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The content below includes few words from me on my obsession with writing, my articles and contributions for various publication including Gulf News,Khaleej Times, and a great number of my YT contributions A treat for all articulation aficionados)

I was bitten by journalism bug somewhere back in the ending years of last century, it was perhaps my sis who decided to order few freelance journalism brochures just for the fun of it and since then I’ve never looked back. These days I m knee deep in love with journalism .I love reading reviews, love stories and about psychology the most. Well I love to write too and one of my dreams is to become a freelance journalist. Even in the professional life I would love to pursue freelance journalism on sidelines.

These days I am working on a cover story for Dubai-based youth magazine Young Times and other UAE based magazines, What On, Time Out et al. If you are also bitten by writing bug, do tell me, we would have a great time together .

A lot of my contributions have won a spot in GN ,Soon I'll make them available here

A while ago I sent an epistle to KT editor which generated much enthusiasm amongst KT's readers.Here is the letter along with a footnote from the editor.

Articulation is the one of the coolest section of young times .I would rather say it is To Young Times what Global Village is to DSF.A site where everyone one wants to be. And everyone wants to be the first one too. Here many of the entries which I’ve sent for articulation.umm If you wish to believe my calculations, I think I’ve spent more hours churning articulation entries than the no. of hours Rome was built in simply cause I love it.

Teenager’s life is crammed with first time’s .For the first time in many years I sat on the kerb side outside my house in the midst of night and gazed incessantly at the nature’s canvas. For the first time I found myself broke when I was supposed to pay more two hundred chips for a trolley filled to rim (sheesh!)...for the first time in my life an impish kid out of nowhere tugged at my shirt and claimed vehemently in front of my friends that I was his father (gee!), and to top it all for the first time l learnt to reverse a car, but thank goodness that I didn’t end up smacking the car into a garbage bin which was just trivial distance back.

Quite honestly, for the first time in my life despite the sword of exams dangling I couldn’t wean my mind off the thoughts of this belle (name concealed!)…for the first time since summer hols I didn’t send my entry to articulation (because of xams)…for the first time in my life I saw the second half of a movie before the first (lol!)..For the first time in my life I pressed my clothes (but ended up baking them) and to top it all for the first time in my life someone from opposite sex said “I love you” to me but it turned out to be an SMS sent to a wrong number. Alas!

. For the first time in exams I was ready to handover my answer sheet back after the first four minutes and twenty seconds. In the exams for the first time I penned down a whole lot of paragraphs on something I didn’t possess an iota of idea about .For the first time someone from opposite sex said “I love you” to me (it turned out to be an SMS sent to a wrong number. gee!).For the first time I applied “lipstick”, moisturizer and mascara to give the fairer sex a run for their beauty and for the first time one morning I shaved quarter of my face due to post haste and the leftover patches prompted laughter from every onlooker, my brother ,the cabby, my schoolmates et al.

Wow! I would clone the love of the Mughal emperor.Jahangir who built Taj Mahal for his wife and I’ll provide that “love for wife” to all hubbies , I would clone the prosperity of well-heeled nations and give that prosperity to all poor countries, I would clone the peace of the peaceful countries and proffer it to war-torn countries, I would clone the genius of the mights of Einstein, Edison, Newton and ‘myself ’ and offer it for cipher dollars to everyone ,I would clone the beauty of belles and give that to every ordinary looking lass ,I would clone the money-minting abilities of Microsoft and use it for my company, Genius Arts inc, and last but not the least I would clone the Gift voucher and give it to every yt’er as Eidee.. Anyways Happy Eid;)

I would clone the rainbow before it blurs out in the sky, I would clone my youth before it wanes I would clone the twilight before it gives way to darkness, I would clone the ‘world peace’ before it dwindles to naught, I would clone the voice of cuckoo and give it to William so that he can enjoy it all day and all year long, I would clone my life’s cherishing moments so that I can savor them later and last but not the least I would clone the festivities of Xmas ,Eid and Diwali et al so that we can acquire delight from them during the rest of the year too ..Anyways happy Eid;)

What a cool phenomena! If I were to bump into such situation I would really derive great fun out of it. If I were to tap on the shoulder of the girl to propose her and she metamorphosed into a he and then gave me a what-do-you want look I would just tell him that I wanted to glimpse my face in him to groom it for the “perfect” date I was heading for or if I would wake up in the midst of night after a chilling nightmare and I would like to know “who I am”, I would just go to my bro’s room and view my face in his face to know who I am without any hullabaloo as he would be deep in slumbers .

I would just start gazing at the posters of gorgeous celebrities and models to observe how my face would look on their bodies donned in branded clobber and then I would see myself in the mannequins of apparel stores .This would confer me with a perfect idea about which sort of attire to buy for Eid shopping and this would serve as answer to all my dressing and fitting problems .And then I would bet all young timers to come up with a more perfect dressing sense than mine;_

School in a sort of competition whose thrilling end according to one of the team members reminisced him of Miandad’s famous six in sharjah. After the last round of the quiz the PIHS Alain team reached a tie with the host school .The quiz came to a log jam when even three questions to each team later didn’t help in deciding the winner. The fourth question settled the air of uncertainty as PIHS Alain were answered the question while the host school’s team didn’t

On a fateful night of 2002 AD I found myself imprisoned in the dreams of world’s most famous scientist .On the night of 19^th November the same year a revolutionary idea dawned on the mind of the professor while asleep. The perfect idea was of prolonging

Only the last person on earth would want me to dwell in his/her dreams as I would continue with my antics even in someone’s dreams and all night s/he would be rolling on floor with laughter’s to the dismal of their bedmates and it would not be late when the person would desperately pray for just one of his/her dreams to come true and that would be getting rid of the VJ (me!!) of their dreams. And if their prayer sees the light of the day then I would be back to reality. Ain’t I intelligent?

It would be so kool to reside in the dreams. Owing to my natural restlessness I would drift from a person’s dreams to another one’s dreams just after every few weeks .My Year planner would read something like this… Jan to March: Penelope Cruz’s dreams, April to mid June:kareena kapoor’s dreams Summer season: Jennifer Aniston’s dreams (with due apologies to Brad Pitt) and rest of the year I would fritter away punishing some wicked soul by haunting him in his dreams or rather nightmares.

If the nightmare would be intensely frightening then I might be a dead soul in grave, if it would be mildly harrowing then I would be sleepy similar to you with beads of sweat skidding down from my forehead, otherwise I would just wake up to find webs protruding from my hand and seeing reflexes to discover that the “Spiderman” was not only a figment of imagination of a human but it is manifesting in none other human than me(Gosh!!).

I would be a human among the legions of aliens around me on the planet Alienus(sister of planet Venus) and then I would eavesdrop them designing a stratagem to decimate Planet earth and there I would meet a pitiable damsel whose beauty was so overwhelming that the their king send an ensemble of one million aliens to steal and escort her to their planet from ours. I would then along with her device a counter-plan to save earth and finally would save earth but in the process whole of the world would become unarmed and the good ol’ days of swords will come back (and will at least bring a whiff of peace with them) .No prizes for guessing who will win the hand of that damselJ

The moment for which I had counted seconds all my life betrayed me and as I transmuted into girl, I couldn’t put up with this shock and blacked out instantly. Though she hated me before but she carried the new feminine me to hospital where I remained for nearly half year. During these lean moments of my life she was the only one to stay by my bedside nursing me as she confessed that she couldn’t detach with her new best friend because of some strange appeal .On the day I was to be discharged from hospital I just wished I could tell her the truth and propose her and as I tapped on her shoulder for the second time in my life ….abracadabra! I recovered back to my masculine form again. What happened next is what happens in fairy tales ;)

would apprise her that her beaux who loved her from bottom of his heart and associated her with everything in his life has died a natural death and informed me few moments before his death that the last wish of his life was that I would become your best friend. Then to fill the vacuum in her life drilled by the death of her “lover” she would befriend me and viola! Our love will stand this test of time too. Who says you can’t possess your love after your death?

When I approached the first crush in my life to propose my love for her I transmuted into a girl (Sheesh!), then gradually settling down into my new feminine skin I fell in love with the boyfriend of my life’s first crush then as I tapped on his shoulder to confess my feeling for him I turned Into a boy again. Life has always been cheating me badly since, Now I have fallen in love with this shoe mart voucher. I would plead you to send a voucher holder with it lest I metamorphose into a girl on touching the voucher.

2 ounces of toothpaste, shampoo and piercingly pungent detergent in modicum mixed with bleach dissolved in a gallon of petroleum, heated and sun-baked for 21 and a quarter will provide me with a mixture which when crushed and pulverized and applied over any thing will make it invisible. But the only fear I possess is that lest smelling it transports me six feet downward making me invisible forever… PS:I have sourced this recipe from “Articulation Times” from an article scribed by Munawar shariff and any consequences whatsoever arising from the use of this recipe will be borne by her ….hehehaha(the devilish one!!!) .

I would merely splurge six hundred billion dirhams to buy everyone on this planet specs which would induce blindness in viewing me (my DNA code would be encrypted in the specs), the goggles as soon as worn by the victim will make me invisible to him/her even if I would be pulling his /her hairs or whatever .Anyways as every spec would cost hundred dirhams, I wouldn’t vacillate to swap it with the gift voucher. So this week’s winner or any other week’s winner may contact me if s/he wants to swap their gift voucher with the most exclusive specs on earth.

This one’s a surefire recipe to concoct clothes which would make me or anyone wearing them invisible. (Go ahead try it for yourself).Just cull any of your fav clothing from your wardrobe, soak it in the solution of the mixture of at least nine brand of dyes and detergents and pass x rays (invisible rays) through the clothes for 7 and a half hours and smother them for half an hour and consign them outside the abode of any budding artist and steal the “clothing turned piece of art” from that artists residence few days later and viola! Your apparel which transports you to invisibility flickers you like a bulb in the midst of desert is there for you to enjoy.Chill!

Bill Gates would be in Burj-ul-Arab for the next STARS foundation show and all and sundry, the hotel stewards and concierges’ et al would be lavishing attention and bounties on him and being a minnow I would be stranded in a corner with the whole scenario before my eyes .Suddenly when he will cast his gaze on me the faces of both of us will become identical. At that moment as he would be mulling how Microsoft can mint from this phenomena I would take his place and claim to be him and then the world would never be the same Munawar S don’t dare not award the future Bill G this week’s gift voucher.

This would drop a great opportunity in my lap for my shenanigans. Whenever I would feel like bursting with anger I would just don spooky masks and start roaming around and all blokes around me would look ridiculous to me .For tickling my funny bone I might wear funny masks like that of canines or felines and all around me would look cats and dogs to me .What a great phenomena! I would view the world the way I want to. It would be verified then that Beauty (and spitefulness) lies in the eyes (+face in this case) of beholder.

Thanx ! Munawar, for waking the poet in me. Here’s my reply to your challenge..

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Yippee! This topic is sure gonna elicit highly creative juices from all those prolific young timers. Here’s my message to all young timers courtesy articulation ……..Rise to your level best, With all the fervor and zest ,‘Cause a fulfilling life is a best one, a life which is cool and fun…..and here’s an add-on to this poem ….The sky can be within your access, if you can rise above the mess ,So push the envelopes, and rise to uncharted success

Next week the topic textbox would be empty with a caption “”so I succeeded in fooling you guys hehehaha” or the topic of next week would be “when will I be ask the next sane question” or the topic

might be about the topic of the subsequent week’s or Articulation would be absent from the mag(which would not be less than a nightmare!!),whatever the topic it would stimulate us to think differently ,laterally, creatively as always it does .CheersJ

The topic would be “What if you wake up to find yourself in the abode of Bill Gates in his shape and exactly like him and everyone on the earth is hell bent on treating you as Bill Gates when even you seek to convince them Avogadro number’s times that you are not Bill Gates” or it might be “what if you suddenly find everyone around you, exactly behaving like you or in other words mirroring you on TV ,on radio, on cinema screens, in theatres ,in shops, on streets, in your house and wherever you go or next week we might be asked to pool in our votes for the best topic since Articulation took the magazine by storm.

As only wackiest of topics dare to step into the portals of articulation thus the most likely nominees from me for next week topics are(1)Why can’t we wear clouds(2)Why www doesn’t stand for World Wide Washerwomen (3)If words are parentless the how do they come into existence(4)Who coined the word “coin”(5)What if words start dropping ,skidding or dangling from books and magazines and last but not the least the topic would be “what topic would you suggest if you were to asked to submit any topic on the theme why-submit-topics and the winner was to win seven digit inheritance of a billionaire plus usual footwear chain vouchers.

I would kiss such a great mirror for the sheer inspiration it reflects. I would treasure the mirror and during harder times I would market it and then make a huge fortune by selling it in an auction most probably. Don’t worry all you guys and guls because I would be giving you all free passes of the auction. You will just have to answer this question.. Why does the mirror doesn’t transport us back a decade instead of vice versa. (entries through snail mail only!!)

Hmm..i would invite all the science fiction writers ,journalists ,friends and relatives to catch a glimpse of it.. And viola few months later my mirror would get immortalized when it would become a fodder for movies, books researches and all related media. Being an aspiring philanthropist I would donate the mirror then to some Physics boffin for research purposes who would then construct mirrors capable even of commuting us to a century in the past or in the future. I am starting to register People for accompanying me to these time travels .Munawar call it bribing or what; you have a real chance of going through this exhilarating experience. Just you have to declare the winner of ..you-know-what.

I would commit the silliest thing possible…shatter the mirror reducing it to shards ….Sounds aggressive…but shouldn’t we live in the moment and dance like no one’s watching .What if the mirror shows me an aging me with streaks of grey hair and wrinkle-packed pace with a bulging belly and a hunch.Arrgh.. I better concentrate on my present self then let the this kinda figure give my head a big spin

Munawar! God bless with you with Noah’s age for solving this problem of mine. In my pics I look much younger than I am according to many guys taimur saleem et al .I would just snap my future self with the aid of an automatic camera and post it on my personal website , msn public profile and photo albums so that no one dismisses me as an 18 year kid.. Nevertheless I will have come up with some fix for the all the embarrassment and staring would get if someone would catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror or reflecting colored glasses .

Umm…I would send snaps of my future self to all those delicious and irresistible celebrities like Angelina Jolie ,Jenifer Lopez et al claiming that I am the best match for them…or I would earn bucks by showing my refection to public(what a cool source of pocket money??????)…the mirror would at least purvey with something relieve me everyday when I would come back from school. Last but not the least I would write a piece of fiction which would have a protagonist who sights herself ten years ahead in the mirror, and who knows I the next time I see myself in the mirror laughing all the way to the bank ,and being palced in the annals of history with none other than JK rowling.