What is it I want from Ramadan that I haven’t managed this year?

I want a charitable heart. I want to see and forgive, no know and look past, to hear and forget.

I want to silence the noise, remove the distractions, and empty out my personal attic. I wish to be rid of my deadwood.

I want to drag myself empty to the prayer mat and slowly be filled to overflowing with peace, gratitude and reassurance.

I want to smile when my stomach rumbles, my head hurts and my lips crack. Instead I count the hours till dusk, wishing to hurry the hours that should mean the most to me till I am again physically overfed and mentally asleep.

I want to be inspired to do more, to write, teach, learn and try.

I want each Ramadan to distance myself from my baser self – the one that snaps, yells and fiends.

I wish the days of hunger and prayer to leach me of my darkness.

I want to begin this month like a relay runner, taking the torch I’ve juggled from the year before, though it be chipped and scratched from the constant drops, and running with it further. Instead I constantly retrace my steps.

I wish the coming of Eid to mark my arrival on a higher step, one that I will not fall off in the months ahead.

I want to be that better self, that higher potential, that forgotten promise.

If I were to simply work, believe and strive, this would not all be a miracle that I wish for. It could be a reality.

This is an ode to the kid bro –

My partner in crime (and cookie stealing), my coach in basketball, and my nemesis in table tennis...
The only person I can play Twisted Metal tag-team matches with, complete with smack-talking and sassing of automated opponents without feeling self-conscious...
The biggest fan of my baking (“Hey Aniraz, are you sure you don’t feel like baking a cake right now?”)...
The dog’s best friend and accompanist during the nightly howl session...
The reason why I know a million ways to wake up a sleeping person, each more lethal than the next...
The best storyteller in the house, complete with accents and impersonations...
The only person I know who can manage a three-course iftari with frosting as the main ingredient (frosting on bread, frosting on fruit, frosting on fingers)...
The biggest gentle giant I know...
Who managed to be from a different planet, despite the fact we’re from the same blood...
Who likes to pretend that I’m HIS kid sister...
Who asked me stop calling him chotoo when it was apparent I’d be the smaller one...
Who busts out with amazingly wise things every so often just to confuse this smart-alecky elder sister...
Who has no qualms about giggling when he finds something funny...
Who has managed to teach me more about life, challenges, choices and love than I could have predicted when I called him a dumb-faced lemon head back when we were midgets...
And grew into a man somehow when I wasn’t looking.

Thank you Zaman, for being my brother.

***

Your mission today, should you choose to accept it, is to hug someone and tell them how much you love them. The more difficult the choice, the better. Go to it.

I return from a visit to the back doctor triumphant. Um, not really. It just seemed like a nice opening. Actually, as far as winning and losing goes, I think I fared rather badly as I came away quite a few thousand rupees poorer than when I went in.

Here’s how my appointment went…

I went to the clinic. They called my name. I was ushered into the examining room where all my vitals were recorded. Funnily enough, when they weighed me, they had me turn away from the dial. I guess they do that to keep the patient from having a heart attack and dying before the doctor can examine them. Mom says though it’s cuz she was simultaneously measuring my height. Perhaps.

I snuck a peek at my chart, and noted that my height and weight were recorded in metric gobbledegook, and were thus, nonsense to my American brain. I shouldn’t complain though, as being 167 sounds far more towering and interesting than being only 66 of something. Same goes with weight. Weight in the tens is more agreeable sounding than weight in the hundreds.

Then I was taken in to the forbidding doctor’s office. It was a long wait until I was seen, so in the mean time I took in the sights. And what scary sights they were.

Beside me there was a trolley full of things I suppose the orthopedist would find handy. What caught my eye right away were bones. Yep, bones - as in a giant fibula with attached tibia (medical students, please ignore the gross liberties I will take with anatomy and science). Granted, it was a slightly fake and plasticy shade of yellow, but eerie nonetheless.

More realistic were the little unrecognizable but authentically beige bones in clear baggies beside the novelty-size leg bones. Dunno what purpose they could serve, aside from a possible warning to future patients about the outcome of unruliness or perhaps laxity in payment at the clinic and frankly, I don’t wanna know.

Also on the bottom shelf of the trolley was the largest bottle of Pyodine I’ve ever seen. You coulda sunk the Titanic with that thing. Good stuff though, that Piodine. It seems to be the doctors’ choice for all post-surgical needs, so my operation-prone family tells me.

The last weird thing on the trolley was a canvas belt with metal rivets not unlike the kind the military here wears to hold up and in their khaki selves. Me and mum speculated as to what possible use it could have here. Perhaps the doctor used it to whack unruly bones into places. Or better yet, maybe he makes you bite down on it when he’s setting a bone all ghetto style. Or maybe there’s just a military doctor in the clinic wandering around without a belt.

The most unsettling item in this little shop of horrors was a scary leather apron on the wall. It was seriously the kind of thing you’d expect to see at a butchers', not in Islamabad’s best hospital. I could so see some mad Frankenstein-type doctor wearing it as he hacked at a hapless patient. Mom again reassured me it was to protect the doctor's clothing when they set plaster casts. Right.

My doctor did eventually arrive and he wasn’t anything like the D-class horror movie medical madman I was expecting. Actually, quite the opposite, he was really nice and understanding. I told him my prob (parentals wanna know if what’s wrong with me is medical, or just a bad attitude.) He had me do a number of silly things (touch my toes?!) and then asked me to have an X-ray for good measure.

After that cold and unsettling experience, I returned to the clinic and awaited the verdict. Inside the examining room I could see the doctor, a senior colleague and the head nurse looking at the images of my spine on the lightscreen. They called me in. I warily watched my nice and genial doctor take a back seat as his senior cleared his throat and began.

“You don’t have scoliosis. You don’t have anything wrong with your back at all. I can’t fix something that is not broken. All you have, young lady, is bad posture. You,” he said, turning to my mom “need to simply remind this one every five minutes to ‘SIT UP AND THROW YOUR SHOULDERS BACK!’”

He then launched a well-meaning diatribe about girls and their self-conscious carriage. The lecture was rounded off with some advice about my career behind a desk – get a good chair, raise the monitor to eye level, make sure the keyboard is tipped up in the back and for the love of God, take a break every now and then!

It was like being examined BY MY DAD! I swear, this is the exact same stuff my abbu has been telling me for years. It turns out the irascible physician was actually my dad’s doctor and former surgeon. It figures. They must have rubbed off on each other.

Just before I left, the nurse asked me to wait, as the doctor had something for me. It was my 'prescription.' It was a piece of paper with the following on it:



*rimshot*

Updating on a shoe-string budget (and with a food deprived mind):

Its thundering outside my basement editing dungeon and a wonderfully icy breeze has been slinking through the window and tickling my feet. Makes me wanna bundle up and run and play outside. It’s the feeling of football season. Wish I could find a game here.
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My dad has told me to either fix my Shaggy posture, or gain some weight so he doesn’t have to see it. *blinks* As much as I’d like leeway to do some serious damage to the indigenous pakora population, I think I’d prefer the former and not that latter. Now I gotta schedule an appointment with a doc to figure out what I can do to straighten up and fly right.
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A general consensus from a blogger Iftar yesterday was that – yes, Owl is about as grouchy as the blog says. Good to know I am as advertised. Can’t say I didn’t warn ya’ll. And yeah, Abez really is that friendly and teacherly. I was born to make her look good and I do a damn fine job of it, thankeeverymuch. ;)
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I’m looking for another job. Again. I swear, I say this every month. Still haven’t found my calling. The only calling I have round here are the annoying morning rings from my office telling me I gotta work on weekends, or ordering me send off breaking news immediately, or asking me to come in and sign some forms. Yesterday though, I got dates and zamzam. A coworker brought them back from Umrah for me and they called me to come and pick them up. Nice surprise. May Allah bless them.
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My dog is a fashionable dog. She’s in a lovely black and white winter coat for the season, tailored to her specific canine needs by the House of Momma. It’s quite fetching, but I don’t think she likes it. Her tail isn’t wagging as happily as it usually does. It must cramp her evil bird-eating, bike chasing, dog thumping brindled pyedog style. That or the other dogs have been making fun of her something. They don’t know haute couture when they see it.
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Like I warned a few posts ago, I have already delved into my collection of weird warm clothes. I think I scared my gurl Chai when I answered the door in my three feet long magenta ski cap, purple granny sweater and matching horrible floral shalwar kameez yesterday. (Folks, please don’t gift me with girly-colored clothing. It’s not a help.) It was such an awful combination, I thought, what the hell, might as get all my pinkish clothing wearing out of the way in one go. Not a good idea. I was a walking visual hazard.
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A few fasts down and 20 odd more to go. It’s moving too quickly! I don’t want Ramadan to end! I’m always trying to prolong mine by fasting a few weeks in advance and then a few weeks afterwards too, but it’s never enough and it’s not the same. Sigh. I feel like that DWA song, “I wish each day could be like Ramadan; each day a blessing from Allah.” Ah well, absence makes the heart grow fonder. In the meantime, go here for some great info on Ramadan.

I don’t think my Ramadan has got off to a good start.

I prayed the first night of taraweeh at the masjid in congregation. I hadn’t done that since we moved here, though it was something we did nearly every Ramadan back home. My dad found a place nearby that had made arrangements for women so I figured I should go.

I’d like to say that it was a wonderful faith-affirming experience, but it wasn’t. Don’t worry though, nothing horrible happened. I simply wasn’t used to prayer in such a large group, and it was a bit jarring.

I guess I’m just a solitary kinda person. I like to pray alone, in quiet, with plenty of time and no distractions. I’m constantly struggling to keep my attention on my prayer and on the words I’m reciting. Each prayer begins with a renewed effort to connect and find peace. When I pray in congregation, I find my mind wanders too easily, as I either zone out or simply don’t know the surah being recited, and thus, don’t understand. It becomes more of an exercise in ups and downs, and less a meditative worship.

Then there were the distractions. The girl I prayed beside kept on giggling, which I found more exasperating than I should have. After all, I was once a silly little girl who giggled in prayer. Between each prayer, the women would start talking, making it hard to hear announcements and the beginning of the next prayer. And I was too tall for the prayer line and kept on being bumped into and stepped on when I went into sajdah.

I left the mosque feeling dissatisfied and irritated, which isn’t how one should feel after prayer, especially the taraweeh of Ramadan. I need to be more patient, focused and less intolerant. I need to appreciate the community aspect of Islam and participate more. And I definitely need to read more Quran and study more Arabic so I can recognize the verses recited by the imams. I have a lot to work on. May Allah help me.

It is with much sadness that I make this announcement – winter is here.

*curls up into frozen ball and dies*

I used to like winter when I was growing up in Chicago. It meant snowball fights, ice-skating, sledding and building snow-hijabis (the Muslimah version of snowmen). A really bad winter meant blizzards, which we crazy kids always welcomed. They closed schools and gave us an opportunity to earn quick cash digging out stranded cars and clearing walkways.

All those perks made the marrow-chilling cold bearable. You didn’t mind the fact that the frost cracked your lips when you laughed because you were too busy enjoying games of full-tackle football in the white powdery cushioning on the fields. Having the wind freeze the breath in your lungs and turn your nose what felt like an icy doorknob on your face (albeit, a leaky doorknob) was simply an interesting contrast to the warm comfort of the heated homes we all later returned to. Winter in Chicago was fun at best, and always bearable.

Winter in Islamabad has little charm. There will be no snow, and if we’re lucky, only a little rain. It’s simply cold and arid. On each gray morning the Margallah Hills will send down chilling fog that blankets the city like dry-ice. On each heater at home we’ll place a bowl of water, hoping that its evaporated moisture will prevent the nosebleeds, chapped lips and cracked skin that ride along with the cold.

The houses here are made out of cement and brick with high ceilings and large windows. The floors are all polished marble. It’s lovely in the summer, but in the winter it’s a lot like living in a parking garage. The floors become smooth ice. The ill-sealing windows send sharp drafts to stab at any part of your body left unprotected by layers of sweaters. The small gas space heaters that are set as sentinels against the cold do a poor job of warming entire rooms. Their heat is only felt in the nearest proximity.

For me, it usually means the end of the good health I’ve struggled to maintain all year. Unfortunately, what was only exercise-induced and seasonal asthma in the US has turned into something of a danger to me here. Thankfully, last year I managed to get through the winter without the serious respiratory infections that laid me low each subsequent year, so I have hope for this one as well. Inshallah, I’ll manage with only a cold or flu, and not pneumonia.

The upside? The cold kills the flies and the mosquitoes, lets us turn off the jet-engine ceiling fans that deafeningly whir in the summer, brings kinoos to the market, and gives me an opportunity to wear (sometimes all at once) the crazy fleece hats I’ve collected over the years. Tis better than nothing, Subhanallah.

If any of ya’ll feel like dropping in to share the Islamabad winter experience, I’ll be the one with the one in the magenta ski hat eating frozen tangerines and laughing at the silence.

(I wrote this around 2:30am. The following morning, I can only wonder why. But eh, some kinda update is better than nuttin. Right? RIGHT?! Ok maybe not, but you get it anyways.)

Today I reigned supreme over my empire, for you see, I am The Duchess of Tupperware.

Ever so often I feel the need to address my subjects. This usually happens when I need a container for an inch of spaghetti or a spoonful of yogurt that I couldn’t eat but wouldn’t throw away either. Then, with much ceremony, I walk to the china hutch and majestically yank open the first cabinet on the right. Then, the royal person makes a quick and sprightly half-step back to avoid the veritable rain of plastic dishware in every possible shape and size that bursts forth from their wooden enclosure.

These are my subjects – my mother’s well-guarded and long-horded Tupperware collection. As second daughter and number one chump, I was heir to this empire. Abez beat me to birth by about two years and thus got first dibs on the better behaved crystal. As a measly princess, I was instead entrusted with the sacred care and management of my mother’s beloved boxes – a chore that I took on with gravity and deportment appropriate to its seriousness.

Or rather, everyone else around here ignores the Tupperware cabinet - only cramming in new and/or freshly washed occupants and quickly shutting it before they tumble out - till it becomes perilous to open - boobytrapped if you will. Seeing as how I’m the only one who believes in putting food in the plastic ware my mother has so lovingly acquired through the years, I’m fated to be the fool who opens it only to find themselves two feet deep in food boxes. That leaves me to slowly unbury myself and painstakingly right the organizational wrong in my duchy.

So, as the story goes, today I found myself in need of a container for an unholy amount of oatmeal cooked up my momma (and yes, that would be my own Queen Mum). Without thought of the danger, I wandered over to the china hutch and gave the cabinet a pull. As the tradition goes, my loyal minions, happy beyond all words to see me, sprung forth and clambered around my feet for my royal attention. Though my schedule was quite full, what with the oatmeal waiting, I deigned to grant them an audience. They asked in one voice to be ridded of the chaos in the land of cabinet. So I spent an hour squatting on the floor in the dining room putting them away.

And what a mighty putting away it was. Using my royal scepter (that’s figurative for my hand, don’t mind my artsyness) I separated the strong from the weak, the viable vessels from the leaky lidless ones. The plastic people were then divided into groups according to their size and frequency of use. Relegated to the back of the cabinet, away from hasty hands, was the odd baby bottle and plastic curette. The mighty tower of ice cream buckets, revealing an unhealthy predilection for the frozen food, was pushed to the front along with the Carroty Carol lunchbox set I bought for my mother on her last birthday. Yes, the monarchy does have its favorites; they all do.

In but half an hour my duty was complete and order was restored and all was well.

Verily my kingdom is great.

*tips over and falls asleep*

I have good news and I have bad news.

The good news is the dude who fills in for me at the Blah News Agency on the weekend is finally back. I had been covering for him for over a month and a half, even during my Lahore excursion, though not very qualitatively. It had slowly been killing me of my willl to live. Life without a day off is torture. Let it be known. Boy am I looking forward to sleeping in this Sunday.

The bad news: Someone stole our car. On Friday. From the masjid. While my dad was praying his Juma namaz. The accursed little fiend who ran off with The Silver Bullet chose a bad day and time to do that. I mean, could it get any more haram? Oh, and it wasn’t insured, cuz things just aren’t here. We gonna be homebound for a while.

Subhanallah. Allah tries us in the ways He sees fit.

But this can’t get me down. Why? CUZ RAMADAN IS COMING! I gonna get my roza on!

(The excessive use of exclamation points – count’em 2 - shows how very stoked I am. I love my Ramadan.)

Oh yeah, and this is a cool link. Go there to lay some knowledge on yo'seff. Werd.

Overandout.

Sorry about neglecting the blogminator. Been here, there, upside, inside, right, left and all over Lahore. Very fun. Mwhahaha!

In case you guys didn’t know Hemlock and Sons and Ushi Inc are both lovely establishments. They combinedly hosted Abez and I for five days of madness in Lahore. JazakAllah and may Allah bless you guys for your kindness, hospitality and generosity. They treated us like family and put to shame our limited notions of hosting.

I know Hem doesn’t like me gushing at her, but you guys gotta know the woman rocks. She took time out of her crazy schedule as a mega-student extraordinaire to tool us around town and show us the sights in Lahore. Ignoring her sleep deprivation, pending assignments and better sense, Hem made sure we nutters had a blast and were blasted off (at Jolly Land). And when she was too busy, here sister, mother and brother filled in with great conversation.

Ushi Inc probably didn’t expect Abez and I to take them up on their wedding invitation when they sent it out in the mail. But we did. And they made more than good, including us in the crew of cousins who’d come to attend the wedding of Ushi’s lovely sister. We partied with the family, shared in the two nights of girlie sleepovers, met the rellies, got to swim in an uncle’s private pool, hung out with some stellar people and were looked after royally. The entire khandaan, of which we’ve managed to meet quite a lot now, is just plain awesome.

I can’t repay Hem and Sons and Ushi Inc for being such a great bunch of people, but I can ask you guys to all do a dua for them. Ask Allah to bless them for their warmth and generosity and that they are always hosted in the same way or better

Here are some blurbs from our trip:

Spy-vs-Spy: I got a chance to spy on (and work a few hours of probono editing for) at Hem’s bro’s newspaper. Incidentally, it looks a lot like my job at the Blah News Agency, except there are more people to deal with, insane hours and a more frantic atmosphere. We made the corporate espionage mutual though, for the sake of fairness. In exchange, they got the well-guarded family brownie recipe along with tutorial from the former test chefs of my dad’s brief bakery (me and my sister).

Better Than Buddha: Hem also took us to the Lahore Museum, where she found out first hand how extremely huge of a dweeb I am. I played the part of docent. Yes, someone HAS read too much National Geographic. It was awesome seeing the Subcontinent’s ancient history – the mixture of Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh and Jain and their shared cultures. Sad too, though, as the condition of the place wasn’t all that great. It was in desperate need of a dusting and lacked captioning.

Aniraz Was Here: Got to see Kim’s Canon, as Zam-Zammah is now called. It’s been in front of the Lahore Museum since before Rudyard Kipling’s father was curator in1882. I read Kim a few years back as we took our own trip down Pakistan’s old GT Road like Kipling’s Anglo-Indian protagonist did over a hundred years ago. It added a fascinating dimension to the ride and gave me something to compare to the present. Seeing the museum and canon felt like another leg of the journey. Didn’t get to sit astride it like Kim though. It was fenced off. Shucks.

Aniraz Wasn’t Here: Almost made it into the society pages. Almost. The aforementioned wedding was such an exquisite to-do that the press sent its chief socialite to cover the event and bring back a who’s-who of attendees. I didn’t measure up when accidentally met with the woman. I watched with amusement as she sighted, centered and scrutinized me in that lovely top-to-bottom glance before passing on. I can imagine the caption -“Unknown fundu female in unfashionable clothes.” The family had the last laugh though, passing on the dubious honor of making the papers and sending her home empty handed.

Dunkin DoNOTS: When we visited Chicago over the summer Abez and I were really surprised by restaurant servings. A small coffee from our favorite doughnut shop was more than enough for both and a donut was usually split two or three ways. We had a similar surprise at Lahore’s DD. Their mugs apparently are suffering from third-world malnutrition. Tiny little buggers. And didju know that you can get a Tikka breakfast sandwich along with your cupa joe? Me neither. Fusion strikes again.

Now I’m home and I gots to go cook some dinner. Later. *flies away*