Being chased by death…

Every now and then, I keep thinking about the meaning of my life. Sometimes, I find an answer that convinces me and sometimes it hurts me deeply. Each one of us comes with different characters, aims, feelings and destinations but there is one thing common to all, the ‘death’. I would be untruthful if I say, ‘I don’t fear from death’. Yesterday, in my dream I saw my death. It was just like another dream, it wasn’t terrifying but the content of the dream shook me.

I was there, motionless looking at the people who have gathered to look at my dead body. I was there, helpless, unable to understand what would happen to me. I was there, powerless, lost in the jungle of memories. I could see a life, a selfish life, where every day and every night, I worked for myself, my ego and my pleasure. I could find no deed which I can say proudly to God. For that matter, the whole life appeared to be vague.

There I was… asking the question, what’s the meaning of life?

When I woke up, I realized that it was just a dream but a message to wake up. In pursuit of our selfish motives, we forget that our stay on this planet is temporary. Death is chasing us every moment and you never know when that moment will arrive. This deep uncertainty of life calls for rethinking on how we are living our lives.

I am convinced that there is life beyond death in some other form- else it makes no sense to define a short life compared to astronomical scales. But the knowledge that one can gain in this short span is critical for the success in the next phase. All of us are born with certain capabilities but there remains one capability common to all of us… the capability to love. Few days back, I read about the life story of an astronomer who dedicated his whole life in understanding a distant asteroid. My first thought was “whole life to study a single asteroid”? Then I realized, it’s the power of love.

Imagine, how happy God might have felt knowing that one person millions of miles away, made an attempt to understand a part of creation, which no one believed to be significant. There are millions of such unexplored objects in this universe, which are waiting to be loved and understood. For God, all of those objects are significant and He wouldn’t have made them if they weren’t. There is a reason why they exist.

Having said all that, the key idea I want you to take away is that, before the death reaches you, love the creation of God so much that even the death respects your love.

Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud believed dead: Obama’s strategy works!

It was one of the biggest risks that Obama had taken since his arrival at Oval office and if the latest reports are to be believed, it appears to have paid off. In February, 2009 Pakistan’s Government announced a peace treaty with Taliban and imposed Sharia Law in Swat Valley. While, the rest of the world feared that such peace treaty would have dire consequences to common people in Pakistan as well to the rest of the world, there was one man who was thinking otherwise. Barack Obama, instead of opposing the peace treaty, welcomed it. As we shall see, this was the biggest political gamble that a President of America could have taken.

As expected by all, the so called ‘peace treaty’ allowed Taliban to come out in open to propagate their agendas. The agenda was simple, be under the constant fear of death and follow as they say, whether it is Islamic or un-Islamic. By the end of April 2009, demographics of the Swat Valley had changed. Taliban was threatening to take over Islamabad and the Nuclear Weapons of Pakistan. The offences done by Taliban to common people were all over media. For once, the citizens of Pakistan started realizing that Taliban isn’t what they expected it to be. The negative opinion about Taliban gained momentum and people wanted the Pakistan’s Government to react.

Prior to peace treaty between Taliban and Pakistan’s Government, the Oval office was running out of ideas in combating Taliban. Though an ally, Islamabad was never too sure in going head to head with Taliban. Taliban had huge influence over local tribes in Pakistan and the common people shared positive sentiments about Taliban, resulting in a deadlock between Pakistan and US in combating policies against Taliban. When Obama took over Oval office, he had to do something to break the deadlock. It was a daring move which could have easily backfired. Allowing Pakistan, an ally of US, to do a peace treaty with Taliban had suicidal consequences, but at the same time it offered a game plan for US. The game plan was simple and it was based on the assumption that Taliban won’t be satisfied with just Swat valley. Let Taliban take over streets of Swat, let Taliban spread the fear among local tribes, let Taliban spread its control beyond Swat valley and let Taliban threaten to take over Islamabad. All this will only result in bringing the Pakistan’s Government to their knees to fight against Taliban with the support of US. And that’s exactly what happened.

In early, May 2009, Pakistan’s Military with the support of US government went into combat with Taliban fighters in Swat Valley. Over two hundred thousand people fled the war zone, resulting in a huge humanitarian crisis. By June 2009, about two hundred Taliban’s fighters were killed and the Swat Valley was brought back under Pakistan’s Military control. While the US shared their intelligence with Pakistan’s Army in regaining Swat valley, it also helped Pentagon to get vital information from Pakistan Intelligence agencies on whereabouts of prominent leaders of Taliban.

On 7^th August 2009, Biatullah Mehsud, the leader of Taliban operations in Pakistan, was believed to be killed in CIA Missile strikes.

(Submitted to International Herald Tribune as Op-Ed article on 7th August 2009)

International Congress of Mathematicians at Hyderabad - 2010

* Zürich (1897)     * Paris (1900)     * Heidelberg (1904)    * Roma (1908)    * Cambridge, U.K. (1912)    * Strasbourg (1920)    * Toronto (1924)     *Bologna (1928)     * Zürich (1932)    * Oslo (1936)    * Cambridge, USA (1950)    * Amsterdam (1954)    * Edinburgh (1958)    * Stockholm (1962)    * Moskva (1966)    * Nice (1970)    * Vancouver (1974)    * Helsinki (1978)    * Warszawa (1982, held in 1983)    * Berkeley (1986)    * Kyoto (1990)     * Zürich (1994)    * Berlin (1998)    * Beijing (2002) * Madrid (2006)

Every time I read about International Congress of Mathematicians and Fields Medal… I wondered when will the extraordinary league of mathematicians come down to India?… and finally my wait seems to be over… the biggest conference in the field of Mathematics ..the

“International Congress of Mathematicians” will be held at Hyderabad in August 2010. The conference will include awarding Fields Medals to the mathematicians (under 40 years age) who have done significant contributions in enhancing different fields of mathematics. It is the highest honor in field of mathematics, often referred as ‘Nobel Prize for Mathematics’.  It will also include over 150 lectures in various sub-fields within mathematics.

I don’t know who would get the Fields Medal this time around but certainly it will be one of the most memorable moments of my life to witness some of the greatest mathematicians on this planet receiving the highest honor.  I might end up in tears of joy watching that moment… 

My only wish, Grigori Perelman comes down to Hyderabad to give a lecture on Poincare Conjecture!

http://uohyd.icm2010.in/index.php

The biggest challenge before me now is to solve a significant problem, write a paper and get it accepted for this conference.  Anyone interested to collaborate, please email me at mohdabubakr@hotmail.com. We will have a brainstorming session on choosing the problem statement and let’s see whether we can get it solved and published in the conference.

Do you look back at your life?

There are times when you want to look back at your life and think about how the life has been all these years. Often, people do this at a very old age, scanning over the joys and tears that life has given them. I have known few people who want to go back in their past to change certain incidents… I have known people who have lost their love because they didn’t take a decision at right time… I have known people who missed out saying ‘sorry’ to people before it was too late… and so on. Life goes on fast… really fast. We meet people, we make relationships, we break traditions, we create new boundaries and suddenly one day we leave everything to ahead towards an unknown destination called “death”.

In this entire journey, there are occasions when people have helped us. When I look back at life, I find myself incredibly indebt to lot of people. I don’t know where they are now, I wish I could tell them that I miss them but the cruel life doesn’t give a damn opportunity.

Sometimes, a little favor from an unexpected person makes deep impact on your life. Long back, during my college days, along with my friends, I went to an excursion to Kerala. I got little over-excited looking at the water fall and fell into it. For a moment I thought I am going to sink into the water but by God’s grace, there was a large stone under water and I landed up on that. I was stood on that stone helplessly, with water almost till my neck until a friend of mine called Adinarayana helped me come out of water. It was very generous of him to run down there to save me. Once I came out of that freezing water, the next big challenge was finding dry clothes. My clothes were at hotel and no one had any extra clothes. It was early December with 3 degree centigrade temperature and there was no way I could be on wet clothes till we reach hotel. Then came the second unexpected help… the bus driver offered me his pant to wear, though it was little loose for me. I changed into his pant and borrowed couple of jackets from my friends. By the time, we reached the hotel for dinner, I was shivering with cold and had high fever. We reached a tiny restaurant somewhere in Munnar, Kerala for dinner. All my friends were busy scanning the menu and irritating the waiter with their stupid jokes. After couple of minutes, I don’t know how, a friend of mine called Srinivasulu, got a bowl of hot corn soup for me from the restaurant’s kitchen. I don’t know how he did it… it was one of the nicest gestures shown by any of my friends.

After almost three years, when I look back at these incidences, it still appears very fresh and very kind of them. I wish… I could give them a hug and thank them.

Australian Modern 50 cent coins

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