Poem
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A grandmother’s wisdom
It was 25th November, 2004. A beautiful Eid morning. After our morning prayers, I was with my friends visiting our neighbours to greet them on the festive occasion. While at a friend’s house, I got the news – “Your maternal grandmother passed away”. My initial reaction was “No, it is not possible. How can it? She was healthy and happy“. Running back to my house, I had only one selfish thought in my head – Please let it be any one else, but not her. Please, let it be that I heard wrong. Please, not her. It was the first close death I encountered and it affected me deeply. A…
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Quarter Life Crisis
Quarter-life crisis is Feeling like you have no one to talk to even when you have people by your side. Watching ‘Gilmore Girls’ and ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ episode after episode, at a stretch. Sleep cycle follows a different time-zone than the one you are in geographically. Living in at your parent’s place after 5 years of college freedom. Unpaid internships and feeling lousy about it. Scary thought of you turning out to be a cat-lady who knits all day. Refreshing Twitter and Instagram page at a rate of million times per second. Tweeting about your every mentally deranged thought. Texting becomes way cooler than actual talking on phone Terrified of the…
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Optimist or Pessimist ?
(Feb 24th prompt from NaBloPoMo : Do you think you are more of an optimist or a pessimist? ) Thinking long and hard on the answer to the above question. I came to this sad conclusion: I am an optimist when things go my way. When its running downhill, I turn in to a dreadful pessimist. How wrong can I get ?! It is easy to see the silver lining on the cloud when we can gaze at the beautiful sky while standing on a firm ground. What happens when the ground is shaking and there is an earthquake? Our ability to find the silver lining depends on how much we actually…
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Silence of my home
Growing up, my house did not know the meaning of silence. 2 studious girls who did their daily lessons by reading loudly. 2 hyperactive boys who always had to play football or watch cartoon. Not to forget, the cat and dog fights for everything from the TV remote to the Nutella bottle. However hard my mom tried, it was dearly impossible to wind up for the day before 11 PM. There was one or the other chatter – Crying sessions because the home work assignment was not completed (this was usually me!) or screaming at the other for breaking a favourite toy (usually the boys) or being on the telephone…
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The hijab – My choice
From the time I was 11 or 12, whatever is it that I chose to wear- skirt & top, jeans & kurta, salwar kameez or the abaya – there has been an extra fabric on my head, covering my hair, popularly called as the HIJAB. On doing a quick Google search, you will realize the fact that the Hijab is one of the most controversial topic regarding the Muslim women. The extra fabric hasn’t prevented me from gaining a degree, working in a hospital, travelling alone, outing with my friends or in short, living my life. It is a personal choice after studying and comprehending my religious texts. It is…
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Facebook
I have a love-hate affair with Facebook. With friends and family all around from the farthest east to the farthest west, Facebook truly helps me to keep in touch with them all. But hadn’t Facebook been there, wouldn’t I have found other ways to keep in touch with them if I really wanted to? On our Facebook friend-list we have everyone from our kindergarten friends to the Professors at college. In real-life, would we be actually sharing details of our honey-moon trip with our Professors or would we be comfortable showing recent pictures of our family/extended relatives with people whose sole contact with us was only sharing the same class…
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A city and a village.
Place where I grew up : Doha, Qatar Class gradation and caste differences was something I was not aware of during my childhood days. Everyone had the same Staedtler Pencil and Faber Castell Colour Pencils. It was assumed everyone was from reasonably well-to-do families. Some of our neighbours were from Syria, Egypt or Palestine (besides Indians!) and though we wished each other on New Years and Eid, we were not much in contact otherwise. Outings, community get-together at the local club, Eid meet at the Park – every community mostly socialized with its own kind. Though a cosmopolitan city, cohesive nature and intermingling among st the expatriates and natives are…
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Hometown to home
Today morning, I was surrounded by the lush greenery By night, I am in the desert. Morning, I was braving the heat. By night, the cold chills my bone. Morning, I was dreading the 30kg luggage limit By night, I was dreading the last-bag-on-the-baggage-carousel fate. Morning, I was in my home town. By night, 3000 nautical miles later, I am in the place I call and feel home.
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Word-hu(o)b
(The Daily Prompt from Daily Post today is : If you could wake up tomorrow and be fluent in any language you don’t currently speak, which would it be? Why? What’s the first thing you do with your new linguistic skills?) For me, without a doubt, the answer to the above question is ARABIC. A beautiful Semitic language of poets and writers, Arabic literature is vast and rich in information related to culture and history dating to almost 16 centuries. Closely related to Hebrew, Aramaic and Phoenician, Arabic also has influenced many languages of the world including English. It has been a major vehicle of language to Europe, especially in…
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Phase of life
For nearly two years, there has been a constant theme in my life – Uncertainty. Personally and professionally, everything I desired and worked for ended up in failure. I ask myself, where did I go wrong? Did I not work hard enough? Weren’t my prayers sincere? How and when will I figure things out? I find myself mulling over the same decisions. Insecure, confused, unhappy and anxious. I am a shadow of my former bubbly self. I stopped believing in friendships. Solitude is my greatest companion now. Quarter-life crisis, they call it. Everyone goes through it, they say. Is it? ( Write Tribe’s 100 Words on Saturday –…
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Neighbourhood.
It has nearly been 6 months since I and my mom have been staying alone, back in our hometown, after a gap of nearly 20 years! Used to the idyllic slow paced life of Doha, safe and secure with Dad and brothers around, staying in Kerala was as adventurous as it was hard on both of us. We are not aware of the Doctors, Plumbers or the Painters around. We do not know about the local Electricity board, neither do we know the local grocers and shopkeepers. Heck, we dont even know the brand name of the milk powder packets used here commonly! (In Doha, it is either Nido or…
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Through their eyes – Perspective
Situations when it is easy to see from another person’s perspective : ●While feeling loved/loving ●Happy moments/situations ●While feeling Calm and composed ●If we have gone through the same situation before/read about it ●Knowing someone personally who has gone through the same situation Situations where it is really difficult to see from another person’s perspective : ●In the heat of rage/mad anger ●Feeling sad, tensed, anxious ●Being unaware of the situation/depth of emotions related ●Not listening/comprehending the other person’s point of view ●(I have to say this) At times when we are just too stuck-up/arrogant/proud Incidentally, it is the second set of situations where there is…
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Perspective of a parent
After visiting an elderly relative of mine yesterday, I was quite disturbed on seeing him, sitting all alone in the front porch. His three children stay abroad. Wife was at the hospital. He has a male servant who helps him out. Otherwise, it is him, the big house and silence. In the eastern countries, filial responsibility is entrenched in the minds of people. We rarely send our parents to old age homes or put them under the care of someone who is not family. When we come across such a situation, the first thought is ‘The children donot care for their parents. How selfish of them!’ Maybe, we are wrong…
