Believe me there are times when you have get so many thoughts and you find yourselves in such a helpless situation. I don’t know which thought I need to perceive. Books, papers, gym, robotic design, skateboarding, blogging, learning guitar … ah I am exhausted just thinking of all these. All of these get planned for weekend and when weekend arrives, I wake up at 2 PM afternoon, watch TV for a while (Today, I saw the movie called Rocky Balboa) and the weekend is over. Great! I can’t digest it so easily. I need to learn time-management.

The part of the problem is “being single”. The situation somehow makes you very careless and disorganized. At 22 ½, it’s really a wrong age for me for looking out for someone. I believe it’s the transition age… the age where you just want to have sex and nothing else. Of course, opportunities can be created and desires can be fulfilled but I want to rather go the orthodox way. Not because I like being orthodox but because of my nature. If I try it out once and say, I succeed and I like it … then I might get involved in doing it again and again, which I believe would do no good to my character in long term. I would rather go for that so called everlasting love… where two people make complete idiot of themselves and yet they like it. To be frank, even though life gives you lot of opportunities of being an idiot, there aren’t many opportunities where you would like to be one. Falling in love is one such opportunity where you want to be one.

Ah… Didn’t I just call all lovers as idiots? Let me take my words back. I spend couple of minutes thinking about it… I think they are most fortunate ones. The people who don’t have love are the idiots! Yeah, this sounds more convincing. They are idiots because… they are missing the creation’s most beautiful feeling … and there is no better reason than that. A feeling that can make even a dumb idiot sound more convincing than Einstein or Newton.... a feeling that can make even an useless idiot believe that he/she is most significant … a feeling that can make even a worse coward to take on the most powerful … a feeling that can make even a worst criminal confess his dreadful sins…. and vice-versa of all the actions that I just mentioned.

Basically, love is a very powerful weapon that can be used for one’s advantage or disadvantage, purely depending on the intellectual capabilities of a person. One reason why I earlier said lovers as idiots is because they neither using their love for their advantage or disadvantage. They are just living a stupid life! When you are in love, you can achieve so many things… you have the unconditional support … I don’t understand what’s stopping them. Maybe, what they call as love is not love at all. It might just be what they call… compromised life!

Having said that, it’s very frustrating though to be alone, typing this stupid blog which no one reads and hope of mercy from God. In a way, I am saving all these memories. Probably, when I am little old, I will read all of these again and have a good laugh.

Hopefully, the situation might change soon…it’s just that matter of time. I am looking forward for a gift from God very soon. INSHALLAH.

By the way, I saved some of my posts in another blog called http://mohdabubakr.blogspot.com and all my future posts would be posted both on http://nextnewton.spaces.live.com and http://mohdabubakr.blogspot.com

Often after the prayers at mosques, most of the Muslims in India participate in discussions on the world affairs and issues faced by Muslim community. These discussions take place in disorganized groups of ten to fifteen people and topics of discussions include liberation of Palestine, war crimes by Allied powers in Iraq and Afghanistan, etc. These discussions have a huge influence on the mindsets of lower class Indian Muslims who don’t have access to Internet and English Media. On 13^th February, after the Salat-al-Juma (afternoon prayers performed by Muslim on Friday), I saw a group of young and old men discussing something and they all had a cheer on their face. It was a surprise for me as I never seen such a broad cheer on their faces. Silently, I joined the group to know the discussion and the reason for their happiness. A middle aged man was sharing the content of Obama’s speech delivered on National Prayer breakfast which he had seen on Internet. Each person part of the group was cheering every single sentence of the speech. This was the first time in my life time I saw an American President commanding respect in the heart’s of these people.

I have seen the anger towards George Bush Sr., I have seen the anger towards Bill Clinton and I have seen the anger towards George Bush Jr. but when it comes to Barrack Obama there is a radical shift in the opinions. Even a common man thousands of miles away recognizes the sense of friendliness in his talks. On National Prayer breakfast, Obama called out the Golden rule – the love for fellow human beings irrespective of their religion and color. While what he spoke wasn’t something unknown to people but the manner in which it was conveyed had a profound impact on everyone who heard the speech. Quoting the verses directly from Bible, Torah and Hadith and expressing his trust in peace and dialogue is probably one of the finest speeches delivered by an American president since long time.

There is a difference between commanding respect and demanding respect – while waging wars in Afghanistan and Iraq tried to demand respect, Obama’s way of expressing his ideas on world peace and prosperity has commanded respect not just for himself but for the fellow Americans. Inherently, everyone understands the concept of peace - the problem arises when power induces arrogance among presidents and leaders. With thousands dead in Palestine and chaotic situation in Pakistan with Taliban taking over the western province, every move of Obama will be scrutinized and talked. The coming days will be the testing grounds for Obama on his capability to negotiate and establish peace and fight against terrorism. And as far as Taliban is concerned, clearly the momentum is towards Obama. Muslim communities across the world are not in the favor of Taliban’s extremist rule and Obama is going to have their full support in fighting against Taliban. But for the benefit of the innocent people living in western areas of Pakistan, if Obama negotiates a deal with Taliban in establishing democracy and human rights - it will become one of the greatest revolutions that have taken place in modern times.

Thank you for all the appreciation most of you gave me for my previous post “Freedom to question”. Of course, there were few criticisms too. I posted an abstract of it in a public forum as a reply to a question why Indian students are losing out on creativity. Subsequently, after I posted the abstract, the following was the comment

“I would disagree with the timelines. There were significant pioneering contributions from India in the fields of science, astronomy  and mathematics till ~1000 AD and am sure those would not have been made if people during that time were not questioning”

I followed with a question…

May I know the pioneering contributions from India in the fields of science, astronomy and mathematics till ~1000 AD? I know about “zero” being discovered in India. What else was discovered between 0 AD – 1000 AD ?

While there were several people who answered about the contributions done by Indians, some of which I wasn’t aware of, there was one reply that was very annoying.

Are you Indian?  I am not even talking abt the mind, body soul kind… Just plain citizenship wise, born and brought up in india, are you?

This was my reply to the above comment.

Thank you for that comment. You actually helped me in putting my word in a more understandable way. For your kind information, I am born and brought up in ‘Republic of India’. By mind, I want to work for scientific development of India, my soul I get touched by all the disheartening issues happening in our country and my body (Genetically, I believe I am Dravidian but I am waiting for genome sequence to get decoded and then I might undergo a test to know my ancestral origins.)… oh yeah.. when I die, my body will be mixed in Indian Soil.  Do you want to see a photocopy of my passport or birth certificate? ;-)

-- Continuing the discussion

In my earlier post, I stated that there is no freedom for questioning in India, look precisely that’s what happened here. I asked a question but in return my nationality gets questioned. Of course, asking someone’s nationality is also a question and I am OK with answering it. But what I want to highlight here is the manner in which it was questioned. It is not a particular person’s mistake - it is more of our general instinct. When someone questions us, instead of giving answers, we either try to silence them or question them such that they never ask questions again.

Note, this has happened in forum consisting of some of the most talented people of India. Imagine how hard it is for an ordinary person to ask a question in a public forum in India. He/she would get roasted with all sorts of comments until he/she compromises and adjusts with the people around.

Asking questions and finding right answers is of paramount importance when it comes to nation building. For that matter, asking questions and finding relevant answers is of paramount importance even when it comes to developing great software. I am sure many of you had brain storming sessions where every nook and corner of the application is questioned and discussed before it goes into market. Why? Because questions propel us to find right answers. And right answers help us in improving. Merely following what has been told to you ultimately results in collateral damage to the whole system.

Coming back to my question that I asked, May I know the pioneering contributions from India in the fields of science, astronomy and mathematics till ~1000 AD?

There is a reason why I asked that question. Scientific contributions have always existed in the darkest period of history. What makes the difference is whether it’s a pioneering contribution or just another contribution? No doubt, ‘zero’ was the pioneering contribution and I am sure there were many more contributions that we have failed to recognize and evangelize them globally such that contributors receive their formal recognition.

Part of the problem lies with the fact that we mixed our science with metaphysical reasons. Also, when you formally call something as science, one should be prepared for scientific scrutiny.

Consider for example the field of Vaastu-shastra, when my house was being constructed, someone suggested that Kitchen should have windows eastwards because it is Vaastu complaint. I asked him “why is it so?” He gave me some metaphysical reasons which had no relation with science. So, I spent some time researching and thinking, is there any scientifically valid reason for Kitchen having windows eastwards? And believe me, I found answers - sunlight consists of UV rays that kills bulk of the bacteria/germs. The intensity of UV spectrum of Sunlight increases from morning to noon and later decreases. Kitchens are generally the breeding grounds for bacteria and germs and having a window eastwards will bring in the UV rich sunlight killing the bacteria. Note, UV rays have harmful effects on humans, that’s why size of the window and it’s altitude also matters. Now, the obvious question arises that whether Vaastu-shastra is a branch of science or branch or something else? I believe that it started as a scientific study, but somehow when people failed to market it as science - they mixed some metaphysical reasons to sell it. Similar marketing tactics were used for other branches of sciences developed in India. When people started questioning about the validity of certain things, we started the culture of not questioning our elders. And even today’s that’s continuing.

Point to be noted, I am not trying to hurt anyone’s sentiments here. All am I saying is, we need to question to find the right answers. And unless we live in an environment where people are allowed to ask questions, there is a little chance of being the best in world in coming days.

During my engineering, I had an opportunity of visiting around 30 engineering colleges across Andhra Pradesh for papers at technical symposiums. My first technical paper was on ‘Analysis of Non Linear Schrodinger equations for Optical solitons’ which I presented at a National Level Symposium called Pragnya-2005 for which I received the best paper award. In the coming years, I touched upon different fields such as decoupling capacitors in VLSI, energy complexity in embedded systems, power frameworks in cellular communications, etc. One of the criticisms I always had from my professors was that I never attached myself to one field and I can only make big if I stick to one field. Probably, it was due to my curiosity and ability to question everything that propelled me to work on different fields. Sometimes, it was funny - I used to have long debates in class-rooms with professors on a particular question, disrupting the whole class. Sometimes, I was warned to keep quiet and I believe rest of the times, professors enjoyed debating with me.

While participation in every symposium was a unique experience, I often felt that there is something profoundly missing among the students. For most of them, a technical paper meant understanding something that has not been taught. Rarely, I got to see the ability to challenge a technical idea. Of course, their situation indirectly helped me in winning quite many ‘Best student paper awards’ but somewhere I felt guilty about it. Sometimes, I felt these students are too humble in accepting whatever they have been told than questioning why it is true. To make things worse, the attitude of being too humble has deeply affected their creativity. This problem arises not just at school or college but rather starts at home itself.

As per the values of general Indian family, children are told right from our childhood that it is not correct to question your elders and accept whatever they say. The unfortunate state is that, the child loses his/her ability to question about an issue/problem and over the period of time becomes non-creative. The non-creative child grows up and again preaches the same values to his/her children and this cycle has been continuing since past two thousand years. That’s precisely the reason why over last two thousand years, we have produces such less number of scientists and intellectuals. To make things more clear, let me categorically state certain examples

- Existence of superstition even today in most parts of India is an example of the inability of people to question its validity. “My forefathers believed, so I believe it too” … That’s the answer you find from these people when asked.

- Glorification of works done by ancestors is another habit of Indians. Just because, people merely follow what has been told to them than doing something creative, some primitive work done by ancestors becomes so sacred that it can’t questioned.

- Suppression of creativity in the name of religion, culture and traditions is rampant in most part of the country. People still treat scientific advances as foreign invasion on their religion, culture and traditions.

I can go on and on giving these kinds of examples. Believe me, most people reading this blog post would argue with me that “are you saying listening to elders is wrong?” than understanding that all am I saying is “a child should be given liberty to question the existing logic and come up with his/her own solutions if there exists a flaw”.

Imagine, the state of the same child who was forced never to question and challenge the custom/tradition/religion/culture goes to college/school, do you think he/she will question the teachers about validity of something doubtful in textbooks? How can you expect such child to challenge the scientific ideas when he/she isn’t given liberty to question at home? And all this makes, most of the Indian students become too humble to accept whatever they have been told.

Just another day, I was reading an interesting blog where there was an anonymous comment

“I don't know about ** in India but I work - as an Australian - for an Indian company. We did some 'cultural sensitivity' training when our company was taken over so that we would be aware of the differences. One of the key ones was the importance of hierarchy in the Indian culture. This means that the opinion/attitude/approach of the leaders has much more impact than it would in Western cultures. In general, if a senior staff member says something then people will go along with it even if they know it to be wrong. This would seem to tie in with a lot of what people have been saying here -even to the point that groups controlled from ******* are much more productive.

In terms of innovation; I had one of our Indian colleagues explain that in terms of the Indian education system. His point was that, with so much poverty in India, a large majority of the people are working to get out of their current social position. With few exceptions the most likely way to do this is through education but only the top graduates actually manage to do well. This leads to a great deal of competition in the system: to get into the right college you need to get good marks at the right secondary school and to do that you need good marks at the right primary school etc etc. To get good marks, you have to give the expected answers in all exams/test etc. You do not deviate from the lessons you have been taught or you may fail. Such an environment does not encourage thinking outside the box! I have seen many of the Indian staff grow enormously in their roles while seconded to this country. I cannot say the same for those that I need to deal with that remain off-shore.”

This comment fairly summarizes the point I am trying to convey. Without being too philosophical here, let me state the action items for all of us Indians who agree with me

1. Let us not restrain ourselves and following generations from questioning and challenging the existing ideas

2. In case, there is a flaw in any of our tradition/custom/religion/belief, let us have guts to accept it.

3. Let us try to be as scientific as possible. Science will not harm our culture but rather improves it.

4. We are known by what we are and not by what our ancestors were. Let us create a good identify for ourselves so that 500 years from now, when historians write about us, they write good things.

During my engineering, I was highly interested in Laplace transforms, Fourier transforms, differential calculus, vector calculus, etc. However, after the end of engineering and having spent last two years in core software industry, it seems like my command over engineering mathematics is lost. In fact, today, I am struggling to solve simple problems like finding a Fourier series for a given function. I feel quite ashamed to express this and definitely like to revamp my knowledge.

Part of my problem also lies in lack of proper exposure to applications of engineering mathematics. We study differential calculus, vector calculus, etc however seldom we are taught about how these fields can be applied in physics or engineering subjects. While, I did apply Fourier series expansions and transforms in communication system engineering, I still feel there was lack of depth in the subject.

Going ahead, without command over mathematics, it’s almost impossible to search for profound ideas in physics. Currently, I have ideas but to put down those ideas on paper, I need mathematical support. I have already spend last few years chasing wild dreams, now it’s the time to do something practical… something realistic. I am yet to receive formal acceptance about Calpanic Numbers from Math community. And that’s not because they don’t want but because I haven’t yet formally put it before them. I accuse myself for the delay.

Initially, I thought doing PhD and then start publishing these papers. However, PhD has become too complicated for me especially because the kind of entrance exams being conducted. For some reason, I am not getting a feel to prepare for exams. The situation is like this, whenever I start reading something, I want to go deep into it. Few days back, I decided to revamp my knowledge in basic electronics, I started with diodes and I spend almost 5 days just understanding different aspects of diodes. Basically, all that effort is not needed for an entrance exam. One needs to cover the whole breadth of syllabus. I don’t think I can resist myself going deep into the subject than just covering the subject just for the sake of an exam.

Next tasks for me

1. Revamp knowledge on Laplace transforms, Fourier transforms/series, partial differentiation, integral calculus, vector calculus and basic engineering mathematics.

2. Understand basic Group theory

3. Work on publishing Calpanic Numbers in some standard mathematical journal.

In 1931, Kurt Gödel came up with theorem that states that there exists at least one statement within a formal axiomatic theory that cannot be proved to be true. This theorem is famously known as “Gödel’s Incompleteness theorem”. This theorem not has makes a deep impact on the philosophy of mathematics but also describes the very nature of human life!

Let me make it clear this way by modifying the theorem.

There exists at least one wish within a human being that never gets fulfilled in his/her lifetime.

I know, that thing does sound like being rude to fate - however I have always noticed that incompleteness in my life. My mother says, God dislikes the dissatisfied people and one should be self-contained with what has been given to him/her. I want to make it clear that I am not dissatisfied with life, just that I am not satisfied too.

The other day I saw a movie called “Wanted”, I know I am watching a lot of movies now-a-days. It is again the same genre of movie where the hero doesn’t get the girl at the end. However, the movie is remarkably different that the typical movie in which hero falls in love. This movie deals with a group of assassins who kills people based on a fate machine. The theory revolves around a person who considered his life to be useless suddenly finds himself doing amazing stunts along with the group of assassins. And there enters Angelina Jolie… I still can’t forget her Lara Croft look, as gorgeous as ever. I won’t go in detail on the review of the movie but if you thought only Rajnikanth can play with bullets, watch this movie!!

Wow… what a movie! I know, not many of you have liked this movie and yet I found the movie incredibly well made. It was true cinematic journey of words, backgrounds and characters. I was literally in tears at the end. I have always liked tragic movies, the movies in which at the end the hero doesn’t get the girl. Whether it’s Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam or Titanic, there is some mysterious appeal in these movies which totally take me into different world. Another movie which recently enjoyed watching is “Cast Away”. Well, enjoyment means shedding few tears here.

Talking about movies, I was suggested to watch “Beautiful Mind” by a very special person and I was told that it resembles my life. And when I saw the movie, I was literally in tears for most part of it. Human mind is unexplainably complex and volatile. The movie taught me how important are stable relationships in life and how important it is to understand a person. For most part of my life, I have lived under isolation and loneliness. No, I didn’t study at a boarding school or stuck at an island. It was more about not getting along with people emotionally. I never found myself into the environment I have lived.

When I was 10 years old, my father told me a proverb, “two men looked out of bars - one saw the mud and the other saw the stars”. My father always made sure that I look at stars than mud. It was only during my engineering I realized, I am the one who saw the mud. And then I got the idea of digging the tunnel, I came out, purchased a telescope and saw more stars than the guy behind the bars. While I was digging the tunnel, the other guy who was watching the stars learnt about falling in love with nature. He saw the beautiful moon, twinkling stars and the vast sky. And on one special day, he saw an angel in the sky. He instantly fell in love with her. Little did he realize that he is behind the bars. He wanted to meet the angel, he wanted to speak with her but he was stuck there behind the bars looking at stars. I believe he is still there behind the bars. And the other guy, which was me, successfully dug the tunnel, earned money to purchase a telescope and saw the stars. I saw the barren moon, burning stars and the near empty sky. There was never a moment where I saw an angel flying across the sky with the telescope.

As the life went on, I once again revisited the proverb once my dad told me. I was happy that I was the guy who saw the mud, dug the tunnel, came out, purchased the telescope and was exploring the skies and universe. Suddenly, a thought changed my life. There weren’t two guys behind that bars. There was only me inside those bars. It was my heart that saw the stars and it was my brain that saw the mud. My heart is still behind those bars and that brain is with that telescope that only finds barren moon, burning stars and near empty sky.

That’s why there is loneliness in my life and that’s why I like movies in which hero doesn’t get the girl. I know, once again this post turned out to be about my life! Seriously, when I started out writing this one, I wanted to write about movies and science… but don’t know why the words took their own direction…

Apologize for staying away from blog. I was trying to prioritize works and somehow I felt I should blog until certain decisions are made. My research on Yang-Mills theory has just started - currently I am going through different books on Yang Mills and Quantum Field theories. It’s hard to do research while managing job, life and distractions. Anyhow, I am confident that Allah’s help is on the way.

Yesterday, I watched this movie called “Cast Away”. I am not a movie reviewer but certainly it’s an awesome movie. It made me recollect my childhood, the times when I was immensely fascinated with the stories of sailors. I read ‘Count of Monte Carlo’ when I was in 9^th class and it still remains one of the most fascinating books I have read.

I have decided to reduce crap on my blog and make it more scientific. Hence, I won’t post my bragging lectures on love, life and distractions.

Regards,

Mohd Abubakr.

I couldn’t have understood myself better than what I understand myself today. The truth is that I am most confused person on the planet earth. There are times when I believe that I should strictly concentrate at one particular thing and then I find something else very interesting. Ultimately, in the confusion, I lose out on both. This is what has happened with me from last one year whenever I look at those Millennium problems.

I know, the stakes are higher and it might sound like I am bluffing here. I truly want to solve one of the six problems (considering that Poincare Conjecture is already solved). Yang-Mills Theory is something I would be excited to work on, however, considering my latest interest in computing, I would definitely like to work on P V/s NP problem. And in this confusion, I have made no progress on any of the two and if things go this way, I might never be able to make any progress.

Yang-Mills Theory it is. Yes, I hope to have taken a decision now. And I certainly hope to keep this decision for the next couple of years until I do something substantial on solving this problem. Like always, my approach would be simple and creative. Since this is going to be an absolute thrilling and ground-breaking ride, I am excited to take up this decision. I feel fortunate to stand at a position where I have confidence to take on something huge and faith to complete it in next few years. I hope to succeed in this effort, Insha’Allah.

Next tasks:

1. Understand Yang-Mills Theory

2. Understand the prior work done on this.

3. Think on possible solutions.

4. Publish it.

Since this blog has become a vital medium in my communication with you, in subsequent posts I would like to keep you updated on how my research is going on. Remember, this is all my part-time research and I might be slow in posting the latest updates.

...And there are times when you just feel lucky about the way you are. After being awarded "Rookie of the Year" by my team at ACE conference, I just feel how lucky I am being at Microsoft and what a journey it has been. To be frank, at my home, it's just another award among my dozens of others. But what makes it special is the fact that it's my first as a "Professional". It all started in early 2007, when one of my best friends, Kiran, asked his Uncle to refer me at Microsoft. Things worked and I wrote a written test for internship, went through couple of interviews and subsequently got selected for five months internship. Being an electronics student (I still like to keep my identity as electronics guy), it was a challenging task before me to cope up with the best minds in software industry. I joined MMS (Microsoft Managed Services) team as an Intern. My five months internship included tasks like understanding Data Protection Manager 2007 and developing tools in PowerShell for the same. Fortunately, the task was easy than anticipated. I developed around 13 tools within 3 months and tools turned out to be pretty helpful to the team.

But life is not as easy as it sounded. Almost at the end of my internship, I got to know that there are no open positions in the team. Just when I was thinking, lets return to my beloved electronics... I got a call from HR that my internship is extended for two months and I am supposed to join a new team called "ACE". Wow... that was a shocker! Lucky again. This time around, my job revolved around Performance testing of IT applications. The work demand was simple and quite. I did manage to learn and do End-to-End performance testing of ASP.NET applications and it worked. I was offered full-time employment at Microsoft's ACE team. The pay was handsome, I liked the people around me and moreover, I was in love with Microsoft's work culture. Which company would allow me to come to office at anytime I feel like?

Being a full-time employee at Microsoft brings in lot of responsibilities. The responsibility that you are now a member of a company that revolutionized the way people look at computers. Responsibility that you are now treated as creator of windows in your neighborhood and relatives and you are supposed to solve each and every windows related problem. With the Vista's arrival, my mobile was on continuous stress with every other friend, relative and neighbor calling me up. There I was, with XP installed on my PC, trying to answer, questions on Vista. They say, when you are brave, flukes work!

Performance of Web applications is a large field and I have to admit performance testing is just the tip of iceberg. Every project that I have taken up helped me understand new things, made me better and confident in what I am saying. One thing that I never hesitated to project myself as.... " I am Rookie ". I am not an expert in this field, I am learning each and every bit of it and hopefully some day I might consider calling myself as expert. Till then, I am just a student who doesn't hesitate to ask questions, no matter how stupid they might sound. Time and again, I have been reminded by few people close to me that I should restrain from being over-simplified and project a different image before people and team. That's how people project themselves in Professional world. I know, in professional world, a big fish eats a small fish, that's the logic that is supposed to work best. But somewhere, my conscious says, I should act truthful not just to the people around me but to myself. I think that's what defines "Open and Honest" policy of Microsoft. Someone told me that when you accept what you are and willing to work hard towards excelling yourself, you are following all six policies of Microsoft. You are being Open and Honest, you are taking up the big challenge in venturing yourself into new fields, you are being self-critical by accepting what you are, you are being respectful to the people who are better than or just like you, you are showing the commitment of learning new things and you are passionate to excel and make it large. Mind you, only a passionate person has guts to accept what he is. Ask a non-passionate person about himself, he won't reveal his true identity.

Having said all that, I know I write well! My ex-manager says "it's all about managing expectations", with all due respect to him, my philosophy is "it's all about delivering beyond expectations". I look back at life, I have not just saved memories for myself, I have given memories to others and I hope I continue to do so. I stand today with a promise that "journey has just began and big things are yet to come".

Keep an eye, Abu is here to make a name.

I was watching a movie in a theatre and suddenly my hands were caught tightly by the person on the adjacent seat. He stretched my hands in opposite directions… I was immovable and clearly out powered. I tried looking at his face but I couldn’t… he was behind and I certainly couldn’t tilt my neck 135 degrees. I struggled to free myself, tried to push myself out of the seat. It was all dark, it appeared as if whole theatre was empty. Suddenly I caught the glimpse of the ghostly figure who has taken me under bondage. He was black, long hair and very scary. He was the devil…

Instantly I started chanting La Ilaha Illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah. The devil continued to put more and more pressure on my hands… I had faith in Allah… I kept praying loudly … and suddenly I realized I was not in theatre but in hotel. I could feel the devil sitting next to me, holding my hands tightly and me struggling to move. My brain could process that it was more than a dream and someone is actually there. I could feel the pressure of touch on the skin of my wrist. The devil was actually there… He was strong but not as strong as my will power and faith in Allah. Finally after sometime the devil vanished and I woke up…

As a person who truly believes in science, it’s hard for me to convince myself that there is actually something called “Devil”. I strongly believe, whatever it was, it can be explained through science. This is not the first time this has happened with me. In last few days, this is the third time. My encounter with these types of dreams and devils dates back to my childhood. On many occasions, I have witnessed a dream in which I am lost in an underground chamber, searching for a way out and the dream abruptly ends. But it doesn’t end there. The moment the dream ends, I come to my conscious but I won’t be able to move, won’t be able to open my eyes and in short nothing in my body works except my brain. I have lost the count on how many occasions this has happened. Sometimes, I feel that I am dead and that’s why I am unable to move or open my eyes. During those stages of conscious but immovable, I keep thinking about the summary of my life. What would be my answers to Allah (God), when he asks how I utilized the resources he gave to me. Let’s say this way, eventually every one of us will die. Death is certain but it’s not the end. We are answerable for everything we have done.

Human brain is far more complex than we think it is. The devil could be just a virtual creation within my brain. Our senses send the signals to the brain, it is the brain that does processing of these signals and reacts accordingly. Now, think of a situation where processing is corrupt… the brain will reacts in a wrong way. It is our misconception that brain will interpret the sensual signals correctly; think of a situation that can make brain process these signals incorrectly. Well, how about creating a machine that introduces noise or corrupts the sensual signals?

That’s the image I saw flashing on CNN after Obama declared Joe Biden as his running mate. No wonder Biden is one of the most suitable candidate democrats can have at the moment, however what surprised me was something else.

Before American media bring this out, let me be the first person on the planet to point out the resemblance of names “OBAMA BIDEN” and “OSAMA BIN LADEN”. What an amazing co-incidence! One name refers to the people who might be ruling the America in future and the other is the most hated person by Americans.

It’s just the difference of 4 characters…If this was India; there would have been numerologists all over TV-channels making money over those 4 uncommon characters. Thank God I haven’t found numerologists in US, but who knows… What do Americans have to say about this?

There arrives a time in life where one is supposed to take bold and daring decisions. Decisions that are tough, challenging and that would march us towards a destination. Having wasted last one and half years in pursuit of searching happiness, the only thing I have realized is that "there is no such thing called as happiness or sadness". It's all the perception of mind. There have been times when I have enjoyed the sadness, laughed like a sadist when things were gone bad bad, cried like stupid when things were going great and vice versa. From last one and half years, I haven't produced a single scientific paper, every time I get a new idea, I have no focus and concentration to put it in the form of paper.

It's difficult to keep the persistent concentration on various fields of science. Somewhere, one starts ignoring other fields. I think that's exactly what happened with me. Or may be, I was taking too much of pressure. From quantum mechanics to VLSI, from embedded systems to group theory, I was trying everything and that's where I lost the focus. For me Science is passion, love and destination. It's not for a particular materialistic reason that I do research. Even though that often makes me feel proud but sometimes when people with corrupt commercial minds doubts my credibility, it hurts. I don't perceive and stress on innovation to make money out of it, I simply don't has those instincts of commercialization.

Right now, I am going through to big problems. One, that I am no longer the sharp and ever active Abubakr that I once was, two, I don't have that determination, zeal and concentration to make breakthroughs. It's hard to accept this and probably I might never accept it. But somewhere, for what I have been doing from last one year reflects that it's true. My heart will always refuse to accept this. When someone raises a question on credibility of my research, I often feel let me crack this and that and show my research power to the world. However, it's not as simple. Great researchers don't do research to show it to the world, they do it for the passion of it. The passion for research that I had during engineering is just no longer there in me.

There is never a wrong time to do the right thing and crucial time has arrived to do the right things. I will start it from ground level again and let's see where I end up reaching this time.