To London, with Love (Part 1)

'Welcome to London', the security guard said the moment I was about to step out of Heathrow Airport.

'You will fall in love with this city', he kept on talking while I just kept on looking here and there trying to absorb the fact that I was finally in London.

The sun was shining and there was this excitement within, I was happy because I really wanted a change in my life and wanted to start anew but then there was this fear that it is a new place, new people and not knowing what to expect. But yes, that's when I fell in love with London the City.

The taxi dropped me few streets away from the university accommodation and I had no clue where to go so I asked the first person I saw in the street about where to go. He looked at me for a few seconds, took out his phone and started typing the address in google maps.

It will take you 5-10 minutes to reach your destination, let me help you.' he said.

Then suddenly he picked up my bag and asked me to come behind him. At first I thought he was gonna run away with my luggage but he did not, and actually took me all the way to my university accommodation, right in front of the hall put my bag down. I said thanks.

He just smiled at me, said, 'Welcome to London'. Shook my hands and went away. I was extremely surprised and it hit me how nice people could be here. Over the year and half I can say I wasn't wrong but that was when I fell in love with the people of London.

Summit in Six Years

Written by: Misbah ul Haq

I started the journey as Pakistan captain in quite a dramatic fashion and the knowledge that today we are the number one team sounds very dramatic, too. 

It is an unbelievable feeling to know that in six years we have reached the summit; a feeling of immense pleasure and satisfaction.

The fighting spirit showed by this unit is unprecedented.

  

In the past there have been instances when we have succumbed under pressure after heavy defeats but we have changed this trend now. 

The recent England series is a prime example.

After winning at Lord's we suffered a heavy defeat at Old Trafford but came back strongly and dominated most parts of the Edgbaston Test. We could not win it but came from behind at The Oval to square the series 2-2. 

The match at The Oval was a real test of our characters.

Personally it was a very important match for me – had we lost, it would have been my last match in England, so I was desperate to go out on a high. 

In hindsight, a fifth Test would have been wonderful for the series. I even jokingly suggested to Alastair Cook that we play a decider, to which he said, 'You must be wanting it at Lord's or The Oval?', and my response was, 'No, we can beat you at Old Trafford and Edgbaston, too'. 

Before the Oval Test I talked to the team. I told them August 14 was approaching and if we could win this match on the country's Independence Day it would be a huge gift for the people of Pakistan, who are so emotionally attached to cricket.

I am glad that we fought well and made it a big occasion for the people of our country. 

The possibility of becoming the number one team for the first time also added to our energy. 

It is a huge achievement to be at top of the world. It is just like winning a World Cup for your team, therefore everyone in the team wanted to touch the summit no matter whether it was for a day or a week or a month. The number one tag was in the minds of all the players and it motivated us a lot.

The challenge now is to maintain our ranking and for that we will have to do well in the upcoming series against West Indies, New Zealand and Australia. 

The tours to New Zealand and Australia will be difficult.

New Zealand has a very balanced and an improved side and it really requires an effort to get the better of them at their home. 

Australia we all know is an extremely difficult place for the visitors. It will throw new challenges at us. 

In England you encounter swing and seam whereas in Australia you need to counter pace and bounce and since their batsmen are used to that pace and bounce we find them scoring at high rates. 

Having said that, our team has the potential to win matches in Australia, too, just like we have done in England.

How it all began 

A month before Pakistan's series against South Africa in the UAE in 2010 I received a phone call from the former PCB Chairman Ijaz Butt's secretary. 

The message was that the Chairman wanted to meet me.

It was intriguing as not only I had been dropped from the previous series, I was also left out of the 35-member preliminary squad. 

But after the call I sensed an opportunity coming my way. 

The Chairman wanted to keep the meeting confidential and as it has been reported in the media recently it was arranged in a clerk's room where I was offered the captaincy. 

I kept it a secret too and, owing to the state of affairs at that time, did not share it even with my family. 

The Chairman told me that he didn't have many options, and since I had the experience of leading the A team, he was thinking about giving me the captaincy. 

He asked my views about it and I told him that if he thought I was capable of doing it I would try my best to fulfil the responsibility, and so I accepted the offer to lead the team. 

A week later, while I was in the Faisalabad team's camp for the domestic T20 tournament, the news came that I had been recalled to Pakistan's ODI and T20 squads which caught everybody in the camp by surprise.

The following day they were more surprised when it was announced that I had been appointed Test captain. 

Nobody was expecting that.

The Pakistan team at that time was in shambles.  It had just lost three of its finest cricketers, was without a captain and home, and standing at number six in the rankings. 

Everything was completely out of shape.

I knew handling the team in these circumstances would be a massive challenge but the thought in my mind was that if the Almighty had given me the opportunity to lead the team, He would assist me to make it a better unit, too. 

Almost every match and series for us has been memorable.

The standout feature of this team is its fighting spirit; we made comebacks in the situations where many teams would have failed to cope with the pressure. Not only we have performed but we have improved with every new series. 

For me the biggest series win in these six years for us was clean sweeping England 3-0 in the UAE in 2012. The series had a lot of hype and England was number one team at that time. Winning that series 3-0 instilled a lot of belief in us and added a lot to our fighting spirits. 

When I talk about the fighting spirit I think of clinching victories from the jaws of defeat. 

To bowl out England for 72 and defend 144 in Abu Dhabi is a very memorable match. 

To chase 300 in two sessions on the fifth day against Sri Lanka in Sharjah was another special match and who would have thought we would chase 377 against Sri Lanka at Pallekele in the fourth innings?

That's why I feel the way the players have carried themselves in the difficult situations is highly commendable and that is a sign of world-beaters.  

When we came to England there were talks about the home team winning it 3-0 or 4-0 but against all odds we squared the series 2-2 and proved our worth. 

We aim to prove it in the next series, too.

The onus is on us stay at number one.

The Story of Younis Khan (Part-9)

He learnt. He read. He took coaching courses. He started watching videos of his batting. He sought out other players, like Rahul Dravid, who urged him to expand his mind and keep the sport in one corner of it, quarantined from the rest. He sought opportunities to play domestic cricket in England and, most unusually for a Pakistan batsman, Australia. He threw himself into the life in South Australia in a two-month stay in 2008-09, cooking breakfast for team-mates. In the middle of the stint, he flew back to Pakistan to play a domestic game, then returned to finish his contract in South Australia and was then back again right into the Pakistan season. He lost 10kgs from the travel and play, and thought it was something he needed to do.

He created an ascetic lifestyle. He brought discipline into it. He began picking a corner in dressing rooms wherever he went, put his world into order around it, and didn't take kindly to others littering his space. If he wasn't training or playing, he wasn't seen. He cut out lunch. He started eating dinner by 6pm, which in many homes in Pakistan is when lunches are still finishing. He cut the Pakistani out of his diet, eating grilled and steamed food. He took up fishing, taking advantage of his proximity to Port Qasim with its great fishing spots. He developed unique netting routines and methods of practice so different that younger players, like Shan Masood, speak of them almost in awe.

"Some of his sessions are basic because he's done Level 1 and Level 2 coaching courses, but very technical, and a lot of people would struggle to do them," Masood, also a team-mate of Younis at United Bank, told me. "When you're playing professionally, you want to face bowlers who are bowling well in the nets. You want to face proper throwdowns.

"But with Younis it would be [exercises like] his backlift already up and somebody looping balls up to him. A lot of people think you don't get those kind of balls out in the field [but it comes] from his understanding of the game. Those are routines he is very particular about."

You might remember an extraordinary shot Younis played off Shaminda Eranga in a Test in Abu Dhabi two Januaries ago, so extraordinary it has its own thread on pakpassion.com. Eranga was bowling with the second new ball and Younis was already a hundred to the good. This delivery landed well short of a good length, a couple of stumps outside off, and got as high, maybe, as Younis' hips. Most batsmen would think it fodder for their cut. Younis, however, straightened from his crouch and punched the ball through covers, and if that wasn't a remarkable enough option to take, he actually jumped at the moment he connected. Jumped, not skipped on his toes, but jumped high, like he was clearing a hurdle with both legs, knee-first, back arching simultaneously. It was a shot, thought Masood, that defied the laws of physics.

That shot was the result of a variation of the marble-slab practice common among batsmen the world over to prepare for fast bowling. Coaches throw the ball hard at the slab, placed at a good length away from the batsman, to recreate zip and bounce. Younis doesn't use the slab in the same way. He puts stumps flat underneath it to create an angle so that the slab becomes a little ramp facing up to him. On this the balls come at an even steeper angle, at his chest and throat, allowing Younis to hone this levitation shot.

"He's not that much into [team] nets," said Masood. "He'll go face two rounds of the fast bowlers' nets, two rounds of the spinners' nets and that's it. The rest of it are his own personal drills and he does it every single day, whether he's batting or fielding."

Now he has reached the point where Waqar Younis, the coach, refers to him within the team as the "Institute": go there, learn. It is this status that elevates Younis - in some opinions - above other batsmen in Pakistan's history. Nobody has scored runs and at the same enabled others to bloom.

Chocolate Candy Love

My love I want to tell you,

how much you mean to me.

you're like a chocolate,

wrapped in a candy,

that tells how you're sweet.

Caring as YOU are, I feel I'm cared,

No worries and No sorrows.

I feel like im flying,

for your wings, I did borrow.

You showed me life form an angle,

that sure is not in three-sixty.

Because a thousand happinesses,

did multiply by fifty.

The way you talk and smile

through the day,

Brings gudguddi even at night.

people start wondering.

what made me go so bright?

Happy you so make my life,

Don't ever go away,

I want to hold on to you,

through thick n thin of life.

IF EVER I LOSE YOU .......

The chocolate will go bitter,

the feelings will go bad.

the wings will tear apart,

the angels out of dee.

the Happiness will go quarter,

the nights into nightmare.

the brightness will turn dusky,

my heart will start screaming

the life I so call it,

will go out of meaning.

My love I want to tell you,

how much you mean to me.

you're like a chocolate,

wrapped in a candy,

that tells how you're sweet.

The Story of Younis Khan (Part-8)

The career of Younis Khan is really the story of how to survive as a batsman in Pakistan. The rate of non-survival has little to do with batsmen. If we can equate a rare batting talent with an exceptional piece of music, then think of Pakistan cricket as a tone-deaf listener. They will move him around the order. They will drop him after his first failure. They will call him back only to drop him after his first failure again. They will make him play under threat of axing. They will play him on an away tour, against quality bowling attacks, and drop him when a home series beckons. They will force him to retire. They will prolong the career of a has-been who is keeping out a will-surely-be. They will take him as standby on tours, and then, when the opportunity arises, fly someone else in to take his place. They will play him in the wrong format. They will turn him into a wicketkeeper. They will ignore his best seasons.

It took over four years, and the arrival of Bob Woolmer, for Younis to really cement a place and position (he missed 14 of the 42 Tests Pakistan played from his debut to the end of October 2004, in Woolmer's first Test). Even then, when he made 147 in Kolkata the following March, a duck in the following innings prompted the team manager to warn him he was finished. To which Younis' response was 267 and 84 not out in the very next Test. And if true, then the claim that he thought he might be dropped had he not scored the Pallekele hundred tops them all - in the 11 Tests leading up to it, Younis had made six hundreds.

It is a fraught existence to which Younis has responded in the brooding, ominous pose of Johnny Cash's "Ain't No Grave (Can Hold My Body Down)": defiance, defiance until I die, defiance especially when I'm dead. When he made his international debut, in an ODI, his first act was to protest being pushed down to No. 7 as Pakistan searched for quick runs in a chase of 275 against Sri Lanka. He couldn't believe they were discussing the possibility of a youngster spoiling the chase in front of him. Twice when a wicket fell he was determined to just stand up and go, in defiance of the plans, only for the captain, Saeed Anwar, to tell him each time to relax. When he did go, he made a 41-ball 46, though Pakistan lost by 29 runs.

"When I first played, I really struggled. For the first one or two years, I tried really hard, tried to stay in the team, because I wanted to do something for my family, for my country. I stood like this, I stood like that, I stood like Javed bhai.

"But I figured it out after 2001. When I performed a little bit and got sidelined and then came back, in that one year that I played domestic cricket, I came back and thought, I don't want to be Inzamam, I don't want to be Miandad, I don't want to be Imran. I want to be Younis Khan. Whatever my style is, however I am, I want to stick to it. What I am, I am."

Specifically it was after a Test in Auckland, when he made 91 and an unbeaten 149, that Younis says he found himself, or at least began that process of discovery. He determined not to listen to anyone about how he should bat. Woolmer was an exception but only because he was an enabler, an encouragement for Younis to explore his own game.

Are We Wise Enough?

Written By: Tanzeela Ahmed

One fine day, when I was getting ready for university, my three years old niece, Mahnoor was keenly observing me and then she patted my leg with her tiny hand to seize my attention.

I gazed at her and then she whispered...Phupho, girls don’t go school wearing lip color...

I busted out in laughter. I’m not a student, I’m a teacher. Moreover, I teach in university not in school. I exclaimed!

Mahnoor: Ohhh, Okay.  What about your students?  Do they bother you and don’t let other student study well? She anxiously inquired.

Me:  Yes a few of them are irksome and trouble makers.

Mahnoor: But why? Haven’t their parents taught them to study hard and behave well with teachers and elders? Well, there are some “Gandy bachay” in my school too, very disturbing and irritating… You see, her all sympathies were with me.

To my wonder, she got it very right. It was fairly an ordinary conversation. But let me admit that at the tender age of three, she managed to astonish me. If a three year old is reasonable enough to produce such logical argument, then why the grown up are not able to use their common sense well, understand basic concepts and practical implication of beliefs? 

General perception is “As we grow so do we get wiser”.  Level of wisdom is broadly linked with age.

When I was kid, growing up over night was ultimate wish and now the childhood is the time that I badly miss and so want to relive it. Wish I could have a time machine…  I guess, everyone out there can relate to it.  Anyways, by and large it is consider that being a kid or minor connote no mind-power...  A usual perception is that being a kid means a free license to break rules, do blunders, create mess and make wrong moves.

I can’t comprehend that why average Pakistani families discourage kids taking reasonable. In every family we can point out some wise kids and most of the time such kids are ridicule by their elders and are mock as “Chalako masi, Shana, Shokha, Chota Ustadd, Siyana etc etc. So we can say that culture is an evident factor that permits to learn wisdom faster or hinder it. Perhaps, the development of rationality and individual skills largely relies on our values and believes system.

Being wiser is not an option it’s mandatory. “Wisdom” is the divine excellence human beings are blessed with. The act of growing up actually let us observe more, understand more, encounter numerous situations and thus we draw conclusions and take decisions.

Knowledge grows as we grow…

Experience comes with age and so is knowledge. With the passage of time, people acquire knowledge, gain experience and it makes many of them perceive that now they are wise enough, but at times their own actions and reactions in peculiar circumstances are enough to prove them imprudent.

Our actions / deeds make us look wiser or foolish

My observation is that the majority of people relate education and degrees with the level of wisdom. It’s true in many aspects but not legitimate all the times. This world is full of wiser people who have barely attended school but their approach towards life and their actions & contentment is good enough to prove that.

“Wisdom doesn’t need any credential”

A degree can’t buy well manners, Knowledge, wisdom, experience and ability to stand exceptional.  Degree is a piece of paper and one has to earn and justify it.

Scientific researches depict that as we age our brains shrink in volume / weight, particularly in the frontal cortex. It has been widely found that cognitive functioning slows and memory decline also occurs with ageing.  Old people are less impulsive. So they take more time to think and react and it probably helps them to make wise decisions.

What makes difference is how we use our brain to understand, interpret and generate an opinion.  Yes, we do get wiser as we get older only if we are truly able to constantly learn, adapt, expand our vision and cope up with the ever arising challenges of growing age / life.

Let’s accept it as true that being wiser means possession of knowledge, experience, continuous learning and having the ability to produce good judgment in all practical matters.

“Use your brain well. Otherwise you will never get wiser even at 60...”

The Story of Younis Khan (Part-7)

Back at Malir, Mirza also believed that a batsman is only a batsman if he can bat in any position, in any situation, against any bowler. He pushed Younis around the order; if he made a hundred at No. 3, he would move him to No. 6 in the next game. In one game Mirza stopped Younis from going higher in a chase they were destined to lose. Younis went in at No. 7, hit 69 and won the game.

"There are many such situations a player faces and if he is to become a successful player, he will overcome these and win it," reasoned Mirza. "If you keep coming at the same number, what will you ever do? If you are very good against fast bowling, if someone puts on a spinner, what will you do? You have to be a master of everything, that is the player. That is a batsman."

Years later, as captain on the 2009 tour to Sri Lanka, Younis told Fawad Alam he would be opening in the second Test, in Colombo. Debutant Alam, whose father Tariq was another Malir mentor, was by trade a middle-order batsman. He had never opened in first-class cricket. He made 168 in the second innings. Younis prophesied that he would make a century, scribbled it on a taped tennis ball, which he later gifted to Alam.

Though he has predominantly batted in Tests at one or two down, Younis himself has never seemed too wedded to one position. There was no fuss about moving up permanently to No. 3 at Bob Woolmer's prompting in late 2004, and certainly no complaint that he had spent nearly half his career until then as a middle-order plug, thrust into whatever hole needed plugging. And when, during his year-long absence from the Test side across 2009-10, Azhar Ali established himself as Pakistan's one down, Younis moved down to No. 4 without protestation.

One other answer, a crucial one actually, the one that really makes Younis Younis. Those five hundreds in the fourth innings - the most by any batsman ever - the highest average of all time in the fourth innings (over a minimum of 25 Tests), an average of 65.85 on the fifth day (since 2006), second only to Misbah. In Steel Town, Younis would often make himself the last man to bat in the nets, just before maghrib. Mainly he wanted to make sure that the others would remain till the end of the session, by letting them all have a go first. But he became perversely attracted to batting in fading light, creating in his mind scenarios of extreme pressure.

"I told myself I was batting to save the game. I got it so dark for myself, and there's a fast bowler bowling on cement pitches. This is before I even really understood cricket. But I'm thinking to myself, I could get hit anywhere. There are 24 fielders surrounding me."

Later, when he failed to break through into first-class cricket in Karachi and went back to Mardan, he practised on potholed tennis courts with a hard ball. It was lottery batting: if the ball found a crack, it could break your face or your toe. He wasn't deterred. He just put those hours into the bank.

"This was a process I started 20 years ago. And now when I see a match is stuck, the pitch is breaking, up-and-down bounce, fielders surrounding me and bugging me, and janaab-e-wala bouncers are flying around, these are things I recreated 20 years ago. And actually now that [challenge] is more enjoyable for me."

Classifications of Machine Design

There are different classifications for Machine Design.

Machine design is the process of engineering design. A machine is made up of mechanisms that work together to satisfy the requirements of what the machine needs to accomplish. The machine design may be classified as follows.

Adaptive design.

In most cases, the designer’s work is concerned with adaptation of existing designs. This type of design needs no special knowledge or skill and can be attempted by designers of ordinary technical training. The designer only makes minor alternation or modification in the existing designs of the product.

Development design. 

This type of design needs considerable scientific training and design ability in order to modify the existing designs into a new idea by adopting a new material or different method of manufacture. In this case, though the designer starts from the existing design, but the final product may differ quite markedly from the original product.

New design. 

This type of design needs lot of research, technical ability and creative thinking. Only those designers who have personal qualities of a sufficiently high order can take up the work of a new design. The designs, depending upon the methods used, may be classified as following types.

1. Rational design. This type of design depends upon mathematical formulae of principle of mechanics.
2. Empirical design. This type of design depends upon empirical formulae based on the practice and past experience.
3. Industrial design. This type of design depends upon the production aspects to manufacture any machine component in the industry.
4. Optimum design. It is the best design for the given objective function under the specified constraints. It may be achieved by minimising the undesirable effects.
5. System design. It is the design of any complex mechanical system like a motor car.
6. Element design. It is the design of any element of the mechanical system like piston, crankshaft, connecting rod, etc.
7. Computer aided design. This type of design depends upon the use of computer systems to assist in the creation, modification, analysis and optimisation of a design.

Lenoard Nimoy's best Spock Quotes

Leonard Nimoy was a prolific director, photographer, multi-talented actor and poet who passed away on 27^th February 2015 at the age of 83. The renowned actor was suffering from the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary disease which was at its last stages. He was quite famous for his role as Mr Spock on the fantastic classic sci-fi series Star Trek which is one of the most famous movie series and having the most influential characters to have ever graced the screen. This is the collection of the best Quotes by Leonard Nimoy.

35. Artists and Universe

“You know, for a long time I have been of the opinion that artists don’t necessarily know what they’re doing. You don’t necessarily know what kind of universal concept you are tapping into.”

34. Ancestor of Mine

“An ancestor of mine maintained that when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

33. Human

“If I were human

I believe my response would be ‘go to hell.’

…If I were human.”

From Mother to Daughter

Memories of another time still come

To me and fill my mind, with thoughts

Of you when you were young. I lie awake

'Till the morning sun comes creeping

Through my window shade, as I dwell upon

Mistakes I've made. What I would give to

Go back in time and feel your little

Hand in mine. To cherish each fast and

Fleeting day. To hold you close and kiss

Away, each pain that life will have in

Store and try to give you so much more.

You are part and will always be, embedded in the soul of me. While I'm

Here, I want to say, that I've loved you

Each and every day and when my time on earth is gone. 

The privilege was mine to have been your Mom.