Il Amore é L’essenza Della Vita….

Sometimes the outside view of Dimension XY … is just plain creepy.

A while ago, my husband and I had to buy a going-away present for someone and like most of our shopping programs, he came to pick me up straight from work and we headed off to the mall. Midway, someone from work gave him a call and wanted him back at the office and so we decided that since the mall was near where the office was, he’d drop me off, take care of the problem and come back.

Now originally, I consider myself a strong, confident, independent woman who won’t think twice at the idea of walking alone in a shopping mall. It is absolutely no problem. I’d done it scores of times back in Pakistan and it wasn’t a problem in Dubai and sure as hell it shouldn’t have been a problem in Yemen. But something about the fact that Yemeni men are surrounded by black-hooded-burqa-clad women all the time and a woman in a pantsuit or a shalwar qameez whose face was open to the world to see – just made me uncomfortable. Just a little bit.

But I wasn’t about to give in to the whiny loser inside of me – so I got dropped off at the STC and asked B to give me a call when he got back.

The mall was deserted because apparently it opened well after 5 and it was only 4.15 yet. 45 minutes to kill in a small shopping mall with a coffee shop in the corner and Baskin and Robbins on the other side.

Two scoops of Very Berry with nuts later, I was walking completely aimlessly around the mall, bought a 1500YR worth of raspberry purple nail polish from Red Earth which I absolutely did not need, tried to find a gift store that was open and unsuccessfully attempted to communicate with the Red Earth saleswoman about the opening timings of the shops.

And thus two trips to the first floor later, I noticed a humming. I’d been ignoring it for the past couple of minutes. But it was getting a bit much to ignore since the voice was getting louder and more and more out of tune.

I wished instantly at that moment – that I had actually, seriously attended those  Arabic classes in that madrassah M and I had attended for a year in Pak instead of bunking them and gossiping near the cooler with M. Therefore, the extent of my Arabic began and ended at random words like “This is a cow” and “This is a flower” and that whenever you add ‘hee’ to the end of the word, it refers to the female gender. And a lot of other useless stuff I knew I could never put to practical use.

The Arabic ballad grew louder and louder. I walked in this lane and that but the human radio wouldn’t quit. I climbed the escalator and the music followed. I turned right and his tune got more and more offkey. I turned left and the singer only got louder.

I turned around slightly to note that it was a sweeper who had at least seven teeth missing from what could’ve been a winner smile (and you can tell I’m being charitable) and wore bright yellow pants and a plasticky coat to match. I caught his eye and his grin widened and he continued to sing.

I stared. For about a minute.

And then the clouds parted, the heavens listened to the silent prayers I had been uttering and my phone rang. B was at the door of the mall and I almost ran (if I could run in pink sandals) to meet him.

The Yemeni Enrique Iglesias, faithful to his mission, followed and stopped dead in his tracks (and so did the singing, thank God) when he saw me hug a six-foot-two man with longish hair and a grim smile (he has that sometimes when he’s been called at work for no reason).

Iglesias disappeared and I was happily hungry for more ice cream again.

I wish I knew what went on in his head when he decided to mall-stalk me for 45 minutes. He was over 40 years old, completely out of my league (Yemeni Enriques are just way too hot – and sarcasm is not a lost art) and I’m sure he didn’t expect me to say, “Oh sire, your offkey singing has won me over – let me forget life as I know it and run away to the Bahamas with you!”

I’m sure I’m not alone in Dimension X (X) when I say that I don’t understand stalkers. There is this one guy who randomly added me on MSN about … I don’t know ten years ago. And then hacked my account. And then stole my display picture at Orkut and used it as his own. And then sent me birthday cards for two years (I don’t know how he got the address to my home – creepy!). And then keeps sending me birthday emails every year. And then reads this blog too. I know because I keep an eye on blog-referrals and it’s honestly disturbing to see the level of consistency of being creepy here. Seriously, dude, what’s wrong with you? Have you really not thought of a life outside a distant, married, uninterested woman who won’t give a shit?

The same level of consistency is found in the many crank callers I didn’t know existed outside Pakistan and cheesy drunk-high-school movies. These bastards can tell by the first ‘hello’ that you don’t speak Arabic. And they continue to jabber in Arabic for a good twenty seconds (insert a girlish giggle and a guffaw from them) before you hang up on them after yelling, “I’M SORRY YOU HAVE THE WRONG NUMBER” at least ten times. At ungodly hours, repeatedly, these people have no lives.

I’ve been watching Sex and the City lately and if there’s one thing that show aims to teach the masses, it’s that men and women are all desperate for sex. We all want it, this way or that, through one-night stands, masochistic relationships, pretending, conforming – whatever gets us that booty.

Of course, that’s New York and the issues of/about sex in a culturally evolved society has a different set of problems than being ’sung’ to or being stalked online for ten years.

When it comes to Muslims or societies that aren’t as open to the topic of sex as the Europeans or Americans are – our men and women choose to find their highs in more discreet and less obvious ways. Games of society become games of courtship and dating doesn’t come as easily to our time tables as we’d obviously like to. The invention of the internet has certainly created more avenues for the young and the restless to channelize their libidos … but it makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Just how desperate – overall – human beings are for sex? Or how they get so wired when it comes to the opposite sex? Regardless of how out-of-reach-impossible the situation is, regardless of how the end to the whole tirade is pointless – human beings (men and women alike) will go to unimaginable lengths after their libido has caught hold of them.

Freud had a point.

And with Valentine’s Day around the corner, you know you’ll see that surge of hormones all around you proving the same point all over again. Even disbelievers of the day such as yours truly find myself wishing for a secret surprise of some kind on the morning of the 14th of February.

Okay so maybe that’s a bit much – but you get my point.

You have to wonder – what God was thinking when He decided to give Man (and Woman) this desire to love and procreate and go forth and multiply. You have to wonder what kind of machinery did He have in mind that would run on testosterone and progesterone and what end-result did He expect when he gave Man the ability to think from his pants and allowed Woman to deal with everything in respect of her monthly moodswings.

You just have to question what the world would look without the color red and the shape of hearts and if Homer would ever get around to writing the Odyssey and the Iliad if people were unknown to the concept of love.

You have to put forth the idea if we even know what in the holy fuck it really is.

The thing we’ve been writing about since ages, the idea that sells Bollywood movies and makes pubescent boys act like Shah Rukh Khan. The concept Keats couldn’t get enough of it (even if it killed him) and the storyline that made all of Shakespeare’s dramas box office hits.

After all these years of boy-meets-girl (or in the case of us Muslims, boy’s-parents-meet-girl’s-parents) and the merry go round that makes us dream and buy red roses on February 14th … do we have any idea what it is about?

Does it go beyond the libido? Does it mean anything more than a fleeting flight of fancy or does it still stick even when the one you ‘love’ is not riding that stallion that Hans Christian Andersen promised or isn’t singing a ballad on top of a Himalaya mountain with his cardigan classily draped over his shoulders?

My own idea of love has been limited. I think human beings are biologically programmed and their thoughts are responses to their biological calling. And in this midst we make life all the more interesting with movies, music and poetry. Maturity and being in love means, to me, understanding the needs and basis of the other partner to compromise and share a life that won’t be smooth always – but will be worth the trouble because the person you’re doing it for isn’t a complete jackass and even if you have to ask him to not watch football on weekends and not be cranky if Rooney doesn’t manage to score, and even if he tells you that the latest Gul Ahmed shirt that you’ve worn with so much gusto makes you look like Laal Shahbaz Qalandar (thanks to the latest A-line shirt fads) … it’s actually much more real than the idea that has been sold to us over all these years.

So, to the fools in love and to the ones foolish enough to want to … Have a great Valentine’s Day.

Go nuts.

Buy flowers.

And chocolates.

And big heart-shaped balloons.

This craziness is here to stay.

2009.

I like tags. If they’re good ones.

Here’s one, long overdue, from Jammie.

The #best09 Prompts

December 1 Trip. Dubai for the honeymoon. Room service, shop till you drop, movies at the mall, dinner at Chili’s, wine at Rodeo Grill. Loved every bit of it.

December 2 Restaurant moment. A small pizzeria in Ibn e Batutah mall. We weren’t hungry but we loved the pizza there. It surprised us and made us even hungrier.

December 3 Article. Read something about female genital mutilation in these parts. Couldn’t get that damn thing outta my head for weeks.

December 4 Book. Margaret Atwood’s “The Tent”.

December 5 Night out. Our first night out as a married couple … we weren’t hungry … just ended up roaming around Lahore until we were terribly sleepy.

December 6 Workshop or conference. A workshop with Therapy Works. All about Transactional Analysis etc. Really made me understand all over again why I wanted to become a psychologist in the first place.

December 7 Blog find of the year. I think I’ve made most of the good discoveries last year.

December 8 Moment of peace. After finally moving into our new place. Lying down after sheer exhaustion of moving stuff and setting it all up.

December 9 Challenge. Making the perfect round roti.

December 10 Album of the year. Coldplay’s album all the way.

December 11 The best place. Variety Book Shop.

December 12 Drink. I think I adore Rooh Afza milk now.

December 13 Changes in the place you live. Got it renovated, added a few homey touches and filled the bookshelf.

December 14 Rush. Marrying him.

December 15 Best packaging. Can’t think of any.

December 16 Tea. Lipton Green Tea with lemon.

December 17 Word or phrase. Legendary!

December 18 Shop. Oviesse. Finding Body Shop and spending it all there.

December 19 Car ride. Trip to Mahweet, I’d say.

December 20 Person. No one’s worthy of that yet. I’d take my husband’s name but I’ve known him for over five years now so I guess that can’t count. :/

December 21 Project. Began writing for YT. Cooked stuff I never thought I could pull off.

December 22 Business Startup. Hah. As if!

December 23 Web tool. Mozilla’s “restore session” ability.

December 24 Learning experience. Marriage and relationships are great things – they take work but if you’re investing yourself with the right person … they’re worth every bit of that hard work you’ve put in.

December 25 Gift. My Nikon P80.

December 26 Insight or aha! moment. I can cook ROTIS! And make awesome aloo parathas!

December 27 Social web moment. Haven’t met anyone as such … but did get around to becoming friends with a lot of people online.

December 28 Stationery. Oh this gorgeous, gorgeous stationery store near our house. Bought the best of pens and pastels and whatnot.

December 29 Laugh. I remember the laugh. I don’t remember what it was about. Barooq … do you?

December 30 Ad. Toshiba’s robot ads. Man do they get on my nerves.

December 31 New Year Resolution. Don’t believe in New Year Resolutions.

And the flicks shall set you free.

Given the fact that there is precious little to do in a country that is currently living in the fourteenth century, cinema-less and battling issues like child marriage and polygamy and female genital mutilation, the one thing that keeps expats going (apart from tiny coffee shops and secluded neighborhoods with high-end restaurants) are movies. And thank God for the movie-wallah who can speak English and practice intelligent behavior when he separates the best and the newest of movies for us when we go to buy our weekly stash of flicks. Thank God for torrents that can provide semi-watchable prints of Bollywood hits and misses that aren’t available here at all.

Here are the given few worth talking about. And the upcoming flicks I’m really looking forward to. Bite-size movie reviews rock, don’t they? (Spoilers ahead as well, beware.)

Inglorious Basterds:

Quentin Tarantino is probably one of the most stylish film-makers that cinema has seen so far. For those of you who haven’t seen IB as yet, you’re missing out on Tarantino’s best. And in that best is another complete stunner of a performer – Christopher Waltz. Not a lot can be said now since the plenty of awards that he’s bagged already and the raving of critics has already poured down from every which way on the role of Colonel Hans Landa – but I’m going to say it anyway.

Landa grips your attention from the get-go. His character is smooth and disturbing, courteous and cannibalistic, intense and savvy. It dominates the screen and surpasses every other character and plot that goes on in the film. Waltz’s portrayal of the genial yet diabolical “Jew Hunter” has got the bar raised for all awards this year – and for the many movies and characters that Tarantino will write in the future. From the way he smiles and addresses “Monsieur LaPadite” to the way he terminates Bridget von Hammersmark are both pinnacles within one character that most people cannot achieve for years in many a movie. If Waltz doesn’t win the Oscar this year – I’ll be very very disappointed, to say the least.

All About Steve:

Sandra Bullock has made some seriously good movies this year – and her nominations and awards are also not undeserved for the work she’s done. All About Steve is the story of one woman’s obsession with finding normalcy – while being one of the most eccentric people around her. Bullock’s performance is endearing, appealing and definitely makes the whole very-average film worth watching.

Julie and Julia:

Maybe it was because I’d built it up too much in my head because of Streep and Adams, but it kinda fell short from the uplifting image I had had for it. Streep is completely convincing as usual and the parallel storylines do prove to be the piece de resistance for the film – but it stretches on for too long, becomes quite stagnant at certain points and kinda becomes too much of too many good things all simmering in one pot (talk about too much of metaphors, huh).

Funny People:

I’ve always believed that comedians have the greatest talent of all performers. Where it is Jim Carrey or Robin Williams or Steve Carell who have ventured into serious waters, comedic performances seem to hone performers more than anything else. Adam Sandler was also just as terrific in Reign Over Me and I expected the same calibre of performance in Funny People. Though interestingly it was Seth Rogen that ended up stealing the screen. Sandler’s got talent for the serious bit but his performance in Funny People was nowhere near as impressive as it was in Reign Over Me. The film gets a little out of control when it comes to holding the plot together and maintaining a center. But the punchlines make it work (“Are you mad you died at the end of Die Hard?”… “Don’t cry, you’re making a scene. Everyone will think I broke up with you” … “I just came back from the new Harry Potter movie. Harry’s getting old. They should start calling him Harold Potter”) and even with all the jokes with sexual content and the portrayal of over-the-top-rich Simmons, you can digest a film with some weekend Pepsi and popcorns.

G-Force:

Slightly boring, mainly interesting (because it’s little guinea pigs, hello). It’s one of those flicks you don’t know whether to recommend or watch while doing something else.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs:

Definitely worth the hype and the wait. Animated flicks have the advantage of being as ridiculous as they can. And that’s where it gets the most challenging – how far can you push before it gets too much? Meatballs pushes just enough and does it with the quick witted and intelligent charm that makes you remember the movie much after you’ve done reviewing it.

Up:

I can just copy paste here what I wrote for Meatballs. Up is one of those movies that prove to you that the future of animation is just going to get bigger and better.

Monsters vs. Aliens:

Even though I think Reese Witherspoon is quite overrated as an actress and any other actress could have voiced the role of Susan just as well – I thoroughly enjoyed Monsters vs. Aliens. Especially loved Hugh Laurie’s character Dr. Cockroach.

Up in the Air:

Clooney’s sensitive and realistic portrayal of Ryan Bingham, the man who finds flying state to state and firing people much more preferable than staying at home and finding a family, doesn’t impress as much as it could have, had it not been for Waltz in Basterds. Nevertheless the film is well-made and what I love about Jason Reitman movies is how they refuse to chop out the mundane and still remain interesting to watch.

Duplicity:

Julia Roberts and Clive Owen are trying to con each other and trying to do it together. Romantic or not, the film ends with you wondering if the makers of the movie were a bit too inspired by Ocean’s Eleven and realized after making the movie that they really couldn’t pull off an ‘inspired’ production like that.

Couples Retreat:

As far as romantic comedies for married couples go, this one was just absurd and silly. Don’t believe a flick when it tells you that years of marital conflict can be solved by taking an expensive vacation together where you can cheat on each other.

Law Abiding Citizen:

Gerard Butler is my new favorite action hero. And that’s saying a lot since that post was long vacated by Bruce Willis (see Surrogates review) after the euphoria of Die Hard ended. Definitely one of the must-watches of the season.

Surrogates:

Does anyone remember 16 Blocks? And does anyone remember how you kept thinking to yourself … Willis is getting old. And that was true. It’s even more painfully true in Surrogates. A drab bore of a film that just doesn’t work. Sorry, Bruce. I’m a die-hard fan of yours but I really think you should think about going into … production or something. I don’t know. Ask Clint Eastwood.

Love Happens:

A major disappointment for Aniston fans. And we’d like to stop being disappointed, please. First there was that horribly dull film “Management” and now this. A talented, beautiful woman like Aniston really shouldn’t be wasting herself in flicks where she’s just some eccentric girl in the corner.

My One and Only:

Maybe the film was supposed to shed light on the lifestyles of women during an age where they were asked to conform obediently – but this movie just ended up being about Renee Zellweger’s accent and her inability to get it together. If you’re a Zellweger fan, watch it. Otherwise, steer clear. It’s just a period piece with little to offer in terms of story and substantiality.

White Out:

A plain old CSI-style thriller. The only thing that makes it different is the fact that it is set in Antarctica. And then there’s Kate Beckinsale in the first minutes taking off her clothes and stepping into the shower. I honestly wonder if the directors put that in to spike the number of people who would watch this film.

Year One:

You think Jack Black, you think funny. Then you think of him dressed as a caveman, meeting Cain and Abel and wandering around Sodom and talking to Abraham, you think – oh this has GOT to be funny. Surprise, surprise. It isn’t.

Away We Go:

One of the best movies I’ve seen this past season. It’s got a nice ensemble cast but what’s great about the movie is how quirky yet heartfelt it is – even with the seemingly impossible characters that keep weaving in and out of the story. Definitely a must-watch if you want to see something sweet and interesting and all coming-of-age sorta flick.

It’s Complicated:

It’s actually not. Meryl Streep is the only outstanding thing about the film – otherwise the whole plot of sleeping with an ex and then trying to let go is as cliched as it gets. Oh and Alec Baldwin is the second-best thing about the film. There’s something very irritating yet engaging about his character and his inability to get a reality check.

Whip It:

Ellen Page plays Bliss, a girl who is dragged to beauty pageant after beauty pageant by her mother. Latent urges make way as she begins to get obsessed by roller derby skating and enrolls as a part of a team called “Hurl Scouts” after lying about her age and without informing her parents. Drama, thrills, chills. Sure. A chick flick, at the end of it. Page shines out.

Sherlock Holmes:

Well deserved nomination for Robert Downey Jr. Strongly reminiscent of Wilson and House’s camaraderie (or it should be the other way around), this is one flick you don’t want to miss (even if you are blissfully ignorant of who House and Wilson are). Thoroughly enjoyable, loved every bit of it.

The Invention of Lying:

Ricky Gervais is also one of those gifted comedians who can look convincing as real people while trying to get a laugh. All the merit of this film being tolerable comes from Gervais, even though the idea of the whole film is novel enough. Gervais plays a loser (no ish) of a man stuck in a world where you can’t lie. He becomes the first man to utter a lie and thereon begins the invention of God, religion, entertainment, stable relationships and all other placebos we need to fill our lives.

Looking for Eric:

The story of an ordinary postman facing depression and a completely fucked up life. It all changes when he begins to hallucinate about Eric Cantona, the famous ManUtd player and turns his life around.

The Answer Man:

For a low-budget, small-set film, this was actually a pretty good watch. A mockery in the face of a lot of self-help books and an interesting approach to understanding the people who read these books.

Wake Up Sid:

Ranbir Kapoor did well in the movie no doubt. But he now needs to prove that he can do movies that are different from the I’m-a-big-boy-now formula. I have a feeling his versatility can easily go to waste if he doesn’t understand that he’s got talent.

Three Idiots:

Loved the movie, loved the songs, loved the fact that Aamir Khan struck again. But can he strike just as well next time playing his appropriate age? Without citing jokes that were leftover from the last five years? Otherwise, 2 thumbs up for making a movie that wasn’t as typical as most Bollywood flicks are.

—————————————————-

Movies I’m looking forward to:

1. My Name is Khan
2. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
3. The Blind Side
4. Invictus
5. 500 Days of Summer
6. An Education
7. The Fantastic Mr. Fox
8. The Men Who Stare at Goats
9. The Informant
10. Shutter Island
11. Alice in Wonderland
12. Tooth Fairy
13. Toy Story III
14. Shrek Forever After
15. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – part 1

Maybe I was wrong.

You know what?

Go to hell.

This is something that I had wished I could say to you before you did what you did before. And I didn’t. I just stopped taking your calls and stopped replying to your texts and I didn’t express to you just how pissed you made me feel after you did what you did.

But glory be to the powers of being in a country where you do nothing but miss home – I actually got the nerve up to tell you those few words.

And what do you do?

Act innocent and weird and oh-was-it-my-fault?

Fuck yeah it’s your fault.

I listened to you when you were falling apart, I was there when my own life had issues much bigger than your ‘oh-my-generator-can’t-work-the-AC-sometimes’ and I was there when everyone else in your life told you to fuck off and just didn’t care about you.

I was there at every time it was in my power to be there. And I have never.. not even once.. not even out of a snappish predisposition that I had when my students were giving me shit or when my family was driving me nuts … I never told you I never had time to listen to your stories of your various escapades and useless mindgames. Even when I got married, and moved to a country where it was impossible to talk on the phone for long hours, I sat for many a time on gtalk, on MSN, even called you when you didn’t appear online for a couple of days (and then again your response was – oh sorry, I was too busy) and I asked myself if I was being the regular idiot that I was. If I was becoming an even bigger idiot than my parents had turned out to be.

Blame it all on the parents.

People who give up everything in their lives to give you what they want.

Blame it on them to tell you to have faith in people and think that they’ll change some day and that hope isn’t a useless emotion. It’s their fault you’re writing this right now.

It’s especially their fault today more than anyone else’s because they lived their lives like that too. And admit it. You hated them for taking those choices. Being noble. Taking the high road. And all that bullshit that goes with being brainless when it comes to this world.

But I knew I had a choice. I had a choice when circumstances asked, “To be them or not to be them?” and I chose to be them when it came to friendship.

I chose to be optimistic about people.

The same way Dad did when he spent his time and energy and money on his friends when they turned around and disappeared from his life without even so much as a word or ta-ta or an apology. The same way Mom cooked and toiled and chopped onions and made qurmas for her friend and got a ‘thanks, see you later’ at the dinner party that was hosted for everyone my mother knew … except my mother. The same way my mom and dad taught us compassion and love and sympathy and turning the other cheek and moving on and being good - when they were in complete and total denial about the results of their own social philosophy in dealing with schmucks around them.

I realize that I shouldn’t have forgiven you the first time. The first time when you, based on a misunderstanding, turned my own friends against me and thought you’d break me with your Nazi attitude.

It takes more than a Nazi to break me, glad you found that out.

I realize that your ideas of friendship are different than mine. You don’t like spending money, you hate the idea of anything that can go against your orthodox views of God and His religion and you have the tolerance and attention span of Hammie when he’s high on coffee and sugar. And every time I told you these things, we laughed it off because that is who you were.

I really did not think it would get in the way of us being friends. Choices of what clothes you like don’t a friendship make, I believed that.

But the utter denial you have about who you are as a person has finally made me realize that you’re someone I can count on when I have to go crazy doing something outrageous like eggshell someone’s house or hack into your ex’s account … but you’re someone who can count on me to hear you for hours about baseless theories about your ex and a hundred more ridiculous ideas about yourself. Which was okay with me.

Until you proved that you couldn’t stand the test of distance and you couldn’t put your friend before yourself.

And five years of knowing you has told me that I can count on you as my best bud when the times are good and things are feasible for you.

But when it’s time to actually put an effort into friendship …

… you can go to hell.

Life as ye knew it.

There is a dog barking in the distance.

The same dog who, with his cronies, barks up a storm as soon as the clock strikes 10. The same stupid dog who whines and cries and barks at all godly and ungodly pitches and variations all throughout the night – without fail, without intermission, without even so much as a bathroom break. Because hey. You’re a dog. You can pee AND entertain an audience. That’s the fun of being a dog. You don’t have the cognitive ability to know how much you’re irritating other people.

But then again. The same can hold true for some two-legged minions of Satan.

Anyway.

Every time we visit the grocery store near our place called “Hadda Heart” we go inside purposefully to buy what we need to buy. While we’re at the counter, my husband asks me, “Are you sure you don’t need anything else?”. I tell him no and then I walk aimlessly while he waits for his turn at the cash register. I always walk up to the cosmetics section. I always stare at the various Garnier hair dyes and the numerous Indian herbal creams and the thousands of mouthwashes that stare at me from the shelves.

I always forget to buy my facewash.

How hard is it? Clean and Clear facewash – which I use everyday and remind myself everyday when I look into the mirror that I am running out of it and I need to buy it – I keep forgetting to buy.

On an unconscious level, says my Freudian self as we drive home, facewash is a reminder that you are getting old.

That’s ridiculous, my cognitive-emotive side argues. Facewash is just facewash. It isn’t some hidden fear of confronting a middle-age, a dramatic change in choices, a permanent shift in lifestyle.

My Freudian self smirks in the excessive defense and sure as the day is long, I forget to buy facewash the next time too.

A lot of major events are in store for this 2010. Our first anniversary. Big deal, yeah? My 26th birthday (which has come and gone but I hadn’t really come to terms with it until the repeated Facewash-incidents), our first trip to Pakistan after the wedding as a husband and wife bringing all kinds of goodies to the families (not much goodies available here but hey – Saudian chocolates and Egyptian/Turkish clothes should do), hopefully our move from Yemen (please, God, please) and hopefully a wedding to be celebrated in my in-laws.

But that’s the more non-introspective stuff that doesn’t lead to you forgetting facewash.

It’s not anything that should tell you when you look at your face in the mirror that while at 20 you didn’t need facewashes and hairdyes and whachamacallit facecreams and while at 20 you laughed at the age-wrinkle-removing cream and thought wrinkles added character to your face and white hair was a sign of wisdom – here you are, drastically trying to hold on to what is only there now and will be gone in a few years forever.

Being married changes a lot of things, yes. I think that’s why I’m glad I still am the person I used to be in terms of what I want from life and the choices I have made … for example, I still retain a portion of idealism (that I suppose resides in all of us … the idealist that hates Zardari and wants world peace …), I still like goofy animated movies (just keep swimming, just keep swimming), I still love Potter and I still believe in things the way I believed in them before.. passionately.

I have changed in a number of ways though. Being married means a whole new set of responsibilities, a new family, a brand new lifestyle to get used to. You have to get used to the idea of watching Barclay’s Premier League on Showtime sponsored by Toshiba, Masters Snooker tournament and boring test cricket and even Ultimate Fighting Champion Competitions and what can really appeal to your taste buds doesn’t necessarily have to appeal to the other person’s palate too.

But on the whole it really hasn’t brought on the disaster scenario that a lot of women painted for me before I got married. Stuff like, “Life changes forever”, “You change forever”, “You start thinking the way you never did before” …

Yeah. Things changed. But a lot of these changes were really good. Some are tough to deal with, like missing home and adjusting to cooking everyday and taking care of things all on your own. But like any other change, they’re a part and parcel of the commitment you made. Like if you’d moved to another country, changed your job or even moved to a newer neighborhood.

Everyone keeps telling me the same thing about having kids. “You won’t be the same anymore”, “You won’t have time for each other anymore”. “You won’t get to sleep anymore” and my personal favorite, “You won’t get to Facebook anymore” …

I don’t know if any of those will actually hold true when the time comes when I have to deal with a poo-ing, crying, helpless little creature but what keeps me going is that the post-marriage aka post-apocalypse prophecies didn’t come true for me. Maybe they’ll be wrong about having kids too.

It’s like those darn barking dogs. People with prophecies of doom just don’t quit sometimes. And they really do choose the best moments to knock you off your balance. You’ll be laughing at a joke and they’ll tell you you won’t be able to laugh as loud when the baby’s around and asleep. You want to talk passionately about how you want to do a Ph. D. in Social Psychology some day and they’ll scoff and say, “With a house and a husband to manage?” and “Yeah, I had those dreams too – guess it’s a different world after you get married.”

It’s a different ballgame now, yes. Before you had to fight off competition in grad school and worry about partisan teachers and getting to college on time. Now you have to worry about nosy acquaintances and forgetting facewash and saving up to buy a new home and thinking about raising kids and wondering what to do with the four onions the maid chopped instead of the one you asked her to and asking the apartment handyman to fix the broken lights and looking at Wayne Rooney for the thousandth time trying to make an unselfish pass and hearing your husband curse Gary Neville for the three hundredth thousand time or or trying to deal with keep your mood high in a country where there is just no concept of a nightlife or even an eveninglife … when you have arrived from a country where nights begin at midnight and evenings begin at eight or that now you have to learn how to take care of your own jewelry and valuables instead of you handing them to Mom whereupon she would stow them in her purse or fighting with Ali over what movie to watch while we would have dinner or trying to carve a niche of your own in a new family instead of already enjoying a given status in your old one or thinking about how you’re going to raise your own kids with love when you deeply hated kids before you fell in love …

There I was wearing a green gharara on Independence Day …

And here I am now. Thinking about one year of marriage and change and a future that is fast approaching.

They said time would tell.

This one year said change isn’t so bad. It isn’t easy at times but it is definitely not as horrible as people had made it out to be. There’s so much that can be recommended about living with the one person you know is the only human being who can keep you happy and is the only person worth going through any kind of change for. There’s so much that can be said about not caring about being in a country where they eat leaves for entertainment and totally okays polygamy for kicks – because you’re there with the person you promised you’d go anywhere for.

Change is tough, yes.

But it’s worth it. It’s worth every new adjustment and it’s worth everything you’re leaving behind.

So those fucking dogs can bark on. I’m gonna go get some sleep.

And oh yeah.

Facewash too.

OMG, like, OMG, like, WOW!

Praise is one of the many things that keep our self-esteems in tact.

It’s one of those necessary acts that provide a child with healthy self-image, a teenager with a balanced ego and an adult with encouragement.

I’m all for praise.

I think it does wonders for people – especially those who have been nothing but criticized all their lives.

The first time someone praised my looks, I was actually surprised. Taken aback would be the phrase. The first time someone told me I was ‘talented’ took me also by surprise. Mainly because loving and caring as my parents were – they didn’t take the time out to tell me good things about myself. Of course on occasions when I fell flat on my face and wouldn’t stop crying, they’d exaggerate to the hilt about how I was the next Nobel Prize winner and how my looks could put the beauty queens to shame – but on regular days, praise was a rare commodity in our house. We didn’t spend it the way some families or groups did. We didn’t allow it to become a regular part of our lives so we (and by we I mean my brother and I) could grow up to be sane individuals. No, we found praise to be something that came twice a year, like Eidi or a comet or a sensible Bollywood film. Or when you really deserved it, like an Oscar or a Pulitzer.

That’s why I’m programmed to like praise but hold it in suspicion at the same time. You can’t blame me for being paranoid about praise. I never got much and I never learnt to process it in a sane balanced way.

I did learn to be gracious about it though. When someone would give a compliment out of politeness or maybe out of sheer earnestness, it would be an immediate reflex to reply with a sarcastic comment or freeze up completely. I learnt to get over that by replying with a smile and maybe returning the favor.

But just as my psychological healing began to have firm foundations – facebook was invented.

And thoroughly ugly people (I’m mean, yes, I know) began getting comments like, “OMG you look sooooooooooooooooooooooo beautiful!” and I mean seriously stupid pictures and notes and statuses would get comments that I don’t know sprang up from what part of normalcy. They just didn’t make sense to an praise-inept idiot like me.

Then there are blogs. People choose certain group of people to praise, no matter how stupid their posts are, no matter if they’re talking shit and being boring in the process, praise would come anyway.

It’s virtual technology imitating life, I suppose. We do the same thing in real life, portraying that I just luuuuurvvveee the outfit you have on, when what I’m really thinking is, “Did she just walk out of the flea market or what?”

There’s hypocrisy in the social system and I get that. But for people like me, who haven’t been around much in this world of I-praise-your-butt-you-praise-mine-regardless-of-how-hairy-it-is, don’t seem to thread out the truth once all the eeees and aaaas of all this fake-praise begins. I mean if you think that Mr. and Mrs. XYZ’s latest wedding pictures (who look like two chimps btw) warrant a comment like, ‘Omg, you guyz are like de hottest couple everrrrrrrr!!! *heart heart heart*’ … how am I supposed to be believe that my own wedding photos didn’t attract the same kind of *ahem* lies?

And before anyone thinks that it’s just girls who are guilty of this kind of hypocrisy – I’d like to set a sexist record straight. Not only do men seem to join in on the hoo-haa of all this omg-wow business, they’re just as silly. It’s just a change of words. Where a girl would go, “OMG, HIJK Baji, you look sooooo prettyyyyyyy! You’re like the cutest everrrr!”, a guy would simply write, “Dude, lookin’ goooodd!”

And that’s just sad.

If I don’t have anything nice to say about a particularly hideous picture or a blog or a person, I like to keep my beak closed. That’s why certain relationships frustrate me. Because unless I fake-tareef my way out of praising Mrs. X’s cooking (which tastes too much of salt and too little of beef) and Mrs. Y’s makeup (who looks like she’s just been punched in the face and she dipped her face in oil afterwards) and Mrs. Z’s kids (who have been nothing short of terrorists), my social graces are called into question and I can sure as hell expect not to be invited to the next party with X, Y and Z.

So what I have done is come up with an ingenious plan to outwit the social scheme of our peers. Don’t tell them they’re hideous. Just find something neutral and true to say. If she’s wearing a dark shade of lipstick when the world is sporting beige, tell her she’s got an ‘interesting’ choice in lipsticks. If her kid is currently spilling Pepsi all over your carpet, don’t tell her that her kid is adorable. Tell her that it must be quite a ‘chore’ to manage a house and kids. If her cooking is terrible, don’t puke the first morsel of food you’ve put in your mouth in front of all others present. Politely ask her for the recipe and say, “Oh, two tablespoons of salt for 1/2 kg of beef? I’ve only used one so far.” And the next time she comes over, pay someone secretly to praise your food more than they praised hers.

As for facebook, blogs and other kinds of virtual mindgames that boggle me everyday – I’m still stuck with no plan and only a wide-eyed stare at the recent most comments showing up in my mini-feed where someone has compared a completely ridiculous-looking woman to Iman Ali.

I guess I’ll have to wait for that lightbulb above my head. Until then I’m just … staggered.

Home and Away.

Someone I know, who has lived 20 years in another Arab country, told me that once time passes, you don’t really miss Pakistan. You don’t really consider the once-a-year-vacation to Pakistan a trip back to your roots. You just take it as a visit to distant-living friends and family. What happens is that the place where you’ve spent twenty years begins to feel like home. The poles sort of shift, foreign lands become home and home becomes a place you visit once a year.

I don’t know if that stands true for me. I don’t know if I will ever be in a position to say that after spending 20 years in the Emirates or anywhere in the Arab world (God forbid), Pakistan isn’t home anymore. I hope that day never comes.

Because right now – after spending almost one year in Sana’a and visiting Pakistan just for 15 days has made me ache for building a home in a country which is threatened by suicide attacks everyday – but still knows how to live.

And I know I’ve written incessantly about how much I miss samosas and aloo chaat and bakery biscuits and everything related to desi cuisine and shopping sprees – but I just continue to be stubbornly homesick. I continue to want to go back and continue to hate the fact that Pakistan faces the turmoil that it does despite having so much potential in its land and in its people.

Here are a few incidents that should elaborate what I mean.

The size of Sana’a International Airport.
It’s smaller than the arrival lounge at Jinnah Terminal or the Emirates check-in area at Allama Iqbal Airport. It’s even smaller than the Daewoo Bus Station in Lahore Cantt! And the duty free at SAH is like a retail price shop. Chocolates, cheap bags and pictures of glorious Yemen. The cafe offers nothing but packet cookies and tea – which is a miracle. Because considering the lack of Yemeni-based products, you’d expect tea to come out of a can too. Allama Iqbal Airport on the other hand had a small restaurant next to a small food items shop – which offered not only extensive seating but a wide variety of foods. B and I were in far too much of a hurry because of our flight and the fog conditions but if I had time, I’d definitely check out the ‘chana paratha’ breakfast. Next time, then.

The Arabs who go nuts after they board Emirates.
The scene is simple. The steward/stewardess comes and offers you tea, juice, soft drinks or beer. The guy sitting behind us chooses beer. Once. Twice. Thrice. Four times. Five times. And the sixth. B and I look at each other thinking that he’s really going to be drunk when he gets off this plane. But when we are standing to board off, I turn around to see that he’s quietly taking each can out of his pocket and stuffing it into his friend’s bag. Free beer to drink outside the plane. Genius, yes.
Then there is the guy who actually drank two or three and began ordering stuff from the airline duty free.
What amazed us was that one was accompanied by a woman wearing a veil and a burqa. Whereas the other showed his Islamic disposition by loudly chanting, “Alhamdulillah!” when the plane landed.

The Arabian Gora Complex.
And you (Indians and Pakistanis) thought you had it bad? Paying millions to Kylie Minogue to do an item number or taking talentless Americans to act in our dramas or movies? Welcome to Dubai. Where your complexes are minimal, obsolete and useless. While Dubai hires all brown races to clean its toilets, drive its cabs and serve Whoppers at Burger King, it hires trashiest of the whites to build its skyscrapers and head major organizations. It amazed me that I did not see a single classily dressed white man or woman around in Dubai. Not a one. What I did see were men dressed in short shorts that were bright blue in color and had big white flowers spread all across the print. What I also saw was a woman whose back dropped down enough to show that she was wearing white underwear. I witnessed that out of the next 100 white people you saw while walking in a mall in Dubai or down at the Duty Free, only one would be dressed and attired in a way that told you they weren’t hillbillies from Montana.

Stereotypes and the warm rush of relief when you break one.
As my poor husband stood in line after line since many Emirates flights were delayed and the Emirates staff was filled with ineptitude only suitable to the likes of Pakistani stereotypes, I ended up sitting next to a South African woman who was very intrigued to find out that I was a Pakistani living in Yemen – both countries seem to frighten the world out of its wits. I spent the next thirty minutes talking about the difference between Yemen and Pakistan – that while one country prided itself on its fundamentalist agendas and ordered the veil on women, the other only familiarized with fundamentalism after Zia and still doesn’t have what-to-wear rules for women despite a very strong (albeit small) right-wing element in the society.

The resilience to live.
Lahore is still the way it was – suicide attacks and all. We were told to steer clear of M. M. Alam road because it was a crowded place and served to be very probably targets for suicide attacks. What we saw when we went there (ignoring the advice) was that it was as crowded as ever. There was hardly any space to park anywhere and the people of Pakistan were as eager to live as they were before. It was somewhere around 9 pm and the streets and malls were teeming with electricity that seemed oblivious to loadshedding and Talibans. Looking at the crowded bazaars, the rush at Variety Books, the tiny toddlers sitting roadside with their parents enjoying an ice cream cone at 2 degrees centigrade told me something: rain, shine and psychotic militants who think that the more people they kill, the more they’ll take along to Heaven with ‘em … Pakistanis will continue to survive.

—-

The new articles are up. Check em out.

Here and here.

Twenty Six Years.

I really thought it’d be a milestone and I’d be wiser and stronger and would have tons of insight that I could share with my ‘younger’ ones.

I really don’t.

I commit stupidities just as big as I did when I was 25. This one year hasn’t really turned me into a sage, wise, allknowing being.

It has just told me I have a loo-ooo-ooong way to go before I can claim I can handle anything that comes my way. It has told me that life comes at you from all directions and the confidence you had to commit stupidities when you were 18 isn’t half-the-battle-won. It’s actually just running into the battlefield in blissful ignorance.

I am twenty six years old today – this is my first birthday after my wedding, and I had always wondered what it’d be like. Because I’d seen pictures of people across facebook, I’d seen my own mother’s first birthday after her wedding in pictures and many narrations of how ‘this birthday’ could hold a candle all on its own. Wait, I think I’ve forgotten the original metaphor.

So here I am.

26. Mixing metaphors, onlyeverso slightly smarter and mainly thinking: “I’ll be thirty in four years – what will I have to show for myself then?”

A good year to you all and may Year 27 bring wisdom with my sanity intact.

Because if you think about it … allknowingness at 26 doesn’t sound very pretty, does it?

Baray Abbu.

Grief is a strange time.

Someone very close to us passed away on the 20th of December 2009. He was 94 years old.

And while it is expected that we are meant to die, a process we are all supposed to be well-accustomed to.. an idea that should be firmly accepted by our consciousness … when death strikes … acceptance is never calm. The idea is never easy to get accustomed to and the thought is never easy to shake.

He lived a full life. He witnessed three generations after him and he planted entire mango fields – planting each tree with his own hands.

But I still cannot help but shiver when I hear his wife of over 50 years talk about his daily routine every time she talks to anybody.

Grief. Strange, true and never easy to deal with. No matter how accepted the idea is.

May God rest his soul in peace.

Amen.

Live and let die?

This is just one of those posts I am not expecting people to read seriously. I am not even writing it as I normally blog. I am not considering my arguments, I am not thinking on what will be the right words, the right facts, the right questions.

I am just one Pakistani in shock at what has happened in the last forty-eight hours and if I don’t … write something about it, my head is going to explode.

Yesterday morning B and I had some time to kill while running some morning errands. We drove around the city of Sana’a and saw a sleepy city, shops half-closed and the ones barely open were grocery stores. Grocery stores which bore all canned foods. Imported goods. We talked about how Yemenis don’t bother making anything on their own. Even the milk and eggs come from Saudi Arabia. We began thinking and talking more and more about food in Pakistan – how breakfast was such a cuisine. Parathay, nihari, halwa puri, lassi, paye, etc. How we just couldn’t kill any time in Sana’a apart from reminiscing about food in Pakistan. He began talking about how easy it was to find a good place to eat in Lahore at any time of the day and we began making plans of going to one of them for breakfast on our next visit to Pakistan.

We came home to find out that there was a blast in Peshawar.

Later we found out, amidst flipping channels, that there were two more in Lahore. In the smack middle of a place where people went for food and accessories.

The first thought that went through my mind was, “That could’ve been me. That could’ve been us.”

The Parade Lane blasts occurred when people were offering Friday prayers - a mosque frequented by a close relative of ours. The Lahore Mall Road attacks in the past were also quite near to the workplace of another close relative and I’m only hoping that the many friends of mine with whom I’ve lost touch over the years, who lived or are still living in Peshawar are doing fine right now.

Once the shock and the that-could’ve-been-me emotion settles down, there’s just plain rage. Rage against the senseless deaths, the chaos, the fire, the charred flesh. Rage against Rehman Malik, the ISI, the militant groups who  think this is Islam, the helplessness and the vulnerability each and every Pakistani is now facing.

The September 11 attacks killed almost 3000 Americans in one go.

Pakistan has had over 7000 civilians killed from 2003 to 2009 in terrorist attacks.

In 2009 alone, we have had over 2000 civilians dead with over a thousand security force personnel.

In 2009 alone, there have been 456 suicide blasts. Over a hundred have been reported in NWFP, over a hundred in FATA and over a hundred in Balochistan. Punjab didn’t remain safe either. Over 23 in Punjab and 5 in Sindh. And before anyone of you make this into a provincial thing, just remember this is the whole country we’re talking about. Any Pakistani dead in Peshawar or Nangolai is just as bad as a Pakistani dead in Karachi or Multan.

At this point, I don’t even care who is to blame. I don’t even want to go into a whole debate about whether it is America’s drone attacks or Pakistan’s stupidity to try and befriend Jihadis that has caused this turmoil in our country. I don’t even want to go into the details of how these assholes pick up 10-15 year old boys from seminaries and teach them to kill themselves and hundreds of other innocent women and children.

What I care about right now – is simply this.

This is my country. And it is going up in smoke.

And there is nothing any of us who are writing blogs or reading the newspapers or watching television can do about it.

We can all cry and yell about the incompetence and total insensitivity of our leadership and we can blame America and we can wonder at the humanity of all these people who are training pubescents to kill.

But at the end of it, we’re all spectators to this horrific, horrific scene, this mad chaos that has descended upon our country. The sense of fear that envelops all of us is now omnipresent. Our texts to our friends and families with “Hope all is okay on your side” has become a part of our rituals and a safe, happy, terror-free Pakistan is becoming a hope that we’re just building everyday in our heads.

With no help from anyone whatsoever.

So.

God. Allah. If you’re up there.

Look at this mess people are creating in your name. Look at the ‘land of the pure’ and the innocent dead bodies who went out living and happy in the evening to get a burger and came back in ambulances. Look at this utter destruction, this debris, this carnage, these families that have been ruined forever. While there are people apologizing for killing rats, there is no justice for these people, there is not even a chance of placebo for those who have lost their families in these repeated carnages. Nothing but committees, statements, billions of dollars that will never make way to them.

They look at You for hope.

Give them some. I beg you.

Give them hope. Give Pakistanis back their Pakistan.

We don’t have much else to hang on to.