Mushtarakah / Ijtamai Qurbani (Badi Qurbani)

Background:

Qurbani (sacrifice) is mandatory for every sahib-e-nisaab; largely the person who’s eligible to pay the Zakat. Now, even if we are capable of affording the cost of lamb / goat sacrifice, there are certain elements which make it a little challenging. Starting with unavailability and unreliability of butcher; people residing in flats find it difficult to get adequate space where they can offer qurbani; less number of people who can help you in offering the qurbani and distributing the meat to the needy people. These are general limitations, and we have no choice but to live with them. This is where mushtarakah / ijtamai qurbani comes into the picture where 7 people can participate and offer sacrifice of one bigger animal. This qurbani is generally offered by some organizations on our behalf.

What you need to know

There are certain criteria and meeting them is extremely necessary:

• The animal should be at least 2 years old
• The animal should have all the body parts intact, including horns
• All 7 contributions should come from halal income
• All the contributing members should have the sole intention of Sacrifice, and not just obtaining the meat J
• The meat should however be distributed EQUALLY among all participants

What MIGHT happen

Most of us generally pay the amount to the organizations who offer to sacrifice the animal on our behalf and we remain assured. With all due respect to all those organizations who take utmost care in offering sacrifice, I would still take liberty to say that there have been misses and are reported quite often.

• Quite a few times it is seen that the animal is not 2 years old.
• It is also seen that meat is not distributed equally, meaning—meat of one specific animal should be distributed equally and only to those who participated in it; however what is generally seen that the meat of all the sacrificed animals are mixed together and then distributed as per choice—this is not correct.
• Butchers take away the skin (khaal) as a part of their compensation, this is completely unacceptable.
• It is also observed that these “counters” for collecting the contribution money are open till Asr till 3^rd day of Eid i.e. 12^th Dhul Hijjah (or Zil Hajj)—this takes away the entire credibility whether the sacrifices are being offered at all or not.

What we can do

We contribute for a part or two and rely on them to arrange for remaining 5 participants, and remain assured that everything would be alright. This is where things may go wrong.

• Talk to your 5-6 other like-minded friends / relatives who are planning to take part in mushtarakah qurbani and make sure your group own the entire animal.
• Make sure that the intention is to make sacrifice for the sake of Allah and not the intention of just obtaining the meat.
• Go to the organization well in advance and ask them the show the animal they are going to sacrifice on your behalf. Verify if the animal looks 2 years old. Get it marked.
• Insist on sacrificing the animal yourself; of-course in their / government designated area.
• Divide the meat equally among all.
• Make sure that you donate the skin to eligible people, rather than the Butcher taking it away.

What triggered this blog

This year, since we had all 7 contributions, I happened to visit the “Kamela”, the government slaughter house, for sacrificing the animal myself—and what I saw was not very convincing, though it was under observation of so-called “zimmedar” people. I realized it’s now my duty to share what I feel, that’s how this unusual blog came up.

Issues with Lenovo ThinkPad T430s

I was facing two weird issues with my laptop (Lenovo ThinkPad T430s).

Hibernate:

The battery was working fine normally but when I used to hibernate it in the night / EOD, and next morning when I used to wake it up, I used to find the battery completely drained. Lenovo guy installed few softwares and update many drivers but didn’t help.

After analyzing I realized that the “Power Plan” is creating the issue. If the “Power Saver” option is selected and the laptop is hibernated, it used to resume normally; but while hibernating, if the “Green Desktop” option is selected, it used to drain out entire battery. So, if you are also facing same issue, whenever you hibernate, select “Power Saver” option then hibernate—problem solved J

Audio not working:

This was again weird: normally we keep our system on mute, using the “Mute” button for speaker on the laptop.

 Whenever we need to enable the sound, toggling that button on the board disables the soft button for speakers. This always required machine restart, which is irritating.

I found a work-around that, if you open up device manager (run “devmgmt.msc”) >> go to “Sound, video and game controllers” and disable and then enable the “Realtek High Definition Audio” driver, it will restore the sound– well, that’s it J

Feel free to leave your comments, if you have found out proper solutions for these issues.

Prayer hall (place for namaz) at Bangalore Airport

For those who don’t know, there’s a prayer hall, a place where you can offer Namaz (Salah), available at Bangalore / Kempegowda International Airport, for domestic passengers too.

Once you are done with security check-in, look for gate no. 1— there’s a seating area near this gate, you can find the prayer hall just behind those chairs. It is located at first floor (next to smoking area), above those boutiques and eateries.

For international travel, you may also look for another one which is closer to gate no. 35. Closer to Shoppers Stop

Update: Many brothers asked if there’s Friday prayer organized here. The answer is No. I checked with those who work here, and they go outside for prayers.

Also, there's no prayer hall at Arrivals. However since it takes considerable time to reach city, it is generally seen that people offer prayers in unoccupied areas before they leave for taxis. 

This is how I interview people...

Let's start with basic question. Why do we conduct interviews?

Well, multiple answers... most of us would say:

• We want to grow our team by getting few more "capable" people aboard.
• We need people who are technically sound; with good communication skills; with good attitude... etc. etc.
• Well, in a nutshell, people who can work along WITH us; and can be "contributing" members to our team.

Now let's see, how we go about interviewing people. Alright, before we even get there-- this is my personal Blog and I take complete liberty to be pretty blunt :-)  [Now, carry on]

This is based only my interaction with fellow panel members. A sizeable number of panel members, typically start with the negative mindset of "REJECTING" the candidate... That is where the game begins with "Cruel-Intentions" [bit of exaggeration in picking this word, but that's okay-- move on].
Now, all our questions are aligned to meet this "objective".

• We'll ask about some remotest, hardly used feature in a specific technology;
• We'll discuss the issues that we faced in last project and spent weeks in resolving them [and we expect him to crack it in 15 minutes. How practical :-)];
• We'll ask definitions [I am serious: I heard quite a few friends swearing about it];
• We'll also ask syntaxes... c'mon... we are in 2014, and in all practical scenarios, how many times would you like that person to work only with a notepad? Without any IDE and without internet?
• Moreover we will leave no stone unturned in letting him know what a treasure of knowledge we possess. Boss!! Who’s pitching for a job? He in your company? Or you in his company?

So in this shameless show-off, core JD (Job Description) is not just left far behind, we also don't talk about his approach towards a specific problem; or a step by step procedure. We all know that developers can always copy-paste *may refer to* the code available on net, but if there approach is not right, then it is disastrous.

Anyway, coming back to the core topic: first and foremost, the intention should be good... that is, to SELECT the candidate! When the objective is good, the questions will flow accordingly; and I personally feel that you cannot extract best out of a person if you don't make him comfortable; if the environment is not pleasant.

So, this is how I would advise [or unsolicited advice] to conduct an interview.

• Take out time to read his resume! Trust me, this will make you comfortable and avoid embarrassing situations like: Oh!! Never realized it is already written on the 1st page of your resume. Oh!! That is there in the opening para itself.
• Start with warm welcome... with a decent smile [NO! limit your imaginations, please. I am not talking about tight hug. Natural smile with a firm, professional handshake should be good enough]
• Offer apology if there's delay.
• Introduce yourself and also begin with some generic topics to break the ice. My favorite one is: Where are you staying? And I hope you didn't it difficult to reach here.
• I try making the atmosphere light; staying within the professional boundaries I crack the jokes too, if need be. However, I particularly stay away from things which might offend candidates.
• [Story time] Once a candidate told my friend that he architected a very-complex-application all alone, and started explaining it. My dear friend went ahead and quipped: “That's the reason you lost all your hair!!” [Boss... this kind of humor is completely unacceptable; YOU are representing the organization]
• [Okay, back to the core] Ask him to introduce himself. Allow him to talk about his projects and then take the discussion further.
• To make him comfortable, I generally set the scope of the interview by saying: What is it that you are really good at? We'll only talk of tools/tech which, you feel, you are good at.
• I prefer to give him a mock case-study, quite similar to what we work in day-to-day life, and then see his approach. I also give some basic hints to see if he can pick it from there... this might look a little generous but tell me, when we "actually" work on a project, who doesn't need some help?
• Not necessarily you'll always interact with candidates with high IQ. In most of the cases you'll have to deal with not-so-great answers and moreover not-so-great questions. Respond professionally, no matter how stupid, you feel, the question or the answer is.
• Many a times, the candidate is a complete misfit as per the JD, and there's no point in taking the discussion further. I trying closing it gracefully saying: Looks like there's a mismatch between the profile you have and the candidate we are looking for. Let me get back to my TA team and ask them to forward your profile to the relevant people and if there's a matching requirement they'll get back to you.

Finally, whenever in doubt, ask yourself: If you have to deliver a project working with him... will you be able to deliver? You'll get the answer.

This is by no means a guide on how-to-take interviews! This is my point of view... I'll be glad if someone gets benefited out of it, because ultimately it will benefit the organization.

Travel to Germany / Europe: A middle-class Indian’s guide

This was my first visit to Germany (or Europe), and I was trying to search a blog something like this, but unfortunately I didn't get it. Now since I have figured out most of the answers on my own, jotting it down so that I may help somebody.

• The first and foremost thing- Always carry your passport with you. No matter where you go. Preferably keep it in your pockets, and avoid keeping it in your handbag. If you happen to miss your bag then you can't even imagine the problems awaiting rendezvous with you :)  
• Carry one more photo id other than your passport. It could be your company id, or driving license or anything else. Also it is a good idea to always carry the customer invite letter if you are going on Business Visit.
• Don't forget to carry a water bottle [decent, refillable, sustainable-- not just empty Bisleri bottle– don’t embarrass Indians please :) ]. Trust me it is going to save you a lot of money as you'll need to buy the water separately, other than your food :). You’ll be able to conveniently refill your bottle, almost anywhere. One more thing: at airport or railway stations, if you don’t get water dispensers it is perfectly fine if you refill it from taps in wash rooms… it is very much drinkable.
• Another most important thing is power plugconverter / adapter. In India most of the power plugs come with 3-pin, while in Germany (not sure about other places in Europe) everywhere the plugs are of 2-pin. You can go to Chroma or any local electric shop and get a adapter/converter which can be plugged into a 2-pin and allow your 3-pin to be inserted on the top of it. This is an absolute must, as you’ll really have a tough time in find these converters here. Trust me; if you forget this, you are going to miss it more than your wife (arguably) because neither your laptop, nor your iron-box, nor the mobile charger is going to work.
• It would be great if you carry a double SIM mobile phone or at least a phone with your Indian number active. This has two advantages:

• One: Your Indian number will not be deactivated for being offline for 40/45 days. Just don’t make any outgoing phone calls or messages. You’ll not be charged for international roaming. 

• Two: You’ll continue to receive messages from Bank and more importantly near and dear ones. In return, you can text them with any online sites. Just keep in mind, not every time these messages get delivered, there are considerable numbers of drops. 

• Be informed of the weight you are carrying; most of the time the check-in baggage limit is 23KG. There’s ambiguity when it comes to hand baggage. Some airlines allow one bag other than your laptop bag, some consider just one bag.  Now you can do a trick, buy a max allowed size cabin baggage in which you can also keep your laptop along with other stuff… you may stuff it as per your need, as typically hand baggage is not weighed at airport [this is my experience—do it at your own risk, who knows if you are that unlucky fellow]
• If you are very specific about your food, then within these 23 KGs try to get as many ready to eat items as you get. Trust me; I was also not willing to bring anything but I unwillingly brought it and it helped a lot.
• (Travelling within Germany) Please be more careful when the source-to-destination is multi-city. You can get your reservations done at railway stations... but be informed that it can have a connection via 'bus' as well. In the tickets if you don't find a platform number against a specific connection, verify it with the clerk.
• Don’t act lazy by depending on your mobile; take a good camera, you’ll definitely need it. Also, on timely basis upload it on an online album to mitigate the risk of losing them altogether.
• Avoid taking photos which have PII (personally identifiable information)... it could also be vehicle number plates. It would be a good idea to talk to local authority about this.
• Respect traffic signals-- even if it is 3 O'clock in the morning, and nobody is on road.
• Thank people for small gestures... and Smile :)
• Last but not the least— if you are a hard-core Indian guy, carry a ‘mugga’, you will never see it there… and you’ll definitely miss it every morning if you are not very much 'comfortable' with tissue paper :)
• Feel free to make this list exhaustive by adding your comments, it would help others :)

Tips for practicing Muslims:

• If you are very strict and eat only Halal, then definitely you’ll have a tough time… face it; because here food is pork and alcohol oriented. Even if you are eating veg (something like 'veg fried rice') it would be fried in same oil, so be very watchful.
• There’s something called ‘Doner’ or ‘DÖNER’-- it is a Turkish dish much like Shawarama. Most of the Doner shops are run by Turkish people who sell Halal, but it is always better to confirm it for your own satisfaction.
• BTW, Masjids (Mosque) here are called Moschee, in case if you wish to find them. Mind you, most of the time they will not be with in typical Indian Masjid architecture.
• Buy leather socks. If you wear it, you need not wash your feet every time you make wuzu (ablution). You just need to do ma'saa. Discuss it with your trusted Aalim for more details. This would be helpful throughout your trip as it would be very difficult to find a place at airport or office where you can wash your feet regularly for all the prayers.
• Almost all the airports will have "Prayers Hall" or "Meditation Rooms". Take help from ground staff or police officers, you'll find them pretty helping. (At least I had a great experience)
• Whenever there's change in time due to "Daylight Savings". Please verify the Jama'at (congregation) timings in Masjid. Once I missed Friday congregation due to this.
• Be careful of most of the chocolates— they might contain Rum or some kind of alcohol.

PS: I am not endorsing Bisleri, Amazon, Chroma or any other brands... the reference is provided to help you see/understand the products.

Great example of my pathetic memory-- Gmail saved my life.

Yesterday, for some official reason, I had to mention my marriage anniversary date in one of the company websites. I completely forgot it-- not just the month, even the year. Trust me, all I remembered was, it was 6th of the month and was Saturday. It would have been terribly embarrassing if I would have called my parents to ask "When did I get married?" 

And also, I could not dare call my wife, as I felt it was life-threatening.

Then finally I searched "Sent Mails" for marriage invitation and got it from there. Gmail literally saved my life :p

Trip to Switzerland - Saturday November 3, 2012

[Statutory Warning] Viewer discretion is strictly advised. 

This is a lengthy, boring blog, with pathetic style of story-telling, mingled with horrible sense of humor, along with the art of shamelessly projecting the plot revolving around myself. This could only be digested by friends who are tolerating me since last 30 years, or at least who think that its been 30 years ;-). 

So, if you are not the intended viewer, do close your browser immediately and spend your time in doing something sensible.

**************************************

Okay... so, let me start with the ticket booking itself. When I booked the tickets and informed my friends (or should I say colleagues??) that I am going to Zurich... the obvious question was-- for how long? I said: 6:30hrs!! I was mocked that I am traveling 24+ hours just for staying 6 hours... but those who know me know it very well that it is not unusual for me to do such so-called irrational or illogical things.

Coming back to where we started-- Trip to Switzerland (Zurich - Interlaken - Swiss Alps - JungFrau)

So, my starting point was Erlangen and journey was starting at 1:21AM. Quite obviously I did not sleep, and called up a taxi for Erlangen station. Although it was not very far (just 1.6 KMs) from my hotel (Hotel Kral) but I just thought of playing safer as it was pretty late in the night. Alright, I started at 12:30AM and was happy to see the taxi right outside the hotel, well on the time... but sooner that happiness went for a toss, as soon as I saw a not-so-comfortable driver, who was a Z-Black Kallu-mama. His first question was -- do you have cash!!! Without sugar-coating the words I should honestly say that -- Meri bilkul phat gayi!!! I had heard not-that-great things about these people, so played a little safe, I told him that yes, I have 10 Euros which should be sufficient for taking me to the station. Luckily my phone rang-- he said, take the phone-- I answered the phone saying-- Ya, I have already boarded and am reaching station in 5 minutes. The truth is-- that was not an incoming call-- it was my alarm, and I pretended that I have lots of friends coming with me :-) Ultimately I reached safely Erlangen station-- Thank God!!

It was 12:40 when I reached the platform, needless to say that very-very few people were visible there (I deliberately used the word "visible", because I am not sure of how many invisible souls have been haunting around... hooooooooooo, scary, please come back to the topic). Okay, so at 12:44 came a train to Nuremberg, that's where I had to go, but I had a ticket of 1:21. Standing at the platform, just outside the door of the bogie, I was a little confused, to-go or not-to-go, that stupid train did not wait for me to decide and went... how rude!! anyway, I let that go without any regret, and waited for my train at 1:21. By now goods trains started passing the platform and I kept waiting... it was 1:40... and it was pretty unusual that a train in Germany is so bloody late. There's a display board that shows, which one is the next train on a particular platform and what's the time... it went blank. I sensed that something is wrong... I checked complete arrival-departure chart of Erlangen and I could not find a train at 1:21. I realized there's some issue for sure... I checked my ticket again... and found out that there's no platform written against that timings-- secondly, it says BUS REV!!! This means, this 1:21 was the bus to Nuremberg and not a train. For sure I knew that I am in a mess... but still knew that situation is still under control as the train from Nuremberg was at 5:10AM. I went outside the railway platform/station... and I realized I was the only person visible (yes again that - Visible theory).

I checked with a taxi driver... a typical dadi-ji... she knew nothing in English... just pointed me to somewhere, it was bloody dark, 2AM aur meri akeli jaan. I checked with some passengers-- no clue; checked with bus drivers-- of no use. I was not willing to trust any stranger for dropping me at Nuremberg, imagining what could happen to a good looking young man at 2 O'clock in the night... so ultimately I called the Herzo cab agency, Bayz Taxi, for taxi from Erlangen to Nuremberg, and Khalid thankfully picked the phone and said that he'll take 25 minutes to reach here... and I was more than happy to wait for that long.

Ohh, by the time taxi comes, let me tell you something about Herzo and Bayz. Herzogenaurach or in short Herzo is a small town next to Erlangen in the state of Bavaria. Most of the offices of adidas are based out of Herzo. Bayz Taxi is a cab agency run by Akram; most of the time we call him up for cab from Office to Hotel and he (along with couple of other drivers) is a good friend now. Khalid, who received my phone, is one of his drivers, he is basically from Iraq.

Okay, back to main story. I didn't have to wait too long, at 2:10 someone came searching for Hiraaj (yes, some of them pronounce Siraj as Hiraaj) ... he was Osman, another driver from Bayz. Khalid asked him taking me to Nuremberg. Yeaaaaa, this ended the era of anxiety and insecurity. In about half an hour's time he dropped me to Nuremberg, pretty conveniently. Thank God!!

Phew... ultimately reached Nuremberg station before 3AM. I checked with one of the shopkeepers for waiting room but he said no; not sure if he understood what I asked for :-). I went to first floor, couple of chairs were laid out and people were waiting, watching and sleeping there. I tried sleeping setting the alarm for 4:50AM, but before that I thought of doing a dry-run whether I'll be able to realize if my cell is ringing or not-- and quite obviously I decided not to sleep as alarm was hardly audible.

So, this so-called waiting space was just outside a pub / club, where a lot of young crowd was moving around-- obviously very much drunk...  Let me confess shamelessly that quite a few girls were feast for eyes... and some of them were just unbearable-- sometimes because of their pathetic dressing sense and sometimes due to awful colorful hairdo / wierdo, whatever you call it... and I had no option but to watch people moving around the places. Anyway, cutting it short-- very different experience. Ultimately I boarded Munich train from Nuremberg without any issues. Later-on I caught Zurich train from Munich... and I realized what a beautiful country Switzerland is.

I reached Zurich at 11:46AM... almost on the time, barely two minutes late. Anand (ex Boss; now much like an elder brother) played a perfect host, came to Zurich railway station to pick me up. Without wasting any time we drove down to Interlaken. I was told that, from India whoever comes to Zurich / Switzerland definitely visits Interlaken... so I thought why should I be an exception. 

While he was driving and was watching it... I realized that the city was so clean, and beautiful... actually pixel perfect, if I could call it. I definitely knew that the place we are going to visit would obviously be beautiful but trust me that journey towards those places was amazingly breathtaking.

We drove close to 200 KMs, through the mountains, and lakes and tunnels; saw amazingly different shades of trees and mountains and lakes, how clean and mesmerizing... I must say that the journey was, by no means, lesser enjoyable than the destination. Like a typical Indian and a normal human being... I also clicked some pics giving some funny poses :)

After taking couple of breaks-- for namaz and snacks, we reached Interlaken / Alps... supposed to be the favorite shooting location of late Yash Chopra.... but personally, I fell in love with JungFrau!! Wow, what a beauty it is. Let me shamelessly share the link of photos I have taken there to support my praises for the location: https://plus.google.com/photos/104440763679498673409/albums/5806985681918658225?authkey=CLf31cL-86a_vQE

Anway, I offered Asar in the Alps.. by that time it was almost 4PM, and we decided to go back as my train to Munich was at 6:15PM from Zurich... and we were around 200KMs away from the city. Anand has always been a Formala-One racer... and I was very sure that we'll reach in time... the only potential risk was traffic jam at the entrance of Zurich city... cutting it short... while returning instead of taking snaps I preferred to have video recorded... and trust me it was a feast to the eyes.

Despite of traffic jam, we covered that distance in about 1:45 hours conveniently... I reached station at 5:45... I offered Maghrib at prayer hall which is located at one floor down at the railway station... right opposite to platform number 13.

Now the next potential risk... Zurich train was supposed to reach Munich at 22:45PM and Munich train was supposed to leave for Erlangen at 22:55PM... so just 10 minutes for getting down, changing the platform, searching for compartment and boarding... that is when the train is on the time. I checked with TTE and he confidently said... "we are on time"... and I went ahead with his confidence.

As expected, we reached Munich at 22:45PM and as soon as the train stopped, I ran for catching the train... what I see is one gentleman is stopping me... I didn't bother as I had to catch the train in any case. That guy chased me and said-- Don't run... this is Police -- "boss, apni tto phat gayi". I told him-- Do you want to see my passport or ticket? and I handed over both the docs to him... while he was looking at my passport, his colleague took my ticket and started walking away... I shouted at him.. as it was hardly 5 minutes remaining for the train to depart.. and that Einstein was going to check the platform number on display board :-) somehow I thanked him and snatched back my tickets and ran madly towards the train... and finally boarded it before the scheduled time... I was pretty tired but was extremely happy that I could spend my weekend in best possible manner. And moreover, this journey was a dream coming true for me!!!

This reminds me of Rajesh Khanna's famous lines from classic movie 'Anand':
"Zindagi lambi nahi, badi hona chahiye" similarly, "trip lambi nahi *badi* hona chahiye"

And, this trip was definitely big one!!!

Lots of Love,
Siraj ur Rehman Khan
November 5, 2012 -- 10:12PM
Erlangen, Germany