J.K. Rowling and Adnan

Potter! Potter! , like a dumb slytherin would perhaps say. The hype, the drama, the spoilers, the bettings, the make-believe all seem to characterize every Potter release. I have a brother and a sister and incredibly a mom who’s hooked onto them. I personally stopped after the fourth one. Always reminded me of this guy called Adnan who was in my 4th standard class and was quite good at telling stories. Come a free period and the teachers would summon him to tell us a story. The guy was so good at it that he used to make them as he went along from scratch. Magicians, kings, queens, thieves, farmers, animals, potions, flying carpets, tunnels, magic rings etc etc would all get spun and pass through his hands. His favourite word was ‘Actually’ which he used quite liberally. “The thief was actually a king in disguise”, and our thief reborn as a king would again go on for some part of the story when the twist came in again, “Actually the king was a magician…”. I have to admit he carried it off quite superbly though.

I wonder what he’s upto now and what he did with his life. Sigh!

A wedding, a few good looking girls, fever and a group

Went home for the weekend, cousin was getting married. Promptly landed home with runny nose and eyes. Went for the marriage, the cold kept getting worse. Ogled at some good looking girls and then checked myself. Lest my runny eyes and nose gave them the idea that I was drooling at them. Escaped home after the nikaah leaving the family behind. Got under the covers expectantly and the fever came right on time.

Delirious!

Like I always am at the onset of fever. Sent cousin out to get some tandoori chicken and chappathi (I said I was delirious :-) ). No one home, the ladies had all gone for the wedding. Just me and cuz.

Had to stay an extra day home for the fever to subside. On the return journey. Sitting next to a group of 10 to 15 guys, uncles, cousins and perhaps even neighbours. Wondered where they were off to. Probably someone was going abroad and the rest were there to see him off. Then I noticed one of them was slightly older and he looked sick. Yes, they were off to see some far off doctor. Definitely. Felt a tinge of sadness. Tried to picture myself in his place 30 to 40 years later and being herded around by a group of people.

Its like that over here. If someone’s planning to go abroad or is brutally sick, a huge group will inevitably be accompanying him. Cousins, uncles and a couple of neighbours too pitch in. All with differing opinions, views and ‘experiences’. Maddening! 

Couple of stations later they take out their food hampers and start feasting. Maybe its not as serious as I thought.

The funny brain

Yesterday was reading a blog of my cousin who’s a dentist and came across a touching post. I thought I’d paste it here unedited. She’ll probably give me the eye roll for not asking her, but here goes.

 I’ve been through two slightly disturbing experiences and now that its has passed i can see an element of humour in them.

Last week we went to see grandfather, he had been bedridden for years together, in and out of the critical state. This time we squeezed time out to go see uppa… he was in the hospital. forty-five minutes had passed, he was breathing like he had a mike attached to him (pneumonia) and was comatosed. After a while he had his dinner and medicienes, Regurtitated and held my husband’s hand. Then let off his last breath.
I came in a minute later, he was still warm, peaceful looking, but not breathing. we checked his pulse..not there.
The doc came in about 5 min later..did all the ressucitation….and said..’He has gone in a cardiac arrest’.
Who is going say..’he died’.
Doc: ‘ if you want…..lets shift him to the ventilator’
One of his sons….’do some something..give him shock…’
The doc said ‘fine’
me and the uncle rushed with the strecher….Rushing the’gone’ to the emergency.
fixed those stuff on to his chest. gave the shock ….. The line on the machine never rose up.
It just kept down…going straight.
and then we beleived he was gone.

After about 1 week, my daughter picked up fever. Not a degree that i would worry about. But monitored her and stayed at home. Gave cold compress , kept the nursery rhymes for her and i got to working.
Then the maid casually said..’she is shivering’
I gave her one look…she was peacefully looking at the tubelight.
But i knew she was having a seizure.
Just as much as i knew it i dint wanna beleive it. I kept calling her name..imagining that she would just look at me and say ‘mama’ and everything would be fine . But she did not.
Her heart was in my hand..almost. it was like jumping out of her.
Her lips was blue and saliva bubbled out of her beautiful lips. She was still looking unbeleivably angelic.
That 5-7 minutes was a lifetime for me.
I held and cried like she was gone.
Her heart was beating..i knew she was alive..i did not function enough..to run out with her to the hospital. I went in to shock.
We then later took her to the hospital where she had a convulsion. But she started responding after that.

The storm has settled and i reflect on how desperately we tried to revive our’dead uppa’ and how i just stopped being when my daughter wanted me to act the most.

The mercy of God…she is fine. And i figured…there is fair and unfair. He gives– we thank him and recieve. If he takes ..we just have to of things that were never ours.
And that the gray world…is just another challenge … so are the gray people.

I think what she failed to mention was that they were living very near to the hospital, infact sharing walls with it…..

Loss of innocence

A friend of mine was travelling in an auto last week. She was sharing it with some strangers (its not an uncommon sight here for people to do that to beat the exorbitant auto rates and yes its called a share auto). There was a mother and child in the vehicle and the child kept on asking questions much to the frustration of the mother whose line of thought  it seems was intermittendly broken by the incessant child.

When did we stop asking the questions? When did we stop driving grownups mad?

“Mom, whats higher than 1000?”
“And after 10,000?”
“And after that?”
Finally I’d get an answer ‘countless’ and I’d be satisified for the time being, countless being the much gentler form of infinity to me.

I remember once posting an ‘intelligent’ question to my mom when I was seven or eight years old. I asked her how cousin Wahda (not married) wasn’t pregnant and having a kid while aunt sajda (married) had a small baby even though cousin wahda was older than aunt sajda. I remember being totally confused because for me, girls reach a certain age, become pregnant and have a kid no matter what. For me thats all it depended on and totally nothing else. The notion of a man having soemthing to do with it didnt cross my mind at all. Mom paused for a second and said I’ll understand why later in life. It was one of those rare moments when she didnt have an answer to one of my questions.

When did we start accepting the world the way it is? When did we start taking the world for granted? Why is it that we didnt notice the transition?

When did we lose our innocence?

Satanic verses, knighthood, fatwa and conspiracy theories!

Strangely I have yet to read Satanic verses. I did start Midnight’s children once when I was a kid but lost interest halfway. I think the real issue should be, his anti Islam rhetorics aside, does he deserve to be knighted? Does he stand alongside Tagore or Naipaul? I dont think so.  The muslim world is crying foul, numerous conspiracy theories are cropping up. You dont usually go for them, but then you wonder if there is anything to it.

Maybe it helps if you have a fatwa on your head, your the unsung hero of the free press. But people have always had double standards on ‘free press’. I read on someone’s blog last week , ”The sentiments of the jews are considered, thus denial of the holocaust is a crime”. The English speaking world believe that the word fatwa means a death sentence. The word’s phonetics doesnt help it either, fatwa – fatwa, you can almost see the whip cracking down . Ironically one of the most neutral and secular newspaper in India is called ‘The Hindu’. Every time they use the word fatwa in their articles they make it a point to give in brackets ‘an opinion on Islamic law’. You are free to ‘press’, but I am not free to opine?

India, Pakistan and the Godwin’s law

Godwin’s law, an adage formulated by Mike Godwin stipulates, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”

Since we (Indians and Pakistanis) are amply represented everywhere and since we do play a substantial role in the world today the adage could be extended to include ”As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a  word slinging Indo Pak war approaches one.” 

Lets take up rediff for example which is a very popular site here. They encourage people to comment on their news articles. However eventually all article comments turn into ugly muscle flexing irrespective of the article subject. No matter how irrelevant the news article is to the argument in hand. During the Dera row (for the uninformed, there was an ugly row couple of months back between two sikh sects which almost lead to arms), comments on news articles saw the revised Godwin’s law rearing its head again.

I have stopped reading rediff comments altogether!

Puss in boots

Yesterday went to watch ‘At world’s end’, didnt get tickets and ended up watching Shrek. I’m not much of a shrek fan, as my sister is, but I like the puss in boots character voiced by Antonio Banderras. I think they should spin off a new series based on puss in boots the veritable don juan among cats.

On prayer

One of the things that she used to tell me was not to ask Allah for something specific. Instead pray that what’s best for you should happen. A lot of times in life we feel that we badly want something and after we get it, we understand that it was not what we wanted. Very often we are disillusioned and our yearnings are flawed. Let Allah decide whats best for us. Helps to be content with the way things are in our life and with whats given to us. Interesting thoughts, but strange how hard it is for our mind to accept. After all, we are human.

Awesome voice!

Someone sent me the video link below claiming it to be from a stage show at one of those IIT’s. But when I watched it, soemthing didnt sound (or look) right especially when you can see a man in the audience wearing kurta pajamas conspiciously dancing. A quick googling turned her out to be an upcoming paki pop artist named Annie. No one’s yet wikipaged her yet but her bio says that her real name’s Noorul Aiyn and Annie’s just her stage name. Why would anyone want to chuck an excotic name like that and opt for something stupid like Annie, bogs me. She’s sexy and has a nice voice but the lyrics are a bit silly at times.

Dad

Home, and umma drops a bomb shell. Dad’s planning to sell off the business and come to India. Dad being the workaholic that he is, it was all finally taking a toll on him to a point that he no longer enjoyed it. He was sort of planning to retire.  

I dont know if its a phase that every one of us goes through. The thought of your parents retiring hurting you, being reminded that they are starting to grow old. He’s no longer the tall strong guy, handy with everything, brimming with knowledge. In short a hero to a child’s eye. And she not the bubbly old self, but more relaxed and content. Changes that make you uncomfortable but perhaps for the best or following their natural course.

Silly thoughts run amok …. He’d come to India, get bored and he’d gradually fade off. I dont want him to fade off.

Update – Dad’s joined another venture that would require less of his time and which would enable him to shuttle between India and Dubai every couple of months or whenever he wanted to.

The auto drivers from hell.

I have to say the auto drivers here have to be the rashest drivers on the planet. They twist and turn, maneuvering through side streets and gaps in traffic without a care in the world for wrong sides or life, practically bullying their way through. Like an artist, he dogs the car in front of us with an inch to spare. I cant help imagining what would happen if the driver of the car applied even the slightest pressure on his brakes. All I can do is cling on to the driver’s seat, rocking sideways, tossing now and then and breaking out into a cold sweat.

Reminded me of the time when I was five or six, visiting India (we were settled in the Middle East then) and the ride from the airport to home was horrifying. I was used to one way roads or roads with medians, that I really thought the bus or lorry coming from the opposite direction was coming straight at us. I can still remember me bawling at the top of the lungs, with the driver wondering which planet I came from. Previous visits had been when I was a toddler clinging onto umma’s bossom oblivious to the outside world. Talk about childhood horrors revisited.

For the time being I’ve stuck to taking the bus or walking, even then I have to be wary of the menace around the corner.

New job, new city!

Well I’m off to a strange new city. Ironically, somewhere that I had always not wanted to go, didn’t expect to go. Fate is a sinister lady; you never know what she deals out. Even though the company had offices in other cities and one in my home state too, they were quite explicit when they said the requirement was here. Six months or maximum one year, I thought when I got the offer letter in my hands. I might stay if an onsite assignment to Europe or the states come up. That’s the only bright part to this offer, other than it’s a good company and would look good in my resume.

The journey was silent. I sat in the train with conflicting emotions and mixed thoughts. Not really liking the idea of leaving my family, friends and memories behind even though I kept reassuring myself that I was only a night’s journey away. I could get back anytime I wanted to. But I couldn’t help thinking not understanding why, that this was part of a whole lot of separations to come.

The first day here, I took a stroll to the famous beach. I was fascinated by the sheer breadth of the beach. And it seemed to me to take ages from the road to the water. This was one of the places that felt the wrath of the tsunami. The somber look of the beach didn’t help to ease the loneliness.

Here, I am putting up with an old friend of mine and a couple of friends of his. Looking forward to that, at least I have friends here.

“If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree “,
Poemed Keats, “it had better not come at all.”;
Alas! At times I have grappled at space,
With words evading me, but finding solace.
For what comes, flows straight from the heart.
To paper, I put them humbly, knowing I have done my part.

Many a blog I have traversed and spun,
Let this herald another bright (grumpy?) new one.