New Blog

Recently, I am feeling the need of writing more about Islam, due to various reasons:

- I am coming across people who are probably in some situation that I have been in the past, yet, they are not receiving any guide about the 'yes's and 'no's of handling those situations. For example, if you are a born-muslim, yet you want to revive the religion within yourself, you may wonder where to start. Do you start reading what the intellectuals have to say? Do you google Islam and memorise the first bit of information you get? Do you focus on your spiritual being and retire to some deserted mountain?

- I have been suggested to write about Islam.

- Knowledge is lost if it is not passed on. Therefore, I will make an honest effort of passing on that knowledge, without being 'in your face' about it. If you want it, take it; if you do not, leave it.

Here is my new blog - Secret of Worship. Of course, I will keep writing here, but this blog will always be the witness of my ups and downs, while the other blog will witness advice.

A word of caution - my writings will focus on Muslim readers, simply because I will be assuming that my readers already know a the jargons. If you are not familiar with them, just leave a comment, and I shall explain! 

P.S: Its really late now, and I rushed my first post. A lot. (Its only five sentences.) But keep checking it/follow it to see my writing improve to your liking!

Memory - 12.12.2010

The minutes crawl by ever so slowly

When in imprisonment from the world

In this bubble, we scream internally 

Smile outwardly

Baring teeth at the second hand of that clock tower

We drift away

To the world experienced in clouds...

If I can remember correctly, I have been on eleven planes in my life. However, this time, it feels like I am experiencing the feeling of flying over clouds for the first time. I love the way bits and pieces of them form shapes with their shadows on the brown land miles below. Sunlight illuminates the whole world except for the spaces beneath these clouds. They form shadows of a heart, a butterfly; sometimes, they join to become a dragon, flaming with a passion for beauty. Sleep weighs down on my heavy eyes which were wide awake when darkness covered the earth. My head continues to hurt in a rage, to protest against the very minimum contact with any sort of sleep in the past few days. They next thing I know, we have risen beyond lands, clouds and anything that remotely resemble the world. The blue sky was beneath our feet, grey clouds ran above us. It took me a good five minutes of baffled thoughts to realise that we were actually travelling above the ocean now. Those shadows still lingered, they have only changed from brown into blue bodies. Some clouds sat with half of themselves above soil, half above the aqua water. My eyes dozed off again, only to wake up to a world of white. We were inside a cloud. 

My amazing grandmother

I've been talking to Nanu a lot lately. I always knew her to be a practical woman, expert at handling her home but not very interested in anything intellectual, creative or romantic. I knew that Nanabhai was all of that, he drew sketches of famous people for his children, played badminton and chess with them, wrote more than 30 pages of letters to his wife, wrote poetry, read thousands of books. His eyes had the twinkle of an open world in it. Nanu was always busy with bringing up her twelve children. But yesterday, I heard the story of their wedding. When she was fifteen, she submitted a poem to the children's section in the newspaper Azad, a very famous newspaper in all of Bangla at that time. This was in 1945, when India, Pakistan and Bangladesh was one nation. Nanabhai was looking for an educated young girl, something that was hard to find at that time. He heard about Nanu's father, who was among the only two people holding a masters degree in his village and around (the other was his brother!). When Nanabhai saw that poem, he was a little more attracted to her. Nanu was not conventionally beautiful because she's dark-skinned. Nanabhai was very light-skinned, hence, 'very handsome'. His family went to see Nanu and was very impressed by her father and the food they ate. They left a photo of her fiance with her parents, which she secretly looked at. (Apparently, my mother never knew half of the things she told me that day, including this. She was telling her with a mock worry in her voice - why are you telling an unmarried girl about this? :P) Nanu was smiling dreamily as she told her about her then-fiance. He saw a few other girls with the intention of marriage, but none of them succeeded. One of them liked music, the other had a twin (lol). Nanu won over his heart even though the other competitors were much more beautiful, she told us with a shy smile. She got married when she was 16. She still writes in a little diary about every little thing that happens every day. She was telling me about her interest in studies, and how she could no longer attend school when the world war started. In 1942, she left her school in the area where her father worked, far from home, and went to live at home. That area used to be raided with bombs at that time. She was in grade 6, and she still remembers a little bit of an english poem she learnt - called 'Anger'. She recited without hesitation - 'Oh anger, it is an evil thing/ It spoils the fairest faces/ It comes like a rainy cloud/ Over sunny places'. (Or something like that... I think I got the last line wrong). She learnt it without knowing what it means (I know this because she asked me what it means) and yet she still remembers it!

I'll be home in a few days!

20.01

The wedding hype has died down a little in the last four days. The sleepless nights were made up by sleeping nearly all day for the past two days. My mother thinks I am competing in sleeping with cousin S, who's well-known for this skill. Her eight-year-old brother cut his big toe on glass one fine evening and caused a lot of chaos. He was screaming and crying like there is no tomorrow, making everyone else think that there is really no tomorrow! While the whole house ran around frantically, S slept peacefully without hearing a thing. She is that amazing of a sleeper! We have a theory that even if the whole house was about to burn down, she would just wrap her blanket around a little more tightly and fall asleep again.

I had a lot of fun here, yet, I cannot wait to get back home! I really don't know when I'll see these people again. But I realised how dependant I am on my own things and my own life in these past few weeks. I need to take those personality tests again, just to see if I have become and extreme anti-social and selfish person. But one great thing is, I have recently been told that I can talk to strangers very easily. (Actually, on second thought, that is quite worrying!) I have also been told I can fake-real-smile, ie: Smiling when I don't feel happy, yet, manage to look happy. Again, not sure if its a good thing.

On a happy note :)

Here I am, sipping on tea lazily while most of my jobs are done by others. This is one thing I love about being here - most people expect you to do nothing. Yesterday, my day was spent behind eating a few guavas, sleeping (a lot), shopping and a tiny drama. When we came back home around maghrib, we found my dad frantically looking for his watch. My mother could have sworn she saw it on the bed side table before leaving, yet, it was no where to be found. The girl, T, who works in this house is deaf and dumb, therefore, she neither could explain herself nor defend. There had been one incident with her very recently, which led certain people at home to suspect that she might have something to do with it. Anyway, we didn't really do anything except to ask her to look for it. She spent a whole ten minutes crying. The watch was found later under the sofa, which wasn't supposed to be there, because my dad didn't wear it after leaving it on the bed side table. I'm thinking T must've put it there for her father. She always talks (with her hands) about him, and how much she misses him. Mami told me that she is his favourite daughter and very, very loved back at home. We all like her - she's usually a friendly, reliable girl. But poverty really does get to people. If you always see someone else's father using something your father will never have the chance to use, yet, you love him the same way that someone else loves her father, and he is just as good a person as that other guy, why would not he deserve what the other man deserves? Anyway, I'm just glad that 'tis all over!

I also tried to do a henna design on my hand yesterday. It not only looks horrible, but it has also gone quite dark even though I haven't even left it on for five minutes. The wedding is on Sunday, today is Wednesday. I really do hope it goes by then, but it is showing no sign of fading. Usually, when I need it to do so, my henna takes ages to get dark!

Its Sabit's birthday today. This eight year old kid is amazing. He is talented in many things, like, building 'leptops' out of video covers, being a smart mouth, knowing how to be loved by me, and copying WWE and a certain monster called 'Miz' whom he calls 'Mij'. Yet, he cannot keep track of his birthday. Mami got him a Rabbit yesterday because he's been wanting one for weeks. His obsession with rabbits stemmed from the rabbit that another of my cousins got a few weeks ago. I shall post up photos when I take one. But I'll leave you with the talent of my other cousin, one of Sabit's sister. I told her to draw me, and she drew some glamorous bangla cinema actress minus the fat cells. Everyone who sees it says that it looks nothing like me, which I guess is very offending because the girl in the drawing is very pretty, but it also makes it okay to publish on a public blog. :)

10.01.11

Sunlight streamed through balcony grills as a little girl sang against a tune played on the harmonium. A crow is calling out in the distance. I'm sitting here, in Dhaka. Waiting to get back to home, yet, looking forward to the new beginning. The hint of excitement is filling the city air, along with the load of worries emanating from the groom's mother's face. Everyone is together, yet busy in their own affairs. In the last few days, I have realised how different I am from the people here. I really cannot relate to them any more. The teens are busy in hiding things from their parents, the parents are busy thinking that they are perfect. Everyone believes that everyone else has secret business unknown to others. (To be politically completely correct, it must be made clear that I do not mean every single person in Dhaka, just certain people I am around). Religion is just a culture, a laughing stalk, not a way of life to the young. The elders believe its something that 'must be followed' without the need of contemplation. Every word that comes out of your mouth must be watched so that someone else doesn't think wrongly of you. Also, you are supposed to analyse every word of everyone else. If they say 'no' to food, it actually means 'yes'.

My life was so different on this day, two years ago. I feel like I have aged, forwards or backwards, I do not know. I am just looking forward to living life one day at a time, instead of ten years at a time. This very place seemed so close to heart! Now I am counting down the days of my return to home. When I see people of my blood, I do feel that attraction - the love for family. But when I see the injustice that they are doing to themselves, the corruption that they are living in, I wish to remove myself far from them.

P.S: Today must have been the longest time that I have had on the net in Bangladesh!
P.P.S: I really lack creativity in my titles. :(

!

I realised with a sudden jolt that I've forgotten how to dream about the distant future.

Relationships

In the past few weeks, I have seen the relationship between two people get from that of enemies to something that's completely in the opposite direction. So much so that it is becoming unbearable to remain anywhere near them without feeling sick. It feels like I have seen it all before. I have seen how the story goes and it does not have a happy ending. Then why is it repeated over and over again? Why are we stupid enough to want to try everything ourselves and refuse to learn from other people's mistakes? One decision can lead to a mistake that would be regretted for the rest of a person's life. Why do people keep making stupid decisions? (I don't know who I am to speak about this, I made a thousand stupid decisions myself. I wish life was easier.)

I am watching another new relationship forming. It is still in the process, and both parties are probably very nervous. I wish both of them a lifetime of happiness that would extend in the next world.

3/1

Things I've done in Bangladesh so far:
- Seen most of my family on my mother's side.
- Been to places by myself. :) (Not far though...)
- Have grown some sort of direction sense of places in Dhaka.
- Eaten most of the things I've wanted to eat.
- Spent a memorable 31st.

Sabit er chillapallay kan jhalapala hoe jacche. I'm off.