I Am Asif

The days of Ijtema are the most eagerly awaited days of the year to me. Since I came to Uttara I didn't miss attending this grand event. It's a huge opportunity to listen to the elders of Tabligh who come here from all the corners of the globe, inspiring us to work on Allah's path, spread the words of Quran and Sunnah. This year I knew I wouldn't be able to attend all three days, as the classes and exams were too heavily scheduled as we are heading towards the end of the semester. But man desires and Allah decides. Due to continuous rain and chilling winter cold, the Ijtema was cut short into just one day. I saw a glimpse of the misery of the people at Ijtema on Thursday. I went there at Asr and the scenario was totally miserable. It was raining from above, the water dripping down through the canopies. The clay roads were all muddy, making it a huge task to move around. People were finding no place even to put their luggage. At several spots I saw men removing mud usin...

Finally ! AUSTronics goes public. For those who don't know yet, AUSTronics is an online magazine for the students and teachers of the EEE department of AUST . Me and some other guys from our semester, under the supervision of our boss Adnan sir , have been working on this site for the last couple of months or so. The site was ready long before and today we decided to go public, which generally means putting up posters announcing the site. Honestly speaking, this site is not a very huge project. It's a blog which we are using to post articles. But there were quite a lot of work that had to be done in building up the complete site. Let me just try to give a brief summary. The Idea: AUSTronics is the brainchild of Adnan sir. He initially discussed this plan with me and Kanto , and asked us if we were interested. We were always eager to spend some time in the net (whether for something productive or just wasting time). Me and Kanto also had gathered some experience in amateur w...

This morning I woke up just like any other day at 5:50 am to attend the Fajr jamaat at 6:10 am. I went to the bathroom, and wait, something was different outside. Did I just hear the sound of rain falling? I went back to my room and opened the sliding glass window, and found that I was right. It was raining pretty heavy. Usually every year towards the last days of winter, there comes one such rainy day which turns down the temperature one final notch. It's like winter's last stand against the clock of nature. So I was expecting such a day. Anyway, raining or not, I had to go the mosque. Off I went taking up my umbrella after a long time, into the winter rain. It was chilly outside, and as it was raining heavier than I expected, I was getting soaked despite the umbrella over my head. At the mosque the attendance was less the usual, not unexpectedly. After the namaz I had about half an hour to get ready for class. When I left home at 7:15 am for the bus stand, it was still pretty...

Hey check out the blog's new custom favicon (the small icon on the left of the page title). I learned the trick of putting custom favicons on bloggger while developing our upcoming site AUSTronics (which is ready, waiting for 'inauguration'), so I thought why not try out one for my dear blog. The job's pretty easy as blogger allows you to edit the &lt head &gt section of the template. I designed the icon in Photoshop. Although it's too small to read the words "I Am Asif" written on it, it's difficult to make the design fully comprehensible in such a small area (32 X 32 px), but I still think it's neat. What do you think?

Yup, today marks my 22nd birthday. Now I'm 22 years 'old'. I'm emphasizing on that word, because I think 22 years is indeed old. Isn't it a fact that many don't get to live as long? Thanks to Allah for giving me this life. Birthday isn't any different than other days to me, as I don't celebrate birthdays, not mine, not anyone else's (don't ask me why and start an argument). The only special thing I did is that I prayed 2 rakaat namaaz for myself. I pray to Allah that He gives me a long righteous life, that He only gives me what is good for me, that He gives Barkat to everything I do, that He let's me stay together with my family all my life, that He makes Aakhirat my only goal. May Allah protect me from Evil, and from everything that He doesn't like. My heart is full of diseases, may Allah cure it. May Allah give me chance to spend more time on Allah's path. May Allah forgive me, may Allah forgive us all. Ameen .

Yesterday me and some friends had lunch at Shourav's place. Actually I was responsible for this invitation. Back on Eid day Shourav said that they had bought an Australian cow for this Eid-ul Adha. I wondered if it tastes any different, and I told Shourav that he should invite us to have some beef. As a result, 10 January was fixed for the lunch. Interestingly, exactly 364 days ago on January 11 2007, we were here at a similar lunch. Anyway, we went to Shourav's home straight from varsity. They played a movie about an autistic boy, but more interesting to see than the movie was Farhan's reaction. I knew that Farhan was a guy who is very affectionate about children and he's a bold speaker against child abuse. So it was expected that Farhan could get emotional during this movie. I was right. During the whole movie he was almost speechless, and for some time he was literally crying. It was nice to see such emotion from him. Now come to the fun part, the food. Shourav's...

I haven't been able to eat rice for the last three days, honestly. No, don't take this on the wrong note. I couldn't have rice because I had to eat some different meal. In the last 3 days I've had Biriani (thrice), burger and a whole lot of Italian food. Alhamdulillah, who can complain if Allah gives me such great Rizq! All of these meals are rich to the max level. As a result, my waist has notably grown wider. Damn! Now let's talk about one of the most elaborate dinners in my life. It was in New Year's day. Milanku and Chaachi invited my brother and me to join them for the dinner. I knew it was gonna be at some place good. I was right. They took us to The Westin Hotel at Gulshan. We went straight up to the topmost floor to the Sprago Restaurant to have some Italian food. I chose this place instead of the buffet of the hotel, because, you know I'm crazy about Pizzas. About the restaurant, it should have been better decorated. Being 23 stories up ( that's...