Rush Rush rush

I love the pulse of a consultant's life at work. Plug in, plug out, presentations, convince people, lots of faces, many intros, few of them retain and some dont, manage stuff through elevators and across rooms like you have 4 hands. Just pray darling you dont drop stuff, was funny when Kurt said, arent women supposed to be logical, across the floor i said, wait, arent men supposed to help women. Ofcourse, cute interns to field and train. for some i'm also the girl in teal sweater on first day, i only thanked wardrobe gods, that i chose the teal one on a rainy morning, it's one heck of a  teal cardigan guys, not sweater.

This am after putting zillion things in order for T to go to school, i rush thinking i might beat the traffic, it's a vile hope but i'm optimisitic. Though i could have made it in time, i didnt. I decided to stop by to buy a card, flowers and a gift card for my friend. It's R's b'day, since she and i are working together on this project, i thought i'll surprise her. I'm glad i did, apparently her dad forgot to wish her, and her husband never buys her flowers so she was flattered and loved it. I'm glad i made someone's day : ) I wish i had a friend like me, wait can i be my own friend?? No, I have my dolls and i'm good there.

Rushed on my way back, T dumma marofied school, played with daddy all day. V dropped him at Martha's and left to play racquetball, though i didnt mind, i wondered would i have done that. I let him off the hook, coz, he's been stepping up really well. Anyhow, by the time i went to pick T, he was playing with thier dog, Martha was complimenting me on how well behaved he was and all. I was so proud of him. Meri jaan, my love, come here....shona. Everytime i'm at thier plce, maya her daughter, just squeals with laughter and runs.

V at work now, i woke up after 4 hrs of nap and doing this with you. T misses me, i think, these days he gently slips my palm under his face, i just love it. He was all, mamma, i missed you, i loved you, i want to kiss you...mera raja beta!

I like being back at work, i was telling V how i felt last time with dad not around and separation anxiety with T, stuff with my sister, what a mess i was, i cant beleive it, i'd cry going to work, i just....never mind lets not go there... so he says if i ever feel like not doing it, i dont have to, its uber darling of him to say that, but my circle of life is giving me the strength to look ahead.

I sorely missed you, i'd think of million ways to sneak to you, but just couldnt.

Here's some for you, it's friday nite, lets rock this place up, Ek Nazar and If we ever meet again

Babjanma

janmabab....

however you put it, a feud of personal opinions, countless wasted lives. A verdict served to segregate the disputed land of Ayodhya in equal parts of three. Can the judicial system of India really bring peace to the land of gods or is it god. Is this an answer to the pulse of angry people with angrier thoughts. It's a divide and conquer types! They conquered the peace on the street, by dividing the morsels of land. Did they follow the laws laid by greater minds of our country, i dont know i cant say....But can it bring the stability of minds that we so need, can it bring the tolerance for all religions without any prejudices.

If you see with my eyes, you see two people laughing, sharing the joke, a moment captured at the right second...but hi, ask someone with inclined interests, you'll probably get another response.

Who gets the last laugh....

Which one is it!

I came across this and thought it was so sweet and funny!

"A vacation is like love - anticipated with pleasure, experienced with discomfort, and remembered with nostalgia." -- Author Unknown


Ha ha....boy! My dolls we all need more vacation, or make life one... I miss my vacation already!

Can you figure it ?

I cant seem to get this song out of my head, no point lying in the bed and humming next to a toddler, right, so i got up. Tiptoed down to my living room hoping i wouldnt disturb T....I dont know how he knows when i'm not next to him, within a minute or so instinctively i'll hear him call for me. It has always happened, unfailingly, but each time i still hope i can cheat his dozy radar and get away for few minutes...just as i turn on the stove for my chai.... i hear him say..."mamma, whey aa you?"

I absolutely dig this song...as i was listening to the song with my eyes closed, an image of myself drifted in circles, I was at a door in a white shirt, walking down the stairs, onto the street, past the big oak trees and out of nowhere i was lifted by this giant white cloud........tch tch tch....cant tell u further da, it sounds juvenile, all i can say is, i could feel the rain on my face...each and every drop of it.

At the mark of 6.52....it feels so surreal, feels like extending a hand...

I just stared out the window for the longest time, is it possible, can we be and still not be! No, its not possible, reality is as stark as the bleeding blood, as real as the light at the end of the tunnel. Just getting there scratch free is impossible....we have to learn to live each and every bit of it, the awesome, the beautiful, hurting, loving and sad bits too. We owe to it to ourselves.

No point tiptoeing anymore....lets all make some noise. 

Fair vs Unfair

I dont get it, why cant the "dont ask and dont tell" be repealed. What's big deal...why do people feel so staunchly about this.

I'm reminded of the famous Shakespeare's lines...

If you prick us, do we not bleed?

if you tickle us, do we not laugh? 

if you poison us, do we not die? and 

if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? 

If we are like you in the rest, we will

resemble you in that.

I once worked with a guy, who never mentioned he was a gay, but i knew it somehow. So whenever his boyfriend would call, i'd tease him, wink and tell him...maybe you should get this. As we grew to know each other, which was inevitable as we worked in close proximity, he shared his life stories with me, how they met, how he fought the night before with him, how touched he was when his boyfriend patched things up so sweetly. I even helped them plan a vacation, complete with booking their hotel rooms. Not for once it felt unreal, all i saw was the love in his eyes, his voice, his expressions.....how he would wait for me to talk to him about resolving his concerns. 

As a community, as friends if we can stand by and support people through their life events, happy moments, birthdays, funerals...why should this basic support system be stripped of for the gay communities. That is plain simple wrong, unfair. 

This dont ask dont tell only forges the people to stay in closets, and figure out life from the key holes. Why??

In the same office, there was another guy, whom I never guessed, but he was a gay. Only M knew of it, but it was so sad, this other guy who was also a M, would put a picture of his friend who was girl on his desk to give everyone else an idea that she was his girl friend, as if they are dating. He was clearly in the closet, wanting to get out, but was afraid of being judged. 

Why or what gives people the ascendancy to say that one is more acceptable than the other. Why love of one kind is more acceptable than the other. 

Do we not bleed....do we not laugh...do we not love...

Food for thought

Can indifference be state of mind.... If so how long do these "state of mind(s)" last. Huh....

How do you sort it to the extent that the shadows are not these towers of personalities, but a mere likeness of you....

My continuation of perfect date

Achoo, ogh, ogh...(thats me sneezing, coughing, with a sore throat...)

T: Mamma what are you doing?
I: Just some make up beta...
T: oh!

We got seated at TGIF's, ordered our drinks, suddenly it struck me how the frame sitting opposite to me is a small person's and not an adult, he and i cheered to our drinks, he wanted to follow it up with a hi five, I did.

Somewhere during dinner, one of the songs i listen to all the time on FM, was playing in the restaurant, and T beams "mamma this is your favorite song", i just couldnt..... what can i say, it was amazing how he pays attention, mera baccha...meri jaan.

i was so bummed about my camera, i still am, but the evening w/ t was just getting nicer by the minute. Left a dollar bill with a note.... As we stepped out, the music in the lobby was loud enough for him to pick the rhythm and he started dancing right there, i joined him....it was so fun....but it was funnier just watching him dance and spill his sprite all over.

We then headed back to the beach after dinner, I pulled the windows down and let the ocean breezes aloha us! Did i mention how disappointed i'm abt my camera? humph...

Walked in the moonlight to the sounds of the clashing waves on the boardwalk for quite some time, I was tempted for an ice cream, but i held my temptations very tight!

Aaj subah...i really missed my camera, I sorely wanted to click all that my mind was consuming while we were strolling in the nooks and crannies of the beach town. It's just beautiful....the small town-ness to it, the mosaics, the shirtless builders, surfers...., the hammocks, the tyre swings....brightly laced flowers in the garden bed. If i was a writer, i'd write a novel about the woman who owned a book store on the beach!

I miss it already, I hope i'll get to go there soon... pg 781 ....

on my PL thanks P for this one! (mark of 4:24, :39 - sweet)

T when and if you read this, you are such a joy to my life, our life! Remember that when you absolutely need to perk up yourself, baba.

Is there such a thing

as a perfect date? Ha ha...i just had one today.

(writing this, sitting on the floor of a dark "light-less" room, my life is sleeping in front of me yet, i'm awake in my thoughts wanting to write, kinda hungry too, ammis fruit salad would be great just abt now )

But nothing new there, i got the perfect date at a very hefty price. ammi wants me to enjoy my trip.

Woke up lazily, forgot my jacket, t's sunscreen, his beach toys...but remembered of what i had forgotten in the drive.

Reached Rehoboth, DE...my hotel room is beyond expectations, just tastefully done. Love it, they didnt mind me checking in early. Fed my baby in the room, and started our day of adventure.

After learning how to parallel park from V to pass my dmv test, i never got to put that skill at test until today. YAY, i parallel parked, mucho nicely, bellasimo. Shahrukh would say, aisey choti choti shehro mein badi badi bathien ho jaati hain...na, he said the other way around, but this works for my situation na.

rented a beach chair, newly bought t's beach toys, my sexy straw hat, book in hand, my sandwich in bag, getting ready to lounge in the beach....T makes a headsup to the waters, those two mexican guys pulled him out and i just gave him the look, T understood what it meant.

Next two and half hours in water, runnig, getting washed, due to the hurricane in NC, the water level was very risky, but hi what an awesome weather, enough crowd. Next thing i know i copuldnt see my beach bag, nor any of my stuff around, perplexed i was walking to where my chair should have been...a lady is holding my nikon d90 and was asking me is this yours, i was like yeah....bummer....fuck fuck fuck....its all wet, sand everywhere, fuck, where the hell is my wallet and my phone...mamma....where are you? another lady with all my stuff, apparently due to high tides, the waves just came in too far "in" and they just rescued whatever they got hold of.

I thanked them half heartedly and just shoved them with the wet towel of t's and headed back to waters. We played for so L O N G. It must have built his appetite, he hogged down the pizza and we headed back to the room. Now that i cant even listen to my songs, i'm doing what i love next to it, you. Leave it to me and him, to break stuff.

(end of part 1) my phone and my dear camera are not working....thank god. Que sera sera...darling! 
(me thinking i'll take writing classes to learn how to write less) what says! 

Is life a tradition!

the record store girl in Pretty in pink states something that is quite interesting.

No no go ahead you can light that cig, i dont mind...let me pull the window down.

So is life a tradition, that we live because it's already charted out somewhere the way we have to follow the program or take little deviations here and there but still follow it to an extent that the other people around us and you and i, we all somehow are walking the same path.

Huh....

More so for women, i dont mean to sound feminist, which i'm, but at every little step of our growing up, we are supposed to be a certain way, follow the program, but then i guess the same goes for men too, the pressure for them to take care of thier families, succeed in what they do, if they arent even a little bit...god save the wrath they get from people around them.

Take me home...

We have walked,
in the fog of the dusk...

We have spoken,
in the darkest of the hour...

We have lent each other shoulders,
when our eyes escaped..

We've breathed in our souls,
when enraged...

Yet...

I'm the one you'll never see...
i'm the one who lives within...

I'm the faith you have in yourself
i'm the love you feel for yourself

And the next time...
when you and i walk

there'll be only one shadow in the light of the moon.

Out(spoken)

I cant believe i still have it in me.....When you rough up yourself, the not so rough moments take you by surprise.

I just want to grab by shoulders and scream my thoughts out and tell what it means, but then i wonder if it means anything to..... In these moments of indecision, i live a life that I've already prevailed. I inhabit in a landscape of memories I cant gather courage to sidestep EVER.

Will the unspoken conversations never see the day of their prominence, will those just fade away like the rest. 

But if they do see their day, would it bring any solace to the worlds torn apart, bring any calm to the worlds that exist unshared....I couldnt decide and still cant, but who am i to decide that, WHO ??? so those "secrets" (as the author eloquently puts it) will just dance along with me, even though i speak of things that hold no esteem. The storms in my head are spinning me to territories unknown and yet roots my feet to the familiar lands. (Dont ask me to decipher any of this, i cant, i wont, i may but i still wont.)

Can the silence be broken with such grace and bravery like the person who mailed the secret! Dream on, baby!

Recurring Festivities...

When a dear person asked me what is it exactly that we do for Eid, my head did chi-ching, what an idea for my blog.

Right about now, i cant stop sniffing my hands, they smell so darn lovely, i'm almost afraid to wash them, dont want the fragrance of Mehendi to go....after 10 years i broke the spell, i was so jittery when i sat for the mehendi, the girl noticed and asked why? I couldnt explain, i tried but didnt feel like she;s the right person who can absorb the enormity of my significance to the dark artistic lines on my hands. But i didnt justify the whole process, i was feeling hungry too, obviously i couldnt ask her to give me a bite of that cereal bar from my bag.

When Lunoo called to wish, her day dawned there and she's already celebrating it. Jijju, samad and shobi bhaiya all at the masjid, she and asad at home. Meetha, biryani all planned, i can just imagine my jijju sitting cross legges on the couch and enjoying his food to the last bit.

This morning, Ammi was eagerly waiting for the news of sighting of the moon on TV, she was like do you remember how you all would never be home and all you'd see is a nice clean house, kabhi ghar mein rehthey hi nahi thay....but i do remember ammi, all the house smelling of fresh flowers from the garden, fresh linen on the divans, beds, washed, and ironed table cloths, sparkling clean china, the lace curtains gently welcoming the guests coming in and out, big bowl of fruit salad, bigger bowl of semiya, the less fortunate waiting at the door step for the goodies.

As soon as baba and uncles are back from namaaz, we'd give our salams, all of us would get weighty eidi's, (i never knew what to do with it, so i;d give it to my mom). All the rush for wearing new clothes, mehendi the night before, the sweet sound of duas blessing gently exhaled on to our faces....the rush to get to breakfast.

All of baba's friends, collegues, poets dropping by to wish him, ammi making more and more of semiya, roasting kajoos, kishmish (whihc i'd always ask for more). No tv or movies were allowed that day, we only had to play with each other. Chacha, chachi, Phuppa, Phuppi, mama, mami, khalajaan and khalasaab, badey ammi and badey abbu.....all my cousins, the fabric of my childhood memories, my life as i know it, the constant ring of phones to wish eachother, swapping stories. Later as we were growing up, my brothers friends, practically living at our place the week before eid, to help us....ha ha.

The best memory is the aroma of briyani being fed by mehendi clad hands, it is so DIVINE. I wish i can bottle that fragrance, how my phuppijaan would always sneak secretly in more eidi (only to me).

God, i thank you for everything, the life, the home, the good friends old and new. This year instead of sorely sulking and missing every bit of it, i chose to relish the memories and live the day with those memories.

Miss hearing you baba, miss not receiving a card....I cant tell you how much! Baba, taran is growing up so much, i see you in him, i see a face so sweet and a voice so melodious...send him your blessings, yeah!

T

The one person who gives two hoots for me, he cried his eyes out calling for me, mamma please, please mamma no... his words were just piercing through me and felt the daggers. Miss Teresa held him gently and took him inside but fuck it's so bloody hard, i cnat take this, i've been through this, P comforted me but somewhere my wiring in my head is off when it comes to T, i cant handle it. God please take care of my baby....right abt now I feel so small....

He....I can't afford to....

(update later: Shanon and Miss J, assure me he stopped right after i left and was the happiest clam in the class....duffer, not fair, and i sat outside your school for 45 mts)

Sent from my iPhone

Divided by a line

The news of floods and the devastation followed by it in Pakistan, the displaced families, the kids, the women, the hungry mouths, the filth.....i just cried when i read the news of it, as i'm following it day in and out.

Whenever, i read such news, the image of pregnant women and her helpless kids and people in hospitals, comes to my mind, i wonder what i'd do if iwas ever stuck with my baby somewhere, what would i do, if dad was stuck in the hospital, the thought that some stranger helped in any way they could is comforting.

I think of all the strangers who helped us in the hospital when my dad wasnt well, in the airport when i was travelling with T alone, in Melbourne ALL the people who helped my sis.

I've made donations thanking all the strangers, but more so, because i have family there.

After days of not being able to reach them, when i finally did and spoke to my nana abbu, my anjum khala, some piece of mind came to me. I've met my nana abbu, naani and my other cousins only once in my life, but thru my nana abbu, i;ve been in touch with my anjum khala who lives in Harrisburg. Who is now visiting karachi after her retirement.

You see, we are a family separated by the partition, by politics, by something I dont agree with.

More than I, my mom, her siblings and her father (my grandfather) have seen it first hand. There is an entire generation of uncles, aunts, nana and nani, cousins, kids living in karachi and in different parts of pakistan. My badey nana abbu ( my grnadpa's older brother), is a darling of sorts. He calls all of us to check how we are doing, how our kids are, tried to even hook me up with a guy, when i was single hello!!! which ofcourse  didnt pan out.

If we all could help them in any way, we should, we must, to keep the humanity in our lives alive, to rest with the fact that we helped. Think Katrina, Think Haiti earthquake, Think Tsunami....think of the faces that were once safe in the cocoons of thier homes now just wandering for shelter....Think One life, One World.

What cant you wait for!

wow! that is so profound, i translate it as a life waiting to happen, a life bursting to live its course. What would i do, i'd go backpacking, i;d go open a pub in dublin, finish reading kafka books, i'd ride a gondola and sing "do lafzon ki hai yeh zindagani", (now thats silly) i'd like to get over the fear of being under water, i dont know, be more expressive, be less complicated, just sit by the champs-elysees or somewhere in south of france and sketch, live a smashing life in rjy, visit V on his film sets, set t off to see the world, want to see who'll be the friends i'll sip my drinks with...Just be myself...


Do you wonder what is it that you cant wait to do, to happen, to live, when you'll have nothing to lose?