Don’t become a puppet

Puppets are fun! Puppets tell us interesting stories with emotions. Sometimes they act about how you feel. You can see the puppets with different feelings like sadness, happiness, anger...etc. 

Recently I visited the Majaz Waterfront to see how the Puppet Festival was going on. It was a wonderful show, full of entertainment. 

There was a group of dancers who performed first. Their dances were superb. They performed breathtaking acts. After this, we had a workshop that had been organised for children. There they introduced us to the famous puppets.

They even showed us Pinocchio, the Hand Puppet and lots more. They also showed us how to make your own puppet and how to use them. The workshop went for half-an-hour. 

Then the main part came — the puppet show. The puppets were a full entertainment box for the audience. Everyone had a belly laugh. It was a story which expressed different feelings.

When I was heading home after the show, I met a few of my friends. We started discussing the show. One of them said, “Everybody is a puppet before God.” Another said, “Humans also like to act like puppeteers.”

I didn’t approve of the first idea. I believe that we live in this world with our will. God has just given us a guideline and a free will. It is up to us if we like to follow that guideline or not. We do what we will in the world so how can it be possible? 

But I agreed to the opinion that certain people like to act like puppeteers. They like to make others dance on their fingertips. Many people fall into the trap, although God has given a free will to everyone with a brain.

I remember the famous quote of Steven Redhead, the author of the book The Solution, “Don’t become a puppet to other people’s desires, live and create your life as you intend it to be.”


(Published in The Gulf Today on April 27, 2013)

Learning Values

Value education is one of the important subjects taught in schools here. But, it is not necessary to learn values only through classroom teachings or from the prescribed books. We can also learn them through the incidents which occur in our daily life. I realised this when I got to notice a few interesting incidents in my surroundings.

One of them occurred recently on my way to school. I was seeing outside the window when I saw a woman in a great hurry to get somewhere. She was in such a hurry that she fell on the ground hitting a rock. Others rushed and helped her get up. I remembered the value we had learnt — haste makes waste.

I have also noticed many other incidents. Once, I saw two sisters playing on a see-saw in a park. The younger one was high up in the air when suddenly her sister left the see-saw in a hurry for some reason forgetting all about her. And she came down with a bump! I realised that the older girl should have been a little more careful.

Recently, one of my friends recalled her experience when she was made the group leader. All the members were best friends and kept talking only in their native language whether it was English or Arabic or any other period. They used to discuss in their language also for the projects.

I immediately recalled the lesson taught by my teacher, “You must respect the subject being taught to you and be in a team and co-operate with everyone in your group or your surroundings.”

The world is full of value education classes but we can learn only if we take note of them.

(Published in The Gulf Today on April 20, 2013)

Meaningful gestures

To communicate with others, you do not always need written or spoken words. Sometimes you can feel others’  wishes and emotions just through physical expressions and the universal language of signs.

I realised this during my recent holy trip to Makkah and Madina where I met many people of different nationalities.

My first encounter was with our bus driver, who couldn’t speak any language other than Arabic. Whenever he stopped the bus for a break, he faced great difficulties while communicating with us.

Once we reached Saudi Arabia, where Arabic is spoken everywhere, we had to communicate with others, either by using our limited knowledge of Arabic, or mostly by employing signs.

However, not knowing Arabic was not a problem while meeting people from other parts of the world, as they too used sign language to good effect.

When we started climbing the Jebel Noor (Mountain of Light) in Makkah to pay a visit to the Cave Hira, where the first few Verses of the Quran were revealed to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), we knew it was going to be difficult.

Climbing over 600 steps to reach the cave at a height of about 900 feet was getting to be so difficult that I was losing hope. But a group of Turkish ladies kept encouraging me to continue with the climb, and by using signs conveyed to me that they could achieve this despite their old age.

I also saw a few others who were returning from the climb, who again through use of very easy-to-understand gestures, encouraged me to climb on.

While waiting for our turn to enter the cave, a woman came up to me and said something in her language, which I failed to understand.

She then showed me her fist with the thumb pointing upwards. Immediately understanding the common sign conveying the message: “I am thirsty,” I offered her my bottle of water.

Although I could not fathom her reply in her native tongue, I realised she had made dua (offered prayers) for me.

(Published in The Gulf Today on April 13, 2013)

Holy journey

I am very excited today. Not just because holidays are going on and I am promoted to a new class. I am going to Makkah to perform Umrah and will also visit Madina as part of the pilgrimage.

I am happy because it is like a dream come true. I always asked my parents to take me for Umrah or Hajj.

I am waiting eagerly for the trip as I will be visiting the significant places of Islamic history. We have been taught about Islamic history in the school and learning through books as well as the Net. I always wanted to see those historic places and battlefields.

We keep learning for years about them and imagine them but it is a rare chance to see them. I think that books can enhance our knowledge about historic places or monuments but we get full knowledge when we see them. It is the same feeling like when you see the monuments or places in Delhi. Apart from being a holy journey, it is also like an educational trip where I will learn more about Allah and His Messengers (PBUH) and his struggle.

We should take advantage of living in a place near these cities and visit Makkah and Madina frequently. We can go and perform Umra or Hajj. It is a chance that we should not let go.

(Published in The Gulf Today on April 6, 2013)

Mind your language

Computers have made our lives easy. People say that even the minor mistakes that may elude human eyes can’t go unchecked by this man-made machine. But I have noticed many mistakes which not only escaped careful human eyes but also passed through the mighty machine. Some of those mistakes were hilarious, I couldn’t stop myself from sharing them with you.

Once, I was going through the pages of a newspaper when I noticed a very surprising job-title – “By Our Chef Reporter” — written below the headline. I was confused and consulted my father. 

I asked, “Can you describe the designation of Chef Reporter?” He started laughing and I got more curious. Later, he told me it must be a spelling mistake.

This mistake had made the “Chief Reporter” a “Chef Reporter.”

On another occasion, I was going through the weather forecast in a newspaper. I suddenly spotted that it had been printed, “The son will rise early tomorrow.”

It baffled me as why should someone should announce in the newspaper that his son will wake up early the next day. Later, I realised that they wanted to write, “The sun will rise early tomorrow.”

Recently, I got puzzled when one of my cousins sent me an email. He wrote that he lost his favourite watch in the “Dessert.”

I kept thinking what he meant by that as the watch can fall on the dish but how can he lose it. The next day when he visited us, he explained, “Recently, we had gone for Desert Safari and I lost my watch there.” 

I realised that we should be careful not only with our works but also with our words.

(Published in The Gulf Today on March 30, 2013)