Kuwaiti Shabab Holoa (Youth Are good)

When I am sitting among my expatriate (Ajnabee) friends and they ever start saying things about Kuwaiti’s in a bad way. I get defensive and try to convince them that maybe the experience you had with some of them might be bad. But good and bad people are everywhere. You cannot generalize your feeling saying Kuwaitis are Arrogant (Magroor) or something like this etc. etc. They always tell me u feel so hurt as if u r one of them!

Now why shouldn’t I?? By the grace of GOD, I know some of the best amongst them and I don’t know any that I hate yet, maybe I haven’t come across the bad one yet, Thank God.

The other day, I went to the market in Fahaheel, I parked my car in the parking spot and went for some work. I come back after 15 minutes and find a nice CAMRY parked behind my car, now I cannot remove my car out. Luckily the car next to me left. But still my car was completed covered by the CAMRY so I could not remove it. There were some local Kuwaitis around, the ones who drive the Pickup’s between Fahaheel and Mangaf. I was with my wife and they felt bad that I was stuck now. As I was just standing out thinking what to do now. I could not go ahead and this car was behind me. The only way I thought was to physically lift my car and place in the next parking spot where the guy had just left than exit.
One of them asked me to sit and started giving me directions to move little further turn the wheels and then move little behind etc. We did this exercise for 5 minutes, than he realized I wasn’t doing a good job at that. He asked me to get off. Me and my wife got off and he took the driving seat, he might have taken 7 minutes moving the car front n behind, But since they are excellent drivers he finally managed to get my car out. With the cut’s that he did with my wheels. They have good judgement at driving. So without touching any of the cars, my car came out Alhamdulillaah! And not to forget, there some other genteleman in their old ages who were also trying to guide him from outside as he was moving front n back not to touch the cars around.
I was soo thankful to them. N hence I always say Kuwaiti’s are good people!!

Change in a Fat Way

There has been a long time since I blogged last. But probably I was trying to get adjusted to the new life. Married life. And maybe I was scared because I had realized my wife was reading my blogs... Didn't want her to know whats up with me ...Just kidding.

Was just being lazy. But now, I need to get active again. As one of my good friends commented to me, Awwab you have changed after marriage and I asked:
Have I changed in a Good way or a Bad way and the reply was: YOU HAVE CHANGED IN A FAT WAY!! Man I m putting on weight. Yeah but blogging might not be a great workout although it helps me throw out some of my thoughts. Maybe mental workout could help losing weight. But if it doesn't work than I have to hit the GYM!!!

Trust - Easy or Hard

Just heard this recently, something to really ponder over:
It is Easy to gain someone's TRUST
It is Easier to lose that TRUST
But It is very Hard to keep that TRUST


I think by normal human behavior we usually trust people around us as we start dealing with them and the level of Trust builds up and increases with time and Experience in dealing with a specific person, as you start knowing more about the person the level of trust in them increases or decreases. - Easy
But even the person whom you Trust a lot. If you come to know of one time that he cheated on you or did something against you Khallas. The Trust breaks, now you start being careful with this person - Easier
But once, someone starts Trusting you and they start talking to you even the secrets about their personal life that they dont share with others. Than it becomes real hard to keep this Trust. Because now you need to have some Amanah! I mean its like someone has given you some Diamond ring or rings for safekeeping. So you can get tempted to sell it off and make some good money. Or just give someone to wear it for a few days, the owner will not know. And you can get a Favor from the person to whom you lend the Diamond ring. To me if someone shows Trust in me. Every word they share with me is Amanah! And yes it is very Hard to keep this Amanah!

Ever thought about it this way??

After Arrival in Kuwait

Note: This is for Expatriates trying to get their Families on Dependent visa to Kuwait
1. Go to a typist with your Civil ID, Wife's passport and Visa
2. He will make the necessary Forms for Medical and Jawazat.
3. Go for Medical to the hospital based on your Civil ID address.
4. Collect Medical report next week.
5. Get the Civil ID No. by calling 1889988 based on the Visa No.
6. Go to the Insurance counter with the Medical Report, Civil ID copy and Visa copy, Passport
7. He will give you an Health card and a Insurance paper immediately
8. Go to Jawazat first floor(Ahmadi) with the Application, Medical Report (step 4) and Insurance paper (step 7) . Get signature from the Raees.
9. Go to the Ground floor cashier and pay 100KD if Iqamah is for 1 year, get the receipts
10. Go to the ladies on the counter, she will take the papers and passport and will stamp the Iqamah in the passport in couple of minutes.

So it is hardly an 30 minute job Alhamdulillaah in Ahmadi Jawazat. I love Kuwait. If you have the right papers and know the right things, things are Easy!

Thats it! Now you just need to fill up the Civil ID form and you shall be through.

After Visa What Next

Note: This is for Expatriates trying to get their Families on Dependent visa to Kuwait
I earlier blogged about procuring a Residence Visa for your wife, The next step is in your Home Country. The Visa needs to be endorsed by the Kuwait Embassy Mumbai or Delhi. If you do it in Mumbai they need the following:
1. You need to buy an Airline ticket (I took Kuwait Airways)
2. You need to get your Medical done from the Authorized centers
3. You need to submit a Police Clearance Certificate
You can hire an agent like Akbar Travels, to manage all this for you. You will just have to go once for getting the Medical done, thats it.

After all this the embassy stamps behind your original Visa paper as well as pastes a temporary Entry permit in your passport. And now you are ready to Fly.

Never Give Up!

Make this part of your approach to any problem, and you can convert the problem into a stepping stone to success Inshaa Allaah! I was speaking to a friend in India, this short trip and I have seen him surrounded by troubles all the time, Health, Relationships and Business but I still always find him brave and coping up with the problems Alhamdulillah. I was speaking to him and he mentioned that I have learnt "Never to Give Up" He said, whatever comes my way, I dont give up! That was an impressive reply, I was amazed and now knew the source of his energy. And noted this point in my list of things I have learnt. To add to it, a colleague emailed the below story which teaches the same lesson. Its a nice way to represent the same principle, Never Give Up:

One day a farmer's donkey fell into an abandoned well. The animal cried Piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old and the well needed to be covered up anyway; so it just wasn't worth it to him to try to retrieve the donkey.

He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They each grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well.
Realizing what was happening, the donkey at first cried and wailed horribly. Then, a few shovelfuls later, he quieted down completely.

The farmer peered down into the well, and was astounded by what he saw. With every shovelful of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up on the new layer of dirt.
As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off, to the shock and astonishment of all the neighbors.
Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to not let it bury you but to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a stepping stone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up!

Shake it off and take a step up!

Family Visa process - 4.5 hours

Note: This is for Expatriates trying to get their Families on Dependent visa to Kuwait
Lets note down the steps I went through for the Visa process for future reference:
1. In India got Marriage certificate Notarized and stamped from Home Department and Kuwait Embassy.
2. You need Marriage Affidavit from Indian Embassy (2 hours)

1. Submit Marriage Affidavit form in Duplicate
2. Passport copy of Wife
3. Photocopy of Marriage Certificate
4. Civil ID copy
5. Applicant passport copy
6. Show Original Marriage certificate(Attested by Home department in India)
7. Show Original passport

3. Attest the Affidavit of Marriage got in previous step by Ministry of External Affairs, Kuwait (Took 30 mins)

4. Get the Application filled by the office outside Jawazat(Immigration Department). I went to Ahmadi Jawazat, as I stay in that area. Documents that they took with this application were:

1. Original Affidavit of Marriage stamped by External Affairs
2. Copy of wife's passport
3. Copy of My Izne Amal (I had to show original Izne Amal)
4. Civil ID copy

She did not take my passport copy nor my Aqd Ijar (House contract) copy which I was hearing is needed now.

Thats it, I think she took 10 minutes to make the visa asked me to check the spellings, passport number etc. than put 3 KD stamp if all fine and get it signed by the Manager

Easy isn't it! Alhamdulillaah!! at 8 a.m. I was in the embassy and at 12:30 I had the visa in my hand. Than I couriered the visa to India for Medical, PCC and Endorsement by Kuwait Embassy. You can use TNT, I gave it to him at 6 in the evening and it was delivered next day before 4 pm in Mumbai.

Most precious thing to give - Time

The best thing you can ever give anyone is Time.
Because when you give someone your time, you give them part of your life.

Pondering over these lines.... Imagine if u give someone a Mercedes or a precious Diamond, U can get these material things back. Provided the person is willing to give them back ;) But imagine when you give someone your time. U sit with someone at the Beach or in the Coffee shop or in Office listening to what they are saying, or having them listen to what you are saying. We share our thoughts or our concerns or our issues and feel relieved. I mean, u dont really share anything material there is no Money going from your pocket to theirs or vice versa. But still u r giving or taking the Most precious thing. Because the time you gave or you took from the other person is gone. You cannot have it back and it is part of your life. If you are going to live for 60 years, you have already given this person some part of your life, Isn't it.

Now when I think of this in conjunction with the other post I wrote about Companions and their effect, they both together mean we should be soo careful with whom we are spending our time. Imagine u r spending your time with a jerk with whom u dont benefit at all instead maybe u learn some bad stuff from him. In this case u r giving the most precious thing u have in return for some Junk stuff. Isn't it Strange and we never think before we spend our time. We think its the least we can give anyone. But when it comes to giving something monetary to anyone we think 10 times. Strange right. Where is our Common Sense, As they say "Common sense, is soo Uncommon"

Win them or Lose them

I was speaking to a close friend after a long time. And in our discussions we went to the topic of Relationships and dealings with difficult people. We were speaking about how some people are difficult to deal with and willing to do things to Insult or Embarass you. How to deal with such people. My friend suggested a solution to deal with this in a very nice way. Whether you want to Win them back or Lose them. If you want to Win them back than you forgive and forget and accept whatever excuse they give for the differences that took place. But If you want to lose them, than you can remember every mistake they made and think how every excuse they make could be a lie. So its upto you Win them or Lose them.

I have some real Wise Friends... Isnt it!

Being Thankful

Among friends we often discuss this: That we have soo many favours of Allaah upon us. We should be soo thankful to him for the innumerous favours he has made upon us. But we on the contrary keep ourselves busy complaining and cribbing even on the smallest thing that we dont like happens to us. I just want to put this post as a reminder to myself... I did some reading on Being Thankful to Allaah, will try to summarize from the different articles:

Characteristics of a True Believer:
The believer is thankful to Allaah in his heart, with his tongue, and with the actions of his limbs. He is thankful for Allaah's Blessings and the great amount of goodness that Allaah has given him, those that he enjoys at all hours of the day. The believer is thankful and utters phrases of Allaah's remembrance, and he does not see any blessing greater than what Allaah has given him, nor any token of generosity greater than what has come from Allaah.
The believer scoffs at the materialistic fancies of this worldly life, as he is focused on the delight of repenting to Allaah, and turning completely to Him alone. With this, he takes an ample share of worldly delights and enjoys them, but not as the disbelievers or heedless ones do. He indulges in them in a way that assists him in establishing the Rights of Allaah and the rights of His servants.
By contenting himself in this way and hoping for the reward from Allaah, the believer fulfills his desires, his heart rests peacefully, and he finds tranquility. He does not become saddened if some affairs reach him that he does not like. With this, Allaah has combined for him the happiness of this worldly life and the happiness of the Hereafter.

Soul Cleanser - we must be Thankful
We have to live in this life and be thankful for even the smallest blessings of Allah (SWT), in order that we live in this world with a higher aim that merely earning a few extra dollars, and our life should be to seek the hereafter.
The key to achieving tranquility and harmony of a balanced heart, mind and body is that we look at those who are below us materialistically and we forget about those who are above us.

Quranic Ayah: And (remember) when your Lord proclaimed: "If you give thanks (by accepting Faith and worshipping none but Allâh), I will give you more (of My Blessings), but if you are thankless (i.e. disbelievers), verily! My Punishment is indeed severe."

Extract from a Poem:
I also Pray, Inshallah that ........... If you have a bad day at work, be thankful to Allaah Subhaanahu wa Ta'aala. Appreciate that you have a job. Some people don't. When you pay your bills, be thankful you can pay them. If you see a gray hair, be thankful. Think of the cancer patient in chemotherapy who wish they had hair on their head ...........
When you find yourself waiting in line or the recipient of poor service, be thankful.Many don't have services. Think about the people who have no food to eat and are hungry all the time .......... When you realise how much work it is to take care of a house, be thankful you have a home. Think about those who are homeless and wish they had a home to take care of ..........
When you feel like complaining because you have to walk a long distance from your car, be thankful . Think of what it would be like not to be able to walk! If you get irritated by other people's anger, apathy, ignorance, bitterness, or insecurities, be thankful. Things could be worse. You could be one of them! When you think everything in your world is terrible, and you want to give up, think of the people who have been told they only have a certain amount of time to live. They don't want to give up.

Appreciations

I usually make a folder in my Outlook PST files called Appreciation, where I keep all the appreciation emails received for work, how small a task it may be. It might seem small task to me sometimes, but helps the business user in such a way that he/she drops in an appreciation email. So the email deserves to be saved atleast for personal viewing and you can look back how many times or in which parts of your career you got appreciated. So I was advicing the same thing to a friend to make a folder for such emails. And popped up the question: Awwab, you should send me an email.

That made me think. Our friends affect our lives soo much. Whenever we are low we know which ones of our friends we can talk to and they can cheer us up. When we have a problem, we know who to share it with and get some good advice. Friends will try their best to cheer you up! We learn soo many things from them. Yaani, they are so much part of your life. And yes we dont send them any appreciation emails...

Two wives

Well After spending a good amount of time on Sharepoint Administration and Consulting I am back to Web Solutions. I have a good requirement to work on. It seems to be a crucial project for business. But I think it is just the tip of the IceBerg. If we Inshaa Allaah deliver it to the expectation. Lot of requirements will just bombard on our team. Good part is, that I again will get to do the whole cycle Inshaa Allaah. Requirements Gathering, Analysis, System Design, Develop, Test, Deliver Inshaa Allaah. And I am lucky to give a good supervisor and team to work with. So now lets c whether I use Agile practices or any other technique...

But the bad part is this is soo addictive as it was when I was in India and used to spend 10-12 hours at work + weekends in office. Now I am again getting used to sitting late in office. But I should not be doing that I am a married man now with two wives. shocked!

But yes, I can do it until my second wife comes to Kuwait for sure. But maybe it will be crucial war between my first wife and second wife to know who gets more of Awwab's time in a day. People who know Awwab know that his first wife is Work, married on 12th September 2003. See I also remember my wedding date. Neways... Life is soo much fun, when u enjoy your work and soo boring when u dont enjoy it! I love challenges but I think it is gonna be difficult to deal with two wives.. Lets see if I survive.... Guys, Listen to me dont get married... Just kidding...

Honestly speaking, U should Marry, why should only we Suffer..!! ;)

I know all my friends are gonna bombard me for this post.....but as u guys know, I am not scared!

Sleepless to Sleeping

We all know friends always have an impact on life. Little things they say or do, might have a huge Impact - Good or Bad. I have read online stories about how a kind gesture affected the friend in a big way (Not sure they are true or fictitious). My story goes like this, last couple of weeks many of my friends were on leave and I was going through an issue that I was thinking about it soo much. I had some of my friends whom I had shared this with. I had explained my problem and what I thought was the solution. But still I was thinking on it soo much, that I was Sleepless...I eat, drive, try to sleep, do watever. I could not get this out of my mind...Kept thinking thinking.. And after some of my close friends came back, who know a lot of my secrets... and I discussed with them what was going on and got the same advice that they always give me. Awwab Be Patient, May God Help You. Now I am back to normal, All praise be to Almighty God.
Yaani, Ajeeb I did not solve my problem yet, but just shared it with my closest friends and phew... I am soo cool about it now. Yaani, earlier I was confused that may be I was wrong. Since it was all my thoughts, but after discussing with my friends, I did not get to hear "Awwab u r wrong" So Now I am soo normal Alhamdulillaah. That I changed from sleepless to Sleeping extra.

I had two Alarms one at 3:45 a.m. and another 6:00 a.m. N can u believe it I did not wake up on any, I straight away woke up at 7:46 and came to work at 8:30 . Thats 1.5 hours late, I guess in the last 2.5 years I have been working here, I have never been soo late.... Allaahul Mustaan

Progress

What we call 'Progress' is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance.

Havelock Ellis (1859 - 1939)

I sometimes belive in this one. But I hate it when the newer Nuisance is worse the older one. Than I think it definitely is not Progress, but destruction!!!

And give not a thing in order to have more

I was speaking to a friend some days back, and from my box of principles and things learnt and memorized, I mentioned: Key to happiness is you keep giving without expecting anything in return.

Example: If you give a smile and expect the other person should also smile back, you will be hurt, if he/she does not Smile back. But If you smile without expecting a smile in return and the other person chooses to ignore you and does not smile back you will not be hurt. I think I had learnt this from some of my Intellectual friends. I dont remember from where I learnt it.

The Phone picker

How would u react if someone unknown calls u and tells u that Mr. XYZ in your department is not picking up the phone, can u ask him to pick up the phone. And u dont even know Mr. XYZ nor the caller. So much to ur amazement, I think u will go crazy like "Excuse Me Dude, I m neither your secretary nor His, to ask him to pick up the phone. If he is not picking up the phone u use some common sense and send him an email to pick up the phone if his picking up is so important for you OR walk down to his office. But why the hell, u call me to tell him to pick up the phone" So now u have a trouble situation to handle and u dont have time to think bcos the guy is on the phone. So my intelligent friend did not lose the temper but instead calmly adviced that u can drop him an email and tried to enquire who gave you my number, to which the caller preferred not to Answer. So there r soo many variety of people you can find in a big organization. Strange Isn't it! Every experience brings in soemthing to learn. So dont do the mistake again dude "Ask him to pick up the phone" People have taken ur act to the blogs.... ;)

U r like a Fish!

One of my friends said that to me, "U r like a Fish" and I was surprised at the phrase, because I did not know what it means. So I enquired what do u mean by that. Obviously Kuwaiti's know much more about the Fish as they go Fishing as well as Diving in the sea. Brave folks Man! Neways, so I when I asked what it means, I learnt that some fishes of the Sea cannot swim in the River and some fishes of the River cannot swim in the Sea. This is what is meant when u hear someone tell u, U r like a Fish! So u were swimming well in one area/place/department but U might not be able to survive in another area/place/department. Bcos u will not be able to swim there. Bcos u r like a Fish. well I dont know If I am really like a fish or not. But, I do miss my old team and the lot of ideas I used to have to work on when I was there :(

Prayer - the peasant and the king

I went to a Mosque close to our Main Office as I was late leaving office and it was time for prayer. And after reaching inside I was so pleased with what I saw and could not stop praising Almighty God. In the same row, I could see some very influential intellectuals of this country/our company side by side with may be a meagre cleaner in the company who might be getting 20 KD (~3000 INR) salary. It touched me soo much, what a noble religion it is that brings down the rich and the poor, the Fair and the Dark, the Arab and the Non-arab all are equal in front of their lord. And when they pray they stand shoulder to shoulder and feet to feet with whoever is next to them. Can people still have pride and look down upon others, after going through this practice 5 times a day where you proclaim God alone is great and you kneel down putting your forehead on ground out of Submission to God. I dont think so... I remembered something similar said by a lady leader of Indian history called Sarojini Naidu, who mentioned in A talk given to the Young Men's Muslim Association, Madras, 1917 : "the democracy of Islam is embodied five times a day when the peasant and the king kneel side by side and proclaim, "God alone is great."

Weekend is here

Thats how time flies.... I joined mid of last week. So I completed one and half week in my new department and did not even realize. I feel I just joined yesterday. But time flies soo fast. Although I am trying to deliver some stuff using Sharepoint Out of the box, but there are some other things in my mind that I would love to deliver but I cannot due to unavailibility of the right tools... I wish I get my workstation with all the software development tools I need soon. In order to start being productive. Although I am also investing time learning something new everyday. I just learned what Back Allocation is today. But I will not tell you, what it is. So I think I am enjoying learning about Oil. But still I am missing my Development tools...waiting...waiting... a long wait.... I feel like a carpenter who knows his work but is still waiting for a Hammer. he cannot do anything without a hammer, can he?? Maybe he can hit the nails with a screw driver. But how good will be a product where the Nails were hammered with a Screw Driver instead of a Hammer. Will you buy it?? I would not, for sure!

Techno-Functional

No, No...Dont get me wrong. I have not left Systems Development to become a DBA. I will try to convey what I mean by Managing Data. I have joined the Data Management team which is very important for the Exploration & Production business in an Oil Company. So basically all the data needed to run the Oil business is managed by the Data Management team. Atleast thats what I think until now. I just joined last week, so maybe after getting more understanding I might take back my words... So I think I am gonna enjoy this new job Inshaa Allaah. Although I will have to learn a lot, as I would be expected to understand and take requirements from people who are from 100% Petroleum background. They speak in abbreviations, that I hear for the first time and they speak technically right in their taxonomy of Oil. So its not technically right according to an IT guy... Do u understand, G&G, seismic, E&P, GOR, etc, etc... i get to hear all this everyday now..

But the good part, to add to my IT technical skills, I will get a chance to add functional knowledge of the Oil Business. Sounds Good. Isn't it?? As some of my friends had adviced me earlier (I can remember two friends giving me the same advice, 1 Indian, 1 Kuwaiti) that Awwab you need to diversify your skills if you want to grow. In today's world specialization in 1 product or technology is acceptable but will not help too much in growth. As much it will help if you have knowledge of several Technologies, products.. Earlier they used to say it is not good to be Jack of All, Master of None. But it seems in today's world you need to be Jack of All or maybe Master of All..

So Moving towards a more Techno-Functional role in the Oil Business Inshaa Allaah... wish me luck...