The coexistence of that which is bleak with that which is life itself...

If you click on the title of this post, you will find that it is linked to a piece on being in Pakistan from one of my most favorite people on the planet and a very dear friend - Naeem Inayatullah:

Some thoughts, not random but certainly not organized, that my readings of this piece triggered:

1. This might seem trivial but I do agree that with the exception of ice-cream, Pakistan really does have the most delectable tasting food and drink. It's a culinary haven.

2. Pointing to what amounts to a 'favorite' shouldn't negate the fact that this whole essay inspired me and provoked much thought in an emotional sense - much like a song that keeps building flawlessly to a crescendo that can only make you tear up and exist within a blankness that isn't empty but certainly feels that way perhaps because there is only room for feeling rather than thinking. Having said that, I do have a thought to which I am drawn and want to dwell and perhaps even savor and it is this: "On my return to Ithaca I feel empty; I wonder where the people are. I am jet-lagged, culture shocked and weather beaten. But I clutch at my disorientation with the desperation of someone who fears that Ithaca routines will leave him numbed."

The fear of being numbed. I think Naeem nails it here for all those of us who perhaps find ourselves at the margins of affiliations that don't normally go together - because society has been long used to drawing a sharper line demarcating inside and outside that it seems to have neglected to develop a vocabulary to accommodate, under one umbrella, or, in this case, one being, that which is traditionally separated. Hmm I think I might just have entered the social science-y domain by making a statement on behalf of a larger public - safety in generalizability. That's one of the things I hate most about the disciplines that fall within social science. So I'll speak for myself - although I harbor no delusions or carry the (Western) baggage of the dichotomy of individual/collective. I don't believe people are private individuals. Even the depths of our minds that we think elude all but us are a product of the ways in which we make sense of the world by interacting with it. So perhaps 'being' is a more precise word, yes? Because to me that implies interacting and being social. But I digress. Let me rephrase the statement about Naeem nailing it as one that applies solely to me as far as I know. Others who agree - or disagree - can speak for themselves.

So I was talking about the fear of being numbed. I went back to Pakistan after 2 years this past summer. Other than when we were waiting for our permanent resident paperwork to come through, I have never been away from Pakistan for this long ever since I moved to the US. The reasons for doing so are a bit personal. I have the reason that I gave to all and even me - and that was definitely part of it - I was working on my dissertation and wanted to wait till it was done. But there was a deeper reason that I've only recently recognized - I was running away from a vital part of me. I didn't know it at the time. But perhaps to grapple with it I needed to suppress it for a while. Of course none of this was conscious. But I can see it now from where I'm standing - primarily because it took confronting what I was running away from to return this August.

But back to the numbness of which Naeem is talking about in this piece. When I returned to Pakistan, after a week of reorienting myself to the frustrations and unease of loadshedding that makes one wonder if the concept of electricity is one that one ought to be amnesic about to cope with its frequent absence, nosy people who have no business butting in your business but do it anyway, getting used to the loss of privacy that follows with the nosiness so much so that what one ate for lunch suddenly becomes something that ought to be public knowledge in extensions of family that are so far removed that one rarely thinks about them, the carelessness with which time commitments are (mis)treated, the hovering around of domestic help that makes one oscillate between concerns about human rights and whether this might just be a form of slavery to relishing the fact that there are no clothes to be taken out of a dryer to be folded and put away in place. After getting back into the rhythm that was first nature to me it hit me. I miss being in Pakistan. Despite all of the things that get under my skin - and the above list is but a partial one - there is something about it that keeps me vibrant in a way that always feels new but is also familiar. As Naeem writes, "there are colors vibrant beyond any camera’s ability to capture" - so so true. In fact, along the same lines and extending what Naeem has captured so vividly, it's a rhythm of life that can't be explained until it beats in your heart.

Someone might say I'm romanticizing. Perhaps I am. But since when did romanticism become a four-letter word? What's the need to be ashamed of it? Why be embarrassed? After all, it is when we humans dream and act to make those dreams come true that we gain the opportunity to celebrate and enjoy our capacity to do wonderful things.

Being in Pakistan and getting reacquainted with the Pakistani in me (not that I'd lost it but perhaps its voice was being dulled - I think of it as the numbness to which Naeem alludes) inspires me beyond measure. It makes me feel. It gives me the space to think from my gut. I like how I think and how I write - which in my profession are both vitally important. I spent the last two years that I stayed away from Pakistan learning to think like an academic - well not so much think as make an attempt to think that way and perhaps fake it. I tried to play by the rules of the game. And Pakistan reminded me that I need to make the game mine to be happy playing it. That I came to the game in the first place because I could think of other ways to play it, of different moves that might make playing the game a much more enriching experience.

As I write this I'm getting lost. As I said above, lost in the emotions I feel but fail to perhaps articulate. Not out of fear but more so out of a consciousness of the seconds ticking away on the clock while knowing that there are things I need to tend to and so the luxury of thinking this through must wait.

But yes I know that it is this very fear of numbness that is very real for me once more. That is until I can find a way to play the game so that my rules apply as well.

3. The Pakistan I see in the news while navigating my existence between New Jersey, New York, and DC frustrates me to no end. I don't deny its existence. But I do deny that it is all there is to Pakistan. To follow Naeem's thoughts, if the rubble of bomb blasts or the destruction on a street left by a rioting crowd make up Pakistan then so do a people whose conscience and hearts are alive. Who dream of a better future. Who try to inspire others to create this future. Who in their small ways also fill their present with vestiges of this utopia. That utopic present exists in the women of whom Naeem speaks. Someone like his cousin Miryam. I too see it all around me when I go. It is in the eyes of the Afghan refugee boy who creates fascinating products to sell on the street; all alone in the world his eyes are never sad but glimmer with hope and pride. I also see it in the architecture. The fountain known as 'do talwar' - two swords - that has been dedicated to those refugees who came to Pakistan in 1947 and gave up their all to make a dream a reality with a corporeal existence. In this sense, Pakistan is the conundrum Naeem captures in his story of his morning jog in Islamabad - one in which guards are deployed on streets but who suddenly also become part of your daily rhythm. If they are there because the law and order situation is horrendous, their presence is also very much a part of the vibrancy of Pakistan - the relationships one carves on a daily basis. Relationships that cement themselves with even a few brief, seemingly superficial encounters. I think back to my daily visits to the Avari Towers hotel in Karachi while I was there doing my field research. I'd go there to check my e-mail because they had high-speed wireless. The guard who would open the door for me on my way in and on my way out was a reminder of the dangers that lurk all over Karachi. Yet, in that brief encounter that occurred everyday, our 2 minutes conversation suddenly become a connection about our lives. And so I got to know all about the dreams he has for his family's future. I've never met them but I know them well. When I returned to Pakistan after 2 years this past summer, he recognized me instantly and inquired where I'd been all this time. And so it was like I'd never left or that the break hadn't been as long.

4. I'm relieved that for once someone trying to explain the normalcy of life in Pakistan didn't try to make it fit within the parameters of normalcy that might be used by the 'other' with whom one is trying to communicate. There was no reassurance, no defensiveness. Only an exploration of that which is quintessentially Pakistan - a normalcy that continue to evolve and exist alongside that which is bleak.

5. I miss the raw smells, the vibrant colors, and being part of the vitality of which Naeem speaks. I too am fearful and resistant of numbness. There are days I fight it well. Then there are days when perhaps I don't feel the need to fight it at all because something like the essay Naeem has written inspires me from within my gut and makes me feel like I don't have a long-distance relationship with my Pakistani-ness. On others, the distance is overwhelming. And I fear. And I contemplate. And I too clutch at the 'me' that sometimes feels lost and out of place in the fray that is my life in America. But, then again, my life in America is also very much a part of me. It inspires me - but in a characteristically different way. One whose heartbeat might be different but very much keeps the pulse running.

And on that note of a horrendously phrased metaphor, I sign off until next time.

Truck-Loads of Belated Wishes

In my MIA-ness tons of holidays passed us by. So, in that spirit, belated Happy Eid, Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year. It's been eerily quiet here on this space - chalk it up to the holiday season and trying to dissertate. It might be a while before I begin to post again but I promise to be back later this month once I've circled my way back from the edge of the planet.

In the meantime, sending out wishes for a 2009 that brings happiness, joy, fulfillment, health, prosperity, and peace to all.

78% man? Really!

I was sent a link to this site called GenderAnalyzer by a friend. You type in the URL for a blog and the site determines whether the blog is being written by a man or a woman. My result? 76% man.

Plausible explanation other than being just plain wrong (and I say this because while Asad is a man he remains MIA on this blog) - perhaps if you claim to be 'bionic' it makes you a man or at least a manly woman.

I'd love to know how they came up with their analytical criteria. Well love might be too strong...let's just say I'm curious.

All I'm going to say is that I'm expecting my honorary penis in the mail in 4-5 business days!

Universal Children's Day & Faiz Ahmed Faiz's Death Anniversary

Although I knew it was Faiz's death anniversary today, I wasn't actually aware that Universal Children's Day is also being observed today.

Why is that important to me?

I'm reminded now of the first poem that I actually read by Faiz titled "Subh-e-Azadi" or "The Dawn of Freedom":

These tarnished rays, this night smudged light –
This is not that Dawn for which, ravished with freedom,
we had set out in sheer longing,
so sure that somewhere in its desert the sky harbored
a final haven for the stars, and we would find it. . . .

Now listen to the terrible rampant lie:
Light has forever been severed from the Dark;
Our feet, it is heard, are now one with their goal.
See our leaders polish their manner clean of suffering:
Indeed we must confess only to bliss;
we must surrender any utterance for the Beloved – all yearning is outlawed.

But the heart, the eye, the yet deeper heart –
Still ablaze for the Beloved, their turmoil shines.
In the lantern by the road the flame is stalled for news:
Did the morning breeze ever come? Where has it gone?
Night weighs us down, it still weighs us down.
Friends, come away from this false light. Come, we must search for that promised Dawn.

It's a poem that haunts me - in a strangely optimistic way - and also inspires me. It makes me think about where Pakistan is today, of the promises of 1947, and perhaps the promises that we need to revisit and even revise today to get close to the dream that was and align it with reality.

I can't help but think about this poem in the context of Universal Children's Day. Ever since 2001 when the present war began in Afghanistan, every time I've gone back to Karachi I've met the same little boy on the same intersection - for those who are familiar it's the right turn on Khayaban-e-Shamsheer that heads towards Zamzama. Every year he has a new "scheme" to make money. He has no-one. He doesn't know where his parents are. He doesn't dream of seeing them again nor does he lament over that he might never see them again. Thousands of cars pass him by everyday without perhaps noticing him or dismissing him with the slight of hand - a gesture oft-used to shoo away beggars. Unlike others who sell flowers on the road or religious books or balloons, this kid markets his own creations. And when someone dismisses him he doesn't bat an eyelid and picks up where he left off. He chases cars. He dodges the cars as soon as the traffic light turns green - sometimes whizzing in between speeding cars one wonders how he's even alive. He refuses to accept charity. He wants to earn his way as best he can and as best he knows. He collects old school books that folks throw away to continue his education. He even looks out for the other refugee kids that beg at this traffic light. He loves to narrate stories. And in this nomadic existence, he's nurtured solid friendships - of which I'd like to think one is between him and me. He's a fighter, he has resilience, he has vision, and most of all he has faith not that things will be all right but that they're quite good as is.

I think about his face when I think about the millions of kids on streets worldwide. And I wonder when we will, to use Faiz, "search for that promised Dawn" when these kids have a better life to relish....

Yes We Did!

Behold the 44th President of the United States of America: President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama!

Color me elated and exhilarated. And currently battling the stupor and dragging-of-derriere that follows celebrating into the wee hours of the morning. More thoughts later...

Election Day 2008

I'd planned to write a longer post reflecting on my responses to the campaign and the upcoming election - but for now this short one because I'm off to vote and volunteer. If you are a US citizen and registered to vote, please do so.

And a shameless yet earnest plug for the candidate who has inspired the hearts and minds of millions: Please vote for Senator Barack Obama for the next US President.

More thoughts later....again please vote! Go Obama!

The Classic Dames Test

I'm not quite sure what to make of this...perhaps because I promised myself that this would be just a 5 minutes break from The Bane Of My Existence. I promise a "real" post later this week.

Your result for The Classic Dames Test...

Myrna Loy

You scored 26% grit, 43% wit, 10% flair, and 38% class!

You are loaded with a quirky kind of class that people find irresistable. Men turn and look at you admiringly as you walk down the street, and even your rivals have a grudging respect for you. You usually know the right thing to say, do and, of course, wear. You can take charge of a situation when things get out of hand, and you do it with great poise and chic. Your wit and sense of fun endear you to your partner and every other man in the room. Your screen partners include William Powell and Cary Grant. You're quite a catch...if you want to be caught.

Find out what kind of classic leading man you'd make by taking the
Classic Leading Man Test.

Take The Classic Dames Test at HelloQuizzy