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1 Couchsurfing:If you travel a lot over to new places, this is the website to make memories. It’s a social network to meet locals in new places and experience the place from their angle. You can invite people to stay with you at your place as a host.2. How Stuff Works: Well, the name says it all. How Stuff works gives you the insights into different processes. Be it something as easy as how does an IP protocol works or how does Alcohol affects your body, I binge read the website for hours. I love how they have linked the website to each other.3. Spreeder: Spreeder teaches you to read faster and understand things quickly. It will for sure make you productive with time.4. Highbrow: Highbrow is an website that provides you daily lessons on different topics ranging from Productivity to Business to Technology. You can find all sorts of lessons delivered to your mailbox every morning. Every lesson is worth 5 minutes of your time and you cannot subscribe to more than one course at a time as it will play with your attention.5. StumbleUpon: StumbleUpon is a place where you literally stumble upon things. Choose your interests from the list and click on the stumble upon icon which looks like ohm. Every time you will be presented with an article, image, infographic or video from all over the web. You will be presented with cool stuff all the time.6. Nerd Fitness: There is a lot of bullshit regarding fitness out there. These guys are helping you out with all that. Videos, Blogs and Training regimes for nerds, jockeys and everyone who wants to level up their game in fitness. This site has taught me how small lessons can boost up your life with exercise. There is a lot of free stuff on the website that you can get help from.7. Cooking for Engineers : Cooking for Engineers is again a cooking site for nerds. There’s a technical twist to cooking on this website. All the recipes and ingredients are analysed for best results. If you like cooking with everything to be perfect with accurate facts, go visit this website now.8. Information is beautiful: If you’re bored of information in just text format, visit this website. This website provides information on various topics in beautiful pictures, charts and infographics. You can roam around on website for hours and never get bored.9. Duolingo: Duolingo is a great website to learn new languages. You will have to be persistent with the website in order to learn a new language here and over time you will see the results. It’s fun to learn new language on this website(or App).10. Lumosity: Learning new things via games has been fun since Kindergarten and this website is just the same. You can learn calculations, improve your vocabulary and much more on this website.11. Khanacdemy: What started off as a teaching program for cousins ended up into one of the biggest knowledge store for users all around the world. Khanacademy has a collection of usefull video lessons on various topics ranging from Maths to Economics and the best part is: It’s totally free since it’s non-profit.12. Codeacademy: Have you ever tried to learn a new programming language but ended up only cramming text from books and never got to the practical part. This is where Codeacademy comes in. Choose your language and start practicing on it. There are lessons first, then assignments and if you are struck, help is always around the corner. If you’re just started programming in college or thinking of taking programming as a career, try this website. You will love it.13. Grammarly: Grammarly is an online website which looks out for grammatical errors in your writing. It has a pretty cool browser extension that sorts out mistakes in your emails or wherever you’re writing. If you’r serious about writing and cannot afford a writer, their pro version will do the job.

My friend covers her face with a veil. She's 23, a doctor in making from the second best medical university of the city, has a fiery passion for cars and bangles, loves baby animals and small humans and is a skilled henna artist.She draws in downtime, watches animated movies and cartoons and reads and interprets the Quran. She's my go-to person for life advices.She's confident and articulate. She was an aspiring orator till she was made to realize that there's more to an orator than just being eloquent and confident, having strong opinions and the ability to defend them.In the eleventh grade, my friend auditioned for the school debating team. She was given a topic that she had to present an extempore speech about, before the English teacher.She was prepared. Standing third in line, she went over the points in her head, clenching the piece of paper with the topic scribbled on it. She knew she'd almost made the team. Except that she didn't.The senior student motioned her to begin as he took a look at his watch. The girl began to fire away compelling points to back her argument.Few seconds in she realized there was no point. The teacher, a man in his forties, seated smugly in his seat gave her silent, yet unmistakable cues to communicate his disinterest. From the first word she uttered, he did not look up. Not one other contestant faced what she did. She tried to not let the teacher's behavior faze her. He tried harder to express his boredom by getting up and silently strolling away towards the window. She kept speaking. He kept staring out the window. She was done. He said thank you. She left and never heard from him.If you took a look at the team assembled later, you'd see why my friend wasn't good enough for it. She didn't have an 'engaging enough personality', apparently.What makes this more fascinating is the fact that this happened in the Islamic republic of Pakistan.The respect I have for women who don the hijab, or the veil, cannot be put into words. When the attitude of Muslims can be so dismissive towards them, I can only imagine how difficult it must be for women like my friend in places with anti-hijab laws and protests.She's oppressed alright. Not by the religion. Not by her family. Instead, by the self proclaimed advocates of freedom for women, who dictate women how to be 'free women'. Oh, the irony.

When most non-technical people hear the words 'artificial intelligence', they imagine something like this:Or this:Or even this:When actually, AI is more like this:For some reason, the phrase alone conjures ideas of robots with human-level cognition; designing such a system must require inconceivable technical skill, creative wit and thorough comprehension.Well, I call bull****!When I was 17 I designed an image recognition program as part of a school project, and was the only person to receive full marks.I already had a keen interest in AI, and I jumped upon the opportunity to make my own. At the same time, I knew AI was the hottest buzzword in computer science of the decade, so any attempt would surely impress the examiner enough to squeeze out a few more marks, right?How right I was. The program was brilliant. It was beautiful. It worked. My classes were integrated like a well-oiled machine. My functions slid together like jigsaw pieces. My comments were like poetry.I not only received 100%, but I'm the only person to have done so at my college.And that's the problem.I didn't deserve it.Sure, the program worked, it did its thing. All of the technical requirements given by the teacher were met. But it felt… uncomfortable.I didn't know what was wrong with it. When designing it, I felt like I was cheating. My methods worked a treat, but my intuition said they shouldn't. When coding it, I expected it to break, but it didn't.So why do I feel so guilty?To start with, I'm not the best computer scientist amongst my cohort. Of the 60 people in my year, I'm not even top 5. The most gifted guy in the year scored 67/75. He made his own messaging service using C++, complete with server-client communication, encryption, an interface, etc. 67/75 is a fantastic score of course, but 8 less than mine. Why?I even included the word ‘rudimentary' in my project title to show the examiner that I'm aware it's basic. The worst thing a student can do is make the examiner think the sun shines out of your arse.But now, I think I know the problem. It goes back to what I said earlier about squeezing marks out of the project simply because it sounds impressive.AI is certainly impressive. The folks at Google, DeepMind, Facebook and IBM are some the world's greatest architects for humanity's next technological revolution. No doubt.But what I did? It was all right. The fact it worked was cool, but if you opened the bonet expecting to find a roaring engine, you'd find a little green man in a hamster wheel with a very sheepish grin.I believe I was given the grade I did based on the ambition and the idea, not the technicality. Sure, I delivered the product, but it was the audacity of the project that bagged me the marks.…and to me, that sums up people. It applies to all avenues of life. Look at Trump. He was ambitious and presented yuuuuge ideas. The technicalities of it? Laughable, but he still succeeded in clambering into the White House.Now look at Jonas Edward Salk. He discovered the cure for polio and could have made billions of dollars from it, but he chose not to so more people could access it and make the world a better place. He is the opposite of Trump; he thought about the technicality rather than trying to impress, and now nobody remembers or honours the man.Without being too cliché, I feel my project is a metaphor: to truly be successful with your work, you need to not only be ambitious and show great determination, but actually be able to deliver. Like this guy can:Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed my answer, feel free to leave an upvote!Happy coding!Edit: Blimey, 1,500 upvotes! This post alone doubled my follower count. Thanks all!

I will post many skills with respect to computers which takes only few minutes to learn.1. MagnifierEver had problem while presenting; To enlarge what's on the screen, to make it more visible, try magnifier.Click on start, then search for magnifier on the search bar. Then click on magnifier.​​​​​​Then select the level to Zoom, you will see enlarged part of the screen just like in the image below.​​​​Shortcut: Press Windows+plus to open magnifier directly.​​​​​2. Turn your Laptop into WiFi Hotspot.Copy the following lines into NotePad and save it as WiFi.batnetsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=WIFI key=password123netsh wlan start hostednetworkNow right click on the file and select "Run as administrator" , automatically WiFi hotspot will be turned ON.You can change the WiFi name by changing ssid=new name and password key=newpasswordImportant - For this to work, your sharing should be on in the network properties for the network/ethernet connection that you want to share through your wifi:Go to Open Network and Sharing Centre ->Change Adapter Settings(On left panel)Your wifi hotspot would be Microsoft Hosted Network Virtual Adaptor in the Network Connections.Go to the properties of the LAN/ethernet/WiFi connection and make the changes accordingly.​​​​​​There you can see the wifi Hotspot network.Your wifi hotspot would be ready.To turn Off the WiFi Hotspot, copy this code in a notepad file and save it as wifistop.bat then run that bat file as "Run as Administrator".netsh wlan stop hostednetwork3. Slide Between windows with awesome 3D flip Animation.Press and hold Winows+Tab to slide over windows.​​​​​​press Windows+shift+Tab to slide in reverse order.4. Subtitles for movies not Synchronized, Just follow this simple trick.Open the video in MPC (Media player classic)  and pause the movie at a point, Then Click on View->subresync.​​​​​​Then you will see a window like below​​​​​​At a given point click on the line of subtitle which is correct for the scene, Right click on it and select current.The Subtitle will be automatically updated to that point.You can save the modified subtitle by File->Save subtitle.5. Want to hide some Files and Folders.You Might be tired of using File locker software which are difficult to use and ask for registrations.Follow the simple Tip.Open NotePad and paste the following codecls@ECHO OFFtitle Folder Lockerif EXIST "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" goto UNLOCKif NOT EXIST Locker goto MDLOCKER:CONFIRMecho Are you sure u want to Lock the folder(Y/N)set/p "cho=>"if %cho%==Y goto LOCKif %cho%==y goto LOCKif %cho%==n goto ENDif %cho%==N goto ENDecho Invalid choice.goto CONFIRM:LOCKren Locker "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"attrib +h +s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"echo Folder lockedgoto End:UNLOCKecho Enter password to Unlock folderset/p "pass=>"if NOT %pass%==password123 goto FAILattrib -h -s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"ren "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" Lockerecho Folder Unlocked successfullygoto End:FAILecho Invalid passwordgoto end:MDLOCKERmd Lockerecho Locker created successfullygoto End:EndThen save it as Locker.batClick on that BAT file , a New Folder called Locker will be created as shown below​​​​​Copy and paste all the Files and Folders that you want to Hide into that Locker Folder.Then click on that BAT file again a CMD promt will appear and ask you permission to lock the files. Just Type Y and press Enter.​​​​​​Now you can see all the files and folders and also the Locker folder disappears.​​​​​​​​​​​​To Unlock all the files and folders, Once again click on that BAT file. You will see a CMD promt then Type password123​​​​​​​​​​​​You will see that Locker Folder appears back.​​​​​If you want to change the password, Open that BAT file in notepad and search for the word "password123"  and replace it with your new Password.6. Turn off Windows Updates.Windows will automatically install updates, if new updates are available, which takes lots of Data and also takof a lot of time while Restarting the system, The updates take lots of time to install which annoys most of us.Follow the simple step to solve it.Open My Computeron the Top left you will Find System Properties, Click on thatThen Buttom left you will see Windows Update, Click on thatOn the Top left you will see Change settings select it.Important UpdatesThe default option would be Download and install. Change it to 3rd option"Check for the updates let me decide whether to download and install them."​​​​​​In this option you can download updates when its convenient for you.7. Download from Torrents even if it is blocked in College/Office.This Technique allows you to download from torrent even it is blocked and also download very fast even when seeders are not available.download the torrent file to your system.open this site : www.zbigz.comupload this torrent file and click on GOIt takes some time to cache the file in the server, then the download button will appear.​​​​​​No need for registration, use free option when asked, file will be available even after a week to download.8.Download the whole Wikipedia site to your system.yes that's true you can download whole wikipedia site with 4.5 million article to your local system and browse it offline. And its only 40GB in size.The torrent link is here:Page on kiwix.org​​​​​​​​​​​​​Note : You need Kiwix to open it.9. Download the torrent file directly without applicationTired of torrents running out of seeders? No worries. You can search for direct download links using Google! To download movies, perform a Google search as below:“YOUR SEARCH TERM HERE” -inurl:(htm|html|php|pls|txt) intitle:index.of “last modified” (mkv|mp4|avi)Example:Titanic -inurl:(htm|html|php|pls|txt) intitle:index.of “last modified” (mkv|mp4|avi)You can use this search trick to download not just movies, but almost any file.For instance, to download music,“YOUR SEARCH TERM HERE” -inurl:(htm|html|php|pls|txt) intitle:index.of “last modified” (mp3|wma|aac|flac)Just change the file format [(mp3|wma|aac|flac) part] to your required format and you will get a search result of sites containing direct download links to your search query.10.Open PPT without opening the PowerPointWhen saving your PowerPoint Presentations, use the extension.pps/.ppsx instead of .ppt/.pptx. This will open the presentation directly as a slide show.Saves time and looks very professional.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Note: All the above trick are tried in Windows 7, few may not work with other OS.Source:Use Media Player Classic to resynchronize subtitles?How to Hide Files and Folders Using Batch FilesMithrandir0x/disable_wifi_hotspot.batPage on microsoft.comEdit: I had made a spelling mistake while typing the URL in point 7, it should be www.zbigz.com. Thank you Souvik Sen for pointing out that mistake.I have corrected it now.I want to apologize for that mistake, I am really sorry.Other interesting answers of mine:David Peter's answer to As a computer science student, what can I learn right now in just 10 minutes that could be useful for the rest of my life?David Peter's answer to What are some mind-blowing facts about Google?

The death of my 17 year old son. In 2016 my son started complaining of pain in his hip/thigh area. We of course took him to the pediatrician (he was 16 at the time). Doctor said it was because his bone was growing faster than the leg muscle. Okay, fine. The pain continued. Doctor ordered x-rays. Nothing shows up. Pain continues. Doctor orders blood work. Inconclusive. Pain continues…actually getting worse. Doctor orders a CAT scan. Inconclusive. Doctor refers us to a rheumatologist. They diagnose him with juvenile arthritis. Then change their diagnosis to a slightly different form of arthritis.Okay, fine. We have a diagnosis. And it’s not a worst case scenario diagnosis. At this point my son is in intense pain. The only thing that helps is steaming hot showers, and that, according to him, only took his mind off his hip pain. The night before the second worst day of my life, my son spent most of it in the shower. Oh, and they also had my son going to physical therapy for the past month or so. So, we inform the rheumatologist we would like to start treatment for the arthritis. He says he would like one final CAT scan. I take my son later that day for one, not thinking much about it. At this point he had been poked and prodded, had multiple x-rays and a prior CAT scan. I thought the diagnosis had been determined. We come home from the scan, and my ex wife calls me. The rheumatologist had called her (apparently he only had her number) and he want’s my son in the hospital, like, yesterday. The scan apparently lit up like a Christmas tree this time.My son had been in pain, as I said. We immediately took him to the hospital, and he reported his pain level at a 10. They gave him morphine. They told us they suspected cancer but would need a biopsy to confirm. It came back positive for a rare childhood cancer called ewing sarcoma (I know that should probably be capitalized…sorry…I’m not gonna capitalize the name of this awful fucking cancer. ewing sarcoma is a bone cancer. From when my son first started complaining of pain to when he was finally (accurately) diagnosed, seven months had gone by. Seven months that we lost when we could have been actively battling this disease. They then did a full body scan and confirmed it had already spread to his lungs. I didn’t want to ask the oncologist what his odds were. I simply couldn’t stand hearing another human being tell me that information. Instead I went online and discovered that, at my son’s stage, the odds of survival were 30% at best.We fought. He fought. Chemo, radiation. Almost a full year of it. He had to be on crutches or a wheelchair because the cancer had nearly destroyed his upper femur. That was horrific hearing because as I said before he was (properly) diagnosed he was undergoing physical therapy…which could easily have shattered the bone. But he was responding positively to the chemo. After about eight months his leg scan showed clear and he was allowed to walk again. He was also allowed into a clinical study intended to match treatment to a particular cancer’s DNA. Things seemed to be looking up. I should also mention that, from when he was first administered morphine in the ER up until this point, his pain level went from a 10 to 0. To see your teenage son in pain for those seven months prior was a hell I don’t wish on anyone. So the fact that he was pain free during this period was a blessing. Fast forward another two months, My son has a full body MRI that show’s he is free of cancer. There were still a few nodules in his lungs but we were told those were most likely scar tissue from where his tumors used to be. We were euphoric.About a week later, I’m taking my kids to hang for the day with some good family friends. My son is quiet. I don’t think much of this…he was 17 and like any teenager could be quite moody at times. We got to the campground where we were meeting our friends when my son tells me his neck was hurting him. Like, lots. We call the oncologist, and are told to bring him in to the ER. They look him over, tell me it’s probably just muscle cramps possibly a side effect from one of the many drugs he’s been taking. I accepted this. After all, he just received an all clear scan. I can’t recall if it was one or two days later that we took him to the Children’s Hospital for his regularly scheduled appointment. He is still experiencing severe neck pain. Doctors do a MRI on his neck and back. It’s riddled with cancer. So, we go from a phone call from my son’s oncologist the week prior saying my son is cancer free, to being told later this day that my son’s cancer is terminal.My reaction? I was livid. I was red with anger. It took my son 7 months to be properly diagnosed (which really is what cost him his life. This cancer, caught early on, is very curable). There was another chart reading error made by the oncology team that happened prior which I haven’t gone into on here. There was going to the ER and being told it was just muscle spasms. And now after getting an “all clear” scan being told that not only is it not all clear, but in fact terminal!!! The oncologist explained that the whole body scan wasn’t capable of detecting cancer in the spine or some crap like that. I was never told that. I was never told that the “all clear” scan meant anything other than just that. The oncologist didn’t really seem to get my frustration and suggested I was free to take my son elsewhere if I wasn’t satisfied. Can you believe that. This person had been my son’s oncologist for 11 months, and this is the response I get.My son was given weeks to months to live. He ended up living another five months. He passed away on Valentine’s day of this year. The worst day of my life. And now my heart hurts every day.Edit: could i get a doctor to chime in? Why Not do a biopsy first. Bone and muscle. Rule out cancer. I know, costs so much. But guess what. My son would be alive now if this was policy.Edit2: So after the better part of two years I decided to contact a lawyer to see if a malpractice suit was even feasible. And after all you've read above, in the State of Michigan, USA, it is not. The only way I could sue and win is if they were withholding treatment to an extent until they discovered the cancer was spreading. So, oncologists in Michigan, go ahead, tell that family your loved one is free of cancer. Then, in the next week, let them know it's terminal. In the Great State of Michigan, that's all perfectly legal. And, I hate to get political, but it's compliments of the republican party which has ruled this state for 18 years and has decimated a citizen’s ability to sue for malpractice.

Okay so lots of people have heard about this - but not everyone - and even those that have heard of it often are pretty clueless as to what it really is and does - so my selection is:The LHC or Large Hadron Collider.Here in a sec I’ll give ya some facts from wikipedia but this “human accomplishment” is simply astounding - the time and money and patience and tenacity required is staggering. The number of people from around the world involved is amazing. It truly makes me proud of us humans - when we put our minds to it, we can really do some great stuff!Here is a quote from the official web site of the LHC (link down below):“The LHC is the largest machine in the world. It took thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians decades to plan and build, and it continues to operate at the very boundaries of scientific knowledge.”Anyway - following are a few quick and essential facts from “Large Hadron Collider - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”:The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's biggest and most powerful particle accelerator. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). It is a giant circular tunnel built underground. The tunnel is 17 miles (27 kilometers) long, and between 50 and 175 meters below the ground.It lies beneath the border of Switzerland and France. 10,000 scientists and engineers from over 100 different countries worked together in the making of this project, and it cost 10.4 billion Swiss francs ($10 billion) to build. It is now the largest and most complicated experimental research facility in the world.And some more info from “Large Hadron Collider - Wikipedia”:The LHC's computing grid is a world record holder. Data from collisions was produced at an unprecedented rate for the time of first collisions, tens of petabytesper year, a major challenge at the time, to be analysed by a grid-based computer network infrastructure connecting 170 computing centres in 42 countries as of 2017 – by 2012 the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid was also the world's largest distributed computing grid, comprising over 170 computing facilities in a worldwide network across 36 countries.It’s biggest accomplishment thus far - I’m pretty sure - is the detection of the Higgs boson (and if I understand correctly - that was one of the main reasons it was built in the first place).More info on the discovery of the Higgs boson:On 4 July 2012, the discovery of a new particle with a mass between 125 and 127 GeV/c2 was announced; physicists suspected that it was the Higgs boson.Since then, the particle has been shown to behave, interact, and decay in many of the ways predicted for Higgs particles by the Standard Model, as well as having even parity and zero spin, two fundamental attributes of a Higgs boson. This also means it is the first elementary scalar particle discovered in nature.Here is the official website: The Large Hadron ColliderAnd finally - here is my favorite photo of the LHC: (see the dude - bottom/center?)

This is an unphotoshopped image of a cloud formation I witnessed over the northen edge of the Austrian Alps. One of the following applies:It is clearly not natural, but a drawing of the alien spaceship in that film, “Prometheus”, drawn by the aliens to let us know they exist; orA “chemtrails” dispersing aircraft was put into a circular holding pattern; orIt is entirely natural, the circular form possibly evidencing a vortex related to the flow over the Alps, and the visibility being the moisture condensing at altitude, like all clouds are.A friend took a photo of a wisp of cirrus that vaguely represents a symbolic dove. As a cloud spotter, I thought “beautiful”; She's catholic and her first thought was that it was the Holy Spirit.If a cloud forms which, from one viewpoint and on one interpretation, resembles Allah’s name, and I see it, I will definitely look and take pictures because I think unusual cloud formations are awesome to behold, especially if it looks like writing in the sky .Since starting this answer I have looked up Allah's name in Arabic and I can see that the calligraphy is something that could reasonably seem to appear in cirrus uncinus or “mare's tails”That is not unlike this (not photoshopped) picture of mine in which, now I think about it, the letters “rE” can be made out:The problem with the Arabic writing for non Arabic non Muslims is that most would not recognise the significance. The other problem is that clouds form a virtually infinite set of shapes for most of the time, and they are always changing, so that any recognisable shape is only there for a fleeting moment, and it only appears that way to observers in a fairly small patch of land.Knowing all this, I would not convert to Islam on the basis of an apparent shape in the clouds, but I would hope to notice it as part of the fascinating variety of cloud shapes.[EDIT Turn my last photo on its side and it matches the arabic calligraphy quite well! That makes my picture even more interesting but no, not converting to Islam now or ever, for any reason.]

Once I got religion out of my head — and it took something like 20 years of hard thinking — I came to this very obvious conclusion: there are no such things as gods. They’re complete fictions, made up by people.One of the ten thousand clues is that none of the believers has any idea what their god is really like. If you buttonhole a believer about some contradictory aspect of his religion or holy book, you can observe him make stuff up on the spot: “Uh, well, maybe God wants to, maybe God thinks, maybe God allows …” ALL of them do it. Which means none of them really knows anything for sure. It’s all conjecture, all “faith.”Think about this: An IDEA is a concept you think about, with no strong conviction in any direction. A BELIEF is something in which you invest something of yourself, at least to the point that you accept it as true. A FAITH is something in which you invest yourself completely — such that you would doggedly continue to believe it EVEN IN THE FACE OF CONTRARY EVIDENCE.That last bit would have to have a price attached, don’t you think? That sort of inflexible conviction has negative side effects, one of which is that if you’re wrong about something — “I know he loves me; he doesn’t mean to hit me.” “Trump is a great man, totally honest, and he’s saving our nation from that America-hating Muslim Obama” — it is very, very difficult to get out of any hole you get into as a result of that irreversible conviction.God-believers have faith. Which means they’re stuck.Non-god-believers rarely operate from a position of faith. Which means they’re free to observe all the evidence, to think, to revisit old beliefs, to float new postulates, to recognize painful truths … and to get on with life, a bit wiser every day.Sadly for you, anyone experienced in talking to godders has realized years back that arguments from the god-side take on an incredibly boring sameness. There really is only the one argument — “I have faith this is all true; you should too” — delivered even in the tidal wave of contrary evidence. The lack of imagination in all such arguments comes to be cringefully expected.The truth is, most mature atheists wouldn’t even stick around to hear you make your case. They’ve thought about this stuff A LOT, and already know you’re mistaken — not just about the facts of the case, but also about the painfully misguided “faith” approach.

Yes, love jihad is a dark reality of the world we are living in.The scary thing about this practice is that the so called ‘educated’ lot of the certain community is involved in it. I was just a step away from becoming a victim of one.I grew up in a very normal modern family. It is very common at my place to take tuitions from the students studying in the Government Colleges at my place while preparing for entrance examinations. And,this is how Zia came into my life.Now, when I met Zia, he was in his second year of M.B.B.S. He was supposed to tutor me for Biology. Now, Zia! What do i tell about him? He was magic for everyone around him. He was charming, good looking and an extremely well-read guy. He knew about almost everything happening in the world. At my city,where every other person is immensely educated and knowledgeable, he managed to stand above the crowd.Like every other girl, even I was smitten by his charm. As the age gap between the two of us was not that big, we became really good friends. We started talking about everything under the sky, he showed me a new world view and how could I as a 21st century independent and a very sound headed girl not be impressed by that dose of intelligence?As expected, one thing led to other and we were dating.Meanwhile, I cleared my entrance examination and got admission in the same medical college where he was studying.While I was at college, we were going strong. There were numerous secret dates and rendezvous. I like to keep things private and was also scared how my parents might react to it. He was always very protective about me and I absolutely loved it. I probably had the best time of my life in those years. 3 years went by like that and since he came from a conservative family, talks about his marriage started.He told me about it and ask me when will I be ready for marriage. When I told him that it's not possible until I get my degree first, like the overly supportive guy he was, he said not to bother till the time we both were ready.He had by then already told his family and taken a stand for our relationships. According to what he told me, there was a huge fight between his dad and him followed by arguments spanning over many days. He said that he even walked out of his home and was at the hostel for almost a month before his parents gave in their consent. Eventually, he asked me to go and meet his family. The first day I went to his home, it was a huge cultural shock for me. First, the locality he stayed in was a complete Muslim dominated area. It looked right out of Pakistan. The women at his home looked like they had no voice, they looked timid with their head covered and mouths shut. This should have been my first warning as in what was about to come but anyways, I chose to overlook all of them then. In my mind, I thought it's not like they can ever tame someone like me who is going to be a doctor in a year or so to come and will have an individual identity unlike the ladies at their house. I went to his home a number of times. I slowly started seeing a pattern. Every time I went to his place, his elder sister(who was apparently married but i always saw her doing nothing at Zia’s place) would start playing Peace Tv which always had Zakir Naik’spsignNowes on it. There were number of times when we had discussions over religion and I was very vocal about the fact that religion shouldn't be forced. I even told them beforehand that there shouldn't be any demand for conversion as I am more comfortable following the religion I was born in and that it would hurt my family’s sentiments. Her sister slowly started commenting on my clothes and career choices. According to her, being so career oriented is a waste as the focus of any girl should be in keeping their husband happy so that they don't get another wife. Whenever i confronted Zia about my fears, he always assured me that things will be different for us. I won’t ever be forced to do anything against my will. It was in these conversations that I realised what was wrong with the whole Islamic world. This community will never accept that their religion which was written down hundreds of years ago might have something faulty and unsuitable keeping the current world work scenario in mind. If you tell me that there are certain practices in Hinduism which are not right, I will give your perception a genuine thought. And if I feel it's right keeping all the facts in mind, I would totally accept it's flaw where as Muslims can’t bear a word against their religion. The whole base of the religion was violent and the people of the community are constantly fed with lie and manipulated facts.Also, something else changed, before the talks of marriage started, we never really had sex because of his religious beliefs which were twisted and turned according to his comfort. Whatever. Once I started going to his place, he started getting really intimate in the privacy of his bedrooms. For me it was very uncomfortable imagining his family under the same roof. When I asked him if it was not weird for him to take me inside his bedroom in the presence of his family and how his conservative family is suddenly so cool with us being alone together all the time. To which he said that now that it's confirmed that we will end up getting married, no one was going to say anything.Eventually he made me realise that there was no use holding back our urges anymore and we should have sex.I lost my virginity to this guy and now when I play those memories back in my mind, I realise that it was definitely not his first time. I remember the first thing he told me after sex. It was, ‘Ab toh kahi nahi ja sakti tum mujhe chodh ke’ **There is no way you are leaving me after this.**He started calling me to his home more frequently after that. Sometimes twice a day, and every single visit involved sex.I noticed another change in him, he started trying to manipulate me to not tell my parents about the relationship on the pretext that they won't agree and instead elope as soon as possible.He reasons sounded very genuine and true to me. Also, because after seeing the plight of Zia’s home, I was sure my parents would never agree to this marriage. He also started behaving a lot more conservatively, asked me to start covering my head when I go to his place which the silly-me-from-the-past followed very obediently. You see, I was in love! Zia slowly became very reclusive and deleted all his social media handles.After watching Zakir Naik’s videos almost every day, my perception about Islam was on the change as well. I started thinking thag maybe the community and the belief is not that bad at all, maybe the world is actually against them. I was brainwashed to such an extent that I actually started sympathizing with Bin Laden. I am so grateful that even then I had a logical voice somewhere in my mind which always questioned every single thing. All these went on for about an year.One evening he called me up to ask me to bring along a fresh pair of cloth(including undergarments) to his home.I went there and saw that there were more people at his home than usual.I had a very strange feeling that evening,a feeling I can't explain. It's usually at the centre of your gut telling you something bad was about to happen. And I couldn't just jerk it off.When I asked Zia about them, he said they were from the neighbouring mosque.He took me to his room and as usual had sex.But there was something different that, he was more caring as if this was an almost apologising act for what he was about to do.I don't know, I don't think any words can't describe the feeling I had that day. It eventually did save me from a lot of trouble that could have followed.He asked me to take a shower and change to the fresh clothes.While I was at the bathroom I texted about my whereabouts to the only 2 people who knew about our relationship(my best friends).After freshening up, he took me downstairs and there was already a maulana who was sitting at the centre. Zia slowly and very casually told me that all I have to do is repeat the Kalma after the Maulana for conversion as the other people from the community are not willing to welcome in a non-muslim which will be followed by a small Nikaah. He tried to make it sound very exciting and happy. I told him that I am not getting married to the community and if the terms of conversion was not there a year back when he introduced me to his family, it shouldn't be there now. All the people were looking at me now, being really nice and sweet saying things like ‘Allah tumhe Jannat naseeb karenge’, ‘Pyar me liye toh log duniya mein Kya kuch nahi karte’ ‘Allah ke raaste se barkar kuch nahi hota hai’ ‘Tum jaisi padhi likkhi khubsurat ladki humare kaum ki ban jayegi, toh usse acchi baat Kya ho sakti hai?’Zia literally pulled me to the centre of the room, and when I resisted, the maulana came to hit me. Those 10-15 mins of my life are what nightmares are made up of.Another man from somewhere said something which in a very polite translation would be something like, ‘Did you not satisfy her now? She should be calm. Why is she getting so fussy?’Someone added that I should be taken upstairs and be given another dose of relaxant( he meant sex).When all of this was happening, I don't know what came over me, my mind was calm and calculating the chance of me getting out of that place without getting harmed and keeping my dignity intact. Once we signNowed his room, I told Zia that I texted my friends about being at his place. He thought I was bluffing but I showed him the messages.I told him that it would not take much for my dad to get to know about this.Plot twist? Now, my Dad, as you all are about to know and as he knew, is a District Magistrate. I have never been more thankful about his profession than I was at that moment because the fear I saw on his face was enough to know that I was safe. That if required Zia will personally make sure that I signNow home safely.Later that night I told my family about everything.A case was filed against Zia which didn't culminate to much because I was 18 and an adult.So, my dad used his powers to make sure Zia couldn't ever practice medicine at my city at least. Talk about passive aggression.Their business licence was also suddenly taken away(*wink*)Don't judge my dad, he was just taking revenge for his little daughter.I received an anonymous message from Zia about an year and a half later which cleared out a lot of the questions I had.He said that when he told his dad about me, the first thing his dad did was talk to the Maulana. All the men from his community visited his home and brainwashed him into thinking that the only way to be with me was to follow whatever they said as the ‘kafirs’(and by that he meant my parents) would try to keep away the girl who was rightfully his. When they got to know which family I came from( my mom too is a renowned doctor at my city), they thought it was too risky to follow the normal pathway for a love jihad(elope, conversion and marriage), so they asked Zia to try to manipulate me to not let my family know about us.According to him, he was forced to have sex with me as the men thought that it would keep me emotionally attached to him. Not that they were wrong.They even asked him to get me pregnant. As I won't be able to leave him after that. Thankfully, Zia was a little better than them. He made sure that we always used protection.Their plan was to get us married and sent to Mumbai the very next day where we would stay at his relatives place and a month or two later, after they get my passport ready, to sent us both to Saudi.They thoughts that the new and sudden changes in my life will keep me from trying to contact my family. And, once I settle down in Saudi, they will own me.Since, I was an educated girl from a very good background, Zia’s family would have been paid in lakhs as a gift from the community.He apologised for everything at the end.Whatever.A lot has changed in my life, I am currently practicing medicine as well as preparing for my upcoming exams.As for Zia, I have no idea about his whereabouts. Last I heard, he was in Dubai.May be he did love me at some point of time. Maybe he just wasn't strong enough to fight them all.But, he was as wrong as everyone else in that room that night.To all the girls, please use your gut feeling to use. Had I not messaged my friends that evening, maybe I would have somewhere with my head covered and my mouths shut and without a ‘Dr.’ prefixing my name. Only you can help yourself out. Of course my family helped me later not just with getting over it but with counselling sessions and support throughout that but had I not helped myself by texting my friends, none of these would have mattered.Always know that your family has your back even if it is at your worst, even if it is at times when you yourself cannot look at the mirror without feeling ashamed.And, be ready to face the brunt of your mistakes. When everyone got to know what happened, I got a lot of hate. I heard a lot of people talking nasty things behind me, but I feel this is how life works. I brought a lot of shame and pain to my parents, and so I had to face all of these at the end.And, that is absolutely better than what my future could have been.I can live with this.