mohammad.tajimeverything that comes out of my brain

I normally don’t pickup content from elsewhere and post it in this blog. But this one i thought was worth adding to this blog. This is an elaboration from Muslimah Media Watch about how to (or not to) write about Muslims and specially Muslims women in media. If anyone out there is listening then please follow these points. For complete post go here.

Rule #1: Don’t assume that Muslim women need to be saved, or that you know how to save them.

Rule #2:Rather than assuming you know what Muslim women’s lives are like, try asking them.

Rule #3: Be careful of who you talk to regarding Islam and/or Muslim women.

Rule #4: Understand that Muslims are just like anyone else in terms of their belief systems.  Not everything a Muslim does has to do with Islam.

Rule #5: Understand that there is no such thing as a “Muslim culture” or “Muslim Language”. Muslims come from a variety of cultures, region and countries and culture is dynamic – it’s constantly changing.

Rule #6: Don’t create a dichotomy between “Muslim” and “Canadian” (or “American,” “British,” etc.), or between “Muslim” and “Western.”

Rule #7: Tone it down! Be mindful of the language you use.

Rule #8: Take responsibility for the consequences of your writing.

Rule #9: Leave the headscarf alone.

Rule #10: And please please don’t act like every Muslim you meet is a terrorist or a fanatic Islamist. There are whole lot of in fact the majority of Muslims around the world are way liberal than you can think of.

The last rule is added by me, since this was one thing i have been feeling lot lately.

Please read the first and second part of this story before continuing here:
 New Delhi Musings Part – I
 New Delhi Musings Part – II

Fast Forwards 2009 February 1 12:30 AM, I landed in New Delhi Station with an exciting idea and a vogue plan. This time my idea was to start my own Company in India. Yes, you heard it right; the same guy who could not land up a job in same place back in 2005 is now here to start his own venture. Might sound herculean task to some but for me its piece of cake. I already have an office running in my home with around 3 people working full time for me and here I am looking forward to add few more. If you don’t know what my company or venture is called then here it is: It’s Profermics.com – Domain Development Simplified. This is it. My story from 2005 to now. More will be updated later when life  progresses ahead.

I thank you a lot if you have read all three parts of this story and have come down till here. My life never had such ups and downs since start. It only started when I started to dream big. After facing all these situations all I can say is that , Believe in Yourself – Have Faith in God – And Move ahead.

Please read the first part of this story before continuing here:
 New Delhi Musings Part – I

Fast Forward June 2005. I came back to New Delhi for a second attempt to get success. This time I didn’t focus on getting admission anywhere. Though I gave entrance exam for BCA (Hons.) in JMI but I didn’t cared about it. I had a different plan this time.

This time my plan was to get a job in New Delhi. Fascinated by the Call centers and BPO in India, I started by giving interviews in all possible call centers and BPOs I could.  I even gave an interview in Convergys which is probably one of the biggest BPO in World. As usual after giving around 35 interviews in 15 days I got only one answer from everyone. “You are an undergrad, we can’t take you.” WTF! This is why I tell my two friends Salik and Deelip that you guys are way luckier, that you got a job in Delhi despite being an undergrad.  

Harassed by the situation I again got back to Lucknow which had become like a basecamp for me. A safe landing place. The returning journey back to Lucknow from New Delhi was kind of amusing. Since I could not afford a reservation ticket so traveled in a general ticket and had to sit on the pathway of the train because the whole train was jam-packed. Imagine sitting right on the door of a train traveling with a speed of 80 miles per hr. Awesome experience! I sure will never do that again.

After returning to Lucknow I got back to Data entry job working for measly Rs. 100 per day work. Around December 2005 I got another job of search engine optimizer in a small company based in Lucknow. That paid me Rs. 4000 per month. Not huge by any standards but still was a great relief for me since I no longer had to do data entry work. My work there was to build links for websites. I loved it but six months after the job the owner of the company fired all three people along with me whom he had hired for the SEO job since he could not benefit from our work. Disgraced by the situation I finally decided to start my online venture. I worked doing some small jobs online during that time but that didn’t payed since I had no way to cash my online funds.  I left India at this point of time.

Returned back to Butwal with plans to move to Kathmandu. Story of Kathmandu is also interesting and a lot painful for me but that will be posted sometime later when I will have guts to write down memories of those scary days and experience of living in an alley.

Continued in New Delhi Musings Part III

Back in 2005 in the month of May when I came here for the first time I had only Rs. 1500 (approx. $33) and I had to spend around 1 week with that money. Well, you may think that was a crazy idea but that was my bitter reality back then. I didn’t had a job, had to ask money from my parents and friends. 1500 bucks that I had back then was the total sum I had accumulated doing some data entry work and getting paid Rs. 100 ($1.5) each day for punching 100*8 pages long forms in to computers. Ahh.  Those days!!! That was hectic job but still I enjoyed it. I always wanted to forget those days considering a bad nightmare but they were reality and I know it won’t go back easily.

Though I have been blogging since mid 2004 but if you dig into my blog for earlier post you won’t find a single post about those days, which was because I never thought to document those memories. But last month before leaving my home I had a thought somewhere to write a post about those days.

So, here is my story of becoming a boy of nowhere to so called rockstar. (rockstar courtesy Deelipk) .

“It all started in 2004 when my 12 standard exams ended and in spite of taking the normal route I followed advice of one of my friend to move to India.  His plan was to move to New Delhi but due to family reasons I stayed in Lucknow. It was a big city compared to Butwal where I belonged but after few months I found that it didn’t meet my expectation. After settling in Lucknow I joined Jetking to study MCSE ( Microsoft Certified System Engineer). Though that that dream is still not complete but at least I got the MCP certificate which meant I was Microsoft Certified Professional. That certification landed me in Hutch House UPE (currently Vodafone) as a trainee network engineer or whatever they called. It was a short term job for only around 15 days but it showed me the face of a corporate world or in a sense it made me addicted to work in a corporate lifestyle. That job and those fifteen days changed everything. My initial plan in Lucknow was to study BCA (Bachelors of Computer Application) but I dumped it and went around looking for job. Well, naturally I didn’t get a job anywhere but it landed me to a small data entry job which I happily took as it gave me some money and you won’t belive how much I was paid there. Re. 1 per form entered in their system and each form had around 8 pages. So, that was a huge task but paid very little, but as usual I was satisfied with it as I with my fast fingers and could rake in around 100 bucks each day. I did that job for like 3 months then.

Fast forward May 2005. Unsatisfied with my job and having no money to save and due to some major personal crisis I decided to move to New Delhi. My first intention in Delhi was to get admission either in DU or in Jamia Milia Islamia but as usual I didn’t get admission anywhere. This was first time I came to New Delhi. There is a saying in Hindi which many people in Lucknow said me “ Delhi me gum ho jaoge akele” which means You will be lost in Delhi alone. But that was me, I didn’t get lost, there was no one to help me, no godfather, no relatives, no friends. But still I all on my own managed to do everything. I stayed with one of my cousin who had a good job in New Delhi, but even he didn’t help me in anyway. That was the day I decided whatever I have to do in this world. I will do it all alone. I don’t need anyone supporting me. If I fail, I will rise again and move but won’t take any help.

My first stay in Delhi ended in less than 1 week. I had to go back to Lucknow since I had spent all my saved money (Rs. 1500). I got back and directly went to Butwal, where I planned again to get back to New Delhi in 1 month’s time. This time with more money and more courage. 

Continued in New Delhi Musings Part II

I finally changed the theme of this blog. Well, this is not going to be the final theme as I am working on to develop a new theme, complete unique for this blog and yeah I have a created a initial draft somewhere in mind, I just need to sketch that on Photoshop and anyone who knows me personally will understand how long it’s going to take for me to portray the theme from my mind to CSS . So, enjoy this lively theme for some time now.

Well, its been long since i posted any post in my blog. Since then lots of things have changed and some are in process to change. If you are following my blog regurlarly then you will see more exciting things from this place in very near future.

Till then enjoy,

Tajim