Abrar

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Posts by Abrar Qureshi:

Skin Color and Character

Abrar August 20, 2014 Community, Parenting

In one of his most iconic speeches, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”. I have been thinking about this quote since I talked to my soon to be four years old daughter Salma this evening.

While we were just playing, she mentioned some “evil witch” she knows who can hide her toys. I asked her jokingly, how does that witch look like, and she told me, “she has black skin and dark hair.” I was intrigued by this description, so I told her jokingly that I have seen a witch with very fair skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. She refuted me quite strongly by emphasizing with certainty, “only princesses can have fair skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes.”.

She was fascinated when I told her that I know a little girl with the same skin and hair color as hers, who is very brilliant and beautiful. However, when she found out that it was her I was talking about, she told me that she didn’t want to look like herself and would instead look like the Belle from Beauty and the Beast.

We have a mixed-race household with Pakistani and Moroccan roots, with various skin tones and complexions on both sides of the family, so it has never been a matter of concern in our household. I have been curious to know where my daughter is learning this strong association of skin complexion with character attributes.

English is the language of our household out of convenience. We have been reading age-appropriate storybooks to both our daughters and occasionally allowing them to watch children’s songs and movies consisting of classic stories like Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, etc. My initial assessment is that these stories could be shaping these characterizations and associations in her little mind.

I do not want to discredit the role played by these stories in stimulating imaginations of little children. Still, I am curious to know what it is we can do to create a deeper awareness in our children about recognizing the character of a person versus making snap judgments about our fellow human beings based on their appearances?

I am aware of the ongoing for several years now about a post-racial age; I don’t know if we will ever get to that. I see no harm in recognizing races for what they are, a way for us to understand where we come from, a way to introduce ourselves, but should the race or the skin color be the only attribute used to define ourselves or others?

I will like to hear more from other parents who have similar experiences from their children and will love to learn how they have been able to balance their children’s world view?

I will sincerely welcome your ideas and insights.

A Common Sense, Viable and Green Solution for Power Shortage in Pakistan

Abrar May 3, 2014 0 Community, Economy, General, Politics, Technology Grass Root Ideas, Green Power, Kalabagh Dam, Pakistan, Power Shortage, Renewable Energy, Smart Development, Solar Power, Sustainable Energy, Viable Solution

I arrived in Pakistan the morning of April 29th to attend to a pressing family matter. With day time temperature as high as 38 C throughout my stay so far, we are having over 8-10 hours of power-outage everyday. Interestingly enough on the same day I arrived, Dawn published this news story Power shortfall exceeds 6,000MW . In past several years and several successive governments there have been many broken promises when it comes to ending this power shortage in the country and no serious solution has been presented to solve this problem in the short or the long term, even political leadership is revising their estimates and calculations and finding justifications for breaking their election promises last year.

In my personal capacity I have been researching sustainable and mass scale solutions to solve this pressing problem which is not only impacting the quality of life for hundreds of millions of citizens, but is also hampering growth and economic activity in the country, which is already at rock bottom due to prolonged political and social instability and worsening security situation. I am in agreement that there is a lot which needs fixing in this country we call our home, but this power crises affects everything including maintaining law and ensuring security.

Based on the figures quoted in the Dawn article which I referenced above, the power shortage in the country runs anywhere between 2500 MW to over 6000 MW a day, which translates to 15%-35% of the estimated demand of 13000-17000 MW, a huge gap to fill. There have been talks, often politically charged, of creating new hydro electric projects, nuclear and thermal power plants, which all require huge financial commitments running into 10s if not 100s of billions of dollars, with completion several years in the future and no immediate relief in sight.

With the intensity of heat in majority of the country in summer and the number of sunny days we get throughout the years, it is such a shame that we haven’t given solar energy as serious of a thought as it deserves as a common sense, viable and sustainable solution. With the cost of solar panels dropping considerably in recent years, based on my initial inquiries in the local retail market a solar panel costs about PKR 100 – 110 per Watt, so a 1 kW array of Solar panels in Pakistan costs about 100-110,000, with transportation/labor/installation cost included the total can run anywhere between PKR 125-150,000($1250-$1500). A typical decent quality solar panel has a life of about 25 years, with roughly 3000 sunny hours in an year such an array of solar panels can produce 3000 kW-h in an year and 750,000 kW-h in its lifetime. With a setup like this we can get power for PKR 0.2/kW-h.

Based on 2010 figures for per capita electricity consumption available on World Bank website for Pakistan, an average household with 4 family members consumes about 150 kW-h/month which costs about PKR 2250/month and annual costs about PKR 30,000. So the total cost paid for 5 years of electric bills can fund a Solar installation which can produce electricity for 25 years of not only their current needs but offers 66% additional capacity for future increases.

To me it is a common sense solution, which the policy and decision makers should have thought about, but it doesn’t look like anybody gave it a serious consideration. I know what you might be thinking, we don’t get Sun throughout the day or throughout the year and we haven’t factored in storing this energy or the cost of keeping/maintaining that storage. That can truthfully increase the cost of producing solar energy and a number of energy experts cite this reason enough to discard otherwise a sustainable, green and affordable solution for producing electricity.

I have some convincing and innovative ideas in that regard which I believe can make use of Solar energy a lot more practical and appropriate at least in Pakistan, but in general in any country where there is a gap between demand and production of electricity. First a little background, there are various setups for solar energy production Grid-Tied, Off-Grid and Hybrid. What I am proposing is a Grid-Tied system along with Solar energy friendly policy changes including Net Metering.

A grid tied system allows a household to use electricity from the Sun when its possible and when its not, their house automatically switches to electric grid. Net metering is made possible by Grid Tie Inverters, which allow excess solar energy produced by a home to be transmitted to the national electric grid and special meters which can track how much energy came in and how much energy went out to the grid. The utility companies typically bill the net amount and in some cases the homeowner gets a check instead of a bill if they produced more energy than what they consumed off the grid. So the example we discussed above, a household with a 1 kW-h solar panel installation will produce 3000 kW-h per year which far exceeds their consumption of 1800 kW-h per year, resulting in a rebate for them from the utility company, sounds too good to be true?

With average per capita income of $1250 as of 2012, the big question is how in the world we can expect an average Pakistani household with a single earner (in most cases) to afford a Solar installation costing up to $1500? Honestly, that is the biggest and the toughest question, but lets do some math. The estimated cost of proposed Kalabagh dam is $5.7 billion as per an estimate in 2000, as we all know this project is politically and environmentally controversial. This dam on completion(which can take up to 7 years)will produce 3600 MW of electricity/day. Over time dams incur extra costs and have large footprint for communities, environment and wildlife.

With a 1 kW-h solar panel array per household with an approximate cost of $1500, we can get 3600 MW/day capacity by installing such arrays in 438,300 households at an estimated cost of $657,450,000 ($658 million approx) . The project off course will require sometime to plan, fund and execute but it can start yielding results as soon as the first household gets its Solar system installed. This costs compares at roughly 10% of the estimated cost of Kalabagh dam. We can achieve double the capacity of Kalabagh dam(7200 MW) and fill the 6000 MW/daily shortfall at a total cost of $1.3 billion. With this we will be paying for 7200 MW daily excess capacity for 25 years. I think it will be worthwhile to mention that in all my estimations I have gone to the higher end of cost as well as labor, with such a huge project we can easily get better rates for both equipment as well as labor, so the actual cost may turn out to be lower.

When it comes to manufacturing solar panels in such a large number, I am sure it will take sometime, but considering the current market capacity it should not take more than an year to get the desired number of solar panels. Besides, due to agile nature of these household to household installations we don’t need to wait for all the solar panels to be manufacture to start the project, they can get installed as they get produced.

Funding is still a big question, the government can invest on a project like dam because it will be a large piece of infrastructure, a national asset, however owning a million or so solar panels installed on a similar number of households is a different business, but wait we already have government owning large utility companies like telecom and electric supply companies with equipment installed on millions of households such as electric/telephone poles, electric meters, gas meters and so forth. The same mechanism the government uses to keep track of all that equipment can be used to keep track of and service solar panels, will just require a bit retraining for the field staff. If we go this route, a household can’t claim a rebate check as the solar panels will belong to the government so the additional capacity also belongs to the government, they get billed on their usage. Use of Solar energy however will significantly reduce the cost of producing electricity and consumers should also see part of that by significant reduction in electric bills.

Another funding alternate can be to acquire funding from private sector/international development agencies to issue loans to homeowners to install these solar arrays which can be paid in 5-10 years. Going with this option a large number of individual households will see a significant drop in their electric bills 50-75%, that money can go to pay off the loan for the solar installation. Government can enable this kind of arrangement with participation from lenders and the utility companies by including the loan payment in the electric bills and applying the same strict measures which they currently do to collect electric bills, which will greatly reduce the risk for the investors providing the funding and result in reduced financing costs for these loans. Most importantly, the government will not end up with a large long term obligation on its books, which they will in case of a project like Kalabagh dam.

Even with this approach, there will still be problems like overloading of the grid during times when there is no sun due to time of the day or weather, which can be overcome by smartly utilizing Wind, Existing Hydro power, possible utilization of tidal power as well as Nuclear energy, keeping use of oil/hydrocarbon based power plants as the last option, as they are the most polluting and most expensive source of electricity.

Although I am not an expert on this subject, but the quick research I have done along with relevant data and calculations I am convinced that this is the right way to go forward. I encourage you as a reader to look critically at all the figures and the logic behind this solution, if you are also convinced, please join your voice with mine and share it in your circle of friends/colleagues and lets turn this into a national dialogue.

Supportive Evidence for Mass Adoption of Grid-Tied Solar Power Generation

I have also come across some articles which support the basic premise of this solution. Here are a few:

How Electric Utilities Can Make the Most of Distributed Generation
Solar Power Burns Old Utilities Business Models

Here is an article which discusses one of the key challenges i.e financing, in mass adoption of Solar power.

New NREL Report Explores Solar Securitization

Updates As of 05/29/2014

I have been promoting this solution through various media outlets, so far this article has been published by two media outlets, here are the links :

http://blogs.arynews.tv/common-sense-viable-green-solution-power-shortage-pakistan/

http://blogs.epakistan.com/a-common-sense-viable-and-green-solution-for-power-shortage-in-pakistan/

Feeding the Hungry

Abrar October 20, 2011 0 Community, Service, Spirituality Acts of Kindness, Dignity, Feed the hungry, Helping Unemployed, Preserving Self Esteem, Volunteerism

Feeding the hungry is a universal teaching, given by almost all religious traditions of the world. In current economic climate, when unemployment across the world is unusually high, there are more and more fellow humans who go hungry everyday. There are countless good-hearted folks around the world who are taking up this noble task and doing their best to feed the hungry, in their own unique way.

One of the major concern which often arise while helping the needy is that if the help which is being offered will in anyway impact their self esteem or make them too dependent on the handouts. I don’t find it a coincidence that I learned about two approaches towards feeding the hungry in two completely different parts of the world on the same day, both of the approaches address this concern in their own unique ways:

Rs. 3 Meals in Karachi Pakistan

From this BBC Urdu news story (its in Urdu) I learned about a Pakistani woman Parveen Saeed, who belongs to a middle class family in Karachi, Pakistan. She was moved by the suffering of the increasing numbers of poor and needy in her city and started helping them by cooking extra meals for them at home and starting giving it away for a mere sum of Rs. 3/meal. (which roughly is 3.5 cents at current exchange rate). She soon realized that she could not help many people at her current pace, so she moved to a poor neighborhood and started a “Khana Ghar” (more like a soup kitchen) where anybody can come and have a fresh, healthy and filling meal for Rs 3. Her cost for each such meal is Rs. 20, but there are many in the community who were moved by her service and have started contributing in kind as well as financially and now she runs more than three such soup kitchens.

“Pay What You Can” Restaurant by singer Jon Bon Jovi in New Jersey

From this USA Today news story I learned that singer Jon Bon Jovi has opened “Pay What You Can” restaurants on more than one locations in New Jersey, where people can come and eat gourmet quality meals, but they pay whatever they can, or alternately pay through either working in that restaurant (if there is opportunity for that) or through some other form of community volunteer service.

I’m sure there are plenty of other folks out there who are using their great ideas and intentions to feed the hungry and help those who are in need, but these two ideas just stand out for me. As they are preserving the self-esteem of the people being helped, by either charging a nominal amount or expecting them to volunteer in return for the meal.

I think such ideas applied at a broader scale, can bring a lot of good to our communities across the globe. It may not have to be through food services alone, it can be applied to other form of help, with vocational education, training and so forth so that those who are unable to support themselves can eventually become self sufficient and contributing members of the society.

Half Off

Abrar September 22, 2011 0 Economy 50% Off, Ben Bernanke, Deflation, Economy, Google Offers, Groupon, Half Off, LivingSocial

With the mushrooming and rapid popularity of websites like Groupon, LivingSocial, Google Offers and many others, which lure you to different vendors and companies who are willing to offer you their products and services at significant discounts, sometimes 50% or even higher. These offers can range from a haircut to a cold cut, from a matinee to a martini and so on. I know the idea behind these services is to get consumers introduced to the products and services, with an expectation that they will become regular customer. However with several hundred such offers available everyday in the area where I live in, I am sure I really don’t have to just go to one business everyday, I can just hunt for those offers and save 50% on many things I buy daily, as there is an abundant supply of businesses desperate to attract new customers by offering such deep discounts.

What concerns me is what if eventually this phenomenon becomes an expectation for an average consumer, getting a product or service at 50% less? If so, what impacts it may have on the abilities of these businesses and their employees to offer quality goods and services to the community at large? As no business can realistically survive on 50% revenue, will it mean they will have to reduce the quantity or quality? or may be they will have to make their employees work more or accept lesser pay? as a result the downward cycle can continue infinitely and impact the entire economy.

I remember at the onset of the Great Recession of 2008, Fed Chairman Ben Brenanke once commented that he was more concerned about deflation than inflation. Is this how it will start? If so, what are the possible outcomes for our generation and the generation which is currently in school?

Looking for the Answer

Abrar September 19, 2010 0 Religion, Spirituality Anarchy, Bloodshed, God, Humanity, Islam, Mischief, Oneness, Quran, Spirituality, Sufi, Sufism, Terrorism

I have been pondering about this verse in Quran (2:30) this morning

وَإِذْ قَالَ رَبُّكَ لِلْمَلَائِكَةِ إِنِّي جَاعِلٌ فِي الْأَرْضِ خَلِيفَةً ۖ قَالُوا أَتَجْعَلُ فِيهَا مَنْ يُفْسِدُ فِيهَا وَيَسْفِكُ الدِّمَاءَ وَنَحْنُ نُسَبِّحُ بِحَمْدِكَ وَنُقَدِّسُ لَكَ ۖ قَالَ إِنِّي أَعْلَمُ مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ

(البقرۃ ۳۰)

Translation :

And (remember) when your Lord said to the angels: “Verily, I am going to place (mankind) generations after generations on earth(as inheritor of earth).” They said: “Will You place therein those who will make mischief therein and shed blood, – while we glorify You with praises and thanks and sanctify You.” He (Allah) said: “I know that which you do not know.”

The verse contrasts mischief and bloodshed with praise, gratitude and sanctifying God (what angels say they do all the time). In the recent history we have seen humans at their worst, when it comes to mischief and bloodshed. Look at the news and you find countless examples of this ugly behavior.

Does that mean, the angels were right? Or does that mean these circumstances are forcing us to look deep inside, to look for that “secret” in us which only God knows but angles didn’t know?

I feel in my heart, these are the times when we will all have to look for the answer.

Real Stimulus

Abrar February 21, 2009 0 Economy Asset Bubbles, Economic Slowdown, Economic Stimulus, Economy, High Gold Prices, Hoarding, Moses and the Poor man

I have been thinking about the economy lately, how it is declining every passing day. The overall sentiment is pessimistic, people are losing jobs, those who still have jobs are holding back from spending because they are afraid they may lose their jobs, but it is having a ripple effect on rest of the economy, retailers, manufacturers and so on, as a result more jobs are being lost.

No doubt that the situation we are in, is a result of ruthless greed of a number of people among us, whether they be those bigwigs at Wall Street, or those shady loan officers who were approving loans without any proof of income or verifying one’s ability to pay back the loans or those consumers, who turned upside down and bought homes they could not afford either with greed or out of desperation (they might never be able to afford a home if they didn’t buy one right at that moment, that was the buzz word at the peak of the housing bubble, nobody saw this slump coming ironically).

I was trying to find some spiritual inspiration which can help in this kind of situation, what immediately came to my mind was a story which I read some where growing up (pardon my fading memory that I don’t have reference). The story is of a poor man, in the times of Prophet Moses(PBUH), he approached Moses one day and asked him to request God on his behalf to give him sustenance of his entire life at once, as he was literally tired of living everyday in poverty and deprivation. Moses forwarded his request to God, when he visited Mount Sinai the next time and that request was accepted.

The next morning when this poor man woke up, he found his house full of all different kind of food, grains, fruits and everything else he ever imagined having. He was grateful and happy, but soon he realized he would not be able to use all of what he had been given, so he decided to host a big feast and invited the entire town. Everybody came and was well fed and left happy and this man returned to his empty home, satisfied that he did the right thing.

The next morning he woke up, he again found his house full of food of even better variety and quality and in much more quantity. He was amazed and grateful again, however he decided yet again to have another big feast and shared his fortune with rest of the community and came home at the night with empty hands, but a satisfied heart. It continued like this for several days and this man was surprised what was going on, so he again went to Moses and told him everything he had been experiencing. Moses took his question to God, next time he visited Mount Sinai and was given the answer. The answer from God was that what was given to the man the first day, was really what was destined for him for rest of his life, however his act of generosity and charity towards his fellow beings continued increasing his sustenance and if he continued his practice of sharing his fortune with others, he would continue to receive even more everyday, without any limits.

What I understand from this story is that we need to continue to have faith and trust in God’s sustenance, off course we need to work hard and make all the effort, but our faith should be more in His blessings than in our own effort. Second, we should not be greedy and keep hoarding our fortune in our closets or our lockers while depriving the rest of the society from its benefits.

If you think about it there is even economic sense in these teachings. When everybody is greedy about hoarding as much wealth as one can, what would be the result? Probably we don’t need any imagination, as we are living that result. If we keep running after easy money, inflated returns on our investments, buying gold and gems or other valuables(passive assets) just to preserve or increase value of our wealth, we are essentially depriving the rest of the society from the benefits of our wealth and creating new “economic bubbles” which one day will burst and bring even more economic chaos.

Investing in real financial instruments(equity shares, investment bonds etc), instead of buying these passive assets may be one way to share the benefits of our fortune with rest of the society. We invested too much in passive assets (because of greed and also because like sheep we were just following the herd) and that is the root cause of the economic crises today.

Most importantly we need to bring consciousness, faith, honesty and realism back to our business, that is the real stimulus we need in today’s economy.

Wars – Are they worth it?

Abrar July 18, 2008 0 Politics Development, Economic Slowdown, Islam, Literacy, Military Expense, Muslim, Pakistan, Peace, War

I have been thinking about it for quite sometime, that how much tendency we humans have to solve disputes and problems through military force, although being among “best of the creations” we have the capacity to rise above such means and use rationale, compassion and love in solving our problems.

Last week an article in New York Times It Takes a School, Not Missiles by Nicholas D. Kristof , made me ponder about it even more and in a way validated my long held instincts against wars. The writer shares the story of an American mountain climber Greg Mortenson who after a failed attempt on climbing K2, the second tallest mountain in the world, in 1993 was cared for by villagers from a tiny and poor village in the mountain’s valley. He was so obliged that he decided to pay them back by building a school in that village, although he didn’t have much means. Unable to raise enough funds through a non-profit he established, finally he ended up building the school selling his own valuable mountain climbing equipment. His selfless sacrifice and his act of love towards those poor villagers was rewarded by pouring of love towards him by the same villagers and not only that this idea worked so well that in a little over a decade he has been able to setup 80 or so schools in parts of Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. He enjoys the status of a celebrity in those areas, where anti-American sentiment is at its extreme. His school alumni, many of them women, have been instrumental in repudiating extremism and violence within their families and even reformed some former Talibans who now have given up violence and are teaching at these schools.

I have held and shared this view in my conversations with friends, since the onset of the war in 2001, that this was a wrong approach in tackling and rooting off extremism and terrorism in that area. With the cost of war in Iraq and Afghanistan climbing to over 1.5 trillion(in addition to hundreds of thousands of lives lost from both sides) and the outcome still as far, as it was 7 years ago, its time for the policymakers in Washington to step back and ponder their strategy. With a tiny fraction of this enormous cost, we could get a lot more tangible results as well as stability in the region, in addition to respect and good will for America.

Looking at the yearly world defense and military expenditure and the global economic slowdown we are facing, I was thinking is it worth it to spend such a big chunk of world GDP on something as lethal and useless as wars? Can’t we just learn to live and let live? Isn’t it cheaper if we can just get along ? When there are millions among us who don’t even know if they will have food on their tables when they go home, is it justified to splurge this much on weapons and wars? When will we be able to rise to our status as “best of the creations”?

Faith and Politics

Abrar March 4, 2008 0 Politics Faith, Islamophobia, Muslim Bashing, Obama Muslim, Politics

I’ve been watching with deep interest, the accusations from political opponents of Senator Barack Obama that he is a covert Muslim and off course his denials that he is not. Last night I even watched an interview by Senator Hillary Clinton, where she also expressed her confidence that Senator Obama is not a Muslim, as she believes whatever he is saying about his faith.

What I have been longing to hear from the political elite is that someone stands up and tells the American people, that the constitution gives equal rights to followers of all faiths, as long as they are born citizen of the United States, to run for any office. Unfortunately nobody has dared to say that so far.

I have read some articles on a few websites (with very marginal readership) about this issue but nobody prominent has stood up to speak out against this discrimination towards the Muslim faith. It is as if American public has accepted it as a fact that United States is at war with the religion Islam, instead of a handful of its misguided followers who are using Islam to justify their crimes. It also seems to suggest that a Muslim American can not be trusted for a leadership position like this, or if Muslims are not patriotic or American enough.

As a humble follower of the faith I have a very clear conscience that Islam doesn’t allow use of terrorism or violence to achieve someone’s political or any other ambitions. However I still feel that majority of Muslims who share the same beliefs as I do must be feeling afraid of what more is to come for them in United States, if the hostility towards Islam and Muslims keeps growing like this.

America embodies many of the ideals I have as a Muslim, liberty, freedom, justice and equality. It will make me really sad if the homeland I have adopted turns away from the ideals of its founding fathers, the same ideals which have inspired so many people having different backgrounds to come from all over the world to settle in this country.

Happiness

Abrar December 8, 2007 0 Spirituality

I read a beautiful quote some where “Happiness is not about having what you love, but about loving what you have”.

Reading a New York Times article this week prompted me to think about this quote again.

That article is about those among us who consider themselves Perfectionists and talks in detail about how at some point their lives they end up being unhappy and sometimes even depressed, because of the perfection they seek in their own lives and the lives of the people around them.

According to this article, researchers and psychologists are now feeling inclined to consider “perfectionism” as a serious behavior issue.

Last night while talking to someone online, I was intrigued to think on these lines. This person appeared to be outstanding in many aspects of her life, but still was a bit bitter and not happy despite her very successful life otherwise.

Many among us have abundance of many things in our lives, but we still tend to be ungrateful. I don’t think this is something new in todays world, it has been like that since the ancient times. It is in the human nature.

Holy Quran talks about it in a very elaborate manner in Surah Al-Takathur

“In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.

Competition distracts you
all the way to the grave,
but soon you will know.
If you knew with the knowledge of certainty,
you would see Hell;
you would see with the eyes of certainty;
and you would be asked to explain your desires.

Translated by Kabir Helminski”

I wonder if we can get sometime to look deep inside us and see the root cause of our unhappiness and dissatisfaction? May be the answer is closer to us than what we can even imagine.

Trees and Gratitude

Abrar November 21, 2007 0 Spirituality

I was recently at a spiritual retreat offered by Threshold Society at Garrison, NY. The theme of the retreat was “Living from the Heart”. It was quite enlightening and heart awakening experience. I met some wonderful people who came from different cultural and religious backgrounds, but are all on their quest for finding the way to the Heart and living from the Heart.

As I have been going through a number of difficulties and challenges in my own life, as well as in my extended family, it has been on my mind most of the time while I was at the retreat. During one of the breaks, I came to a balcony and looked outside towards the beautiful Hudson River. It being the Fall season, there were colors everywhere, though different kind of colors. The colors of drying and falling leaves. I witnessed for the first time that although these trees were losing their flowers, fruits and the leaves, all the signs of abundance, they still looked so calm, quiet and humbled as if expressing utmost gratitude towards the Creator.

Gratitude, for the generosities of the Creator in the Spring, all those young green leaves, colorful flowers, delicious fruits and a dense and cool shade, which provided comfort and nourishment for countless living beings.

Gratitude, which continues to be there, even when the abundance of the Spring is long gone and has been replaced with nothingness and emptiness of dry falling leaves and barren branches.

Gratitude, is what I feel now when I look at a tree with dry falling leaves, as it appears spreading its arms towards the sky and saying “Alhamdulillah” (Praise be to God).

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