A Love Letter

It's official. I'm leaving you New York. 

Dearest New York: I'm leaving you - nay, abandoning you - for a city without the same joie-de-vivre, without the same intensity, energy, never-say-never attitude that pervades your very being. A city without your beauty, that beauty that you only get in grime and in soot and in hard work. I'm abandoning you for a city without that je ne sais quoi that I feel every time I walk through the city streets, with those towering towers towering above me, for a city without that certain passion, without what Mrs. H would call 'verve', without this beautiful life and manner of living.

Dearest New York: I'm abandoning you for a city that is quiet, that actually goes to sleep, one where it rains so much that you could eat off the sidewalk and not get violently ill. A city where when it rains it doesn't stop for 28 days. A city where everything is often cloaked in a cape of greyness, of gloom. But, oh New York, the sight when the rain finally makes its way through the mountains, finally decides to torment those on the other side, is glorious. The mountains rise out of the ocean, the sun's rays dance on the water with joy, people smile, flowers bloom, and life is good. Quiet, simple, detached, but good.

So, Oh Dearest New York, I'm abandoning you for one more beautiful on the surface. By all means, call me shallow. Scream at me. Yell at me. Tell me it's not worth it. Tell me that it'll never promise me the dreams you promised me all those years ago, the dreams you still promise me to this day. Tell me that I'm betraying you, betraying myself, by letting go of this world, by going back to where I started, to where I began, by letting go of what I have become and what I am becoming.

Dearest New York: my love for you is not that quiet burning of coals, it is the passion of the ghazal, that burning passion that is never sustained for long periods, but happens in bursts of fierce intensity. The passion of the parwana for the shama', the one in which the parwana circles round and round and round, getting ever closer, getting ever closer to being burned, getting ever closer to being burnt up. Or burnt out - in my case. 

Dearest New York: I abandon you today so that I may return. Energized. Revitalized. Ready to make you my own and to - once again - follow those dreams that you promised me that summer day eight long years ago. 

Forgive me for burning too quickly in your love, my love.

Adieu, mon amour, adieu.

N

I Left You at Nizamuddin

I think about you - often, and more so these days. I think about that endearing smile of yours, part playful, part mischievous, genuine and free. About your sheer confidence and shrewdness, the latter and how it bothered me for days, but which makes me proud of you - in an odd sense of the term. It was your freedom of spirit - the term, so often misused, but apt in your case - that drew me to you, that disengaged all my apprehensions of who you are, of what you are. I still remember the old women, the one that refused to let me capture her face but whose face remains etched in my mind, and her warnings about you. How I shouldn't let you watch me, or talk to me, or help me, how your family's trade would force you to harm me and that I would regret my decisions. But I didn't listen.

I think about you and your friend - yes the other one. The one that followed you around, that hung on your every word, that didn't even talk back at you when you accused him of lying. He was slower than you, not a natural leader like you. Unbelievably sweet, but without that charisma that you possess in excess.

I think about saying bye to you and wandering into the gullies of Nizamuddin. How I didn't expect to see you again, but how you waited for me and came to me and then spoke to me. How could I have not expected it? She had told me you would. But there was a part of me that didn't believe her. That didn't want to believe her. I still remember your high-pitched voice. I still wonder whether you had been trained, or whether it was natural. I remember you tapping on my arm, being disgusted at first, but then other instincts sinking in and wanting to do anything I could for you. Of fearing for your safety, of not wanting to be accosted like that time, 10 years ago, in a distant parking lot, at another sacred place. Of telling you to be quiet and to follow me and to wait, and promising. Of getting into the rickshaw. Of you not believing me. Of seeing the hurt in your eyes. Of telling you to come to the other side of the auto and giving you the note, telling you to use it well and to be safe. Of seeing you stare at the note - in some sort of amazement - of looking up, smiling, and running away. I hope you shared with your friend. I hope you bought food. I hope they didn't take it from you, or hurt you because of it.

I hope you're ok.

I wonder if I'll ever see you again.

Khuda Hafiz Ali,

Didi.

Thought du Jour

I haven't written much of note in the past little while. As you may have noticed, if you've been reading RFS for long enough, my rate of blogging varies considerably. At times, I'll blog multiple times in a week; at others, I won't blog for weeks. Then there are those times, during which I'll blog about issues that seem not only inconsequential, but also unimportant. Emphasis on seem.

I guess, I haven't been doing much thinking outside of the world of academia these days. It's not that I don't have significant issues to deal with, I do, but I just haven't been inspired to actually think them through in a manner that's conducive to writing on RFS. Let's just say that a lot of what is going through my head, and my life, is stuff I want to keep out of the realm of RFS. That being said, if I'm able to write about them in a way that is cryptic (i.e. complex and odd) enough to not be completely understood by those involved in the various issues of my life (censorship - yes), then I may post about them here. Candy dreams, is one such post.

Today, I had a bit of a thought explosion. It was quite grand - or seemed grand in my head, at least. I realized the following. Take what you may from it. It started off while I was thinking about the number of languages I know, and how I'm not actually completely fluent in all of them (which is a shame), and how my fantastic Urdu professor once told the class that, apart from those in extraordinary circumstances, multilingual people will never be truly fluent in any of their known-languages as one who only knows a single language. Oh polylingualism...sigh.

And then the thought expanded to my multiculturality -and this issue of identity that I've always grappled with.

Anyway - so at the end of the thought process, this is what emerged.

In my multiplicity is my nonexistence...

I Know I Can Die

you don't truly understand mortality until you are made aware of it

and then - you understand it a bit too well

The End of Everything?

Come-on Shelly, not everything is dying is it? First you write Death of Sanskrit (fascinating by the way), and now your most recent article is on the Death of Philology. Sigh.

I really hope you're not depressing. I guess we'll see tomorrow. You're really cool - everyone who's done any Sanskrit (myself included) thinks so. I really hope you're cool.

But, I'm sorry.

The Tyra show is much more interesting at this point than the article.

(ps - I really haven't had a break for a while, so it's also an excuse to relax)

Seriously??

"Dating the Ethnic Man: Strategies for Success – New!
Multicultural relationships are increasingly common despite the challenges involved. If you’re a woman considering a relationship with an ethnic man, this insightful course will enlighten you to the influences that religion, family obligations and peer pressure may have on your partner’s ability to fully commit to you. Through practical advice and case studies, you’ll learn how to address and embrace cultural differences, while enriching your experiences of life and each other. Questions for contemplation and an in-depth compatibility test provide additional insights into the ethnic man’s values, sexual matters and emotional conflicts."

Seriously!!?!?!! And this too at a newly-accredited university (I still call it a college - yes, I'm an education snob) in my home province. Ooh - I want to date a brown guy - let's examine some case studies. Idiots. The only case studies worth examining are your own past relationships. And how do you LEARN to embrace cultural differences? You either do or you don't - simple.

Also - what are an 'ethnic man's values'. All you men of colour, along with those men who don't have colour but are still considered 'ethnic' in North America (shout out to the Mexicans, Brazilians [yes - I know not all of you are 'white' - sorry, for lack of a better term], Russians etc) - stay away from people who take this course. Seriously...If they think you're worth it, they'll ask you the questions, instead of some random 'expert' on 'ethnic men'.

Sheesh

Desert Sunset - 16 August 2004

the desolate wind sweeps across the desert
picking up dust, leaves and the occassional call
of a lost bird
and yet,
I am left standing,
waiting for that which will not come.

tired.

the fleeting and warm smile of the unknown
lends me a helping hand in my quest across the desert,
as the gold leaves my fingertips
the cold night surrounds me
and I sit
waiting for the next sunrise.

(ps- hakka noodles)

Pieces

Two things you can do:

leave the broken pieces on the ground

or

try to pick them up and put them back together

first one is harder to do in the short term - but perhaps the best in the long run...

dammit

The 9 Planets (actually 8 - poor Pluto)

and sometimes all you can do is laugh at the cruel twists of fate and plow through a box of tissues

AshtaVinayaka - #8

It's 3:33 am...and i'm writing my paper and wasting time (i'm almost done...finally...doing both...)


and i was wondering



is it possible to overdose on tea? if it is, imma do it tonite i think...

hmm..

Thoughts...

This is me just putting out some thoughts on Islamic terrorism and, more importantly, the word Islamism - and I guess the entire topic is inspired by my paper (yes, I'm still writing it...on part two right now) and this course I'm taking on terrorism (with a focus on the Islamic type).

I've read quite a bit about the entire topic of Islamism over the past 2 months or so, and in all the papers and articles and books I've read, I haven't come across one definition of the word Islamism. It's used arbitrarily and constantly in these works, something that I find both troubling and problematic for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, on a policy level, if we want to 'combat' this particular radical movement, and on an academic level, if we want to analyze the increase in fundamentalism based on a radical interpretation of Islam, we need to understand what we're looking at first. If we neither define the term nor determine who constitutes an 'Islamist', how are we going to operate successfully on both the political and academic levels?

Tying into that, who are the Islamists? Are they the political leaders of parties like the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Islam in Pakistan? Are they the individuals who folow Osama bin Laden and are members of al-Qaeda? Are they the soldiers of Hamas? Are they the clerics around the world who have an anti-American bent and incite people to violent jihad and terrorism through their sermons?

On another level, can we really define Islamism properly? If we can't define Islam, how do we define Islamism? And I say this for a couple of reasons. If we look at contemporary Islamic society, we'll see that the ummah - the concept of a transnational Muslim community - does not exist. There is no emir-el-momineen (leader of the faithful) and no caliphate. Islamic society today is perhaps more divided than it has ever been - and I don't say this in a political sense.

Islam, as most know, is divided into three distinct sects: Sunnism, Shi'ism and Sufism. Furthermore, each of these can be divided into more factions. Let's look at the extremes within these sects. In Sunnism, on one hand, there are the ultra-radical Salafists and Wahhabists. On the other, there are the average Sunni Muslims who are, in all probability, quite peaceful and follow the non-violent and pacific verses and principles of the Qur'an and the religion. In Shi'ism, the distinction between radicalism and moderation is perhaps more pronounced. On one hand, there are the followers of the late Ayatollah Khomeini. On the other are the Nizari Ismailis, followers of the Aga Khan and perhaps the most pro-Western and moderate Muslims in the world today. Sufism, my favourite of the three, is perhaps the most varied and divided. Sufis usually follow a particular sheikh. As well, Sufism varies quite a bit in its method of practice. In Persia, many Sufis follow the teachings of Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi. In India, much of Sufi philosophy has blended with medieval Hindu spirituality, creating this absolutely phenomenal mixture.

So...again..if we can't define Islam, how do we define Islamism?

Why we need to/should define it next time. And the implications for policy-making the time after that.

That's it for now....

666 - Satan? amm...no

its impossible to be objective.. even that thought is subjective

not my thought..jst thought it was interesting...hence posting it in Selfistan...thanks to S

that's it for now...ciao, adios, au revoir...and remember...to be born again first you must die

~me

the five senses...

I said 'let there be light' and was blinded as a result. Now I sit in the darkness.



but

who blinded me

what blinded me

what is darkness

what is light

why did i say 'let there be light'


back to my paper-editing (i'm getting published...woohoooooo)

that's it for now...ciao, adios, au revoir...and remember...to be born again first you must die


~me

The Four Seasons - quattro

If you can't have a header, try a footer

Some of you may remember the problems I had in trying to put my Ramblings from Selfistan header up on this blog. Well, it's now a footer.

Problem solved....

that's it for now...ciao, adios, au revoir...and remember...to be born again first you must die

~me

Trisharana - the three refuges - 3

And sometimes life hits you on the head with a club and instead of becoming unconscious you gain the consciousness that you had lost a long time ago.

my head hurts but I refuse to take aspirin or tylenol or any other refuge from the pain

that's it for now...ciao, adios, au revoir...and remember...to be born again first you must die

~me

Dvitiya - Number 2

if we attain immortality, do we cease to be alive?

Life and death cannot exist without one another. The concept of life depends on the fact that we can die. Just as we need woman to know what man is, we need life to know death - and vice versa.

So if I or you or we become immortal, we lose death. And if we lose death and the concept of death, we also lose life.

When I or you or we become immortal, we stop living. If we weren't immortal and we stopped living we would die. So what happens when we become immortal? Do we enter another state of being? Do we become ghosts - neither alive nor dead?

That's it for now...ciao, adios, au revoir...and remember...to be born again first you must die

~me

Adam - the First

and sometimes all you can do is nothing

Thus starts the section that I shall call "Selfistanic Eruption" - an assortment of sayings from Selfistan that seem to erupt and rise up from the depths of the land. I call this post Adam - in honour of the firstborn, if indeed he was the firstborn. I'm areligious, not necessary aspiritual, so please don't read into this Adam-ness.

That's it for now...ciao, adios, au revoir...and remember...to be born again first you must die

~me