple...

An excellent human being and a perfect woman, this is my friend Rubina Shams Khan.  I know her now for 22 years and she is still the same person, soft, kind, generous, polite, tolerant and well-mannered.  She came here on a month long visit after 18 years and found nothing changed.  "Things have gone worse.  People don't value their life, time and relationship" she said.  "I met her last Wednesday after a nine years of long span.  We talk non-stop on every issue.


Loyal and sincere to her husband and his family, very different from those who always think of their in-laws as evil.  She is one of those very few blessed women who support their husbands, value their struggle for life and play their role which really proves them a better half.
Beside my mother, she is the only one I know who was very disciplined and dedicated her life to her triplets, two sons and a daughter, same as my daughter's age.  I taught them Qur'an for two years, half hour or less everyday and I don't remember if they were ever absent or came late.  She provided them with both Islamic knowledge and regular education.
She is a great cook.  Always ready to serve her guests with scrumptious dishes, never got tired of trying new recipes. 
We met each other after a long time and looks like we missed each other a lot.  Like everyone else she was upset about the life style people live here but unlike others she was really considerate about bringing a change for betterment.  For being pure and simple she didn't spend her time in unnecessary shopping and buying clothes and shoes and jewelry like crazy.  She was rather more interested in our education and schooling system and how to control pollution and not to waste time and money in late night parties etc.
We both agree that women should be held more responsible than men for the bad situation we are in now and it's women who can and should make it better.
Women like her are a treasure for their family and a role model for society.  I wish for her and her children a trouble free life.

Chili Time...

Green chillies, the most most most important item of my regular diet.  These smallest one in the picture are the hottest, I can eat one with every bite. 
The biggest are not that hot but they taste great when filled with 'achar gosht spices mixed with yogurt and fried in little oil.  This is Baba's special recipe which he taught me on his recent trip.  I can eat them just like that with roti.  He also loves green chillies, he can't eat any food without them.  Mostly people here fill them with a paste of cumin powder, coriander powder, salt, pepper and lemon juice and fry them.  
They also make great pickle, both Pakistani and Afghani style.

Green Vegetables...

Hey, this is great.  Today I cooked the most delicious 'loki ghost curry' (meat and green squash) of rubik history. 
It was two and half years ago, my doctor suggested me to include green squash, zuccini and teenda in my regular diet.  She said that it will liquefy my blood and will keep my blood pressure normal.  She was right.

And this is 'loki'.  I cook it with meat or I boil it and mash it into yogurt and add salt, black pepper and eat it with white rice.  Sometimes I boil it and sprinkle salt and pepper and just eat it like that.  It tastes good.

And this is 'saime', good cure for arthritis.  Courtesy of my 'subzi wala' who gave these four pieces to me for free.

not rich but famous...

This is Mirza Ghalib, the most famous and prominent among Urdu poets.

This is how he flattered the tall ladies around him,

تیرے سرو قامت سے اک قدّ آدم

قیامت کے فتنے کو ہم دیکھتے ہیں

and then he addressed the shorties of his time, 

دم بھر نہ ٹھرے دل میں نہ آنکھوں میں ایک پل

اتنے سے قد پے تم بھی قیامت شریر ہو

He must have said something for the women with medium height too.  Keeping an eye on the women of all height, may be that's why he didn't get time to make money for his livelihood.  But did those women really believed in what he said?  I don't think so.

The Melody Queen...

This is my most favorite celebrity, Pride of Performance Madam Noor Jehan, the one woman show in her field, strong, brave, beautiful, determined and honest to her profession.  Aside from her remarkable contribution to the music, what made me fall in love with her was her passion for Pakistan.  I never heard of a celebrity visiting borders and singing national songs to show their love and support to the soldiers at war.  She did that in 1965, during the war, leaving her own children home she went to the soldiers and sang patriotic songs to boost their courage and to back up civilian support.

The image of Pakistan cannot be completed without her.  I wonder how can our young politicians ignore her astounding participation in saving Pakistan and hesitate to tribute her as the Pride of Pakistan?