Sound the (Passenger) Alarm

On Monday morning I set off for work ten minutes earlier than usual thinking I'd experiment and see what difference it might make to my commute. Trains get full pretty quickly in the morning rush and I'd often find myself not being able to get onto a train and having to wait a few minutes for the next one. The general state of London public transport doesn't help (Piccadilly line troubles) and given the general cold and wintry weather, I'm keen to minimise my time outdoors standing on train platforms! 

On this occasion, the platform announcer announced additional delays and I had to wait for three trains before I could board one, which completely ruined my extra ten minutes. Once on board, it was standing room only and as the train moved on and we passed through one, two, three more stations, the carriage became increasingly full to a point where personal space is no longer acknowledged and everyone is jammed up against each other. Naturally, it gets very hot and uncomfortable as everyone is dressed for the cold outdoor weather and wrapped up in many layers. In addition, the train line that I use starts at Heathrow Airport so is always also carrying numerous travellers with large and voluminous suitcases which take up valuable space and reduce mobility.

As the train pulled into Acton Town station I felt a little jostling at my back and I stoically ignored it like any self-respecting London commuter would. It irritatingly continued so I turned around to give my best glare at the person responsible to find that the lady responsible wasn't really in control of herself and looked like she was about to collapse! The train doors opened while someone said "she's not well" which was a needless statement. A seated tourist lady saw what was happening and suggested that someone should pull the alarm at which I, along with everybody else on the carriage, collectively thought "Damn" (or a stronger word to indicate displeasure). 

I'm fairly sure I wasn't the only one to make the mental calculation that pulling the alarm would delay everyone and if the lady could just get off the train while it was already stopped, everyone could be on their way and she could get any help she might need on the platform. Everyone's a winner!

No such luck. The lady continued to sway without intent and the tourist lady continued to clamour. The tension was broken by the beeping of the doors signalling their imminent closure. Again the mental calculations that it was now too late, someone would have to pull the alarm if the lady was going to get any help but was anyone going to be brave enough to do so? Yes was the answer, someone near the cord did pull the train alarm and the doors stopped in their beeping and stayed open and the train stayed still.

At this stage another mental calculation went through my mind. The lady wasn't going to be able to get off the carriage by herself but anyone who did help would be honour bound to make sure she was eventually OK and who knew how long that might take. We were all either on our way to work or tourists unfamiliar with the emergency systems. Maybe there was someone with her who could help her?

Everyone stood and watched and after what felt like an eternity, I had enough and stepped forward to half-carry and help the lady stagger off the train and onto the platform where after seating her down on a bench and checking she had her bag, I tried to find out what had happened. It seemed relatively obvious that she was fainting due to heat but I thought it worth checking. Shortly after that the platform attendant came along to investigate and I assured him the lady was responsive and coping OK and he trotted off to get the train moving again. The lady was fully coherent by this stage and I eventually left her and continued on my way to work armed with an exciting story.*

About fifteen seconds passed from when I first turned around to glare until I reached out to stop her from falling. It felt like a lot longer while all these considerations and calculations ran through my head and it certainly felt like an impossibly long fifteen seconds with the curious series of events.

It was curious that on a train surrounded by people, practically everyone was frozen by the thought of personal and general inconvenience. 

I think that everyone knew the right thing to do - to help the lady who clearly needed assistance. But at the same time, everyone was conflicted that if they did help there might be a penalty for someone else to pay. A delayed train would make people late for work - obviously an important part of people's lives and not everyone has the luxury of flexible start times. In the consideration of the wider good, could they help someone in distress? A little bit of a philosophical dilemma.

The other conflict was after the alarm had been pulled and everyone was going to be delayed a few minutes, would anyone take the hit to further inconvenience and further delay themselves to help a stranger in need. It was definitely a calculation that ran through my head and while I did I decide that her human need was greater than my desire to arrive at work on time, I'm very curious that it was something I actually had to consider. I also like to think that if I hadn't helped, someone else would have but who really knows. Maybe they'd have waited for the platform attendant and potentially valuable time would pass. In this case it was a relatively minor faint and not a heart attack or something very time-sensitive so maybe that's why people were reticent to assist immediately.

Lots of interesting questions to think about, not least of which is what would I like to have happened if it had been me fainting, but to my mind an interesting take away was that the world would be a much darker place without the kindness of strangers and if in doubt, help first and ask questions later. 

*The lady was indeed fine in the end - I coincidentally saw her again on Tuesday morning on the same train!

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Contemplation

My maternal grandmother passed away in India last night after a long and active life of 90 years. Given her age and that at last news her health was deteriorating, it didn't come as a complete surprise but the event does certainly stir the emotions. When Muslims hear of a death, we say inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi rajioon - To God we belong and to Him we return. It's light on the tongue but a heavy and beautiful reminder that our lives are not ours to fritter away but to make the most of it with goodly action as we are all going to go on that path, or as Game of Thrones would have it - valar morghulis.

Living as we did, several thousand miles apart, most of what I remember about her was from my childhood when we'd make frequent family trips to India but even then, I don't immediately remember a great deal from those trips - as a child my major concern was that we'd always go in the summer holidays which corresponded to monsoon season in India which meant we were mostly indoors.

Upon hearing of her death, I pondered - trying to remember what I could about her. I remember an old photo where she was robustly holding my toddler self while my older cousins posed and I remember the last time I saw her. I last visited India ten years ago and my Urdu is quite awful so when I was around her I couldn't communicate all that effectively but I remember her waving from the window when we were making our goodbyes and I remember thinking how small and fragile she looked, and in my youthful arrogance, wondering if I'd see her again. Not my greatest moment but I do also remember praying for her and myself as a result.

In all honesty, it saddens me to admit that I didn't know much about her beyond a general overview of her life. My memories of her are clearly very limited and 90 years is a long time and those who were geographically closer like my cousins will no doubt tell me numerous stories about her as the days go by. I could be very wrong (and I'm sure my cousins will correct me if so!) but hers was not a life of grand and momentous activity but a relatively simple life much like countless anonymous others. Growing up in a village before ending up in Mumbai with my grandfather, she did her duty and fulfilled her religious and social role: believer, daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother.

That's not to say her life was unimportant - every life is. She was loved by those she knew and to those whose lives she was directly or indirectly involved in she made a huge difference and had huge impact. The values she instilled in her children live on in the generations that came after and our very existence was naturally dependent on her. Her descendants have ended up all over the globe making what further impact they can in their own social circles and much like ripples on the sea, it's impossible to track what far-reaching effect these are having.

It's more than a passing curiosity that, even in our modern and progressive world, when people hear of a death they grow solemn and supportive and still acknowledge that the ending of a life is a significant thing. My various WhatsApp groups have been hugely supportive with prayers for her forgiveness and granting of Paradise to her and it's genuinely moving and appreciated. People make time to visit close relatives of the deceased and even brand new work colleagues are understanding of the need for flexibility.

When we hear of the death of strangers on the news its relatively easy to dissociate oneself from it but when it's someone you know who's been affected it's all that much closer to home and that little phrase becomes a stark reminder of our own mortality and the productiveness of our own existence.

To God we belong and to Him we return.

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Hello from the other side

I had my first day at my new job today. After the utter shock and insensibility of the latter half of last week with Trump becoming President-Elect of the USA, my previous state of general calm had been somewhat destabilised and I was a little excited and nervous for my own new beginning at Virgin Media. In preparation for the new job I had temporarily moved over to a friend's flat in West London to make my commute a lot more manageable so along with my new job I also had a new location to add to the general feeling of change. Something to discuss in another post maybe.

I woke up early today but was a bit complacent as a result and took my time to get ready and ended up leaving a couple minutes after my planned departure time. In turn, this meant that I spent the half an hour to the office more concerned about arriving on time than about any apprehensions I might have otherwise had. This has actually happened previously and is quite an effective way of calming oneself - being more worried about punctuality so that when you do actually arrive, you're so relieved you forget to be nervous! Very useful for interviews where you can comfortably deflect any blame for lateness on to traffic/transport.

People say that first impressions are lasting impressions and I'd say I mostly agree. The first impression someone makes on you goes a long way to building trust and confidence in them and while a bad first impression can be turned around, it's definitely much easier to start off on the right foot. I'd spent the run-up to today keeping a low social profile and talking almost exclusively only to those I love and I could be totally relaxed with in an effort to save and build up my social energy for today.

The rest of the day went past quite quickly. I got to know my new team who are a very pleasant and helpful bunch of people, sorted out my various accesses and technologies, explored my new premises and was pleased to find that the contemplation/prayer room was immediately behind where my desk is. I was also very excited to discover that the cafe across the road from the office served halal food! In short, a very successful first day alhamdulillah (praise be to God) and not much to complain about beyond the poor weather. The various anxieties that came and went in the lead up to today pretty much all turned out to be non-existent and unjustified!


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Oh dear

What just happened?! I woke up this morning thinking the worst thing that could happen today was that my car might be snowed in (I'm currently in Scotland). Instead, as I checked the news expecting to read of Americans coming to their senses and of an electoral rout by Hillary, I found that Donald Trump is pretty much going to be the next President of the United States of America.

I'm about as shocked as I was for Brexit, possibly more so as I'm not in the US so not so personally aware of the issues that drive people to make such a ridiculous voting choice. 

It's all a bit too raw and too soon for me so while the result is made certain and the dust settles and the ramifications of this event become clear, I'm just going to praying super-hard.

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Clinton or Trump?

Obviously Hillary. How is this still even a question?! It is absolutely ridiculous and mind-boggling that in the latest polls Clinton and Trump are still running close.

Over the years as I've grown a little bit more aware of politics and government I've developed a healthy scepticism of politicians and world leaders. At the very basic minimum, I've realised that leaders have to make difficult choices and decisions and no one is ever going to agree with everything any of them do and they'll receive criticism from someone regardless of what they do. And that getting things done in a large organisation (or the wider world) takes diplomacy, compromise and and ability to generate consensus.

In the upcoming presidential election, the US voter has a choice. Option one is Hillary Clinton, who's been involved with government for the past 30 years and has huge amounts of experience in getting things done and keep the wheels of government rolling. There's been controversy over her use of a private email server while secretary of state which the FBI have just cleared her again of criminality.

In that 30 years, she's had to make difficult decisions with regards to government decisions, be involved with wars and is responsible for the consequences of those actions, lots of which are pretty negative (loss of life is never a good thing). But in that same time frame she's also been involved with and responsible for a number of good things. Having been part of government for that long means it's guaranteed that she'll have changed her views since the beginning of her career and also have made numerous backroom and unsavoury deals in order to get things done. There's skeletons in everyone's closet.

And the other choice is Donald Trump. A candidate with just the most outrageous public views on a whole range of minority racial and religious groups, no practical experience of government, a number of ridiculous policies, who has alienated the party he's managed to get nominated by, denied holding views thats he's documented and filmed to have held, proven himself to have a notoriously thin skin for personal attacks whilst attacking everyone else, is a businessman who lost a billion dollars in a single year and as a result hasn't paid taxes for the last 18 years whilst attacking others for allegedly not paying taxes, also hasn't published his tax returns which convention says should be done by presidential candidates and has been filmed casually discussing his preferred method of sexually assaulting women.

I repeat, how is this still a question? The choice is between these two for, in essence, the most powerful person in the world, a leader who will be taking responsibility for how the world runs for the next four years and who will have to make supremely difficult decisions. We simply cannot have a person as volatile as Trump in that hot seat. People will disagree with policies and personal positions on both sides and that will colour their opinions but even if they were both horrible people, at the very least Hillary can pretend to be a decent human being and knows what the decent and non-offensive things to say in public are. Trump's public views are incredibly divisive, offensive and dangerous.

America, please stop this ridiculousness and show the world that offence and division are not the way forward.

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Goodbye with/without regret?

I've spent the last month at work steadily working down my notice period up until today when I finally walked out of my office for the last time. It's been an interesting month, not least because I handed in my notice the day after a new person joined my team to work alongside me, but also because of the emotional rollercoaster of saying goodbye and moving on to a new circumstance.

I began the transition and handover of some of my projects to my new colleague and in doing so began to realise the actual, surprisingly impressive scale of the things I was responsible for. I had been thinking I wasn't doing all that much so my initial thought was that the handover would be done in a week and then I would be twiddling my thumbs for the rest of the month - I was quite looking forward to the relaxation! In reality, the handover went on all the way until the half an hour before I left because it turned out I was actually doing quite a lot. I was very pleased and amused by this - I'd overlooked that I had slowly built up the know-how and depth for my projects over a year and a half and become somewhat desensitised to how much I was actually doing.

On the other side of the emotional coin was the feeling of having a deadline to my relationships with the various friends I had collected through seeing and interacting with them on a daily basis. Jokes were made and banter was had, but this being the third job I would leave, I was very aware that while I might add everybody on LinkedIn, people are busy and move on quickly and only a few would end up keeping in touch and I myself would only keep in touch with a few.

I also had a leaving lunch today with colleagues who'd been on my team. At the end of the meal, following standard office tradition, I was given a gift and a card signed by numerous others from the office. Upon returning to my desk, I finished off my handover activity and then scratched around for things to delay my departure so I could stay around my friends for a little longer. But I didn't have anything left to do and they did have things to do so I called it a day, said my goodbyes and left the building.

I read the card on the way home and some of the comments were touchingly personal and some were expectedly general ("Good luck Yusuf!") but still nice to see and made it even more of an emotional wrench to have said goodbye.

I had made my choice to leave a month previously when I had accepted my next job and I handed my notice in but as with any kind of change I wondered whether I handled things correctly, whether I had done the best I could and whether there were things I might have done differently? There is an emotional cycle to change and even if you end up where you were hoping to be, the human mind loves to play "What If...?" games.

You can always imagine that there might have been a better outcome, or if you'd tried harder, you could have avoided having to leave or change your situation. Or look at the upcoming uncertainty and imagine it's going to be totally terrible and being to regret having made the decision. There's a quote which is (mistakenly) attributed to Mark Twain: "Some of the worst things in my life never even happened". The human mind is a powerful thing and imagined, unlikely and hypothetical scenarios can put you off making good decisions.

From my perspective, I had made my decision based on the knowledge available to me at the time and with the realisation that maintaining the status quo has repercussions just as changing the situation does. The future is always uncertain and regardless of whether you do a particular thing or do not, circumstances will change around you and you'll end up with regrets either way for what might have been if you made the opposite decision.

I had also done Istikhara (Islamic Guidance Prayer), the meaning of which is particularly beautiful and reassuring. I've pasted the second half of it below, but in essence you're requesting assistance from God to help you be certain that you've made the right decision, to be pleased with the outcome and free you from the consuming burden of regret. And that is freedom is a great mental state to have when making decisions.

O Allah! If in Your Knowledge [this matter] be good for my faith (Deen), for my livelihood, and for the consequences of my affairs, then ordain it for me, and make it easy for me, and bless me therein. But if in Your Knowledge, [this matter] be bad for my faith (Deen) for my livelihood, and for the consequences of my affairs, then turn it away from me, and turn me away therefrom, and ordain for me the good wherever it be, and cause me to be pleased therewith.


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Qibla and reliance on technology

Qibla app not quite working as it should

I was sat at my computer at work this afternoon when up popped a new email notification. It turned out to be a message from another of the Muslims in the office stating the direction of the Qibla (Mecca) along with a couple of maps as supporting evidence. I was mildly surprised - it was a little out of the blue as there had been no previous discussion of the issue and so far as I knew the direction I and others prayed in was well known and consistent. I bemusedly shrugged it off as the sender being a little bored and quickly forgot about it.

Later in the afternoon I remembered I hadn't prayed Zuhr (early afternoon prayer) and upon checking the time realised I only had a few minutes in which to do so. I hurriedly left my desk and went down to the first aid/prayer room and found myself a little disgruntled to see a man already using the sink for wudhu (ablutions). Didn't he know I was running late? I waited for him to finish and quietly chatted to the other man in the room and immediately as the sink became available, I performed wudhu. So far nothing out of the ordinary. 

But once I'd finished I turned to ask the first chap if we could pray in jamaat (as a group in congregation) and spotted that he'd placed his prayer mat in slightly the wrong direction. He wasn't out by much but I informed him he wasn't quite oriented properly - to which he responded that he was. The other guy in the room agreed with me and we both suggested that he should orient himself in the direction I indicated and I placed my prayer mat on the ground to show him what we meant.

He said no and whipped out his phone to show us a Qibla compass app which pointed in the direction he was facing and said another person had also done the same thing with their phone and they'd both gotten the same direction. At this point I understood why the email had been sent out earlier - someone else must've had this same discussion and not been impressed with obstinacy. It was not a new discussion to me - Qibla direction is a fairly common discussion point and in fact, shortly after I joined the company I myself had spent a chunk of time with architect's floorplans and Google maps and Qibla direction websites to identify to my own satisfaction which direction Mecca was in.

But with only a few minutes left in which to pray, I didn't have time to argue and explain the problems that phone compass sensors have inside buildings where they're surrounded by metal objects and electromagnetic-field-generating electrical devices or the previous discussions that had been had or the various lengths people (including myself) had gone to to work out the direction to our best understanding. His app had said this was the direction and his faith in technology was strong and stubborn and without freedom of time, I yielded the discussion and got on with the prayer united in congregation and his chosen direction.

Reliance on technology has become a way of the world with ever more devices, machines and apps that take care of all the details, big and small. They take away a lot of stress and make life a lot easier and we end up so reliant on them that we only notice when they break down. This isn't usually a problem - I'm perfectly happy to take a train to work, drive a car, use my phone as my alarm clock or type up a blog post on a computer. Technology as a tool is great but technology as a source of information is a whole other can of worms. 

The first claim to state is that information is only ever as good as the source. A known liar is no good as a source and a stranger shouldn't be taken at face-value. In day to day life, we laugh at people who use the Daily Mail as their evidence for stories and universities won't even accept Wikipedia as a citable source because, despite its sometimes overwhelming range and detail, the source of information on the website is unknown. Knowing what has gone into producing a piece of information is vital to being able to trust it. 

A couple of days ago I came across an interesting article on the BBC about how mathematical models are being used to score defendants on their likelihood to commit crime. The article mentions how the algorithm/model behind the scoring is a black-box secret. Yet it's apparently being used to decide whether a person is guilty or a crime or not. As someone who works in 'big data' this sets off all my alarm bells. If in my consultative work I built a model without explaining how it worked I'd be laughed out of the meeting room! Yet here is a live example of people making sentencing decisions based on "Computer says 'Yes'". 

In the case of the Qibla app above, the man had downloaded the app but didn't have an understanding of how it worked. It gave him an answer to a question he had and so far as he was concerned it had to be the right answer as it was a machine. Never mind that people were telling him otherwise. Just didn't occur to him that a machines can go wrong if the inputs are wrong. The image at the start of this post show just how wrong apps can be.

At the Saturday School I volunteer at, I get supremely infuriated and irritated when the A level students are using their calculators for the simplest calculations. I often confiscate them when I see them using a calculator to work out 1^2 or when they're confused after typing in a calculation and getting a different solution to the answer-sheet - "they're using a calculator so it must be correct and the answer-sheet wrong" - without realising they've actually typed the input numbers correctly.

It's a worrying trend that as technology gets more and more complicated, fewer and fewer people understand how it works and are happy to take it on blind faith that it works properly. The only real way to fight the trend is to get educated and learn more about the technology that controls you and the world around you and to be constantly aware that even the best machine is only as good as its input - what do you know of the input?

To quote Arthur Weasley in Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets "What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain.”

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