Last year when Ghazala Khan of TPS mailed me a lengthy questionnaire for blogger interview series on her blog, I got surprised because I was not ready for something called “interview” because unlike most of bloggers who were interviewed by TPS, I didn’t consider myself a typical blogger neither I want any sort of fame in field of blogging. I am a computer engineer by profession and would be more than happy if I ever get fame in my own field. This is why I refused her and several other opportunities offered by my blogger friends and some news and media agencies like BBC etc who now take bloggers more seriously than a journalist.
Last month I completed three years of blogging which is not a short period at all, atleast for me because I was not expecting this journey would last so long but as it’s said, Baat Nikley gi tu phir dur talak jaye gi, the activity of blogging didn’t end at all and still it’s going on..not with same pace but still it’s in.
On such “holy” occasion , I decided to take my own interview. Yes I know what I wrote above but what I am going to write now is just for fun,”Yet another blog post by me” so it should be treated as another Tafreeh post rather some typical Interview. There are few reasons to make this post. First there are few things which I couldn’t say as blogger which I liked or despised in past few years since I didn’t have any clue or subject to talk about it. Second, just for sake of tafreeh and killing time since I got free after 2 long tiring months of work so just trying to amuse myself so read it for sake of fun rather for sake of criticism :D[yes you can criticize yaar!!]. I might steal few questions asked by Ghazala in her questionnaire or even may even make fun of it. So Ghazala! don’t get mad at me! :d. Read below the so called Interview in which Interviewer and Interviewee both are same person.
Interviewer: Assalam-O-Alaikum.
Me: Wasalam! kia haal hain beyta?
Interviewer: Ji? Beyta? Kindly Tameez se baat karain.
Me: wo tu Kabhi meyne apnay blogs per nahi ki. Interview leyne hay ya nahi?
Interviewer: Ji..Ji leyna hay.
Me: Then deal with it!
Interviewer: Tell me about yourself and blogging experience.
Me: Tell you what?
Interviewer: About your personal life and then about blogging journey?
Me: Sorry son but I don’t like to discuss my personal life on a public platform like blogsphere.
Interviewer:(Pissed)I mean about your professional career like what do you do and then how did you get into field of blogging?
Me: Ok fine. I am a computer engineer by profession which has become my passion and hobby too. I work as a senior consultant for a private company. I accidentally got into blogging world and I can quit it anytime if I want since blogging is not a serious activity for me as I have more other things to do than blogging.
Interviewer: what do you mean by non-serious activity?
Me: Yaar.. I have seen bloggers who take this blogging more important than other “Important” things. For them blogging is something which is larger than life. I have also seen a type of bloggers who blog just because they want some sort of fame and want to be visible in media by any mean and for that they can pretend to be whatever they want.
Interviewer: So you say you don’t write for same and attracting others?
Me: No.
Interviewer: But I have read your blog posts, you always tried to be some wannabe intellectual who always like to discuss on various topics of politics and religion no matter whether you are sharing something accurate and sensible or not.
Me: No it’s not like that. Let me elaborate it further. Generally my all blog posts lie in 3 categories; Politics,Religion and Tafreeh. I hardly write about IT on this blog because I have a separate blog for this purpose. Most of my posts are not typical journalists like articles which you usually read in newspapers or blogs. I can’t say about politics but for religious post, I definitely do it for sake of my own learning. There are many things which I have learnt thru blogging because when I share something which is in mind, I do make a bit research about background of that topic. In this way I automatically keep learning new things about religion. Other feature of such posts is that I criticize myself first before others so for Instance if I am making a post about Prayers, I would share my own weakness in it first as well indirectly address those who are suffering from that issue. Look writing about religion is in my interest ,it’s like something I want because it helps me to learn many things in a religion and I would definitely not miss this opportunity. Still, I repeat that I write for myself rather for others so when I feel I have to write or share something or there is something which I can only understand if I convert in words then I make such posts otherwise not.
Interviewer: We got distracted. Again, my question is how did you come in this field. What was the reason behind blogging?
Me: To be honest I had no intention to get into this blogging stuff. I can’t say like Mujhe Bachpan se Shoq thaa because there was no Internet in my childhood. You might be surprised after knowing the reason behind blogging which was none other than MSDN Blogs, blogs by Microsoft employees who share things related with development field. I really liked it because I also wanted to share things which I used to do in my day to day office work. Sharing code snippet, some IT related news etc etc.
Interviewer: Do you mean that it was IT factor which motivated you to start blogging?
Me: Absolutely.
Interviewer: But you write about politics and religion as If you have been in these stuff for long time?
Me: That’s a separate story but if you see my first few posts on my old blog , you will find out that I actually made IT related posts rather political and religious one. I just wanted to be another IT blogger who wanted to share technical things which he likes or despises. What actually happened that I didn’t like blogger’s architecture since I was too much used to be MSDN type blogs where posts could be made category wise. I abandoned posting on kadnan.blogspot.com and moved to weblogs.com.pk which is maintained by a Lahore based IT professional and using same blogging engine which is used by Microsoft bloggers so I started writing technical posts over there and still writing under the heading of Let’s get technical
Interviewer: So how did you get into “non-IT related issues” or say about “Religious” issues or topics?
Me: Say thanks to Mr.Bush. His so called war on terror made to return back to my religion. Let me explain. Discussing things online is not new for me and I have been doing this for 10 long years. I used to waste lots of my time on IRC during student life. At that time(in 1996), Internet was pretty new in Pakistan and most of guys didn’t have such facility. I got chance to use Internet at University and then back to home when I used stolen Paknet accounts on 14.4kbps Zoltrix Modems(Anyone remembers NUI thingie?). Someone in University told me about IRC thingie which I started using at home as well and as it was expected, I got addicted of it. Since Internet was expensive at that time so only few Pakistanis from Pakistan used to come online and there a good family type environment on Undernet #Pakistan, the channel which I used to join back in time. So discussing and arguing was not new for me. Again I was not used to discuss political or religious thing on IRC since I was never interested in them. We used to discuss poetry, some tafreeh that’s it. After 2003 Iraq war, I was very disturbed about the things been happening with Muslims. I started visiting political channels where non-Muslims used to say so much crap about Islam that I can’t even repeat them. I started debating with them. So many times I was banned by them because I started giving reference of Torah and Bible to Christians and Jews who had been throwing up against Islam. They used to ask many things about Islam which I didn’t know at all because I was yet another born ignorant Muslim who was a Muslim because he opened his eyes in a Muslim family that’s it! So when they used to quote 5th Verse of Surah Tauba out of context and used to label Islam a religion of terror, I had no clue what to answer. I knew with 1000% surety that they are lying because being a Muslim I have belief that Quran is 100% right. Similarly they used to call our Prophet(SAW) a pedophile(Godforbid) due to His(saw) marriage with Ayesha(RA) but then I had no background about the topic. Now my religion was at stake(which I used to think at that time), it was being attacked. I had taken panga with them due to my emotion and association of Islam but I had no weapon to combat their attacks. I had no choice left other than start reading Quran which I had never done in past(before 2003). I had already been given a book by my former employer who himself was given the book by someone who came from Makkah which was irrelevant for him. That book was like a catalyst to understand the relationship between Bible and Quran and what actually Bible is. I would recommend you guys to read this Book too! So automatically got into comparative religion stuff. One day I was browsing net for some Islam related topic when I discovered anti-Islamic website by Ali Sina called FaithFreedom, an Iranian Apostate who calls himself a secularist and write bullshit about Islam. It was said that He uses various aliases to write posts on that web site, my experience of debating things with non-Islamic elements on that site helped me to learn lots of things which I couldn’t learn anyway. Basically the site was about leaving Islam but thanks to Allah, the discussions, lots of discussions I did on that web site helped me to learn more and more about Islam and I am more than Glad to know that my Allah,Quran and Islam never embarrassed me and I always had answer(after long researches on Google) to refute their claim plus most of the time I prefer to deal things logically rather just quoting verses from Hadith books and Quran. If you notice my religious post, I quote verses only where it’s required otherwise I try to say things which I myself think about religion because I am not a pro that I just keep quoting verses but then it doesn’t mean I make attempt to say things against basic teachings. So a Big thanks to Ali Sina guy, because of him I came to know about science in Islam, Maths within Quran, how Allah made things logically and scientifically. Without visiting that website, I could not learn at all. What Greet wilders tried to tell in his movie “Fitna” is not newfor me as I had been dealing with such things for 3-4 years. The site is banned in Pakistan now but it was not back in 2004-5. So when I started blogging with “IT mind” and moved my technical blog to other domain, I decided to use my blogspot website for non-technical rants, that’s how “Welcome to Adnan’s crazy blogging world” came into being where I discuss religion and other things which I learnt(I think I have a bit) in past.
Interviewer: SO do you read other blogs?
Me: Kardi na Bachon wali baat? Bhai I do read others that’s why I started myself as well?
Interviewer: Ok Ok., so what kind of blogs do you read? Or.. what kind of blogs one can see in your RSS reader.
Me: All technical or IT related blogs.
Interviewer: You mean you’re not subscribed with any religious,political or even Pakistani blog?
Me: Nah. I didn’t consider it important but it doesn’t mean I don’t read on those topics. Thankfully my blogger friend Dr.Awab came up with a nice tool which I visit several times a day and read updated feeds in it. Since I deal with IT issues most of the time so naturally I read about them more plus there is no aggregator like one made by Awab where I can visit all of them on site so I had no choice other than get subscribed with them.
Interviewer: What kind of blogs do you despise?
Me: I don’t like personal blogs. Never liked to read them. It’s quite lame to share things which are not supposed to share in public. Now who the heck cares if some girl talked with her Bf on MSN about any lame topic and then sharing chat log? or who cares if some XYZ aunty said this or that which made someone else pissed? I even saw a blog entry by a Pakistani British girl who shared her menstruation experience on a post and she was explaining what happened with her garments. It was quite sick. Why on earth one would like to read such posts unless he or she’s fetish about it?. More pathetic is how a girl can share such things online? ..but then there is no shortage of crackpots in our world. I also don’t like much political blogs or poetry related blogs, maybe because I don’t get time to read poetry more.
Interviewer: You don’t like political blogs? You yourself right about political matters?
Me: Abay haan na… Jaan lo gey bachay ki kia? I write on politics for fun, doesn’t mean I like to discuss it all the time or try to be an analyst or news reporter.
Interviewer: Can blogging be used as a serious tool to create awareness in Pakistani society?
Me: Unfortunately we belong to a society where majority of awam is Jahil and rest of awam are those who are Parhey Likhey Jahil so no it can’t leave any good impact at all. Look Internet is available almost EVERY city of Pakistan, most of people have been misusing Internet by spending time in chatting. Chatting is not bad if it’s for good purpose but our society has been declining so rapidly that youth(and even aged freaks) are involved more online sexual activities than intellectual one. I myself have witnessed on Yahoo! Chat that girls are ready to take off their clothes on cam for sake of a Rs.300 card which was also mentioned by Amna at TPS as well and guys proudly call themselves Gay and ask others guys to come on cam for sexual activities. Now when there is such condition, how can you make them to realize that “aur bhe gham hain zamanay me Mohabbat k Siwa” and ask them to read online stuff? Other thing is that there is more English content in blogsphere than Urdu or other local language. Pakistanis are not used to of English and in order to leave impact of blogging on common Pakistanis, there is a dire need of promoting blogging in local languages and then Urdu so that it could leave some impact. There are few guys out there who have been doing this job but it’s still like a drop of water in an ocean and it can’t make much impact at all. Also I think that IT professionals would have to come up with tools which can help to reach out more and more common Pakistanis and I think online and Mobile media could play a great role in it. Mobile is most commonly used platform and most effective way to send your message to a common Pakistani. One can use or abuse it to improve or destroy fate of countrymen. I think local IT professionals could come up with some solution to cater this issue. The only instance of blogging influence I encountered was by Karachi Metroblog bloggers who played a vital role to collect money and streamline voluntarily work when Pakistan faced massive earthquake disaster in Oct 2005.
Interviewer: Which Pakistani blog or blogs do you like most?
Me: Almost everyone of them is good in his/her own capacity but I liked Omer Alivie’s rants a lot and the only reason was his ability to play words to describe something. I don’t agree with his religious views nor I like his usage of F* word types thingie in his rants but overall he’s superb. A blogging genius I must say.
Interviewer: Which post or posts of yours are in your “My Favorite List”? Now don’t say there is no one.
Me: Not Many. Just few which I actually enjoyed while writing. First of all I really enjoy posts in Cartoon series . I also enjoyed posts I made in category of Tafreeh which I made attempt to photoshop original images on different topics. if you talk about serious posts then following are posts which I enjoyed myself and were liked by others as well.
Interviewer: If I ask you, what you earn from this blogging experience, what would you reply?
Me: As I told you earlier that the whole blogging exercise is totally a learning experience for myself only. Whatever I wrote was for my own sake of learning. Apart from this, I found some good friends who often guide me on religious matters on and off the blog. I found very cool blogger friends who are very nice and kind when discussing things. Since they are many so can’t recall all of them. So a big “thanks” to all of them for considering me something. Last but not least, my blog commenters and specially silent readers who have been visiting me since beginning. Thankyou all. Oh yea, my friend would beat me up. Kumar Chetan, my Indian friend who belongs to same cult(IT) who also set this blog up. “No thanks” for Kumar!
Interviewer: What topics do you want to discuss in future or you think have left?
Me: Stay tuned! That’s what I can say right now. There are few topics which I didn’t pen yet and hopefully I will write on them in future Inshallah.
Interviewer: Which news/blog site do you visit most and Why?
Me: Slashdot for reading comments moderated Funny.
Interviewer: Anything beside blogging?
Me: Not much. Just job ,job and job. I have few things in my mind which I am not being able to implement it. One best thing I achieved after making Quran MSN tool that it was spread all over within 2 months and I was contacted by some good Muslim IT professionals(most of them were Pakistanis) who were desperate to serve Muslim Ummah by using their IT skills. Something which was surprising and fresh for me because we used to say all the time that our youth is ignorant about Islam but in reality they are not. Fortunately I found a senior IT professional in Karachi( can’t reveal his name because I am afraid he will not like this) who is ready to supervise professionals. I am also in touch with Baba Ali of Ummah Films who already has been doing awesome work by using media to create awareness about Islam. Hopefully something fruitful would come up in future.
Interviewer: Can you elaborate it more?
Me: Look nothing has been documented as yet. It’s just like dream of Iqbal which has not been fulfilled yet. In coming days I would contact my IT professional friends whom I know personally or got in touch via blog. I would definitely seek to work ONLY WITH THOSE who have passion to do something for Islam and Muslim world. Right now I am not even sure what to discuss. Inshallah I will make a post about this topic so that I can gather up such like minded people so that we can start working on something.
Interviewer: Any message for your readers?
Me: Uh,Who am I to say something to others? I am not some celebrity.
Interviewer: Still…
Me: Try to follow the Message given by Messenger(SAW). That’s it.
Interviewer: Thank you.
Me: Most welcome ji!.
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So this was all about my so called Interview. I was able to say things which I couldn’t say otherwise. Over all it was a fun for me.
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