Story of My Universe

By Dawood Mamoon

Many years ago a very old woman that happened to be my loving Grand Mother asked me a simple question, 'Son, Is there really a Heaven?, Well, I began with telling myself many stories about her, myself, about the world and even about the mysteries of the universe to understand what heaven would be for a beautiful woman who was my grandmother and what would be that perfect world for all humans and all life on mother Earth. In this book I compile some of the stories I told to my Grand Mother and yes, I told her that there must be a heaven for her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dawood Mamoon
• Release date: Feb 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224255658

Dawood Mamoon

Dawood Mamoon has been Director Office of Research, Innovation and Commercialisation (ORIC) at leading Engineering University of Pakistan namely Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute (GIK) from 2020 to 2022. He was affiliate of Harvard Business School from 2013 to 2017. He has a PhD in Economics for Sustainable Development from Erasmus University, the Netherlands.

Book preview

Story of My Universe

Dawood Mamoon

Published by Dawood Mamoon, 2024.

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

STORY OF MY UNIVERSE

First edition. February 27, 2024.

Copyright © 2024 Dawood Mamoon.

ISBN: 979-8224255658

Written by Dawood Mamoon.

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Story of My Universe

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Why Imran Khan Should be a Free Man

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INDIA PAKISTAN: Economics of a Hand Shake

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Mystery at an Engineering University

Blasphemy of a Muslim

Open Letter to My Father

Training the Young: Social Media and Open Book Exams

Making Peace in Afghanistan: Pakistan China Equation Explained

The Perils of Online Avatars

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Watch for more at Dawood Mamoon’s site.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Also By Dawood Mamoon

Story of My Universe | Dawood Mamoon

Further Reading: A Journey to Find God in 21st Century

Also By Dawood Mamoon

About the Author

About the Publisher

Story of My Universe

Dawood Mamoon

Many years ago a very old woman that happened to be my loving Grand Mother asked me a simple question, ‘Son, Is there really a Heaven?, Well, I began with telling my self many stories about her, myself, about the world and even about the mysteries of the universe to understand what heaven would be for a beautiful woman who was my grand mother and what would be that perfect world for all humans and all life on mother Earth. In this book I compile some of the stories I told to my Grand Mother and yes, I told her that there must be a heaven for her.

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1. My Stories

1.1.  What defines a free woman

If you ask me to tell what I have achieved in life and that would be something that I should be remembered for is that I made some women laugh at me. Yes there is a context to it. I remember how I used to make my grand mother who did not had teeth laugh at me when I was few years old. And there is no beautiful face than her that I remember. But when I grew up I realized that everyone laughs at kids for their innocence and cuteness. Then and there after this realization I made a pact to myself that I should be able to make women laugh at me. Yes I was always a feminist. Once I climbed a thin railing of my grandparents home when I was around 12, and I did that because I noticed that in front of my house some women were making a munji and they looked at me and laughed at me. I only felt good. Yes, after watching a sad Indian movie namely Mother India, I started noticing that in Pakistan the life of women is not easy. I noticed that they seldom laugh. In the same age, I remember that my father was posted as a Chief Election Commissioner of Baluchistan and he was visited by his friend who had two adorable kids but few years older than me. We called them Tipu Bhai and Maria Baji. One evening our parents and their parents left us young kids home and me and my brother were looking at Tipu Bhai and Maria Baji as to what kind of conversation we should have. Me and my brother acted weird to seek their attention while they were trying to talk about our school. Suddenly Tipu Bhai and Maria Baji looked at each other and first they smiled and then they started laughing. Making them laugh at us was a best compliment to us and our happiness was beyond our own imagination because we didn't laugh that made them laugh some more. The purpose to make them laugh was that our parents had told us that they are very intelligent and decent kids and we should avoid playing any tricks with them. Then on, me and my brother were just thinking whether they would laugh at us and what would make them laugh at us. Years after I met Tipu Bhai whose real name is Chaudhry Osama in a conference in Lahore and he was Chair of Law department at LUMS and was kind of celebrity in the conference. He had done his PhD and LLM from Harvard and he was also a Rhodes scholar and a LUMS graduate. Maria Baji that I never met again but my father told me she did a degree from National College of Arts and then she got married to her class fellow who is son of Ex Chief of Army Staff General Jehangir Karamat. Yes I can claim that we made such intelligent and accomplished souls laugh at us that should be taken as a best complement. Yes I still remember the sparkle in their eyes when both Tipu Bhai and Maria Baji looked at each other to understand me and my brother trying to impress them with our silly talk and childish behavior. Some years passed and under the influence of sober and intelligent students like Tipu Bhai and some other young men and women in family and friends who excelled in their studies, in college life got more serious with a routine that mostly comprised of study and sports. When I started my Masters on Economics at Quaid-e-Azam University, I also started giving tuitions to add to my pocket money. One of my students were daughters of Dr. Aqdas Ali Kazmi who was a known Economist of Pakistan because he did his PhD from Boston and was serving in the Planning Commission. I was given the responsibility to teach Mathematics to daughters of Uncle Aqdas by his wife because she had a good word about me from the neighbor hood and she trusted me for being a gentleman to perform the duties of a tutor. After my busy schedule that was spent at the university and the gym, I would teach them for one hour. Yes I made Chandi and her sister laugh at me when I would not be able to solve a problem in Mathematics but they would be able to solve it after wards with the same calculations I had made. Within couple of years, to really follow the path of Tipu Bhai I applied for a scholarship and admission at Erasmus University Netherlands and secured both at a young age for a Masters and a PhD in Economics. My most of youth was spent in Europe. There I made friends with Latinos, Americans (Gringos), Dutch, Spanish, Italian, African, Canadian, Japanese and Australian in both men and women of my age and mostly students. Many of my friends were women. My first best friend when I was doing a Masters was Uceda Agata, who was a Spanish and the most respected student of her batch not only for her good looks but also for her intelligent mind. The first time we met, we smiled at each other and as we got to know each other better, I realized not only that women are better than men in studies, but they are mostly better in character and intelligence also. Agata went on to start a career in one of the best Accounting firm namely KPMG where she became a director and then a partner. She was usually serious and highly focused towards her career. Everything for her was for learning. Our friendship was partly for her to understand men and especially Indian men as I looked more Indian to her than a Pakistani. When ever I got a good grade in a subject or when I got a distinction in my MA program, she would meet me, be happy and smile at me. She did tell me that she thinks I am very intelligent. Though we could have been great friends, there was only one problem and that was that she never laughed with me or laughed at me. A successful woman in both career and her personal life, and a European woman was just not free. After few years we simply lost in touch. The most lively women that I met were Latin American, Dutch, American and Canadians. My Latino, Dutch and American friends, that I made over the years were my best friends because I could make them laugh and they would laugh at me because sometimes when they did not agree with me and these were really empowered women. Women empowerment and freedom of women are two different things. The woman who is economically and socially empowered as the feminist would want her to be is not necessarily the same thing as a free woman. The feminists in the West should visit Pakistan to meet women in households that are dominated by poverty but these women who are free because they can laugh at you and they can laugh with you despite all the hardships, difficulties and challenges they face in a male dominated society. In the land that is India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the local culture is awash with stories of girls who would just laugh at anything while most of the time having to spend on fetching water from a distant well or taking care of their family as a baji among all the children. Women of the East and the West are more responsible then men and they are more peaceful among themselves and across the other gender. Capitalism has made them live a life of comfort but the Western Woman would keep her sanity by doing Brand Shopping and celebrity following but is she a free woman? Yes only if she also knows how to laugh at men. Yes in extreme societies like Afghanistan under current regime of Taliban, the biggest injustice is not to take the right of education from women but it is taking away the right that each woman should have and that is to laugh at men and their ways to live in the world. If education, economic empowerment, and gender equity would make women still laugh at men, then it is women empowerment. Capitalism has created a world of pseudo happiness for women where the idea has come through the lense of men who think that fashion makes women free or that it is make up that makes her beautiful and free. No if anything in this world what makes the women free, it is her right to laugh at men and the idiosyncrasies of world that is created by men Let the woman laugh at you, and let every woman laugh at the devices of a man’s making whether it is certain interpretation of religion or culture, or whether it is man’s physical superiority or self proclaimed mental superiority. This shall give real power to them and such women become the leaders of their household even if they are not educated. All progress of women start from her right to laugh at various makings of the society. Yes, I practice what I preach. My wife and my daughters laugh at me and it is not always convenient. You ask any eastern father, he has given the right to women in his life to laugh at him and with him. This fundamental right is usually followed by economic and social empowerment of women. The pseudo capitalism that has created divides among economic classes have taken those laughs away from the urban women much like in case of my Spanish friend Uceda Agata who bought comfort and happiness in a successful career and taken up the responsibility of a happy family but forgot to laugh in her way.

1.2  She who has made this world Tick:

Every man with in a company of a beautiful woman would consider himself luckiest among every other man. Well I had best of my luck in a place that was one of the first building to close down in Pakistan post 911 and that was the American Center in Islamabad. My Father in 1996 asked me to attend a course on American History offered regularly by the American Center when I started my University education at the age of 19. My first thought was may be I shall meet a pretty girl there and I showed all the motivation to learn the great lessons of American History. I enrolled in the course and it was commenced during june/july 1996. I went to the American center donning my most funky clothes with my fore arms a bit visible to look like a character from the DC comics. Well the class started and I entered the room. To my sheer disappointment most of the chairs were empty and only few of the chairs were occupied in the front row. The classes started with some other young kids participating during Q&A sessions that were interested to appear for the Civil Service exams. Despite most of the chairs empty, I chose the last row because I have been mostly a back bencher. Since I am a sports man I never knew when to give up on my hopes to meet a pretty girl. And being a good student of statistics, I knew that meeting a pretty girl at American Center is the highest. We friends when in university would always talk about finding some pretty girls either at Daewo while traveling to Islamabad and Lahore, or in the library and basic tip was to get Economist Magazine from the book stall and pretend like a studious person and trying to figure out an opportunity that might be created in between to talk to the pretty girl in case there is a strike of great luck and a pretty girl is actually sitting nearby in the bus or library. The second day I again came to the American Center and it was same. Only few of the front rows were occupied and I chose to sit in the last row. It was about 15 minutes to the lecture that suddenly I smelled a fragrance of a sweet perfume and just like that to my left a girl sat on the chair and she asked her younger brother to sit next to her. I gazed around and towards her without moving my self and lo behold, there was a beautiful, tall and pretty girl sitting not any where closer to me but just next to me while all the front rows were empty. Now what ever the speaker who was some American was telling about American History, I should tell that I couldn't understand a single word. Actually I forgot that I know the English language. I was frozen in my chair thinking about my luck and also figuring out how to now avail this opportunity that the lord only provides to some very very lucky men in this world. I thought about all the possible situations that can be associated with this kind of situation in Indian movies. Few of the ice breaking dialogues were duly simulated and rejected. What if she doesn't like Indian movies and she is into romantic holly wood movies? I was cursing myself not have watched more romantic Indian or Holly wood movies or not have fast forwarded most of the romantic scenes to watch all the fight scenes by Jakie Sharoof, Mr Bachan for example. My wisdom and logic eventually told me that I should let it go for today because that would entirely look awkward if I started talking to her right away. I went home praying to the lord to get me another chance. I also simulated the possibilities assuming she would show up again the next day but would choose some other seat to sit on. The next day, she came a bit late but as the lord says that good things only happen to good men, here she came again and sat just next to me. Well folks it happened few times and I accept that I was the biggest chicken in the room and couldn't muster up courage to talk to her because a beautiful girl sitting next to you can happen once or twice in a life time and if it has a trend, then my thinking mind said that I shall talk to her when I shall meet her again. I never met her again and I think about her very often and maybe things would have turned out very differently for me in the future. In the university as I was growing older with my friends, I realized time and again that in life pretty girls just don't sit next to boys and if they do as a coincidence it doesn't happen often. Many of my friends would tell me how they met and talked to some pretty girls they just met and I used to wonder who was she in the American center. University years passed quite quickly and I must admit that I was more pre occupied with my studies. Then I went to Netherlands, had a great exposure with both genders. I learned to approach women with confidence and after my Masters went back to Pakistan to teach at the same university I graduated from. I thoroughly enjoyed my teaching. Since I had been giving tuition to college level female students, managing female students was not an issue. And there is a thing every boy knows that the most beautiful girls would be the ones who are not your class fellows. Thus same theory was true with my female students. There was a course I was teaching and there was this female student who didnt pass the final exam. Many professors approached me to re view her case and pass her. Well I invited her to my office, gave her the exam paper and told her that I have not been able to figure out any relevance to what she wrote with what questions of economics I have asked. I told her that I will pass her if she can tell me some relevant economics orally that justify the questions. She was a simple and shy student. May be she got confused and she apologized that she doesn't know the right answers and she cannot even explain it orally. Despite the reference of senior professors, I flunked her. I was all about merit and standards. Within few months I started my PhD and went back to the Netherlands. I got greater opportunity to understand academia.