24th March, 2009: We're moving!!
Starting yesterday, we'll be moving to Live Journal to keep track of other people who visit and would like to offer well meaning comments. It doesn't mean I'm selling my soul and allow myself to take bad advice seriously - I don't mind whatever people say but if I think it's right, I keep it. Details on the Live Journal page soon.
Sometime between the months of February and September, 2008.
People think it's impossible to think of love as the kind of thing that changes the world. I don't know how much of the world still remains to be changed, but it has definitely affected me. And in more ways than one. All you have to do is take a look at some people enjoying what would be a very ordinary conversation and brining up the things they do. The undercurrents of love and attraction outline every aspect of life - even for those who haven't known it. z
5th February, 2008
(I need to analyze this. If only to get it out of my mind.)
Some days I feel it's just slipping away from my hands, like sand, and it's almost painful to let go of something so bittersweet. The fact that more than once I caught his eyes meet mine comes flying back to my mind. The random meets in the middle of nowhere. The fact that I always hesitated, he lingered (as if stay a little longer). Yet never made a move. Nothing to blame. Momentarily, a thought occurs to me: that I had had that with several people (catching people looking at you, out of curiosity or admiration or hate, who knows) - and I didn't feel anything close to this. Strangely, it brings a smile to my lips. Because it isn't because of that gesture that I feel this way... is it? Then another thought occurs to me. There's nothing to draw anyone to me. I wear a headscarf, I'm no raving beauty, I tend to make stupid comments in person (albeit the lady doth have her way with the written word). This is deceit, that's exactly what it is. He's an agent. They're paying him to do this. Or it's a practical joke with classmates. I can't let him succeed. (I mean, this is what I mean. This sounds unreasonably stupid even to me at this point.)
If I get down to analytics, what is it really that I recall most about him? And almost instantly, I know it isn't physical. It's a tiny relief, so in my subconscious I'm exactly what I purport to be deliberately. Which means it can only be the conversations. That's funny though, because we haven't shared many. But the few we did - I remember how incredibly comfortable it was. It was easy . I don't mean easy as in an exam, but easy as in what puts you at ease, at peace with yourself. That this good thing should go to such waste.... And then the pain comes back. I feel it's right, in a way, this is a good thing. It isn't going to work anyway. He's committed and leaving. Not to mention a Martian, for all practical purposes of a real relationship. I straighten my shoulders, talk to people in the kitchen about random things and come back to the emptiness of my room.... only to get overwhelmed by mixed and strong emotions to let the truth out at the top of my lungs to the one person I care to tell, and get it over with.
Except I can't. The tumult is driving me crazy! Back and forth, to and fro. I have vivid imagination, that hardly helps. I've even tried talking to one of The Girls to somehow give it closure. The damn word. There have been half a dozen closures now. WHAT do I do? What can I possibly do? Losing grip is not only the loss of my senses, I'm losing the one thing I take pride in - my cynical, realist, dog-eat-dog view on humans relationships and the irrational ways of humans with people they love.
Ok now this helps. I feel more in control. I can listen to heroic music and rise to the occasion of selflessness, something that needs me more than I need myself. Besides, if I don't do this for my people, it will be a huge waste. Nobody is like me, so obviously there's something in the world only I can do. Ergo, I'm back to work.
30th January, 2008.
For the most part I think I tend to forget that I wear something unconventional (for liberals) and the moment I forget that, the rest of the world forgets it too. In that sense my attire matters only as much as I want it to. But there's very few people who have the ability to intimidate me so much that I'm very conscious of my headscarf. I just have to look into their eyes for one microsecond to know they are judging me for that piece of cloth, that I have such-and-such ideas because I have something on my head. Just the same you have those people who immediately put you at ease with everything, it's almost as if you're not afraid of anything you are when you're around them. I just met someone like that not too long ago, and I let down all my social-niceties-with-people-you-barely-know guards. I think at first I was just fascinated by the fact that someone (again) saw me for who I was beneath everything - after honesty that's one thing I truly value. But not like it started off this way - I was apprehensive at first, not unlike me for people with a working brain-part who express (oh, words, hands, eyes and all....) a personal interest in who I am - until today. An ice-breaking coffee encounter can do wonders, something that the stupid long-walk phenomenon that's supposed to open things up never did for me.
Coming to a country that's so (so!) different from my own, I think I had yet to make friends I could be myself with. I was friends more with people who were here last year than this year! Not that that bothered me much - as long as I had a circle of my own. It's incredible social circles have started to matter so much! It must have been the saturation with a certain way of life that I had in Bombay lately - the same old ways, the undue importance to tradition, the fact that people still have these antiquated ideas about the way things work or how people behave. Above all the unwillingness to accept that the world has moved on, so should you. That satisfying dose of brutal honesty, even if within the garb of outward British political correctness, was well received. Very well received indeed.
All that was just to say - I feel good. Cheers. :D
7th January, 2008
Happy 2008! Ok dont have time right now, moreover don't know what to say. Amazed the year is over, with my pal Eusha (of course, you know better than to think that's her real name!) watching Bones right now. More later!
25th October, 2007: An Oktoberfest Within
Something from my history stirred up from the dead. That I had almost forgotten how it felt made it a nostalgic heartache.
Some
believe there's only one time that's perfect for all of us. One moment
frozen in time where you know everything feels comfortable, benevolent
and you can't stop giggling like a 3 year old. It was like that two
nights ago!
With each passing moment I think it's crazy. "This is crazy!" I say again to myself. And the sheer randomness of it!
So maybe it is. British bureaucracy notwithstanding, they said it would be perfectly okay if I wanted to switch over from cynicism!27th September, 2007: The Last Straw
Well... it's good to be back after nearly two weeks! Amidst the running and mad rushing in the city where I was born for one last time - one last Shawarma in the street corner, one last Qulfi, one last walk down my favourite street - the list is endless, I'm thinking over all times, all memories and looking at each thing as if I'll never see it again.
It's an enlightening way to think. I don't care if I'm victim to the romantic idea of valuing something just because you think you may lose it one day - 'cause we all will anyway. But to see each thing of beauty, a joy forever, as if the sands of time will wither it, will cast their irreplaceable dark shadows over cherished memories...
I must leave, must leave now... lest I miss the last rain.
4th September, 2007: A Year Ago
Here I am, just 3 weeks away from starting PG studies, a full year late - Alhumdulillah.
I graduated last year - a full four months before term starts at the university where I wanted to go for postgraduate study. Banking on my academic history where Alhumdulillah I've always got my first choice in academics, I kept thinking InshAllah this time will be no different. But it was.
For what reason I may never know but I didn't get through. The scholarship didn't work out, I didn't get what I wanted, where I wanted either. That's when I remembered another time, a fitting lesson my dad once gave me, when I was naive enough to complain about something that I had been praying for months and hadn't got. Even though I know the moral of the story, I love the way his example hit me then with the incredible force of a paradigm shift.
A poor, average, middle aged guy Abdullah has just completed his studies and now in desperate search for employment, which is hard to come by where he lives. One fine day he gets a call for an interview, for The Perfect Job. Needless to say he's excited and makes sure every single detail of that day is perfect - he puts on his best clothes, ironed, ready on time, leaves for a bus. At the bus stop, a bus suddenly skids off a bit, splashing dirty road slush all over Abdullah's crisp white shirt. He's missed his bus too, so he's late and in unacceptable attire.
Think of what he must have thought, how much this day means to him. Abdullah being the average guy, lets out a few words of frustration, knowing he's missed his bus and probably this job too. .....(1)
Next scene: The very bus doesn't go a few hundred metres that it explodes from a pre planned bomb fitted to it. Abdullah is shocked, but, again, being the average Muslim, immediately thanks Allah. ....(2)
For Allah, it is at Scene (1) that
thankfulness means much, much more than at Scene (2); for Abdullah to have
said, "Alhumdulillah, I missed my bus. There is a good in it for me."
It is when we are suffering, at our worst, when nothing seems to go right, that
Allah loves our gratefulness so much that He bestows us with the greatest of
all favours, from among all his servants, in this world and the next. (Incidentally my dad was actually explaining the difference between the Arabic terms "sana" and "hamd". Scene (1) is thankfulness even when all supposed optimisms are ripped off from life. That's hamd - thankfulness in spite of it all. Scene (2) is gratefulness for a reason, having seen the result of your trial. That's "sana", the first utterance in any Salat. Needless to say, hamd is several time greater in value than sana.)
Well, in my case - sure thing, I gained a year (not worrisome considering I've been among the youngest in my classes at college) to do something I've always wanted - learn languages from every corner of the world. This one year was also instrumental in a bonding experience with my family, the likes of which I've never ever experienced before. Coupled with a few other unique conditions this year, I can see Allah's infinite wisdom in not giving me exactly what I wanted. And I did act silly in not appreciating it at its worst.
Albert Einstein said, "Two things are
infinite - the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the
universe." ole Einstein got this one as right as relativity - one thing is infinite. Human stupidity.
3rd September, 2007: Justice Won't Be Done
Testimony is out, the mood is grey as ever. What is wrong with us? Us, humans, as a race? Why do we keep getting our priorities wrong? Some people can't get hold of this. I'm too judgemental, too emotional, I take impersonal things too damn personally. You bet I do. "If it were your loved one," I retort, "in that rotten place forced to eat [under 15's please censor the next two words] human faeces, you bet you'd be mad as a raging bull. Mine isn't, but I care."
This isn't done. This isn't done. This is so not done. What is the matter with us? Do we not see? Do we not feel, think, hear, contemplate, know? A million things have gone wrong, actions done and undone. It was only a matter of waking up to a world running crazy after a life built like a dream inside a fairy tale.
Perhaps we have only ourselves to blame. Didn't we bring his on ourselves by straying from our security pole: deen and education?
Umr bhar kaun ho sharminda-e-ehsaan-e-hayat
Ek ummeed-e-gurezaan hai magar jaan-e-hayat.
Kya qayamat hai Sahab aaj sare wehshat-e-dil
Aa gaya haath mein apna hi garebaan-e-hayat.
'And the truth shall set ye free...'
1st September, 2007: Down the Highway of Irony
People have often told me my "religiosity" tends to be the first thing they notice in most of my outward disposition, which tends to put them off thinking, "Oh. You wear a burkha." (HelLO, it's not a 'burkha'. Learn to get your phonetics right. It's a burr-qa. And what I wear is a headscarf.) "But why you wear this?" (frantically making circles in front of their faces all the while, the misconstructed question doesn't matter of course.) My usual reply is, "Is that a question or an objection disguised as a question?" If that doesn't throw them off asking what they have no intention of knowing about, I briefly explain to them the concept of Hijab and why I personally like it. Then comes the infamous Barrage of Silly Questions. Follow through the argument here and make your own guesses at the rhetoric: "No, I don't take it off during weddings and parties." "No, no, I don't feel out of place. I like it." "Yes, I DO feel hot sometimes. I don't control the sun." "Because Allah asked me to." "Well, no. I won't take it off in UK. --- Because that would make me a damn hypocrite!" Then they will smile weirdly as if taken aback and don't appreciate my own snappy remark: "Well I find it more sensible than wearing nine yards of cloth that exposes half of everything, don't you think?"
Contrast these with the well-meaning, raised-in-a-confusing-religious- atmosphere girls. I don't myself ask someone why they don't wear a hijab (well not unless they wear one and I see them on Facebook without it. It's just so lame!), but surprisingly, they bring up the subject themselves. It's almost as if they'd like me to understand why they're not yet "ready for it", or save their souls from going down that guilt trip by coming up with an argument I genuinely find creative, innovative, ingenious. "Well, I'll wear it when my boyfriend says he's okay with it." (Whoa. That has got to top the list of innovative replies. To think hijab is about avoiding guys like that!) Another one: "You know, it's not good. It's important for your hair to get some sun. You should let it get some air too. There are studies done on this!" Yes, that' about as convincing as warmonger George saying he wants World Peace. Please! Spare us the psychobabble. One more that I just can't get over: "I wear, no. I wear burkha*. But then I went to college, and who can wear a burkha* in college? All the girls laugh at you." Du-uh. Have mercy, for the love of God!
* again with the phonetics....Sigh.
PS: For S, who I mentioned above and must be reading, here's wishing you a good, irony-free life. :)
26th August, 2007. The Unadulterated Ones
A series of random events -
supposedly random - seem to have been tailor-made for my life, basically
to reveal just how people are and what they can be.
People are generally either
simple or complex. It's a misleading way to describe people, but to
call it simplistic is giving it a moniker sans fineprint. All
the same, the way I see it, it does me something of a favour with
freakish organisation. I've been told I'm probably the Monica Geller of human
resources. 
Simple-Simple. Simple-Complex. Complex-Simple. Complex-Complex. The ones that touch me most inevitably are S-C, beating even the dreamlike C-C characters Michael Moretti and Robert Bellamy who embodied an adonis of hearts* to a teenager, eons ago! lol... Truth be told I don't even recall those days as being too similar to me right now. Really! It's amazing how much Xavier's prepared me for this moment. A cocoon it was, alright. Just like they'd said it would be.
* (I mean minds, quit grinning!)
I don't believe a S-S person
has much to love - or much to live up to anyway. Life is a painfully
long journey, might as well enjoy it. Get off, meet new friends, enjoy
the donut over conversation and get back on the caravan of
complaining how nobody is your "type", nobody understands, nobody
cares. The fact that S-S refuse to do something for others and in
consequence anonymize their own existence as historically beneficial
is
plain too philosophical for them to understand. In fact I'll
allow myself a borrowed cliché just this once: they're like Coca Cola bottles.
There's millions of them and you can't tell one from another. Taking
control of your destiny is just too much effort. For a real one, watch
the Hilton heiress.
Complex-Simple? Someone who lives up to the maxim 'Underpromise, overperform,' - only reversed. Feigning big words, fawning over with an enigmatic persona and fretting internally about losing grip on the all-important Image Construction Strategy. For someone who's simplistic within, being complex isn't easy. It isn't a pretty sight seeing them lose that either.
So what's cooking? Which one of them is best?
A beautiful mind, to me isn't just someone who's kind (and I mean kind, every little thing kind can possibly mean) to orphans, but a mind reassured by a free spirit, a heart that doesn't rebel just to rebel and thinks of the ultimate reality of his only possession - his soul, his heart, or his deed. A Simple Complex character is an embodiment of simplicity and wisdom, elegance and principles. They resonate who they are, enlighten those around them in the most insignificant of moments, never fail to show who they truly are: complex within, simple outside.
NB: I don't
myself think I exemplify S-C type. In fact I'm not sure where I stand,
maybe because I know myself too well. Or too little. I sure look up to it though, and
would like to see me head that way if not reach it. And whoever's reading
this had better not ask me where I place them unless they want a
virtual headbutt. I'M NOT TELLING!
24th August, 2007:Time Capsule From Another Life
It was a long time ago. I watched someone close to me breathe his last few, and I have never quite been able to forget it - or forgive myself. I didn't actually watch him when the Last Moment occurred - but I was deeply aware something wasn't quite right. Among the gleeful memories of huge candy packs and Barbies, was a rare ride on his shoulder. Soon it was too late.
"What's wrong? Papa?" I asked, genuinely bewildered. What's going on? Why was everyone so quiet? My dad, who I had trusted to answer my every question, was silent this time. My brother had been with me, playing. Now I couldn't find him anywhere in the crowded room, full of mum people in white, like benevolent ghosts for real. I turned to my uncle. I'd never seen him before a few days back, when Abuelo had become sick. But instead of his usually social demeanour, all I got was silence, as if I was invisible.
Two days went by until I found out and had come to the conscience that he was gone, and this time forever really meant something. There was naught I could do. To be honest I don't remember the phase too well, except feeling that I must be a really cold person to be the only around not having cried even once. All of six, I was fully conscious of that.
(continued below)
(Above: a sketch I made a few months ago. Ball point pen, 0.5)
Ten years went by. I was thinking of this very phase when I felt frustrated at not remembering much about him. Think, think! There must be something. Something about his personality. About his self. His habits. Anything!
Nothing. I had just the quaint memory of his last day, as if this book only comprised of the Epilogue.
22nd August, 2007.
"But WHY are you so worked up over a Palestinian death?" asked Fritnat
sardonically. "Muslims are so damn hypocritical when it comes to Middle
Eastern blood. I didn't hear you express any anguish when we were
discussing the Sri Lankan Muslims' murders by naxalites."
That set me thinking. In another direction altogether, though.
"Fritnat" really is a ReligionInGeneral-basher, but Islam is his
favourite goat. He overlooked my own empathic comment on the Sri Lankan
conflict so I don't really care for his comment so much as its
historical implications.
Are we really emphatic with Middle eastern blood? And if yes, is this a cultural metanym or is it embedded deep into the collective Muslim mind? It stems from here: We all know 25 prophets are mentioned by name in the Qur'an... and in
all probability (although proof towards this is biblical if anything)
the vast majority of them (or all) were from the middle east.
The middle east - a land which has been unstable throught the ages and
continues to remain so. I wouldn't be too optimistic given its past,
but what I can't find an answer to is why was this land chosen by Allah
SWT for such a large number of (and indeed majority of) those mentioned
in the Qur'an? To put it differently, why weren't prophets from Africa
chosen as case studies in the Qur'an? (there must have been quite a few
prophets from there as well, given that 124,000 prophets were raised
from among all peoples on earth).
As I was just thinking of this, I thought of the global scenario.
Columbus 'discovered' America but there surely must have been a prophet
raised from among native Americans as well. So the same question
applies to both Americas as well as Asia (we have some studies that
claim continentally popular leaders as being Prophets, but of course
there's no evidence) and Australia. In all probability, there are not
prophets from the rest of the world in the Torah, Bible or the Qur'an.
What makes the Middle East special and exemplary to the world?
I've asked the question on a number of forums and will be posting some credible replies here.
The Replies (so far):
~~ Update: I've decided to put up the replies on a single forum where people can post replies and see each other's views, while I don't have to break my back in moderating replies. I've put them up on Naseeb.com, where there's plenty of thinking Muslims and awesome moderation. (In fact, try writing "who're you?" and check the result. 500 bucks says you can't do it!) Good for me. :) If you know me well enough you must already be there or have received a link to it. The replies have since been removed from here.
20th August, 2007.
Aaaaaaah! (Try putting that to a tune) Such travesty in only wanting to see the famed patched fields. 'Be sure to give them every single document that has contained your name in your entire life.... and a copy of your birth certificate to prove to them you do exist,' advised my online forum buddy OnTheMark, when français was being learned with the hope of invading Paris. 'France's bureaucracy is legendary.'
Britain is no less - wasn't it conveniently bureaucratic to assume that people who make Big Truble aren't British nationals? It isn't the uneducated Pakistanis from NoPlaceSignificant who're blowing up precious British things in imagined revenge, it's home grown people who hear from the last surviving generation what it was really like to to be forced to strengthen another country with your sweat, blood, toil. No more are incognitos betraying a life not worth living, instead it's people with a enviable life worth living, worth loving. And what has happened to the little people who were stolen away with the charm of immortality? That poor guy is probably looking at the new cellphone he bought for his young son, thanks to a bustling economy that has enabled him to finally give his family a fridge, a jealousy-provoking wedding for his daughter, and the socially significant set of technologies to decorate the new home with. (It isn't much of a surprise Pakistan is racing ahead of India with a two-digit growth rate. But then, it takes much more to go from 5 to 10 than from 500 to 505. I mean, think of all the sacrifices their common people have made - including electing the most incapable people on the planet to the most important jobs - now it's only fair that average Pakistanis enjoy their temporary bed of roses. )
The new road leads to a life the East is unfamiliar with. India, China, Pakistan, with proud new figures to display are leaving the life of simplicity that they were at home with, behind. They have all begun to wet their feet in untested waters, treading irrevocably on the path to success and materialism...
I will refrain from doing what Narcissus did. Who knows what will unfold in the coming times? My guess is as good as the parrot's. I wish for a day it didn't have to be so damn complicated.
12 August, 2007.
A full month has flown away, my grandma has gone from worst-of-her-life to, Alhumdulillah, a life without the arthritic pains of a slipping rod, my brother lost the job before he even got it and my bank has indeed made me a millionaire. Not that I can run off to a much needed Estonian vacation with the money. Iqbal explains in his Gesu-e-Ta'abdaar:
Bagh-e-bahisht se mujhe hukm-e-safar diya tha kyun Kaar-e-jahan daraaz hai, ab mera intezaar kar...
I did behave like a child that day, very much the instinctive reaction I knew I'd have when they gave me the money to study at Warwick...lol it was almost as if a lifetime had been spent in hoping and dreaming, and now this was finally happening, really really. A sudden thought popped into my head: Why is this such a big deal? Didn't people right here living less than twenty steps from my place make a niche of respect for themselves, with an MU degree? When I was younger it was just the excitement of being in the phoren, reading all the serious things that big people do. And at the time an India of success, without a firangi degree, was a laughable exception. That faded as soon as I gained senses -- the first blow to that line of thinking was finding out from somewhere that some of the least educated guys (formally) had done some incredible feats. And now it is just the thought of studying day and night, alone in the comfort of a 24-hour library (with an unending bag of Snickers Minis by my side of course!), delving deep into the texts the wise have written, taking only the occasional break to visit the laundromat where you're supposed to meet the best minds in town. Yum yum!
But the Laundromat People - the average intellectuals of our times - how do some of the least educated people (formally*) compare with them? Well, in a nutshell, The LP's are outnumbered 3 to 1 by the formally educated ones in the Real World, but on the other hand all of the world's evils can't be dumped on the latter under the alibi of a classroom-environment education. It's experience v/s education (formal). And so far (formal) education is losing - the world isn't a better place, not because of the mudslinging that's supposed to be characteristic of the world's least formally educated societies, but in spite of the LP's.
So to quote myself from about 4 years back, "Experience is like discovering an ancient city - without formal education, you can't tell just beautiful architecture from the revolutionary." Yes, I'm certainly one to stand for formal education, unabashedly so. My hero and ideal was unlettered as well, but minds like that are enriched with the soul of their practice. We all know there's exceptions either which ways - but to set foot on a thousand mile journey of learning is an enchantment and promise of a new world, one we desperately need.
*I'm deliberately tending to make that note on formalism because everyone understands the notion of education reasonably well enough to know enlightenment doesn't necessarily follow education. You still have some of the smartest guys on earth voting for the dumbest and falling prey to the fallic idea that we can decide when we die.
12 July, 2007.
Often, when, just thinking about my own life, I revel in the idea that there's a higher purpose for my life that obviously fails when I'm, say, watching Ally McBeal. Is it destiny that makes us want to be something higher than ourselves? Or do we want that for ourselves, and change destiny 180°? And is that person necessarily us? (if you know what I mean - there's things that are just us, we know it the second we lay eyes on them or taste them or hear or feel them...) Toying with the idea in those very days when I was attending a An Introductory Workshop on Sufism at my college, when I heard the following incident (and I'm a great believer in divine perfect timing - incidents happen in my life exactly when I need them most to reveal something to me!) It struck me to the heart more because it was so precisely timed than for its uncanny ability to awaken to soul, to question and learn. At least - I think that's what my life is.
So the Sufi teacher (not a term, effectively just two words put together!) is giving the Student* his first lesson on Khudi, or The Self. He asks the student to go out of the master's house, take a short walk, and come back. The Student complies.
But when he comes back, the door is locked, and as he knocks he hears the master call out, "Who is it?"
"It is me," he replies. The door remains closed. He knocks again.
The master calls out once more, "Who is it?"
"It's me!" he cries back, knowing the master recognises his voice.
He knocks on the door a third time, and expects the master to demand to know who it is. The student by this time knows the same answer won't get him in.
The master insists, "Who is it?"
The students understands. "It is you."
"Aye," said the master, letting him in, "you have understood."
Humility is a small but all-important lesson towards realisation of the Self and ultimately the capacity to truly love. There is no one I can think of who puts this more succinctly (or beautifully) than Iqbal's qita:
Khudi ko kar buland itna
Ke har Taqdeer se pehle
Khuda bande se khud poocchey
Bata, teri raza kya hai?
************************************************************
* Now this is an interesting aspect. Quite unlike modern day squeezing of entire communities into one classroom, (but quite like Oxford, who has somehow managed to retain this tradition and charges a bomb for it!) during its prime time years all Islamic teaching - be it Sufi or Fiqh - was usually done one-to-one, so in a lifetime a really well known man could take only five or six students - thoroughly imparting their own wisdom and supervising ideas of research personally. In an account like this, the "student" refers to the only student. Hence the capitalization.
28th June 2007
Baton mein rang aaye hain jabse...barse, barse, barse rang barse! I can't seem to knock that tune out of my head! So how's this for a first: maddeningly scouring the Net for a place to get that tune, and the last, absolutely last place where I find it: the official Reliance website, no less! You would think they'd act stupidly simple in matters of crying urgency with our cellphones, but downloading advertising - easy as a snap!
So other than my fly-and-a-flea-in-a-flu filled week, where my body inadvertently refused to settle on any spot on earth but my bed, the only fun thing that happened was unplanned Walk In The Rain. Boy, was that something! The kind of rain I've only always dreamt of being drenched in, with winds flying people away, to say nothing of umbrellas, foggy mists spraying around only to get interrupted by freezing jets of gallons of water. So. Gauging that you've probably realised I love rains, guess what my destination was: Dr. Hamid, to get my mother's emergency eosinophilia tabs (never heard of that before, have you?) and my dad's malaria course. Romantesque? Wait till you hear this - I was supposed to be in my body's preferred destination, the Bed, what with my being sick. But I guess the best experiences in life aren't those you plan every detail carefully of or picture a million times in your head, but the ones you go through as a sick, unwilling person ready to take on your dream, even if it's the most dreadful thing that day.
27th June, 2007
So after that rather miserable account, a note of cheer: today's the day, I'm officially supposed to have ended the miserable Throwing Up Week and back to Spanish class with a bang!! I can hardly believe it - I haven't felt this enthusiastic in days! And let's face it, negativity breeds negativity. So to play it safe AND in the interest of refraining from shedding save-able water for my beloved city, no more ugly dreadful day accounts!
Other than that...the new laptop arrived, the ultra-light Lenovo 3000 Y300, packed with standard stuff (although it cost a bomb for someone who wants to use just Start -> MS Word -> Shut Down. Yup. My mum.)
Sigh. But dads are known to do sometimes.
26th June 2007.
This account is meant to lambast people. If you're feeling inordinately cheery today, DO NOT read on. But of course, you insist.
People
aren't supposed to be cold and uncaring; it's just too unnatural for
them. If having a regular family means having a Mamma's Boy and Daddy's Little Girl in the family, today was certainly regular. Never
mind that the past 9 months had nothing to do with today. Parents come
in all different shapes, sizes, types, colours. My take on dealing with
it was when they're all defective in a million different ways, there
must be a problem with you. Try putting on -3 glasses instead, they
might work. Or -1. Or another number, until your sight on all things
around you is set right. After all, Allah made us - made our parents,
gave them the inner nature and their ability of change themselves. I
would never concentrate on the former, I never had time to look beyond
the latter because it took it all up since I discovered it. One of my
favourite quotes still is Thoreau's chillingly true "I know of no more encouraging fact
than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious
endeavour."
Ha! But
I guess I was just sorely upset today - as I am every time when I see
someone misuse their inner nature, ignore their ability to change. Taking things personal
like I do, I let out a few raindrops of misery onto my cheeks and held
on that the world will survive this terrible ordeal. The only thing I
couldn't shake off later is that someone had the capacity to snap
emotions on and off, with an all-powerful button of status. But this is
real, no matter how I wish it weren't. I must be a terrible, terrible
idealist, I thought, thinking of its natural consequences. The
pragmatist that my brother is yields considerably more
Happiness-Per-Hour days, - at least the status quo doesn't feel like the
tragedy of suicide.
05 February 2007
Ok so the last two nights were special...I mean my life's always been the kind where I'm more than often on my own (to snub my friend's comment that I was protected but "free", whatever that meant) but I WAS on my own, alone in a megacity with no parents, relatives or sibling for at least a thousand kilometres. I would've thought it would be exhilarating; people - girls - in my country don't often get that chance. But disappointingly enough, it was rather normal. I mean I camped out in my neighbour's bedroom (mum's orders) and it wasn't like I could gain satisfaction in not going to my Spanish and French classes the next morning. Oh I did miss my French class. We talked well into the night, just an hour before Fajr.
Oh and something else did happen. It wasn't until I woke
that I realised I'd been dreaming and that in the last 20 minutes or so
my brow has gone from plain furrowed to a terrifying curve. He was
going fast, way too fast for my comfort. I mean I've enjoyed the breeze
and the thrill when my uncle did a 115 kmph, but this was different.
The fact that he was holding a gun made matters different. I ran as
soon as we stopped at the signal outside my street, ran for life,
looking out for a mid-thirties guy in blue overalls. A cabbie.
I knew I had to hide, the abnormally deserted streets scared the hell
out of me. The best escape seemed a wafer shop I frequently visit, and
quickly explained to the eldest man there who I know is in charge, that
a madman was after my life. I recall strange details, like thinking I
didn't have my cellphone with me (last evening, I really had forgotten
to take it to my Spanish class - a detail that obviously meant the
difference between life and death here) and that both my parents were
somewhere far away, unable to help me or even know what was going on
(this too was exactly the situation I was in yesterday!) I hid under
the cashier's table, but in my dream the shop's interiors had somehow
changed, so that whoever came in would only have to bend a little to be
able to see me. The fact that the madman was barely an inch over five
feet made matters worse as he could see me much more easily than
someone with good height. I was four inches taller than him, and terrified. I
even recall he had a large head, normally I would assume him physically
harmless, even stupid. He walked in, talking to the cashier presumably about me. I
didn't hear a word over the noise of customers in the shop. At that
moment, assuming from the fact that I couldn't hear his voice anymore,
I lifted my head a little to see if he'd left. Too late. I tried
pretending I was an employee, and shuffled some stuff under the desk. I
was deeply aware that he was looking at me deliberately, eyes
bloodshot. But he knew as well as I that his plan was useless as long
as I was publicly visible. He left.
I would've screamed with joy. But in five minutes, this event will have gotten horribly out of control. For some odd reason, I just kept looking at the crowd of people pronging for tidbits, and kept thinking. My mind was racing with a thousand thoughts without specifically focusing on one. It was stupidity at the time, I needed to think an escape plan fast and fast. But it looked like my desultory mind had just cost me that opportunity.
The
contractor walked in. Without so much as a single moment of nervous
threatening, he simply put the dagger an inch from my neck, jerking it
to signal that I should get up from my stupid 'hiding' place. Why the hell didn't I change my place when the Blue Overalls Guy left? I
wondered. I'll give you a hundred thousand, I said to The Contractor
(in my city the name has nothing to do with construction guys during
nights) calmly and quietly when he took me away from the crowd and my
escape into the still-deserted street. I knew murderers in India -
especially in Bombay - can be hired for as little as a room for a night
in a cheap hotel. These guys are poor, hungry - and have even poorer
and hungrier families. Even so I recalled my dilemma as to how I would
arrange the money myself while my parents were away. Logically he would
never allow me to call my parents. He squinted his eyes so as to say, You have got. To be. Kidding me. This is personal, it's got nothin' to do with money, lady. There
goes my second last chance, I thought. It was all I could do to take
both of free hands and knock him in the stomach with my elbow to stun
him. It didn't. He was probably made of steel. In a last, desperate
attempt to break free, I kicked him in a way I knew would get me
results. This time it worked.
My eyes flew open. I was breathless, more because it seemed so real I was panting to be happy I got away. In a second I said "La hawla wa la quwwata illa billa hill aly ill azeem," like my father had taught me to say after a bad dream.
Morning
came and went, I was still troubled. This isn't usual, I kept thinking.
I've never been much of a dreamer (no pun intended) and this week had
been full of them. Everyday there was something bizarre that came in
the form of a closed-eyes movie with the SFX of Bose. Whoa, if this is
just my imagination, I am on a roll this week!
07 September 2006.
She screams and yells. Even when I wear her around my neck, The Little Devil has no qualms about knawing my hands no end. Involuntarily, I pinched her neck and she lets out something between a muffled cry and a bloodcurdling scream. And when you glare at her for completely destroying the one moment of peace humans aspire to live all their lives with their pets, she snaps to her Little Angel avatar. Her big brown eyes get bigger, browner and full of begging mercy. You go,"Awwwww..." and bend down to stroke her shampooed fur, and there she bites your hand real hard like nobody's business.
Sigh.
Meet Buffy the Tomcat. Buffy The Brat was supposed to have been a
female. Much less aggressive. Protective but not wild. Sweet but not
pretentious. And now I have a cat with raging hormones, who somehow
seems to think she - HE - can go biting people with all her - HIS -
might 'cause it's a real fun activity.
18th August 2006
So there. I won't be leaving for UK this year...but my discouraged phase is past. I have had the time to look into myself and figure out why I felt so dillusioned for a while there..and what is it exactly that I want to do now...
My plan is structurally organised like most of my other stuff is - I'm so not a big fan of functional organisation - into a 5-year, 10-year, and 20-year Vision. I know exactly who, what and where I want to be.
It's still in my mind but I have an unmistakable idea nonetheless. I can almost see my 40th birthday.......
03rd May 2006
A few days back I met a really nice person, Marie-Marie Andrasch who's studying Muslim Personal Law in the elitist (as she liked to put it!) Sciences Politiques, Paris. Now that UK seems' like doubtful for want of scholarship (and how! isn't it sad that non-Uk people like me spend THREE times what locals do?? It's just not fair!!!) ...it seems worth the try. Alright Science-Po is basically paying ME 750 euros a month. A MONTH!!!! for living! Did I mention I love the generous French over the Brits and oh did I mention they're so generous?
25th April 2006
That's it! the meteor is past, my exams donnnnne! so finally i can safely say I'm a .....Sociologist! Wow, my best friend's an Indologist...how cool is that! Finally people are gonna have to listen to me...lol ;)
13 April 2006.
This turns out to be the most boring time of the year. There are tons of things I'd consider important to do, but being in a break in the middle of exams is hardly my idea of summer fun. Well...still got Research and Work & Occupation exams...phew. Not my forte.
12.April 2006
Well here's a thought to begin with: even as I begin to consider that this really is the beginning of my professional (ahem) life, my bachelors almost being done, I can't think of how it would be six months on! I mean, I sure didn't see me applying to universities in the UK, but here I am... and by the way, I have offers of admission from places like Nottingham, Sheffield and Bristol! These weren't the ones I'd expected to reply first...and certianly not affirmative! How did it all even happen?
