Below is part of a newsletter I received from a restaurant located in Zamzama, Karachi:
"We will be closed on Monday, 1st January 2007, on account of Eid-ul-Bakr. We will resume our services for dinner at 7:30 pm on Tuesday"
Now my question is, what is an Eid-ul-Bakr? The last time I checked it was Eid-ul-Adha where adha is derived from udhiya that means sacrifice or sacrificial meat. and Eid-ul-Adha would consequently mean the Festival or Celebration of Sacrifice.
Is this the latest in our sub-continent fads where we decide to rename Eid according to the animal we choose to sacrifice? Bring on the Eid-ul-Bael and Eid-ul-Oont as well then!
While we're on the topic, I regret to inform that Chand Raat is not the night before Eid-ul-Adha, Chand Raat of Eid-ul-Adha happens nine nights before the entire nation decides to step out and celebrate it.
Chew On This
Metallically Yours
Am I the only one who finds the mere option of getting a vacuum cleaner to fill the void caused by the absence of a person or his attention extremely worrisome? How can people be touched by this and not offended? What's the point of breaking your back at work if all it amounts to is being able to afford surrogate company for your spouse at home?
Robots That Fill an Emotional Vacuum
By Joel Garreau
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 29, 2006; C01
Comes now the minor miracle of The Week After Christmas, 2006.
These are the days when liberal-arts majors finally crossed the line, falling into an emotional relationship with a real robot. Not one on a movie screen, but one that scoots around their ankles, scaring the bejesus out of their cats -- isn't that fun to watch -- while actually being quite useful.
This week, women all over America -- and not a few men -- are cooing and doting over their surprise hit Christmas present. They swoon when it hides under the couch and plays peekaboo. When it gets tired and finds its way back to its nest, sings a little song and then settles into a nap, its little power button pulsing like a beating heart, on, off, on, off, they swear they can hear it breathe.
It's as cute as E.T., as devoted as R2D2, more practical than a robotic dog and cheaper than some iPods.
It's a Roomba, an artificially intelligent floor-vacuuming 'bot, and this is the year mountains of them rumbled off the shelves not just of nerdistans like the Sharper Image and Brookstone, but of mainstream players like Costco, Sears and Target. They landed on the floors not just of innovators and early adopters, as in the previous four years, but the hip majority targeted by "Saturday Night Live."
More than 2 million of the machines, which range in price from about $150 to $330, have been sold. The day after Christmas, a Roomba was among the top 20 items in Amazon.com's vast home-and-garden section, ahead of the top-selling iron, the top-selling blender, the top-selling coffeemaker and the top-selling George Foreman grill. In Housewares, different models were Nos. 1, 6 and 8, ahead of all the other vacuum cleaners, including the DustBusters.
"The Roomba is wonderful!" says Kazuko Price, a family practice physician in Alexandria who says her patients include a lot of "kids who come in and mess up." Her robot cleans four rooms.
"Well, sometimes he's dumb. He keeps going back to the same place. I kick him." She's named hers Robert.
Why does she thinks it's a boy? "Because I'm a she, that's why. I like guys."
On Epinions.com, a reviewer named "Leisure Larry" writes: "This was the first household item ever I gave my wife as a Christmas present. . . . I don't think many husbands would even dare and fewer would survive giving a vacuum cleaner as a Christmas present. It worked . . . she was thrilled!!"
She's named it Karlson.
These people are onto something. The wonder is only marginally about dust bunnies. It's about robot love.
The cultural moment when the walls between human and artificially intelligent machine began to tumble arguably came a couple of years ago when an "SNL" skit imagined a product called the Woomba, "the first fully automated completely robotic feminine hygiene product." That moment can now be revisited on YouTube.
This week, however, the cinematic moments occur in homes. Visit new Roomba owners and the scene is like those old war movies where you can hear the sounds of conflict, but all you can see are the faces of onlookers, cringing and turning away. The thumps and bumps under the bed finally end and suddenly these faces break into rapture as the Roomba emerges -- covered with dust, but victorious.
You can just envision tomorrow's movie pitch. A vacuuming Roomba falls in love with a Scooba -- the model that is designed to wash floors. They have a child. It is raised to know its place, as a lawn mower. But you know these kids. They have dreams. Real robots roam. It yearns to meander around Mars.
No less an authority than Bill Gates announces in the current issue of Scientific American that 2007 is the year the robotics industry will take off the way the personal computer industry did 30 years ago. "Some of the world's best minds are trying to solve the toughest problems of robotics," he writes. "And they are succeeding."
"We could have made the Roomba cuter," says Colin Angle, the chief executive officer of iRobot, the Massachusetts firm that makes the Roomba and Scooba as well as a host of military robots. "But we wanted to make sure this product was taken seriously. Rather than put a little bunny on top, we hit the efficacy message over and over again, because it appeals to the busy homemaker who has the job that needs to get done.
"And then she decides it's cute. The epiphany is when adults start talking about it as a helpful member of the family. You get them saying 'I do this and Rosie does that' or 'We can't imagine Rosie not helping us.' "
Indeed, the vast majority of Roombas get named, according to Angle. Kids name 40 percent of them when they're barely out of the box. The naming decision leads to questions of whether a Roomba is male or female. Rosie is the most common name, says Angle, after the robotic maid of "The Jetsons."
But the Roomba does seem kind of male, in an eager-to-please fifth-grader way. Adding to its Y-chromosome cred is that you wish it had a little more memory, and that its meanderings weren't so random. There's even a group on Amazon discussing why so many people view Roombas as male, although one contributor says, "Our Roomba is named Rhonda" and accordingly now sports "ponytail stickers and googly eyes on it to give it more personality." You see, the robot used to freak out the owner's toddler daughter. But after they converted it "into Rhonda -- she fell in love with 'her.' "
So, a note to future historians: Not only are our helpful robots no longer the preserve mainly of gear-heads and toy-freaks. This is the year for a lot of mainstream American families that our robots emotionally became one of us.
Carved on Stone
I've finally figured out a way to get Ami to use her gifts instead of saving them to hand them down to future generations: engrave her name on the gift.
The other day I was helping her clean out her closet and she found a really pretty wooden music jewelry box that Aamir Bhai gave her on her birthday some years ago. Ami didn't even remember who gave it to her but I knew it was Aamir Bhai since he gave me a music box and he also remains the reason why I started to like snow-globes as much as I do now.
Ami was about to wrap the box and put it back when I told her that although I usually support her decision to keep stuff she's not keen on using to hand down to her family, I seriously doubt we'll be having another Rehana fond of music boxes in the family anytime soon.
Alhamdo lillah that convinced her and she let me put the box on her end table. Now I hear the sweet tinkle of "Unchained Melody" each time Ami puts on or puts away her often worn rings or necklace.
Now to engrave her name on each sari she insists to keep in the futile hope that I'll wear it someday without wanting to cut it into three distinct pieces for shalwar kameez. Not to forget jewelry and jewelry, and clothes and more jewelry.
The Million Billion Gazillion Reasons Why I Love Sehyr 254,289,037,238
Winter Wonderland
Most people in the West attend Christmas parties and call them holiday parties.
Consequently the gifts they exchange are called holiday gifts.
Living in Pakistan our family receives many cards that give us the "Season's Greetings."
What's all this about anyway? I haven't come across anyone on the face of this earth who sends and receives season's greetings on the blessed seasons of autumn, spring and summer. Then why is winter so ostentatiously celebrated? Season's greetings! Let's join hands in a Communal Icicle Freeze!
It's at times like these that I feel drained just thinking of our ready assimilation towards festivities mainly created by card and gift companies for their personal prosperity. So much that we tend to not think of our two Eids with its due reverence. There is a chand raat for Eid ul Adha ignorantly on the day before Eid even though the moon was sighted nine days before.
MCB's marketing scheme for Eid ul Fitr made my blood boil. What's the big idea behind pressuring people to take out personal loans to buy "more than bangles" or "go designer this Eid?"
It's almost as if we're apologetic about the fact that our Eids are not as glitzy as other occassions strewn all over billboards and Expos at the Expo Center.
What's so enlightening or liberating about assimilation? Albeit towards an idea, a festival or even a sentiment?
Speaking of assimilation, I will write about the KaraFilm Festival soon insha Allah.