THE 3 mistakes of my life.

It is not everyday you sit in front of your computer on a Saturday morning and get emails like this:
  From: Ahd_businessman@gmail.com
  Sent: 12/28/2005 11:40 PM
  To: info@chetanbhagat.com
  Subject: A final note

Dear Chetan,
This email is a combined suicide note and a confession letter. I have let people down and have no reason to live. You don't know me.  I'm an ordinary boy in Ahmedabad who read your books. And somehow I felt could write to you after that.  I can't really tell anyone what I am doing to myself - which is taking a sleeping pill everytime I end a sentence, so I thought I will tell you.

I kept my coffee cup down and counted. Five full stops already.

I made three mistakes, I don’t want to go into details.
My suicide is not a sentimental decision. As many around me know, I am a good businessman because I have little emotion. This is no knee-jerk reaction. I waited over three years, watched Ish’s silent face everyday. But after he refused my offer yesterday, I had no choice left.
I have no regrets either. May be I’d have wanted to talk to Vidya once more – but that doesn’t seem like such a good idea right now.
Sorry to bother you with this. But I felt like I had to tell someone. You have ways to improve as an author but you do write decent books.  Have a nice weekend.

Regards,
Businessman

17, 18, 19. Someone had popped nineteen sleeping pills while typing a mail to me. Yet, he expected me to have a nice weekend. The coffee refused to go down my throat. I broke into cold sweat.
“One, you wake up late. Two, you plant yourself in front of the computer first thing. Do you even know you have a family?” Anusha said. In case it isn’t obvious enough from the authoritative tone, Anusha is my wife.
I had promised to go furniture shopping with her – ten weekends ago
She took my coffee mug away and jiggled the back of my chair. “We need dining chairs. hey, you look strange?” she said.

I pointed to the monitor. 
“Businessman?” she said as she finished reading the mail. She looked shaken up, too.
“And it is from Ahmedabad,” I said, “that is all we know.”
“You sure this is real?” she said, a quiver in her voice.
“This is not spam,” I said. “It is addressed to me.”
My wife pulled a stool to sit down. I guess we really did need some extra chairs.
“Think,” she said. “We got to let someone know. His parents may be.”
“How? I don’t know where the hell it came from,” I said. “And who do we know in Ahmedabad”
“We met in Ahmedabad, remember?” Anusha said. Pointless statement, I thought. Yes, we’d been classmates at IIMA years ago.
“So?”
“Call the institute. Prof. Basant or someone,” She sniffed and left the room. “Oh no, the daal is burning.”
There are advantages to having a wife smarter than you. I could never be a detective.
I searched the institute numbers on the Internet and called. An operator connected me to Prof. Basant’s residence. I checked the time, 10:00am in Singapore, 7:30am in India. It is a bad idea to mess with a Prof early morning.
“Hello?” a sleepy voice answered. Had to be the prof.
“Prof. Basant, Hi. This is Chetan Bhagat calling. Your old student, remember?”
“Who?” he said with nil curiosity. Bad start.
I told him about the course he took for us, and how we had voted him the friendliest prof.
“Oh that Chetan Bhagat,” he said, like he knew a million of them. “You are a writer now, no?”
“Yes sir,” I said, “that one.”
“So why are you writing books?”
“Tough question, sir,” I stalled. 
“OK, a simple one. Why are you calling me so early on a Saturday?”
I told him why and forwarded the email to him.
“No name, eh?” he said as he read the mail.
“He could be  in a hospital somewhere in Ahmedabad. He would have just checked in. May be he is dead. Or may be he is at home and this was a hoax,” I said.
I was blabbering. I wanted help – for the boy and me. The prof had asked a good question. Why the hell did I write books, to get into this?
“We can check hospitals,” Prof said. “I can ask a few students. But a name surely helps. Hey wait, this boy has a gmail, may be he is on Orkut.”
“Or-what?” Life is  tough when you are always talking to people smarter than you.
“You are so out of touch, Chetan. Orkut is a networking site. Gmail users sign up there. If he is a member and we are lucky, we can see his profile.”
I heard him clicking keys and sat before my own PC.  I had just reached the Orkut site when Prof Basant exclaimed,“Aha, Ahmedabad Businessman. There is a brief profile here. The name only says G Patel. Interests are cricket, business, mathematics and friends. Doesn’t seem like he uses Orkut much though.”
“What are you talking about Prof Basant? I woke up to a suicide note, exclusive to me. Now you are telling me hobbies. Can you help me or…”
A pause, then, “I will get some students. We will search for a new young patient called G Patel, suspected sleeping pill overdose. We will call if we find anything, OK?”“Yes, sir,” I said, breathing properly after a long time.
“And how is Anusha? You guys bunked my classes for dates and now forget me.”
“She is fine, sir.”
“Good, I always felt she was smarter than you.  Anyway, let’s find your boy,” the prof said and hung up.

Besides furniture shopping, I had to finish an office presentation. My boss Michel’s boss was due from New York. Wanting to impress, Michel had asked me to make a presentation of the group, with fifty charts. I worked three nights last week until 1:00am, but had gotten only halfway.
“This is a suggestion. Don’t take it  the wrong way. But do consider taking a bath,” my wife said.
 I looked at her.
“Just an option,” she said.
I think she is overcautious sometimes. I don’t bite back.
“Yes, yes. I will,” I said and stared at the computer again.
Thoughts darted through my head. Should I call some hospitals myself? What if Prof Basant dozed off again? What if he could not collect the students? What if G Patel was dead? And why am I becoming so involved here?
I took a reluctant shower. I opened the office presentation, unable to type a word.
I refused breakfast, though regretted it moments later – as hunger and anxiety did not go well together.
My phone rang at 1:33pm.

New Lifestyle Magazine Targets Muslim Girls

A new magazine hit newsstands across the United States and Canada last month. Muslim Girl is a glossy new lifestyle magazine that reflects the diversity among Muslim teens, inspires them and gives them a face and a voice.

The target audience for the new publication is Muslim women in North America aged 14 to 18..

"We know from our research that that market is about 400,000 to 500,000 teen girls," Muslim Girl Magazine editor Ausma Khan says.

Muslim American teens share common ground with their non-Muslim peers. "We know that they tend to go to public school, they watch television, they read teen magazines, they are very Internet savvy, they play video games, they shop and talk on the phone a lot," Khan says. "Those are things that they have in common with their American peers. What's different about them is that they are very proud of their identity as Muslims, and that informs their daily life. So, for example, they do things like Qura'an Study or they may go to Islamic school. They have aspects of their lives wherein they celebrate their Islamic values."

And, Khan says, they have to deal with many challenges on an almost daily basis because of their faith."The American Muslim teen is maybe feeling alienated on questions such as boyfriends, relationships, drinking and having certain types of freedoms," she says. "We know that they have to reconcile their own personal religious values with the largely secular society that they live within. But we think that America is such a wonderful country because it's a place that allows you to really negotiate these differences and to speak up for your own individuality as long as you respect the rights of others."

Muslim Girl's main goal is to give these teens a voice, and encourage them to talk openly about what concerns them."We have a regular column called 'Relationship Reality Check' where we have girls write in and talk to us about what they see as their relationship dilemmas," says Khan. "This might just be between parents and children, or between siblings, or it could be about a girl and a boy, how she fits in or how she resists certain pressures in American society. We're also going to tackle issues like dating from the Muslim perspective - what do the girls really think about it? What their parents think about it? How do parents and children communication on these issues?"

The magazine also spotlights girls who are making a difference. Khan says those unsung heroes can inspire others and dispel the notion that Muslim women conform to one particular model. "In our launch issue we have these two amazing stories about two Muslim girls," she says. "One is a young woman by the name of Arshia Khan, who joined the Peace Corps and worked in Malawi for two years as an environmental worker. The other is our Muslim Girl of the Month. Her name is Khadija Taufique. After the 2004 Indonesia tsunami, she worked very hard with other Muslim youth in her community to raise funds for the victims of the tsunami in Indonesia. Then she went there personally to deliver that aid."

January's premiere issue also includes a feature by Inas Younis, an Iraqi American from Kansas. She wrote about the diversity of the Muslim American population in her story, 'Growing up American.'

"'Growing up American' is really a profile of six different girls from across the country, from different background, different ages and different points of view," Younis says. "All of them talking about what's important to them being a Muslim girl." The group includes African Americans, Arabs subjects, and girls who are  half American, half Pakistani. "In spite of the fact that they come from different backgrounds, and were raised in different circumstances, some in very strict religious schools, some in public schools, some were home schooled," Younis says, "they still have a lot in common."

Younis believes Muslim girls need to hear about Muslim women who are successfully pursuing unconventional dreams. She has written an article about one such role model for an up-coming issue. "I did an interview with Baroness Uddin," she says. "I met her in New York at a conference that was an initiative to empower Muslim women worldwide. She is the first Bengali Muslim woman to ever be appointed to the House of Lords [in the British Parliament]. She is an amazing role model. She married young, had 5 children, was very socially active and rose in the political arena."

Like other teen magazines, Muslim Girl also includes regular features about pop culture, music, sports and international travel. Editor Ausma Khan hopes the magazine will soon be distributed outside the United States and become a bridge between young Muslim women all around the world.

modern life style!

What is the reason being deprived of happiness in life? If we try to find out the answer to the question, we have to analyze the lifestyle of the modern man. The routine pressure makes the individual insensitive to the finer elements of mind. He turns into a machine and goes on repeating the action day after day. There is no place for emotion in his life and for a certain period, the individual forgets that he is a human being and not a robot. The practice of the modern lifestyle makes him ignorant of the bliss of happiness and peace of mind.

The need is realized by him only when he fails in his mission and falls short of the desired result in the assignment. The individual is treated like a culprit and is put to absorb severe mental stress. Many people are traumatized at the news of failure, which is self-destruction. He is hurt intrinsically and is broken to pieces mentally and tries to find solace in life. Many, in this situation cannot control the agony of disappointment and damage the sense of judgments. If we examine causes of unhappiness in modern life, we come to two key factors, which are,

I. People become involved in the competitive world and bear the pressure to excel in results without knowing the limitations of calibers of individuals. The ordinary brain fights with a more intelligent brain to attain the same goal. People call it 'rat race'.

II. People suffer due to the escalating expectations of the community and other individuals. The individual of today is encircled by several people or groups of people, who expect their own wants to be taken care of primarily. The impact of expectation puts grueling pressure on the individual, who loses the peace of mind and moves towards the state of unhappiness.

You can very well see that above consequences do not favor even a sleek chance of contentment, which is the basis of happiness. The lifestyle of the modern individual is unnecessarily complicated by his own doing and until the individual offers adequate importance to this genuine problem, there is no possibility of achieving contentment, which is the primary step to happiness. Once you taste the sweetness of happiness, you will never let it go from your life. You can start changing your lifestyle right from this moment.