Having a crispy KitKat bar without being able to taste it.
In a Heartbeat
I wrote the word "Lima" in an email to Shanu and Halima came online.
I mentioned Zairah while chatting with Halima and Zairah came online.
It's turning out to be one of those days when I can't decide who I miss more and want to be with.
Dear Diary
I can't wait to see the day I become either one of the following:
Extreme Machines (F1 cars, eurofighter, stealth technology)
All things about cell phones, computer and consoles.
=p
How to be a Scholar
How to be a Scholar
by 'Abdul Muntaqim
think enough to know
know enough to think
after asking, listen
after listening, ask
do what you know
know what you do
know when you are wrong
& why you are right
forget not to forgive
upon forgetting, seek forgiveness
Wishlist
The ticklish exuberance on realizing I possess the exact amount of money required to buy a book I feel I must own to read and share, everytime: number one on my wishlist but an attainment that is not to be found on the likes of any search conducted by Froogle, or otherwise.
Prejudice
So there were two wallets to choose from. Identical wallets, except that one seemed more new than the other. Just a notch. The one that felt and looked less new had all the more character. It responded to my touch and its brilliant dark purple stood out against my hand.
Needless to say, I bought the wallet that promised character ahead and not the one that spoke of the assembly line it came from.
The Ones Who Do Not Count
BAGHDAD, Oct 22: Over 4,300 Iraqis, nearly 70 per cent of them civilians, were killed by insurgents in the first nine months of this year, an Interior Ministry official said on Saturday.However, NGOs put the figure at 25,000 or even more.
Figures on Iraqi casualties since the March 2003 US-led invasion have been unreliable and difficult to compile, partly because US-led forces say they do not count civilian deaths.—Reuters
Bacha Brigade
You know you've been around children for a long time when...
- you pick up every coin, pin or small object in the fear that someone might swallow it.
- you cannot hand over a pack of juice without shaking it, inserting the straw, twisting the top of the straw and taking the first sip to ensure no spilling
- you play peekaboo with anyone over a column, pillar or corner (this does not apply to me since I do this with or without children anyway)
- you break off into baby language at any sight that pleases the eye
- any amount of convincing to anyone is accompanied by a song-and-dance routine
- your bag contains at least 2 bibs, a pack of Wet Ones, a packet of Oreos, 3 Spongebob (boo-boo) bandaids, a book and crayons everywhere.
Why no paper for coloring / drawing? The entire world is a canvas. - the only kind of bananas you find to put in the fruit chaat for iftaar are the Gerber's Banana Creamed Pie
The only miserable element to this blessed feeling? - you find yourself singing along to Barney's songs
The Return
I can't help but keep thinking of Abdal Bhai. How he traveled across from Canada to Karachi when he heard of Khalu's deteriorating health.
How he reached home five minutes after Khalu passed away.
Just five minutes. How long it must be for both Khalu and Abdal Bhai. Or how short.
The eyes are a window to the soul. But once the eyes close forever, nothing remains. Just a physical monument of the body that contained the soul so loved and so cherished that life without it seems un-imaginable.
I was telling Ryz as well, about how I used to see Allah's Will at the cancer hospice in giving so many patients life enough to see their relatives who had set out to meet them one last time.
To us, it seems as if Abdal Bhai reached too late. In reality, he came just when he was supposed to.
The last couple of months I have seen my parents grow old so much that they have become delightfully childish. Even today, when I saw Sehyr give Ami a "new hairdo" with her make-believe hair-dryer and seeing Ami look masha Allah so beautiful and full of life, I squeezed my eyes shut for just a bit longer than I usually do, in a feeble attempt to capture the moment and hug it close to me for the life that Allah has planned for me. So many moments like these, that "will be lost in time, like tears in the rain." An offhand sentence in my 11th grade yearbook autograph by a friend that stuck to me like a post-it I can't lose.
Everytime I injure myself and I call out to Allah, my first concern is that I cannot tell Ami about it because I know I won't be able to see her upset, and so I try to dress my wound myself without her knowing it.
Which makes me think if I were to die before my parents, I would not like either one of them to be around me, since they would not be able to bear the sight.
I pray that I am always there with them, and Allah Shows me the way such that I can be there for them when they need me the most and when they need me the least, for being with them until the very end seems to me right now, the only way I will fully be able to comprehend His Will.
Reading over, I pray for the best and the ability to recognise His prescribed path, Ameen.
Subhan Allah, Alhamdo lillah, La ilaha illa-llah, Allahu Akbar.
"Be sure we shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods or lives or the fruits (of your toil), but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere,
Who say, when afflicted with calamity: "To Allah We belong, and to Him is our return":-
They are those on whom (Descend) blessings from Allah, and Mercy, and they are the ones that receive guidance. "
The Noble Quran
Surah Al-Baqara (The Cow)
Where the Heart Is
I want to come home.
I don't want to come back to anything, or anyone.
I just want to be home.
It means so much that I can't restrict it to any one person or activity.
I think at some point, being at home becomes synonymous to being at peace.
Home.
Insha Allah.
Body and Soul
"A long time ago, man would listen in amazement to the sound of regular beats in his chest, never suspecting what they were. He was unable to identify himself with so alien and unfamiliar an object as the body. The body was a cage, and inside that cage was something which looked, listened, feared, thought, and marvelled; that something, that remainder left over after the body had been accounted for, was the soul.
Today, of course, the body is no longer unfamiliar: we know that the beating in our chest is the heart and that the nose is the nozzle of a hose sticking out of the body to take oxygen to the lungs. The face is nothing but an instrument panel registering all body mechanisms: digestion, sight, hearing, respiration, thought.
Ever since man has learned to give each part of the body a name, the body has given him less trouble. He has also learned that the soul is nothing more than the grey matter of the brain in action. The old duality of body and soul has become shrouded in a scientific terminology, and we can laugh at it as merely an obsolete prejudice.
But just make someone who has fallen in love listen to his stomach rumble, and the unity of body and soul, that lyrical illusion of the age of science, instantly fades away."
from "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" a novel by Milan Kundera
Older.
The probability of Meher's impromptu decision to spit milk is entirely dependant on the time(s) of day I change my clothes and pick her up.
Farq Saaf Zaahir Hai
The only difference between the "Amyn Pirani thing" and the "Lima thing" is that Lima is liked.
Which makes me wonder as to what exactly I did wrong. How long I had been doing it for and how much.
Fool Me Twice
I want to abandon all norms of good conduct and let my fingers run havoc on the keyboard.
I shan't do that though. The same way I shan't relate my feelings to a song right now. I must aim higher than that so I can elevate my sense of being.
Everything good and everything bad comes from Allah Subhana Wa Ta'ala. Just that when something bad comes from Him only because of my asinine insistence on wanting a certain thing to be so without His Will makes me want to shake myself up good and proper so I stop doing this.
I don't want to merely make A mental note to self at times like these. I want to create an entire range of post-its that I can smack! paste all over myself lest I inhale another breath of giddy idealism.
I doubt thoughts such as these resolve at any point, perhaps the concious lesson learnt and the prayer that I have the strength not to be fooled again is enough, insha Allah.
Livestrong
I admire Lance Armstrong for his strength in winning seven Tour de France titles, two after he battled cancer and survived it.
I also respect him immensely for the fund he has started to help other cancer patients, and the steps people are taking to help him in his noble intent.
Similarly I have always admired Imran Khan for initiating the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust for cancer patients and thank Allah for opportunities such as these where fellow Muslims can benefit from a trust like this.
Somehow I am disturbed to see the amount of people who flock to buy the Livestrong bands, especially fellow Pakistani brothers and sisters who may not necessarily give the same importance to Shaukat Khanum.
Yes, the wristbands are all the rave these days, and so everyone who knows someone within arm's length is asking for one; so much that there are cheap imitations found at numerous stores in Karachi.
Which feeds my logic: it is more a statement of fashion than anything else.
I remember a TCF (The Citizen's Foundation) print advertisement that compared the cost of a large pizza (Rs. 600) as being similar to the amount necessary to fund a child's education for a month.
That advertisement hit home, at least for me and my friends who spoke of it. But that was one advertisement that shone through the doldrums of many ineffective ones.
I look around to see people blindly spend that $3 or $6 for a wristband overlooking the fact that there are countless people we know who can benefit from that money as well.
Charity, like any other form of affection travels from the inside out.
I am no one to brand Lance Armstrong or Imran Khan as any kind of person since I don't know them well enough.
Just that the fact that Lance Armstrong has been lucky enough to get airtime and live coverage makes him more worthy a candidate for peoples' trust and money than our local organiazation that support the same cause saddens me, to say the very, very least.
Show us the straight way,
The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray. (Ameen.)
The Noble Quran, Al-Fatiha (The Opening
Ho hum...
"It really makes us look very much like Bangladesh or Baghdad. I'm 84 years old. I've been around a long time, but I've never seen anything like this."
DAVID HERBERT DONALD, historian, on the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
They don't get it, do they?
Neverland
I don't think I'll ever outgrow candy floss.
Having said that, may I have my candy floss in peace without others constantly attempting to brand me with the perfect combination of generalizations?
Sheesh.
Blankets for the Walls of My Forts
"You do not cheat me of my childhood.
You bring me blankets for the walls of my forts.
There is no anger with the eyebrow raised.
When you do the fantastic I am amazed."
_Lisa Loeb "Alone"
I wanted to voice out my insecurities and fears to Aamir Bhai because I felt that I needed to be irrational aloud once and get the thoughts out of my system in order to disregard them altogether.
Aamir Bhai didn't let me be that, saying that he will not allow me to be irrational even for a second because that would give way to self-pity which would be wrongly placed and difficult to repair.
Rather, he made me look deeper into my feelings so I could pull out the root and deal with that. Instead of comfortably passing off my fears for insecurities that I should think of living with, he made me choose a way to be stronger in order to face the situation as it stood and think of positive ways to better myself.
He told me not to be passive about my insecurities and battle them with reason to eradicate them altogether, and in the case that they stood despite my rationale, I should examine my decisions that led to my current situation and change them so I can feel better and more at peace.
It all started with him not listening to what I had to say, because I said I want to be silly. He refused to let me be a cry-baby. That's how he loves me: so much that he can't bear to see me weak for even a minute, even when I am being weak alone, or with him who's so close to my soul.
To think I was angry with his refusal to hear me out, when all he was doing was giving me blankets for the walls of my forts.
Personalized Doll
Zairah was not feeling well some days ago and I was driving over to her place to drop off soup and medication. She SMSed me, saying that I'm a doll.
I couldn't help but think of a potential Mattel product: Ninja Barbie.
Although I would strongly dislike Barbie to portray anything even vaguely Islamic since I feel that its perception of being the perfect model is most gruesome and conditions young girls to set irrational ideals.
Having said that, the image I created in my mind still tickled.
Status Quo
"When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her though I know she lies,...
...O! love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love, loves not to have years told:
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be."
_William Shakespeare, Sonnet 138
Chamak Patti
Sehyr came to visit in April last year and was most fascinated by the traffic in Karachi.
Her four year old mind absorbed the environment so keenly that she made the most profound comparison to her home.
Sehyr said, "Back in New Jersey the buses have doors and they stop at bus stops."
The Clothes Maketh the Man, and So We're Doomed
I went to Amir Adnan's shop at Park Towers yesterday in search of a nice kurta for Ryz to wear to the engagement.
The lady at the store must have been the most helpful I've ever come across. I went to her and asked for tissue paper as I had eaten in the car on the way and didn't have any tissue on me to wipe my hands before touching the fabrics. She gave me some paper and I told her exactly what kind of kurta I was looking for, my preferences in color, style and fabric. She attentively heard all that I had to say and helped me choose from the subsequent choices that I had.
I really liked her. She wasn't extravagant or showy in her attention towards me and my needs. Not too subdued and not too interfering. Just right. That sounds like something Goldilocks would say.
Moving on.
I found a beautiful black one that had a textured loom as well as a bit of embroidery on the collar band.
Once I decided that I wanted to purchase just that, I asked her whether a white shalwar would look good with it, because the textured fabric almost made me want to get something black as a bottom.
Stay with me here now, this gets mighty tricky: she said that I could get a black shlouser to go with it.
A shlouser.
I calmly told her that I think she made that word up as we spoke. She smiled and told me that it was indeed a word. Apparently a shlouser is a cross between a shalwar and trouser (as its name so aptly suggests).
I innocently asked her why they (whoever these fashion kings may be) didn't name it a talwar. She laughed and said that it would be too dangerous a word.
Mad nation. Nice saleslady. But mad nation, nevertheless.
Frankie M'Boy
I don't know: a certain part within me feels compelled to pen all the flighty theories I have held near and dear over the past few years.
Snow Days, high beds, and now this.
I killed Frank Sinatra.
I did. I really, really did.
See, back in the Dark Ages when I listened to music (may Allah forgive my sins and the mention of this particular one, Ameen), I stumbled onto "Strangers in the Night" and fell in absolute love with it.
So much did I like this song that I set it to an infinite repeat on my stereo and the song would rage on all day and all night, irrespective of the fact whether I was in the room or not.
So "Strangers in the Night" was playing ad infinitum for the course of two days, and Frank Sinatra died on the third day.
Just like that.
I killed the man. He must have been exhausted from all that singing.
He's no more and it's all my fault.
Let It Snow
A Snow Day is when I wake up in the morning and tune into the weather forecast to hear the weatherman tell me, "bright sunshine ahead" and I pack myself a nice picnic basket and plan out all the busy activities I can revel in when taking advantage of the sun.
So here I am with my packed lunch and a list of things I want to do and people I want to meet. And it snows. It blizzards through and through.
Not that snow isn't bad, the pure white virgin snow is one of the most beautiful sights on earth, subhan Allah. Argh, just not snow when I was told "bright sunshine ahead."
A SnowPersun is one who I would like to spend my Snow Day with. Alhamdo lillah, I have been blessed with an entire pocketful of friends whom I can gladly consider SnowPeople.
A Snowstorm is the realization that the bubble has been burst, and carefully laid out plans have been replaced with those by Nature.
A Blizzard is a Snow Day that is chock full of one Snowstorm after another. Relentless snowstorms make up a blizzard.
A Weather Alert is the feeling that a Snow Day is approaching.
These are definitions of a Snow Day and all its extensions. All copyrights to Fatima Khan.
Circular Insanity
I adore Lima. I simply adore the girl.
I always wanted one of those Victorian high beds, so high that one needs a step-ladder to climb onto it, complete with the carved backboard, and yards of drapery over it.
I have wanted a high bed for as long as I can remember. My initial attraction towards it was appeased by all that I associated with high beds. Novels of Jane Austen, the countryside, the simple life, and even to a certain extent, the Romantic Age.
With the passage of time until recent days, I also realized the many conveniences a high bed has to offer. Such as the fact that I can store so many things under it, even keep entire pull-out drawers of things I do not have space for.
A part of me wants a high bed so children at some point in time, Allah Willing, can hide underneath when playing the games that they do. A lot like my childhood in F-6/4; the mere mention brings forth an eddy of memories. Alhamdo lillah.
Lima is the most eager friend I have known. I may bullet random questions in her direction, but she never ceases to answer the most ridiculous of questions with an equally ridiculous answer. She comes up with solutions to panic situations almost immediately. Although most of her solutions are quite criminal and outrageous, the mere prospect of her blurting out instantaneous escape routes is absolutely hilarious.
I ask for a way to earn instant cash which is not illegal or immoral, and she tells me to withdraw the security deposit from the school that I dropped out of. Just like that. In the blink of an eye.
I say the weather is much too pleasant to be wasted by spending the morning at the gym, and she suggests French Beach, and we buy lunch and head out there. We go for an hour. We don't plan out anything. Just go, wade our feet in the water, have lunch, talk lots and head home before 4 pm.
That's how we do most things. Without plans. It's all so simultaneous.
I can laugh with her, I can cry with her. And then laugh some more. I can step out of the picture and examine it myself and the situation objectively, so much so that I can bring out the positive aspects and thank Allah for all that He has Given me, and see the beauty in all that He Chose not to.
I have seen her in so much pain that I would not wish to see anyone in. That made me realize just how much I love her, and why Allah made me the youngest child, and her the only one in her family: so we could be sisters to each other, and I could mother her the way I do.
I tell her only half-jokingly that I must surely be her emotional hypochondriac, if the term exists. Emotional hypochondriac because I am equally affected by all that pleases, saddens or hurts her. Half-jokingly because I think I'm right when I say it. I sleep at night to dream of her childhood the days she misses her less-troubled days, I cry inside when I think that she wants to cry but is holding back her tears. She says I know just when to squeeze her hand, and when she needs a hug. She's not very responsive to hugs, but she leans towards me when I do.
No one, no one quite understands our sudden urges to drive when upset, just drive and talk. Our our association with the sea.
We can become lost in the winding roads of Phase I, and make it seem like it is an intentional stroll in the park, come back to the same point after 20 minutes of driving, and comfortably pass it off for circular insanity. Only to try reaching our destination again, completely unfazed by the previous failure.
Recently I thought of another reason why I want a high bed. A reason that overshadows all previous reasons I ever baked in my mind. I want a high bed so I can keep Lima under it. She will simply live under my bed. One of those bookish little spaces with enough light to read, an electric kettle for her insatiable demand for tea and the convenience of always having her around. The minute I want to think out loud about a seemingly sad situation, I know on the board under the mattress and she can peer out and we can talk. She is masha Allah a marvel when it comes to quoting words of Allah and his Rasool Allah SAWS at times of distress.
To say more would demean an immensely treasured frienship. So I shall stop at the least.
Lima likes low beds and sleeps without a pillow. I'm sure that can be arranged under my very high, very Victorian, high bed.
I Can Because I Think I Can
Don't have much to say at this moment in time... I simply wanted to start over a previously attempted venture.
I guess now would be a good time to pay due homage to Debbie Ali who gave me the pencil way back in 9th grade that gave birth to the idea of the Choochoo within me.
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