Making cool graphs on grass type pokemon!

So i decided to try my hand in some data science stuff and bang, I find myself on Coursera. So apparently every online learning platform and their competitor is teaching data science as it is supposed to be the next big thing in jobs and blah, yeah.... whatever. 

I also jumped on the bandwagon and a few online courses and Youtube tutorials down the road *hey is that a Bulbasaur?!!* 

Yup. 

Off all the practical and job critical data to perform analysis on, what do I pick? Pokemon data. Because why not? Who doesn't wonder whether Ash would be better off levelling up Bulbasaur or just hedge his bets on Gogoat, highest HP in grass type pokemon! 

Or if you were wondering Roselia was all about roses and talking in her cute Roselia voice, look again, she has some of the best stats among grass type. Of course I am being fairly narrow in comparing only grass type pokemon but this is just the starting. Stay tuned for more episodes of who is that pokemon!! 

You can check the comparison graphs and much more in the coming weeks (hopefully) here.

And if you have some suggestions on what should i do next you can leave a comment down below, here or if you are also a kaggler, here.

Book Review: Ataturk by Patrick Kinross

Ataturk has been written by a British writer, Patrick Kinross, and is a voluminous tome detailing each and every aspect of life of the great Turkish Leader, Mustafa Kemal. 

Kinross has put much effort into researching details about the personal life and interactions with people of Kemal, which is evident from the numerous footnotes and references cited in the book. This makes for great reading, and since the time of Kemal was an important time, of great political and economic upheaval, therefore the footnotes are a real delight for the curious reader thirsty for history and politics. 

Kinross has kept his tone very professional, portraying Kemal as is, venturing deep into his praise as well as critique, and the book gives a broad view of how the modern day Turkey was conceived. 

As the cover details, the Turkey we know was the creation of one man, literally one man, since the last vestiges of Ottoman Empire were rampant with corruption and political ineptness of the royalty people knew as Caliph, and so was the case with all governmental offices and officers. 

Stepping into the WW1, the biggest event in that time, the majority of the Turkish nation didn’t even realize the horrific mental caliber of their leadership, and it was only through the efforts of a small cadre of Nationalists and Reformists (my own terms for the Young Turks ; who were a collection of highly educated youth with mostly foreign exposure, who realized that the Caliphate and Caliph were incapable of caring for the sprawling Empire, and therefore the internal upheavals began from late 19^th century. It was a continuum of these upheavals and political turmoil in which Kemal grew up and moulded by these events, started his personal struggle for the emancipation of the Turk Nation.

What the common people know now, what the layman Muslim knows is mostly that Kemal abolished most of the Islamic obligations and customs that we hold dear and without which Islam looks deformed. 

But what we don’t know, and can’t know unless we read a few history books, is that Kemal, his character and actions in later Turkey notwithstanding, did more for the Turkish Muslims than all the rest of the religious and moderate leadership and nation combined.

For the Ottoman Empire in WW1 was like a cow carcass (Turkey) with a flock of carrion (Europe, Balkan nations, Russia and Arabs) looking for the opportune moment to carve off their share from the sprawling sick man (Ottoman Empire). It was through single minded determination and obstinate forceful leadership and efforts of Kemal, complimented by the good-natured efforts of a handful of his best colleagues, that saved the Turkish Muslims from falling prey to the European nations and Russia. 

If not for Kemal, the situation would have been very pitiable for the Muslims in Turkey region and Balkans (still is, there).

I invite all my history interested fellows to read the history of the last years of the Ottoman Republic, for it is the precursor to understanding the current Muslim political situation in the ME as well as the Muslim religious leadership. I would go even so far as to say that not reading history independent of the routine curriculum in educational institutions is criminal, and history has not been nice to such people who forget their history. For our part, we don’t even know our history, so what talk of our future?

A Trip to Khewra Salt Mine

So this Sunday the management had planned a day trip to Khewra Salt Mine for their guests, namely us and the Egyptian Engineers (collectively referred to hereon after as “us”). Naturally we were excited as this was our first trip since coming to this scenic site of D.G. Khan Cement at Khairpur Village, Dist. Chakwal but popularly referred to as Kallar Kahar, (as those islooites who don’t really live in isl but on the border between Pindi and Isloo like to give their address as Islamabad).

So after breakfast we packed in the HI-Ace along with our lunch (no, it was not alive) and off we went to Kallar Kahar. From the plant site, there are two ways of going to Khewra Salt Mine. One goes through the local road passing through Katas, giving the view and opportunity of the famous Katas Raj Temples. But since it had rained two days ago and knowing only too well the condition of local roads, our guide (manager Mr Khalid) decided to take the high road through Motorway M2. For our Egyptian guests this was the first time they were touring the country in Pakistan so they were anyway excited on the M-2 when we passed through the beautiful curves (and fifty shades of rock) of the Salt Range. At Lilla Interchange we exited the M-2, and a short distance down a fork in the road came, we took the left one and went parallel to the M-2 back in the direction from whence we came. Our driver, apparently seeing the familiar bumpy road and remembering the good ol’ days when he was a public transport driver (kidding, I am KIDDING!), decided that any speed below 70 km/h was not worth his, and the Hi-Ace’s salt. So I had to sit straight in a military posture to properly absorb the shocks, bumps and dives (amplified as I was sitting in the back seat) which the van traced along the crests and troughs of the road.

The road looked like the road going to the house of Courage the cowardly Dog, passing through the middle of nowhere with empty barren land on both sides, interrupted now and again by a house here, a farmhouse there, a tire shop here, a mosque there. But the dwellings were few and far between, and with the Salt Range on our front and right, the road must have a real spooky effect at night. Although for a Sunday, the traffic was pretty decent with one or two tourists vans also seen by the scribe. In one of the farms, my colleague pointed out four ostriches, black and white, standing still. This was my first time seeing an ostrich (or shatarmurgh as it is called in Urdu) so I was pretty excited, which waned quickly as the van sped along.

Nearing our destination we began to see the off-shoots of the salt mine industry, with small setups of Plaster of Paris manufacturing, white lime etc. Far away to our right we could see the Dandot Cement Factory spreading dust 10 times its area into the atmosphere, reminding me to thank Allah that we were working at an award winning for cleanliness factory at D.G. Khan Cement Factory. A little further on from Dandot Cement were visible the chimneys of the ICI Soda Ash Plant.

As it turned out the road turned into a T- and we took the left towards ICI Factory, and ultimately Khewra Mine. This road was a well-developed two-way road complete with side yellow paint and reflectors. Upon reaching the mine we saw that there were pretty decent attendance as families and kids alike had come for a Sunday outing.

Having brought our train tickets and getting briefed by the guide on the history of Salt discovery in these hills (yeah horses came for battle and started licking the rocks back in Alexandar era 326 B.C. ) The train was a rickety open carriage sort and creaked and clanged (I was surprised it was even running) its way 2 kms inside the mine to the entrance lobby.

The inside of the mine had a gloomy look, as the authorities had apparently determined that light should be as dim as possible to allow for bad photos (photography haram bro :p). But we had other thoughts.

Snapping as much photos as we could, we followed the guide who started off by showing us the asthma treatment quarters, small chaar-dewari in which the patient is kept for a week or two and by breathing in the mineral rich air apparently gets cured. Important point to note, all mines maintain their temperature. This mine also kept at a cool 18 degrees Celsius, and the air was as good as mountain air to breathe in. Progressing further our guide showed us the color of the rock salts, by shining light on it, similarly there were pools of water glowing strangely by installed lights in the mined out sections. They mine 50% of the area and leave the rest for structural integrity (yeah dude, we are under a MOUNTAIN!!).

 

We moved on to see stalactites and stalgmites hanging from the wall, I don’t know what they were, never could differentiate one from the other) and moving further on we were greeted by a mosque built entirely out of salt rock. The salt rock here has three distinct colors, white red and pink (multiple shades of red of course but I let the guide speak). The mosque stones were lit by lights from inside and looked really beautiful.

Further inside the mine we came upon glorious white mounds formed by collecting stalactites. (Yeah I just googled. No, not gonna change the previous terms :p ). Some were even fenced around which people were taking photos. Moving on we came to a so called fawara chowk (“fountain roundabout” in English, though where’s the fun in that?) where a salt and Pakistani souvenir shop was created. People were thronging through the chowk in three different directions. One road led to a lower level where a mined out portion resembled a creepy lake (microscopic version of Voldi’s lake where he hid the horcrux), on the wall of which cracks had formed the word “Muhammad” in Urdu of course. Our nation’s obsession to finding religious inscriptions in nature does not seem to abate, EVER. Likewise the guide treated us to a discourse on this occurrence.

This lake culminated in the mine visit and we came back to the surface, breathing the polluted mountain air thanks to the three Punjab University buses and two buses from Quaid-e-Azam university. It was an amazing visit though if you are planning to bring your car and travel a couple of hours to here I’d highly recommend putting on the Katas Raj Temples and Kallar Kahar Lake also on your list so that the two-hour mine visit does not seem so boring.

Boring Sunday Blues

So today was just another lazy Sunday, and no indication by my heart and brain signaled any excitement for the rest of the day. This was the second and last Sunday in our short fifteen day trip to Cherat Packaging Limited to impart Small Sized bags training to Operators. 

This was also my second trip working alongside the Delta Services Personnel, who were hired by our principal company, Windmoller and Holscher, to install and provide field service for their manufactured machines in remote areas of the world (yes, just 300 km from Lahore gets too remote for Germany). 

Anyway, I got up, prayed with the Egyptians, and then watched Tomb Raider, in which Lara Croft and the director combined to trivialize yet another promising storyline with undue stunts and action. Breakfast was ready and after a refreshing talk with another guest from my city, I sat down to watch the third part of Rambo movie, which never ceases to invigorate the soldier in me. Anyways, load shedding reminded that it still plays a major role in our lives, although this instance was the result of some maintenance work that had to be done and the power outage was scheduled until 4 in the evening. So I mentally readied myself to survive the next six hours alone in my room, without internet and without power, so I nice long sleep seemed the next natural step in living out the Sunday. But sleep refused to cooperate for long, and since it was lunch time, I decided to bless the nature and world with my royal presence and up I go to the hostel for lunch with the Egyptians. Fortunately for them and unfortunately for me, there is mutton for lunch, and I make do with a light lunch of teenday. So then I returned to my faithful Wither series book, which, be it workday or holiday, stressful work or lazy work, never fail to give me some quick moments of pleasure, being in my smartphone’s eReader. 

Sadly, the plot had advanced to the late levels of tragedy and suffering and my mood was likewise beginning to get depressed until, by a supreme effort of will, I forced myself to get up from the bed and step out in the lounge and grab a cup of tea.  Since the guests living in the room adjacent to me had invited me to go with them to collect their clothes at the GIK laundry, I mentally got ready to go for an evening of enjoyment. So it was that I found myself at the back of this double cabin pickup zooming through the two way roads of the Tarbela dam country side and the locations of Gadoon , Topi and Swabi slipping by our field of vision. 

Come the campus and my spirits were already lifted, the university atmosphere is a unique and puzzling place, where in if you study there you never seem to notice the mundane beauty of nature, yet when you come as someone who doesn’t belong, the university holds a whole lot of pleasant experiences. Starting with grabbing a cornetto bar from the shop, I proposed a walk to the guestrooms towards the hill, which turned into a photowalk of our own selves, and culminated in a visit to the library by my fellows. Afterwards we came back to find a pleasant group of students illuminating the atmosphere by their colorfulness and innocence, wait. That does not seem right. No. It does. Really, I had begun to feel old watching these school kids, for that is what they look like when you have graduated two years ago from the bachelors program. 

Anyway,  the kids notwithstanding, we decided to elongate our stay a little bit by ordering the chef’s specialty of zinger roll platter at the newly opened restaurant on the uphill marketplace (my own jargon, there is nothing such as that for Gikians!). The platter was accompanied by lively chatter and hustle bustle by the college students, including the sports lot who always make me look positively to what life has to offer. Finished with our roll platter we had a chat with the amazing tea maker, who makes tea by assimilating air pressure in the tea, thus successfully creating the effect which the peasant tea makers achieve by throwing the tea from up high by stretching our arms back in the tea pot. The result of such activity is to make the tea frothy and creamy, although the use of both of these adjectives indicates that the resultant tea is more an illusion of their literal meaning than the actual stuff. The GIK trip culminated, we returned back to our abode for the remainder of the week, where I looked forward to the reading the Sunday dawn, watching, and not listening, the PSL match between Karachi Kings and Peshawar Zalmi (way to go smith, that was some innings!) like a proper seasoned oldie. Oops I need to get my act together and write a blog about this. Gotta go, bye!

Pen Woes

.

Mein pen hoon kisi aur ka mujhse likhta koi aur hai

Sar-e-kaaghaz meri nib hai, pass-e-kaaghaz kuch aur hai

Mein kisi ke dast-e-talab mein hoon tu kisi ke harf-e-dua mein hoon

Mein naseeb hoon kisi aur ka, mujhe maangta koi aur hai

Kabhi laut aayain tu na poochna sirf dekhna bare gaur se

Jinhain diyaar-e-ghair se lota diya gaya k ye pen ha kisi or ka

Ajab aitbaar-ba-aitbaari ke darmeyaan hai zindagi

Mein qareeb hoon kisi aur ke mujhe jaanta koi aur hai

Wohi munsifoon ki riwayattain wohi faisaloon ki ibarattain

Mera maqsad-e-takhleeq tu koi aur thaa mera istemaal koi aur hai

Teri copy meri ink se zara na-manoos tu nahee magar

Tu copy qareeb la tujhe dikhla doon me pen hoon kamaal ka

Jo meri nangi nib ko neem-shab 'Saleem' cover na mil saka

Tu phir is ke maeni tu yeh huwe ke main pen hun kisi la parwa ka

The Penta-Faced Monster

You have seen it coming. You have experienced its nastiness. Once it comes you can only pray that you don’t fall for it. And yet every time you do. Yes, you are right! I am talking about the nastiest of the nasty, the worst of the worst timers, the bane of skinny people…BEHOLD!!!
The Seasonal Cold. It comes at various times of the year. It usually crops up at the most annoying times, just when we are thinking about this great Friday hangout scene. At weddings it gets its due share of curses. But nowhere is its presence more unwelcome than in students premises at exam times. Either it is a dirty trick of our timetable makers that they schedule exams to coincide with the shift in the weather or the cold just thinks it plain amusing to torment us, the puny students. This article is dedicated to all the brave sufferers of this nasty tormentor.

1) The Breeze with the Cold Touch:
It usually starts with a gentle breeze in spring or autumn. The type you find most pleasant at first…yes only at first. It taps you on the ear, says HI! And before you know it you are sneezing like bad. Welcome to the start of your cold bout. Nasal voice and 13-sneezes-in-a-row make you feel like a little kitten, shirking even from the tiniest of contact with cold atmosphere. You call your mom, and apart from the concerned lecture in which you catch glimpses of gargles and joshanda, you at last hear the magic words: Anti-Allergy tablet, pop a few and forget the cold. You are now on a strong dose of steroids and the sneezes are all but gone in a jiffy. An hour or two after you find yourself drowsing, and before you know it, you’re asleep. Good for you ain’t it? Yeah? You think so…? Think again!

2) Stalker in the Night:
Sleep is the favourite part of the lurking monster in your ENT canals, and it always turns out victorious in the battle at Nasal Bridge. All the sneeze causing stuff that your anti-allergy stashed away for those 8 hours has been reproducing at ten times the normal rate in somewhere up your ENT canals…and the army is ready to take you down. You only know of the marching army when it is just rounding the last bend before your nostrils and you desperately find a cloth to wash it off!  Ugh! Not to mention the watery (actually, rivery) eyes and the thick saliva forming at your mouth. Desperately hoping to find some hot water to battle this army of flooding nose waters (sorry, couldn’t find a better name) you curse your luck when hostel geyser fails to cooperate. Then you find yourself sitting up at six in the morning sipping boiling hot Qarshi ka johar joshanda thanks to your roomie’s heating rod. Now you gain a few hours respite, albeit you having to carry a cloth with you to stop the flood…sorry nose waters.
And just when you think you have bested the cold, it has yet to pull out its next weapon in its bulging arsenal, the clogged ENT.

3) The Clogged ENT:
You thought you had defeated the flu only with a cup of johar joshanda and your hanky. How naive of you! Now there’s no runny nose, big respite that. But what to do with this Army on Dharna in your ENT canals, neither getting out (no matter how much pressure you apply) nor getting destroyed. Making trumpeting noises at the sink and inviting weird glances from passers-by you desperately take out your phone and call your mom, AGAIN, and this time it’s a vaguely named tablet ( usually of yellow colour). And before you know it the army is on the march again. And you meet it with cupped hanky again. Now you have seen the last of the Nasal Army, or rather you think you have. How naive you gonna get, puny human!

4) The Plague of the Phlegm:
Come nightfall and neither is your hanky there, nor is the army intent on marching soon. But it is movable. Yeeeess (Read it in a creepy tone!). Through the natural process of breathing, the army is going back the way it came, up the nasal passage, down your throat… uuhhh I think that’s enough. I’ll suffice by asking a simple question: How many times you gonna spit? 1,2,5, 10 20? How much? You are losing there, honey.
You wake up and you realise that that your throat is so sore you don’t even want to open your mouth. Don’t even think of swallowing. A hundred spears ready to stab on your throat on a simple act of swallowing. The army has you by the throat. Down comes the heating rod to the rescue. Gargle after gargle followed by tea after tea and you can finally swallow again.
A sigh of relief.

5) The Army's Camp:
And you go to breakfast, *(cough cough)* eat some yummy parathas and the like *(cough cough cough)*. The day was quite busy and your friend’s pizza treat just added to that *(cough cough cough)*. And now you notice it, you are feeling a slight constriction in your chest. Oh no, no, no, no no GOD!!! NOOOO! You feel like screaming your head off!! Scream away honey…scream all you like, that’s not gonna bring the army that’s camped out in your lungs. Gargles, Toot Siah, Joshanda…nothing works!
And then you feel the tap on your shoulder only to turn back and hear your mother’s voice, we are gonna need an antibiotic dear, that frozen yoghurt aint coming back up on its own. And there goes your self-medication down the gutter. Pop away tablets all you want, you still have to pay a visit to the doctor and finally, after three long days you at last see the back of the army….that was a nice week long battle and you have emerged victorious. Congratulations!!

The Fellow Stranger

This is a recollection of a good deed done to me. My sister wanted her inter certificate from the board office. As I was the only one free in the house the job fell upon my shoulders. Now normally I don’t shy away from errands. But errands like these where one has to interact with public sector officials…well they are not my idea of a holiday. But still respecting my sis’s wishes I agreed to go. Now the Inter Board Office of Karachi is located in some far away wild area of Karachi, far from anywhere I have been in all the years in Karachi. Also it is located in an area which is frequently in the news…for all the wrong reasons. So I prepared my mind to go.

I googled up the address, found which buses go there on http://www.apnapoint.com/  and prepared all the docs I had to take with me. I had to change three buses to go there. On the last bus which would drop me at my destination, a guy came to sit beside me. After greetings he asked if I was going to the board office. Stumped…I looked at him, suddenly wary of him. I nodded and asked how he guessed that i was going to the board office? He said that you have that look. I asked him if he was going there too. He replied in the affirmative. Then we asked each other about their academic activities. Turned out that he was a private candidate in his second year. And apparently this was his eighth round of the board office. Through my discussion he rightly deduced that

>This was my first time at board office (read: that part  of Karachi)

>Government offices were not my thing

>I had no clue where to get the inter certificate

So he offered to help me out with my endeavour. I tried to refuse saying that no I’ll be fine, and that you shouldn’t waste your time, but he played me down.

We disembarked from the bus and went to the gate. Upon setting my eyes at the gate, I was like….wait. Where’s the office?

A road was leading from the gates into wilderness. After looking again I made out a building a good 400 metres down the road. It was a three-storey building which was looked down upon by a second building some 200 metres to the left and a third building which was hidden from view from the road. There were endless lines on several counters in the first building, and a great number of people were going in and out of the doors through the second building. A narrow corridor was leading from the side of the building leading into the third.

The guy I was with asked someone and pointed towards that corridor, telling me to go down the corridor to room 20 and ask for a guy named X. I met Mr X and within 15 minutes he handed me a slip telling me to come on the specified date.

I couldn’t believe it was over! I had come mentally planned for a tedious two hours! If past experiences with my college were any reference. But here, thanks to this guy, I had been saved two hours and a lot of toil. I looked for him on my way back but couldn’t spot him in the mammoth crowd. I wanted to thank him. But the fact is that I couldn’t thank him enough. What this guy had done for me, only ALLAH could reward him. I felt I had a moral obligation now to pass this good deed onwards, for that’s the only way I can truly thank this guy. I didn’t even know in which counter to go for information, and judging by the sizes of the lines on every counter even that would have taken me 20 minutes. I only wish now that wherever he is, may he encounter success on every step!