would you call it

a wrong move…

if in the larger

scheme of things

it opened some self

realisations?

ORIGINAL QUOTE
If you love someone, Set her free…
if she comes back, she’s yours,
If she doesn’t, it was never meant to be….

THE NEW VERSIONS…

Pessimist:
If you love someone, Set her free …
If she ever comes back, she’s yours,
If she doesn’t, as expected, she never was.
Whatever gave you the idea that she would anyway?

Optimist:
If you love someone, Set her free …
Don’t worry, she’ll come back.

Suspicious:
If you love someone, Set her free …
If she ever comes back, ask her why.

Impatient:
If you love someone, Set her free …
If she doesn’t come back within a week forget it.

Patient:
If you love someone, Set her free …
If she doesn’t come back put your life on hold and
sit and wait.

Playful:
If you love someone, Set her free …
If she comes back, and if you love her still,
set her free again, repeat*

The Human Ecologist:
If you love someone, Set her free,
In fact, all living creatures deserve to be free!!

Lawyers:
If you love someone, Set her free,
Clause 1a of Paragraph 13a – 1 in the second
amendment of the Matrimonial Freedom Act clearly states
that…

Bill Gates :
If you love someone, Set her free,
If she comes back, I think we can charge her for
re-installation fees and tell her that she’s also going to get an
upgrade.

Biologist :
If you love someone, Set her free, She’ll evolve.

Statisticians :
If you love someone, Set her free,
If she loves you, the probability of her coming
back is high.
If she doesn’t, your relation was improbable
anyway.

Schwarzenegger’s fans:
If you love someone, Set her free,
SHE’LL BE BACK!

Over possessive person:
If you love someone,
don’t set her free.

Now here are some additions to those:

The FBI agent:
If you love someone, set her free.
Then put bug on her phone and surveillance cameras
in her house.

The Pathetic:
If you love someone, set her free.
Who wants to be stuck with a loser like you anyway?

The Lawyer:
If you love someone, set her free.
Then sue her for emotional distress.

The Psycho:
If you love someone, set her free.
If she doesn’t come back shoot her.

The Creepy Sociopath:
If you love someone, stalk her.

The geeky programmer:
IF
you love someone
THEN
set her free
ENDIF

DO UNTIL she comes back
wait
ENDDO

Well, I forwarded it to the chemist today and got this reply… 

Chemist:

If you love someone, set her free…
If she comes back it means that you both have enough kinetic energy to overcome the barrier on potential energy profile and will turn into products of love. If she doesn’t come back, possibly someone else run into her and the successful collision resulted in the reaction of the type A+B<=> C. Advice: rise the temperature to upsurge your chance for successful collision.

That sounds intense, my bet is that she might come back if only to have that explained.  Now I also wonder what a mechanical engineer and a businessman have to say…

southend-on-sea, england.

shouldn’t shortchange love, one also shouldn’t lose sight of the bigger picture (in this case, the inevitable parting).  It’s fantastic to lose yourself when the waves beckon unto your feet and activate your senses for the here and now. But it’s  important to check whether the horizon is visible or clouded.  So what I am saying is this:  try to give your one hundred  percent but make sure that you maintain your equilibrium and that you remain grounded on the reality (e.g., that this love has no horizon).  There should be some balance, the past has taught me.  The poem below is from Pablo Neruda’s book ‘Twenty Love Poems and A Song  of Despair’.

It was around 4:00 in the afternoon and we’re cooking our lunch  – okay, to be precise, the chemist was cooking and I just finished eating some slices of tesco sweets enriched with preservatives. Waiting for the lunch, I was suddenly in a mood to throw a sort of  beauty pageant question.

‘If you will have to give me a chemical element, what would it be and why?’

Sushan, another flatmate, who was having his lunch was giving me a face that screams of something like ‘How could you even ask such kind of question? My Gooood!’  

Laughing, I went on. ‘Would it be PB-plumbium (plumbum, I was corrected), K-potassium, Mg-magnesium, Mn-Manganese,  Au-gold,  would you give me the lightest element – hydrogen, or the second lightest – helium?’

Sushan couldn’t help but quip, ‘I can see that you have more knowledge in chemistry than mathematics!’ 

No answer for a while. Then a counter question, ‘How much do you want?’ while mixing the pasta in the oiled and salted boiling water.  

I said that it doesn’t really matter, as long as the reason is given.  Hah, the question seems tricky, besides I don’t know the units of measurements for all elements.  Well, maybe a one year supply of that element then? 

He said, ’Well, I will give you carbon.’  

C – carbon?! Like those you use for making copies? Hmm I don’t really like the answer… 

But he’s not yet finished and asked me whether I want to get rich, to write, or  another choice  that I forgot. 

So get rich maybe so I can write whenever I want? 

He said, ‘Well then I will give you diamond’.  Whoa, I didn’t know that diamond is a carbon.  He adds, ‘and if you want to write, I will give you graphite…’

So there, we were having pasta with egg and tuna and engaged in a conversation on the varieties and uses of carbon. I enjoyed my lunch.

a part of warwick campus

posted in facebook last october 2009. 

The plane landed at Heathrow airport at 6:15am, a few minutes ahead than the expected time. I joined the long queue of new students, mostly coming from the Indian sub-continent, at the immigration area. I turned in my documents and was asked to proceed to the nearby health office. I was asked a few questions, including a whispered “Is there any possibility that you’re pregnant?”. Ah the shagging questions. In a few minutes, I am done; I had my chest x-rayed – for free and with plenty of polite sorry’s and thank you’s from the attending staff. Or I thought I was.

I cannot find my other luggage at the Gulf Air Flight 007 luggage area. I checked in two bags in Manila, a pink bag and a black american tourister trolley bag but only the former was in sight. I checked again, avoiding a traffic of empty trolleys. And again. And again. But it was nowhere to be found. I asked an airport staff who helped me look around. He gave up and asked me to check it with Gulf Air’s desk. There was no one there. He asked me to just stay around, but after thirty minutes I got fidgety and did another round of looking up. I asked another airport guy who again looked for it. He asked me to look for the Gulf Air staff. The desk was still deserted. Batches of passengers from Doha and Mumbai arrived to pick their luggages from the busy conveyor, but my luggage was nowhere to be found nor was this Gulf Air staff.

It was already 10:00 am. A staff from the Virgin Atlantic desk told me that one alternative is to go out and check the luggage information from the Gulf Air desk at the arrivals area. I went out and found the desk, also deserted. Where the hell are the Gulf Air staff? A few more enquiries then I found a phone in the corner. I dialled the Gulf Air number, explained the situation to the guy at the other end of the line who replied “Why did you go out if you don’t have your luggage? Stay there and I will come to get you.” He was disgruntled. The passenger cannot go in once the passenger exited.

We went back to the luggage area via “authorised persons only” entrance. We arrived at his desk and he asked me to fill-out a lost luggage form. He said he had to make a note though that I already went out before filing the report. I said that he can further make a note there that I went out per the advice of an airport staff because he, the staff in-charge, were not on his desk for a long time. He said that he was just around, I should’ve waited. Well, whatever. I lost my luggage, I hope he’ll lose his job (ok I didn’t really mean that). He talked to another guy in Spanish and then apologized and assured me that they will deliver my bag to my address the following day once they’ve traced it that same day.

I went to the washroom and found out that my period arrived much earlier than expected. Had a cup of coffee while waiting for the university staff. An Indian student whom I had a brief chat in the immigration queue shared the table. I was still stressed out that I cried to that stranger. He asked me if I want a cup of tea and it just made me laugh. It’s good to talk about some familiar things during strange times, so we talked about his hometown in Kerala.

Warwick (woh’rik) staff arrived in their red t-shirts as promised. All students were convened in a corner. I easily warmed up with a postgraduate student from Delhi who will take up creative writing and an undergraduate student from Thailand who’s into something like supply chain management (it’s a very technical title, I can’t remember everything. sorry.). Just when I settled in one of the three buses, a university staff called out my name. An Indian student was looking for me and he got my luggage. Ah, the jitters of being a new student in a new place – he must have hurriedly picked up his luggage not realizing that it was the wrong one. He’s worried where his luggage is. I remember a grey trolley bag (not an american tourister and without an orange tag and a red cloth) lying around in the conveyor area. That must be his.

The view during the long trip to the campus was breathtaking. England was vibrant with autumn colors,yet so still. It’s been a long haul since my offer letter from the university was lost in Kabul, but all my doubts for this decision to study just had to take a backseat. I slept like I have never slept before. It was drizzling when the bus arrived in the campus.

a view from my room's window

Posted in my facebook notes last December 2009 while I was afflicted with procrastination (and, perhaps, a dying affection). 

O~o  

I don’t now know why I am lately into Bob Dylan, the object of my procrastination, when I should be working on my assignments. Maybe he just seems to resemble someone I (used to) know…anyway.

Except for “Blowin’ In The Wind”, I used to find Bob Dylan’s singing not melodious and easy for my ears . But these days, I enjoy listening to the two-part album “The Essential Bob Dylan” – unacceptable title if you’re a postmodernist.

“Baby Blue”, released in 1965, is considered to be one of his best songs, and there are plenty of speculations on who the hell Baby Blue is. Wikipedia says “Dylan Scholars” can only point to the social circle of the protest singer-songwriter. Could it be Joan Baez who was his girlfriend that time (she later did her own version of the song)? Could it be any of his friends – the one named David Blue (gosh, that’s too literal), or the other one he had a falling out with (it had been observed that he often sang this song quite intensely after that friend’s suicide)? Could it also be his audience for it was said that he must then be already thinking of shifting his style from acoustic to electric, ‘Baby Blue’ being his last acoustic song. Or could it also be that Bob Dylan was referring to no one but himself?

Some also find religious meanings in the song, that the lyrics resonate with what Jesus said in the Bible. Moreover, the contrasting visions of the “orphan” “crying like a fire in the sun” and needing to “strike another match, go start anew” (‘of tears like fire, then a flame being struck for a new beginning’) could be a call for a new pilgrimage. Bob Dylan was referenced to have said “Serve God and be cheerful”.

Another interpretation I found and which also gives a different sense to the symbolisms used is by someone named “alt” from a discusion group. He/she said: “This song is about the Cuban Revolution, when Castro (‘your orphan with his gun”) and his guerillas (‘the saints’) tossed out the mob run casinos (‘gamblers), who had to hit the ‘highway’, and also tossed out the US backed puppet government (baby blue), who had to ‘row’ to exile in Miami. Ultimately, as we know, Castro took over the govt. of Cuba (‘the vagabond..standing in the clothes that you once wore’).”

Nice fitting of metaphors. Interestingly though, the Cuban revolution occurred in 1959 and the song was written in 1965 so maybe this is just a case of reading too much from the text? Then again the delay might even be a complemental point – that one can’t be so sure at the first intance, that one needs to observe for a while before finally saying something strong and decisive like “It’s All Over Now”. Interestingly, it was only in 1965 when the last anti-communist local forces (the “bandits”), allegedly supported by the US, was swept off by Castro’s government.

With all its layers of meanings, and its hearbreaking, reflective,triumphant, and/or funny (with more than a hint of sarcasm – who doesn’t think the phrase Baby Blue isn’t that kind of funny especially if it’s Bob Dylan, with his distinct voice, saying it?) title – depends on how you feel the song – Bob Dylan himself has always been mute on the meaning behind Baby Blue.

I once read an article entitled “I’m Sorry, Bob” in Utne Magazine a few years ago. The writer was narrating an instance when he was walking down a familiar neighborhood and lo and behold he noticed this familiar form wearing that familiar hat walking towards him, hands inside the pockets, head down. Bob Dylan. He immediately introduced himself as a follower, that maybe he can write about this forthcoming concert and why was the other one cancelled, that he only lives nearby and here is his business card blah blah blah… Bob Dylan nodded, listened, took his card… And immediately after the writer said goobye, Bob Dylan walked on, made a quick turn and disappeared. Later on, the writer read an interview of Bob Dylan in a newspaper. There, he said that he usually composes his songs in his head when walking down the neighborhood streets and what blocks him off is when strangers approach him and start talking about things he couldn’t even vaguely recall.

It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue

You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last.
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast.
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun,
Crying like a fire in the sun.
Look out the saints are comin’ through
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.

The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense.
Take what you have gathered from coincidence.
The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets.
This sky, too, is folding under you
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.

All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home.
All your empty-handed armies, are all going home.
The lover who just walked out your door
Has taken all his blankets from the floor.
The carpet, too, is moving under you
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.

Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.
Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you.
The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.
Strike another match, go start anew
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.
Copyright ©1965

unfortunately i have no more photos of renala; this one was taken in another place in pakistan but reminds me of the 'feel' of those times.

This rather long post was written while I was in Pakistan almost four years ago (2006).  Seems it’s time to post this here (some editing done) while I am doing my literature review for my dissertation on a Pakistan-related experience and since I still don’t have the luxury to blog on my exciting uni life in England…

Renala and Other Places in my Mind

 I have seen, I have been to places far deep in my mind
only to find comfort in your strangeness. 
- Cynthia Alexander, Insomnia & Other Lullabyes

Eid’l Ftr signals the end of the one-month Ramazan (Ramadan) for the Muslims in Pakistan. It happens when the moon is sighted, and, as I have learnt in this country, the sighting of the moon is arguably a very subjective experience.  Hence the Pashtuns in the Northern part may already be celebrating Eid while the Punjabis in the South are still to see their fugitive moon.  Eid’l Ftr is a long holiday so I came to Renala where C, another volunteer with whom I have become close from a few months back, is working.  From Islamabad where I am based, Renala is eight hours away by bus and private car, or more than that under the normal option of traveling by a maze of buses and rickshaws.     

After waiting for two hours in Lahore’s bus station, and after two public calls the Mitchell’s Farm driver finally emerged. I had been responding to C’s fretful texts and calls regarding the delay. But then again, I would say the driver was still relatively early as I had already readied myself to see him much later, or maybe even spend the night in Lahore. 

Five months of being on my own and I think I have learnt to be much more patient, wait, and appreciate the small, good, things coming my way.  Back in Manila, when kept  waiting for at least 30 minutes, my eyebrows would start to cave in to annoyance – blood would build up in my head – shoot up – splatter on the ceiling – signaling an eventual cold war with the ‘waited-for’.

The driver was chatty but was talking in Urdu.  I told him that my Urdu is still illiterate but he still went on chatting.  Sometimes, I muttered “jii” to at least tell him that I am still breathing.  Still, I was able to understand that he has one wife, two daughters, and one son; his face broke into a proud smile while talking about his family.  They all live in Renala and he is sending his eldest daughter to a college in Lahore.  I have also managed to tell him bits about my family – that I have got five brothers and three sisters and I am the eighth, mostly making my fingers speak these facts. 

I opt not to say that our youngest passed away many years ago. It’s no longer an emotional detail. I just don’t have the language to tell it.    

It was on C’s persistent invitation that I came to Renala. When being asked about his placement, he would always say that he is in the middle of nowhere, but staying in a nice farm which he calls “Little England”.  So, not surprisingly, when I told some staff in the office that I’ll be spending the holidays in Renala, they all gave me a worried look, wondering where the hell that place is until I mentioned Mitchell’s Farm. Mitchell’s Farm’s food products, from chocolates to vinegar, are famous in Pakistan.  Obviously, the whole is eclipsed by its part. 

C said it would be good for me to visit and see the real face of Pakistan, by going to the villages there.  I have been to some downtrodden villages in mountainous Haripur in the northern part, had a 30-minute trek passing through cornfields and rivers (looking for a training venue!), peeked inside a mudhouse, but had not really interacted with the villagers.  So, that then would be one objective of my visit. 

It could be very lonely in Renala, he would also say in one of our early conversations. He said there is not much activity.  I guess I could somehow relate to that. 

I grew up in a little town  in the Philippines.  I would say it’s not even in the middle, but, rather, at the edges of nowhere.  And yes, life there seems to run at a stand still. At fifteen I left for Manila to study and went back there once or twice a year, then once in two years, becoming less and less frequent.  Every time I visited, even for just a few days, I would feel some restlessness, except when I come with R, whom I introduced as a friend.   Half of those times were spent in touristy Boracay Island that may be geographically part of Aklan, but essentially detached from it. In fact it is not surprising that most people would know that little island but not the province that contains it. 

Could there be a connection between Nowhere-and-Little combos and uneven development?

The driver said we will be arriving at 3:35 PM, pointing to the car’s digital clock. We have already exited Lahore City and he was pointing to a road sign telling Okara 120 Km. Okara District is where the town of Renala is. 

 The asphalted road sliced through wide green fields and fruit trees.  We were speeding on a land edged by horizons. Islamabad already seemed very far, yet I was starting to feel that I was going to somewhere familiar.  I fell asleep…to be woken up by a very loud cough emanating from my driving seatmate. 

That is a third-world cough, Polin would have declared, and both of us would break into smiles or giggles.  The “third-world joke” is an old running joke and I don’t even know how to explain it anymore.  Polin is one of the few friends with whom I have been comfortable – in laughter, in sadness, in silence.  We used to engage in childish things like playing computer games until 2 o’clock in the morning, sometimes using not-so politically correct terms when with friends, watch lots of movies, listen to lots of music, read lots of books, watch lots of TV. I remember one time when we watched a feature about the Diwalwal mining community in Compostela Valley, one of the poorest provinces in the Philippines and also known as a fertile ground for revolutionaries.  I thought I have already seen the face of poverty in my hometown until I saw how people lived in Diwalwal.  The poverty was deeply depressing with dirt-floor prostitution on the side.  For a while we did not talk about it until we talked about our gender mainstreaming projects, one of which is with Compostela Valley’s local government.  We wondered about the worth of our projects for those people in Diwalwal.  We started to question the relevance of whatever we were doing, and why gender should be relevant for those poor people.  After about two years and I had decided to apply for this volunteer work in Pakistan, Polin tried to delay my leaving by giving me an assignment to coordinate a review of gender mainstreaming strategy in the Philippines.  Remember Diwalwal, she would say.  How could I forget? The visa took a long time so I was still able to do some initial things, feeling swayed once again.  But it was only Richie who could stop my leaving and although she’s not getting in my way, I did welcome the extra time to make the leaving bearable.    

Mitchell’s farm now, the driver said.  The entrance road was canopied with tall trees and the farm itself seemed to be peopled by trees.  The farm roads were branching out with arrow signs leading to the workers’ homes, the club, and others.  We were heading straight to Bungalow no.2, the driver told the inquiring guard.  But despite C’s prior descriptions of the farm, it was not how I had conjured it in my head.  The trees were lesser, and I what I saw were ricefields…    

I realized that I was somehow imagining a farm similar to “Takas”, our small farm in my childhood village.  From our house in “cabeangan”, reaching Takas required a brisk 10-15 minute walk on rice paddies and “aeamyan” (a local word that perhaps, for I don’t know if there’s a literal translation,  refer to that piece of land – like an island – which is a necessary respite from the ricefields surrounding it).  I have lots of childhood memories in Takas:  the festive seasons of planting and harvesting rice, my youngest brother’s penchant for gathering the rice stalks falling from the harvesters’ arms, summer cropping for corns and mongo beans, my mother’s intermittent vegetable gardens on the side, pigs and pigpens, a rice barn that doubles as a copra oven, dogs running on and crushing the ricefields, my yelling father following them. 

When my parents became estranged from each other, my father, when he was not at work in the capital, stayed in that little hut in Takas.  We would bring him lunch and dinner: a task that everyone dreaded because of the physical distance which even furthered emotional separations.  Those were also chaotic times in the barrio when for the first time a military detachment was set up.   I still cried when my father no longer came home and, later, we heard  had another family in another town. 

Takas, nevertheless, has always been a happy place for me.  I remember a breakfast conversation with my housemate Penny about what we would consider is the best place in the world.  She chose her village in England, amongst a wide menu of places that she’s been to.  For a while, I was torn between Benitez – the quaint apartment in old Manila that originally Polin, R and I shared – and my childhood village.  Then my thoughts briskly traced the rice paddies to Takas.  In my visit there last Christmas, a family from another barrio has been asked, by my mother, to tend the ricefields. The little hut had long gone, so were the copra oven, pigpens, vegetable gardens, my father, my youngest brother.     Takas though is still the best place in my mind.

The car entered a small green wooden gate towards the bungalow which is made of light maroon old bricks.  The air got much colder when I alighted.  A familiar smile emerged from the door.

C definitely is, so far, the volunteer with the best accommodation, albeit in the middle of nowhere. 

Sitting on the bungalow’s verandah anytime of the day was an absolute delight to the senses.  The chai earth laid bare unto the eyes.  The repose green lawn, bordered in front by blooming flowers, was inviting to be walked on.  The grasses tickled my bare feet, reminding me of some remote times.  In the mornings, the grasses were webbed with fogs; it felt good to step on them before they all vanished before the sun.  C commented about those little things that must have painstakingly weaved waters to such intricacies during the night, only for their masterpieces to self-destruct or be destroyed during the day.  I guess the happiness of those little things lies in their process of creating.

I tried to count the various bird sounds that I was hearing.  How many are in the orchestra?  As in Islamabad, the crows seemed to be the mass of birds there but sometimes other species big and small would delight us with their fleeting presence.  We would see a parrot, some little and big birds flying or hopping, and Hedwig quietly watching us in one of our nightly walks to the farm’s shop, at the entrance.  I saw the ubiquitous trees with peeled ashen trunks and dagger leaves lined up by the roads.  I was told that those trees shed their bark – which the locals use as firewood – and grow them once again.  The leaves’ smell was familiar and we finally figured out that they are Eucalyptus.  Thinking that Eucalyptus is a shrub, I was surprised that they could actually grow that big and sturdy. 

Then there were lizards climbing up and down the trees, but I somehow wondered how they could be such movers when reptiles are supposed to be cunningly pensive.   C said they must be squirrels.  We zoomed closer and for the first time, I have seen those rodent cousins sweeping the ground with their fluffy tails.  What a delight!

One lingering afternoon, I peeked over the plant fences at the back of the bungalow.  After collecting my forgotten duppatta from the verandah, I went beyond the plant fences.  There was an orchard of orange trees and some local women.  The deep orange sun itself was starting to set.  I walked further. Across the feeder road was  another orchard of orange trees dipped on the muddy water, a flock of carabao birds (tagak) seeking worms in the mud. The submerged ground mirrored everything:  the trees, the birds, the sky, the sun.  I sat on the paddy and dipped my feet on the warm water.  Mud spurted between my toes.  It was how that sunset felt.  It was how letting go should be.

[...]

On another day, C went with me to look for another sunset – much farther from the bungalow and by a big canal that supplies water to the farm.  Sitting, smoking, and talking by the canal, its water flowing lazily, we missed the setting of the sun.  It just left tangerine streaks that also died  eventually.   So it was how that day preferred to express its mortality: with quiet disappearance.  

[...]

Back home, I remember that sunsets seem to be always a process of gradual sinking:  the golden sun slowly dipping unto the sea and spreading fiery playful lights into the waters and the sky.  But here, the sun just suspends and disappears in the sky, colours fading in.

I went beyond the farm’s shop on four occasions:  a walk to Renala market and visits to C’s schools and friends’ village.

We squeezed in to the market’s streets and stalls, making me confused. Were we finding our way out or getting deeper into the underbelly? The market reminded me of Quiapo and Divisoria in Manila, though it was smaller, less noisy, and with lots of prying eyes.  There were animals on some corners waiting to be butchered, their counterparts’ skin lying on the streets.  The vegetable section made me slow down, to smell the herbs. 

I enjoyed the visits to C’s schools.  The first is in a neighboring village called Sherh Gah. At around 8:00 in the morning, while the fogs were still sleeping, the people were already very much awake. There was a couple riding a cart pulled by a donkey, a camel being pulled by an old man, a few men walking down the road, a Suzuki flowering with passengers.  I was given a tour inside the school, which also doubles as a mosque, or more accurately, a mosque that doubles as a school.  There was a lovely old shrine around the area where the remains of a Saint are  buried.  Several men were inside doing their chants and prayers, save for a young man taking pictures through his cell phone. Exiting the premises, a flock of birds flew out from the belfry. I framed the sight in my mind:  belfry, birds on the rush, clear blue sky.  After which, I was asked for a brief discussion about women’s rights, with the young teachers.    

We had a free lunch in C’s other (extra) school, which is in exchange for teaching English, every Friday ,to the teachers.  I happened to compliment one of the teachers’  mehndi and, seeing my bare hands, they proceeded to painting me, in a vacant classroom.  And just as it was finished the English class began.  Mr. C came in to start paying for his lunch.  He wrote my name on the blackboard, saying that he will “use” me to share my experience in learning English as a foreign language.  He, too, did not let me get away with a free lunch.   But I was glad that he was honest in telling me my annoying public speaking mannerisms.  

Later the same day, we went to his friends’ village which is much farther from the town.  The house has a big family of grandfather, grandmother, mother, sister, lots of uncles and aunties and nephews and nieces.  Three consecutive houses all belong to the clan.  After the perfunctory tea in the bedroom, I went outside to be with some of the women preparing rotis for dinner.  I tried to make a perfect circle of the flattened bread but just successfully managed to make one with holes.  A perfect rug roti. After dinner, I was given bangles and had more mehndi – hence my hands had grown more vines and flowers.     

Going back to the farm, the village night felt enormous.  The sky was strewn with stars; the moon was gazing peacefully.  We were riding on a motorcycle driven by one of the uncles.  I was sitting “like a woman” at the back.  We passed by a sugarcane field roused by the wind. Everything seemed relaxed and peaceful. 

It was my last night in Renala.  For seven days, I hung around and enjoyed a lovely respite with nature, the local people, and the Bungalow no.2 occupant.   

Coming to a new place like Pakistan is like leaving my hometown when I was fifteen.   For sometime, I felt stuck in a box, stagnant, and in a sad state of things.  Now I feel that there is too much space to explore again.  Maybe, it is this romanticism and to just let things be that spark this friendship with C.  One of his messages in my inbox says:  “I stopped worrying what people think of me a long time ago. It stopped me from doing all the things I wanted.  If that happened, it meant I wasn’t living my life.” 

[...]

The long walks with C to the farm shop to buy groceries and cigarettes were the highlights of my stay.  They were moments of good conversations.  They were moments of angry arguments.  They were moments of being just lost in confusion.  Perhaps, perhaps, some walks should not end on a full stop.  Rather, with just a pause to catch some wind. 

The Eid moon was punctuating the night sky.  ***

references

23 March. -O~O-  

I just came back from the library. Plenty of students forting stacks of books are working on their essays at the fifth level. I went straight to the shelves. The popular Jahan was expectedly still not back in the shelf. No Goetz either. I don’t really need Parpart but she’s there so I took her and a few more others. Will just have to go back to the online stuff and strain my eyes off reading through the monitor.

‘Geekiness’ aside, today is my mother’s birthday. She’s born in 1939 before the outbreak of the second world war; she’s 71 years old. Let me compute again….yes, that’s correct. Most children would profess that their mother is an extraordinary woman, and you can get ready cards and little colorful books as testimonies for this declaration. I used to give those to my mother, and so did my other siblings in their own individual ways.

But this time, I would like to say that my mother is an extraordinary person for the reason that she’s got a machine inside her body. And not just in any part of her body, it’s attached to her heart. That makes her hmm different than the normal human species. So how did she get this accessory? Many years ago, when she was in her 50′s, her doctor found out that her heart beats slower than how a human heart does. In fact, he calculated the age of my mother’s heart as thirty years higher than my mother’s age. That sounds like my mother’s heart is my grandmother’s, but no, it’s really her heart. It aged much faster than she does and beats slower, like an old lady walking with a stick.

Thanks to that fist-size machine, my mother’s heart is no longer as strained as it used to be and has been beating normally for years. But of course that shouldn’t be the end of the story. For one has to ask, what makes a human heart age faster or beat slower than it should? If Jahan is here, she might say that the attachment of the pacemaker to my mother’s heart is just an integrationist approach. As in the incorporation of specific inputs following the pre-defined development process to make it work for women’s empowerment, so does the inclusion of the pacemaker in my mother’s body. It addresses certain aspects of human well-being, but it can’t go beyond that. This is when Jahan will flip the page for the agenda-setting approach – the need to be proactive and not just to deal on the manifestations of the problem. To go beyond the pacemaker solution. Perhaps, the need to talk out the many years of anxieties, fears, and frustrations that come with perceived mothering and wifely devotions -a change of lifestyle and mindset? A better awareness and concern for one’s well-being?

Goetz might also ask who is responsible for this and how should this responsibility be seen. Kardam in Goetz would of course see accountability across three dimensions: the political, the institutional, and the cognitive. In what way did poverty and the non-continuity of certain assistance, for example, contributed to the heart’s poor performance? How did the benevolent-dictator household model affected the distribution of resources in the household and aggravated the situation? At the cognitive level, could it be that owing to how things have been told to everyone since the beginning of time, it would be really difficult for a person to imagine a different reality? Well then, this is gonna be a long process involving a whole lot of people. But what’s important is – and I will summon Sen on this – that one doesn’t get stuck in the short, narrow spaces of old practices and inflexible mindsets. The broader goal is always directed on people and making them achieve and exercise the kind of freedom that they reasoned to value. Freedom of course comes with obligations and the accountability for creating a freedom-enabling environment. Freedom is broader than a sense of achievement but when achievement specifically refers to the urgency of responding to basic human needs for survival, this is when Sen would have the potential to make my mother’s heart beat faster.

Weirdness aside now, I’ll just say that my mother’s an extraordinary person because she’s been very resilient despite all the odds that come her way. She’s passionate for education and the sense of concern to other people as what the Bible says (as we grew up, we stopped at the people part, not the Bible part – and that’s fine with her). She’s disciplined, too, as in her changed dietary regimes that’s why her pacemaker could outlast the life of any racing car. In short, she’s smart. Happy birthday, Nay Kets. May you have more normal heartbeats to come.

Uninvited, the thought of you stayed too late in my head.
so I went to bed, dreaming you hard, hard, woke with your name,
like tears, soft, salt on my lips, the sound of its bright syllables
like a charm, like a spell.

Falling in love
is glamorous hell: the crouched, parched heart
like a tiger, ready to kill; a flame’s fierce licks under the skin.
into my life, larger than life, you strolled in.

I hid in my ordinary days, in the long grass of routine,
in my camouflage rooms. You sprawled in my gaze,
staring back from anyone’s face, from the shape of a cloud,
from the pining, earth-struck moon which gapes at me

as I open the bedroom door. The curtains stir. There you are
on the bed, like a gift, like a touchable dream.