Birthday Musings

An additional candle was unlit, and another year blew away from my life. I was lucky to have another birthday. A couple of thoughts were swirling in my head since then.

First, the charm that there was in remembering people and their birthdays isn’t the same anymore. When I was small, I used to wait excitedly for mail – for one particular mail – on my birthday. It was an annual birthday greeting card from a cousin. The one year when I was most anxious for it, I waited the entire day but it never came. I was dejected. “Did she forget? Did she not care anymore? Maybe we’re all too grown up for this now?”
These questions do not come up now, and there is no anticipation and elation about others remembering to wish on a birthday, because they would be notified about it through Facebook, Google and the like without effort.  I was wished by around a hundred and twenty people this way. I was certainly happy and appreciative of the wishes even if most of them were triggered by online notifications. I realize that as much as I would like to be the closest one to every other person I know, it does not and cannot happen.  It would be silly to expect the same intimacy from everyone. In any case, it would be foolhardy to consider birthday wishes as a measure of that closeness, and more so to expect someone like the random person I met at a party the day before, to remember my birthday without automatic reminders.

I received phone or audio calls to wish me at three different mid-nights,  over six different time-zones and over two days. My family members were among the first to wish me this time, without needing online reminders.  I was especially touched by a friend’s gesture to phone me  even while traveling internationally, from a foreign airport.

   I would be upset if the people I meet on my birthday forgot to wish me before we part ways, and so, as in previous years, I did not take that risk. It is scary to consider consider the possibility of them not remembering or not caring about it. I  reminded them myself without waiting to see if they would need it. I was pleased of course, when my fears were unfounded with a younger friend who had actually planned a surprise party later that day.

The second thing I couldn’t help but notice was how much my friends’ circle had changed over the past year. At both parties I had this time – there was not a single person  from the past birthday bashes I had. I had grown increasingly involved with the MSA on campus; I had close relationships with the people on it, and they formed the bulk of my friends now – some closer than others.
However, most of my peers were out of college and had moved on with their lives with only a couple of them taking graduate classes. Most others in the MSA were simply too young for me to relate to closely, except for a few in their senior year and an older friend who still had time to finish.  This had pushed me more and more towards a bunch of fellow graduate Muslim students in other departments that I was not always close with, even though I had known them for long. Slowly but surely, we grew closer and formed a very well-knit group that got together multiple times a week. I felt loved and wanted here. I was coddled and pampered; I was allowed to be silly and talkative - perhaps by a combination of being immature and younger than the rest of the group by some margin. We were now like family, and I thanked God for having these people in my life.
The day ended on a slightly sour note when a childhood friend now in the Philippines failed to wish me; I couldn’t reach him either. This was the first time in about eleven years that we hadn’t spoken on this day.
Time flew by between my birthdays sooner than I realized, and brought changes greater than I noticed along the way. Time is slipping away now and there is obviously little anyone can do about it than to make the best use of it.  I wonder how my circle of friends changes by next year. But if there is a lesson I have learned, it is to value, thank and care for the people I have in my life.

A Mission Impossible 4 Night – A Review

“There is a first time for everything,” was how a friend comforted me when he found me worried, which I was. Nothing after the first time is as affecting.

“It” was me watching back to back movies in theaters – Mission Impossible 4 included. This holiday season, I did not fly out as I usually do, and instead hung out with local friends, and (gasp)  went to a movie theater twice in four days. I had been to one only three times in the past two decades and more of my life.

 Action movies aren’t exactly my genre but I had to stick with the flock. I hadn’t even watched the previous three Mission Impossible movies.

 I am no movie critic, but my Indian-ness and Muslim-ness greatly affected how I came back from the movie.

•  Among the things that irritated me in the movie was the role of Anil Kapoor,  as Nath – the one Paula Patton seduces to get information. It was an embarrassing scene and it disgusted and perplexed me. Why would a hero in Bollywood movies do that to himself, and stoop down to perform in such roles just for five minutes of Hollywood fame?
  It was also interesting how people around me  made fun of the distinct Indian accent he came up with out of nowhere. They probably believed it added comical value to the scene. 

•  Paula Patton, the female lead wore especially embarrassingly revealing clothes in the long scene with Anil Kapoor. The extra shock for me was probably because this was on a huge screen which I wasn’t used to, given that I have only watched movies at home on a computer or on a 25″ television. People usually take their eyes off or fast forward to skip such scenes, but in a theater, none of that was happening.

• Important sections of the movie were really over the top. A Kremlin bombing and destruction. Really? 

• The camera work, animations and graphics were simply superb. I loved scenes such as one when Dubai is introduced.  The camera pans from the desert, highway, camels, and then the awesome skyscrapers.

• Some action scenes in the movie, such as the one around Burj Khalifa, the tallest skyscraper in the world, were breathtaking and managed to keep my pulse racing for quite some time.

• The best part in the story line was how, each time when technology failed, the characters in the movie had to fall back on traditional methods to get out of sticky situations. Their high-tech glass cutting machine may not work, but they could always kick the glass window to break it open. Their electronic gloves that stick to glass to climb a glass skyscraper may not work, but they could always use a rope!

• The antagonist character in the movie was not as strong as I would have expected, but I still think that was a good thing in a way.

• Though the action scenes from Burj Khalifa were amazing, it was comical how during the chase scene from the skyscraper, they quickly run into an Arabian environment straight from the Arabian Nights with camels, and towels hanging outside small shops within minutes from the skyscrapers. 

• The scenes from India were definitely not an accurate portrayal of India(Neither were those in Slumdog Millionaire.) Apart from that, I couldn’t wait until the end to point out to others around me another goof –  in the scene from the car parking lot and the satellite control station in Mumbai, India when the good guys were trying to restore power,  all the doors had sign boards and warning signs in Kannada, a language spoken in South India (Bangalore) and not in Mumbai. 

• The final scene made me chuckle. I loved how there was an obvious mocking of George Bush and his famous “Mission Accomplished”  speech, in the context of the Iraq war. 

Should I now go back and watch the previous three MI movies? I still haven’t decided.

 

Circles of Relationships and Happiness Index

I have long looked at my association with people and the time I spend with them as a series of concentric circles.

 A few months back, I went through tough times. I was needy. I needed someone to hear me out – someone who would look through my eyes and ask me if I was really doing alright, despite my business standard nods and affirmations to business standard oral inquiries of how I was doing. I went into hibernation. I took off my Facebook for two months, which made things worse. I figured someone couldn’t really be what a friend is in the true sense of the word if they wouldn’t keep up with me without a mere social networking website. They were never really friends with me. All their interactions were them simply passing their time.

 This reinforced my classification. The inner the circle is, the more important the people in it would be to me. There would be no way I would support a relationship with someone in an outer circle at the cost of someone inner.

 With my recent and continuing efforts to break free from the shackles of shyness and introversion (an effort which I sometimes fear is taking me out-of-bounds of acceptable behavior,) I am part of many events and social gatherings. New people enter into my outer most circle everyday . I want to stay connected with them.

On my lucky days, I meet people I want to hold on to closer, and reach a level closer than just knowing their identity.

And then, there are people whose company I enjoy, just as they enjoy mine. This next inner circle of people is a god-send, a list of people I know by sheer good fortune or through concerted effort.

The second inner circle is the people I love, unconditionally. Their happiness is my happiness, and their sorrows better only be mine. Being a cause of their happiness sends me into a tizzy. I would be a fool to suck up to someone else at the cost of anyone in this circle.

 At the center, the smallest circle is me, the time I spend with none but myself – in solitude. With long periods of complete silence, a calmness and inner peace unmatched dawn upon my heart, and whiffs of pleasing cool breeze flap its wings. My heart becomes light and flies. Everyone is forgiven. Toxic residues of mean talk, hurt,angst and disappointments are blown away. My association with God is renewed. A burst of positive energy flows through my body.

 At a peak, I was completely invulnerable. No one could hurt me. I did not need any appreciation or approval, and no one could ever give or take from me enough. That was because God was the only One whose approval and appreciation mattered. Only when God was displeased with me would I be losing something, only when God was pleased with me could I be pleased. Every worldly entity including its people was puny and did not matter, because the life of this world was temporary. The hereafter was where the real victory was. But victory in this life was a victory in the hereafter. Only God mattered, and only God could give me victory in both. So having God pleased with me was my only goal.
And He helped me get out of the abyss I had fallen into.

I work now to never fall into the pit again, and I work to help others get out of it.

Cursing and Me

“What the f**k!?” …..”Astaghfirullah!”…..”Oh oops!”

Nobody heard me exclaiming when there were no paper towels in a public restroom. That’s because I only said those phrases in my mind and made the required movements in my mouth(tongue, lips) without vocalizing it. If you know what I mean.

I almost never use curse words, but when they do slip out,  I am repentant. It was no different this time as I dropped the f-word in a fit of frustration. (Hey, I still didn’t actually say it!) I immediately shook my head and said a phrase in Arabic seeking forgiveness from God, again, just to myself. But I then realized I was in a toilet. I grew up learning not to take God’s name when I am in a restroom. Mistake number two. I let out a gasp again.

Some people manage to make me laugh with their creative use of curse words at “apt” situations even though I wouldn’t officially approve of their use. Otherwise, I generally dislike cursing,  but would tolerate it with varying degrees of smile retention which is directly proportional to the magnitude of my already existing irritation with the person in question.
It depends on my past conversations. I actually get a frown on my face when I feel that someone is only trying to appear hip and cool by their cursing,while also holding views contrary to mine on my pet peeves. I follow it up with silence instead of my usual chatter to get the message across(True story.)

Kemal el Makki was narrating this story of how a person who almost got hit by a car while walking burst out with a “sh*t.” This person realized how that word would have been his last if he had died of that accident.  Not the kind of last words anyone would like to have.

If you really want to listen to some real stuff in English, in terms of cussing, at a whole new level, a level I found unmatched in North America, you would have to be in England in a working class neighborhood and try to pick up an argument. Personal experience.

The Daily Routine that Killed Me – An End-of-Year Panic.

I got up early this morning –  I snoozed my alarm one time less than usual. But otherwise, it was pretty much the same. Everyday, I pray, get ready  and leave for work, or work from home.   I spend time in school. I pray in between. I go to bed. I already know my story for today.

It is Thanksgiving.   My last big shopping spree seemed to have been only recently. But much to my consternation, I realized today with a gulp  - it was much earlier. It was last year on Black Friday. Somehow a year flew by. 365 days.

Everyday seemed the same.  But time flew by. An entire year slipped away, and a year later, so much is different, not entirely in ways I would have liked.  It is easy to be lulled into a false sense of infinite time, and go about the daily routine. This was a recipe for failure, in terms of long-term goals.

 It was intriguing how, through the daily routine of everyday where everything seemed the same, somehow there was so much difference a year later even if I was seriously lagging behind in achieving my goals.  I sat back to think about it. I don’t laugh at the same jokes. I’m not hurt by the same things.  I’m not attracted to or seek the same things.
I’m less religious. I have a feeling that God does not answer my prayers as before. I am less motivated to volunteer. I haven’t read books as much as I used to. My academic performances have dipped. I surround myself with a very different group of people. I am at the crossroads in my career more unsure of   my career than a year back.
But there were positive changes too. I love my family more than ever before, I miss those not around me more than I used to a year back. I am more spiritual in my approach towards things. I have memorized more of The Noble Quran and understand it better. I am closer to achieving my long-term goals than ever before, even if by a smaller margin than I would have liked for one full year. I am more outgoing than before, I talk to more people and have had some success in breaking free of my shyness with new people. I have consolidated some of my old friendships, and it pleases me to know they love me and wish well for me, despite knowing all of my weaknesses and failings.

 I now spend time tracking my progress on my long-term goals. I have a group of friends assigned to keep reminding me of them. There is no better way of thanking God for the time He gives us than by making it count.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Science and Faith – An Unresolvable Conflict?

This was the subject of discussion at my school recently. Given that the program was organized by a Christian Organization, there was no voice from the  atheistic perspective.

The first speaker went on for quite some time reading the Genesis, pointing out the scientifically accurate assertions in it “even though the Bible was three thousand years old”, given that these facts were proved to be true only by recent scientific progress.
Was he trying to prove that given this match, there is no conflict between religion and science? Was he trying to prove that since there are scientifically accurate statements unknown to men  when the Bible was written, it was really from God?
He failed in trying to prove either of these in part because he overlooked the scientifically questionable statements in the first few lines themselves.

They did point out how scientific “facts” change with time, and the Bible could not always be held to their standards, and how many aspects of “science” actually involved believing in things that haven’t been proven conclusively, which makes it not very different from a belief in religion.

What was their take on the Theory of Evolution? Did we evolve from monkeys?  It surprised me when they asserted (they were Orthodox)  that there isn’t necessarily a clash between religion and the theory of evolution. One student protested: “I can’t believe in a God who cannot create something perfectly, the way it should be, straightaway, and needs a gradual improvement”.
“I believe that God can create perfect beings straightaway, but He chose not to”,  one of the speakers replied, which I thought was a weak argument.  Weak because it would   imply that humans were also evolved from a more primitive form on Earth, which clashes with one of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity  - that the perfect and complete human form (Adam and Eve) was in paradise – before “The Fall” – before they were expelled to this world as complete humans.
I did put this question up at the event, and essentially, like on many other questions, the answer we received ranged from “This is a tough one” to  ”It is belief, really”.  A  dead-end to all debates, because there is not much that can be said after  something is “a belief”. You just believe in it.  One of the speakers ended up accepting that there would be a conflict here and that there is a need of dialogue – he nodded his head when I asked him if this meant that he agrees that science and religion are two different streams.

A recent quote by Reza Aslan came to mind: “You have to understand that Islam and Judaism are legalistic religions, Christianity is a creedal religion. Christianity is all about belief, right? In fact, if you are a Catholic that creedal formulation is a complex formula, “I believe in God the Father maker of heaven and earth, I believe in Jesus His only begotten son, I believe in the Holy Spirit, I believe in the Holy Apostolic Church, etc. etc.”

A Muslim Greek Name.

While cooling my heels before the sunset prayers in the Interfaith center on campus recently, a fellow Desi, Muslim student asked me why another Greek Muslim, who was friends with both of us, had not changed his name to a “Muslim name” after he became Muslim.

 Sometimes, I feel guilty that I am there more for socializing, rather than for praying in peace, and in congregation. It is another matter that no one can pray in peace when I am around. I have a problem of giggling the most when I am absolutely not supposed to, but this is a story for another day.

While I  tease the Greek friend about his difficult-to-pronounce name many times,  this thought had not crossed my mind – I already had my views on this matter.

Mixing up culture and Islam has been my pet peeve for long. For example, and this is by no means reflective of the entire problem – many people think that the more Arab-ized they were, the more Islamic they would be, in matters of dress, names, language and so on, which did not make sense to me.

For people from the Indian subcontinent, Muslim names would either be Arabic or of Persian/Central Asian origin considering the centuries of rule in India by Muslims who spoke Persian.  Since they aren’t used to it, any name from any other culture would not be an Islamic name for them.
I asked this desi friend whether “Shiraz” is a Muslim name. He replied in the affirmative. I  pointed out that Shiraz is Persian, and  that it’s actually the name of a city in Iran. “So what makes a Persian name more Islamic than a Greek name? What makes you feel he does not have a  Muslim name?”.

I don’t even think that the situation would have changed if he would have had an Arabic name. The only (significant) reason to have Arabic names would be to have the same name as some of the greatest personalities in Islamic history, since many of them were Arab. Many of them were not, and the Prophet (peace be upon him) is not known to have asked new Muslim converts who were not Arabs to change their names to Arabic ones’.

I loved  Tariq Ramadan‘s statement from a recent lecture I attended –  that Islam was an umbrella, and many different cultures came under it; that all aspects of a culture that do not contradict Islam are actually Islamic.  In this case, any name that contradicted the principles of Islam would be un-Islamic, whether in Arabic or in any other language.

I’ll have your back.

 It is easy to get used to and dependent upon support. It is perhaps one of the pitfalls of growing up in an extremely loving desi family, and having a lot of friends.  The assurance that someone has your back, that someone is always there to rescue you if you screw up, gave me a sense of security and helped fuel complacency.

 My sister, speaking after her marriage, said a big difference in her new life away from our parents was that she now had to fend for herself more than ever, to actually answer and face the consequences of her mistakes. She gave an example of her losing her passport sized photographs. My dad would be the one doing all the running to make up for her mistakes, but all that he would say, no matter how many times she faulted: “Oh don’t worry beta, it’s okay”. “Beta” is an affectionate word for son/daughter in Urdu.
I have to admit though, that this kind of support is not true for everyone – first because my dad’s daughters were just that, absolute princesses to my dad, and secondly, because dad was and is a very rare gem of a person – and I don’t say that because he barely ever shouted at any of us siblings (*lol*), or because of his mind-blowing intense selfless love and sacrifice for our mother and for us.

 Living away from my parents, I feel the pinch too. Even if my parents couldn’t solve my problem for me, such as taking my exam for me (my dad would joke about it), they would push me to work harder and give me huge mental and emotional support. They still are out there for me, as much as distance permits and as much as I let them in on my issues, given that it would make them extra worrisome. I have a lot of friends, and some of them are out there for me just as I am for them. I consider myself lucky for that.

But then there are things which you have to face all by yourself, all alone. Things that aren’t going away anywhere, things no one is going to solve for you. You wish for someone to fly into your life and change things for the better. If only that were possible. The only way would be to stand up and fight – the cost of accepting defeat and fleeing would make it a non-option. Facing the hammer repeatedly seasons you to better face challenges in the future.

 It makes you stronger each time, which is good preparation for what you  want to be and try to be – the same backbone support and dependence for those you love. Enough to be able to make this promise: I can’t promise to fix all your problems, but I can promise you won’t have to face them alone.”

Reasoning Emotions and the End of Gaddafi. A Love for God.

An old memory from childhood cropped up in recent days - it was a chilling sermon I had heard at Eid,which is one of two Muslim holidays in a year. It was a masterpiece of oratory, with powerful rhetoric that, I remember, had sent chills down my spine and gave me goosebumps.

The sermon was on the oft-repeated Islamic chant, “Allahu Akbar”,  Arabic for God is Greater. Greater than anything else.

Listening to this chant being recited in chorus has long been addictive to me. Quite often, emotions stir up. If I do not melt and feel like crying, helpless before God, a fire lights up within me giving me a huge rush of energy and a feeling of invincibility, that God alone matters and nothing else does. At other times, I feel a heavenly inner peace and contentment, a blissful solitude even in a crowd.

I’m not alone. Many look forward to the chant being recited in chorus before every Eid holiday prayer by Muslims. In times of happiness and success, sorrow and distress, in need and fulfillment, many find a way through calls of  Allahu Abar.

It was moving to see young revolutionaries in Egypt standing up to a tyrant, a dictator as they repeatedly chanted the same in chorus, electrifying the masses. I often searched and played the protestors chanting and praying during the revolution, on YouTube.

It was the same during the Libyan revolution, until, things changed.

The last time I heard the chant during the Libyan “revolution”, I was nauseating. I was disgusted.

A bloodied Gaddafi was being sodomized with a long knife-like object, a someone ramming it through his buttocks, cries of Allahu Akbar abound. He was being lynched, beaten, slapped and ultimately killed by people chanting the phrase in chorus. I also read how scores of others were summarily executed by the same “revolutionaries”. I wanted to plead with them to stop one of them – either the religious chant, or their despicable act.

It was clear. Swayed by emotions, the worst has been done, even in the name of religion. Hatred and discrimination, and worse, killing and oppression of a people, because of or due to, or for religion.

 Did I learn any lessons? Yes.  One, be careful about who you get your knowledge from. Not everyone who claims to do and call upon good is right. The truth stands out clear from falsehood.  God repeatedly asks us to ponder, in the Qur’an.

More importantly, emotions that run high and low, and vary with time and place cannot be the sole basis for actions.

Emotions now come after I am convinced of its basis, with reasoning.

 My personal relationship with God has grown beyond this stage.
It is about total love, hope, fear, all at the same time – strong emotions, all of them.
As a mortal human with forgetfulness, I have my mistakes as I act at certain times in ways that may point otherwise, but I do realize this: that the world may teach us, men more than women, that to show emotions is to be weak. But the way to God is through hope, through fear, through love. That God is closer to me than anything else. That He is waiting for me to communicate. That His wishes are more important than mine. That my desires are less important than His. That only He is an infallible entity that I can depend upon, that He will never let me down – men are fallible and can and do all the time.

.

 Someone rightly said: Use emotions—but never let them use you. Control them. Never allow them to control you.

Protected: A Reminiscence

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