As i answered one of the condolence messages from one of my far flung friends, i mentioned that i was sure that baba was very happy in heaven and had already started making structural improvements and having a lively dialogue with God and Gallileo...
i wasnt joking... abu is the consummate Kaizen practitioner. Continuous improvements ideas for every thing from water supply networks to governmental reform to the state of my hairstyle, would be running in his mind at the speed of light.
he is an exceptionally intelligent person and his capacity for absorbing and retaining information is absolutely immense and mindblowing. There isnt a subject in the world that he cant have an informed and passionate discussion about.
But baba never loses his cool. he is a thorough gentleman and courteous to the core.
on sunday we got him an oxygen tank. he didnt feel it was giving oxygen with enough pressure. he made me and faisal take him at 12:30am midnight to the edhi centre office at tower so he could check the cylinder out himself. we called them first and while i was talking to the technical support gentleman abu is insisting that i ask him his name. because thats the courteous thing to do... :) even at that time politeness and courtesy was a lesson he wanted me to remember.. my father insisted on talking to the technical support guy whose name was Ramzan, and was asking him what effect does oxygen have on the body, what should a person feel. Poor Ramzan was thoroughly confused and asked if he could speak to the patient, at which abu boomed out that he WAS the patient. I think Ramzan was stunned into silence.
We went and got the cylinder changed :)
on Monday afternoon we took him to the hospital. he loved it. the quiet peacefullness of the executive room. he took one look at the Split and said the filter was dirty. so now he's insisting to the technical support guy that the hospital was being charged a higher electricity bill because the filter was dirty. the poor guy was trying to explain that only the vents had some dirt but the filter was cleaned every week, but baba wasnt happy until he made the guy take out the filter and show it to him.
he had an entire conversation with khala where he redesigned the hospital bed for added comfort. he said the bed at home was lumpy and the bed at hospital wasnt the right angle and totally redesigned the bed and how it SHOULD be...
One of baba's favorite passages was by John Ruskin. He liked it so much he even kept a printed copy with him all the time and he would quote it as often as possible.
"You are not true soldiers, if you only mean to stand at a shop door, to protect the shop-boys who are cheating inside. A soldier's vow to his country is that he will die for the guardianship of her domestic virtue, of her righteous laws, and of her any way challenged or endangered honour.
A state without virtue, without laws and without honour, he is bound not to defend; nay, bound to redress by his own right hand that which he sees to be base in her. So sternly is this the law of nature and life, that a nation once utterly corrupt can only be redeemed by military despotism never by talking, not by its free effort.
And the health of any state consists simply in this; that in it, those who are wisest shall also be strongest; its rulers should be also its soldiers; or rather, by force of intellect more than of sword, its soldiers also its rulers."
Apart from that he loved my mom, me, good food, internet, and technology.
i love him with all my heart
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it's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning !!
http://gemworld.blogspot.com/ Fariha's Thoughts of the Day..
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