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Virtue, at what cost?

Posted on July 15, 2010 //

Are you are sitting there wondering what the above image is about? Its a section for women in the court marriage application form in Dubai. This has not been completely verified as I have yet to see the full document but this was tweeted by @youseftuqan this week and it kind of puts everything in perspective for me as far as Dubai and its rather contradictory laws go: “Hey, its okay to have nightclubs and serve alcohol but please, no kissing in public or off you go to jail!”

However, what really sets me off is the chauvinist attitude towards women in general and female ‘purity’ in particular all over the world. Can one even comprehend the humiliation of filling out a form like this? Forget the form. The fact is that there is an inherent trait of male hypocrisy when it comes to the concept of virtue even in this day and age that is simply baffling.

This is not something reserved for the Muslim culture as foreign media may have us believe, the notion exists across the world. It is the same reason why brides are dressed in white to symbolise chastity. Pre-marital philandering is cool if you are a man but sluttish for women, even in the west. Desdemona was killed by Othello on the suspicion of infidelity and Sita had to walk across burning coals to prove her purity. Agnipariksha indeed!

But The Emiraties, with their deep pockets and their confusing sense of justice, have just taken the matter to a whole new level of ridiculous.

We as Pakistani’s or the liberals among us, seen around Karachi in several states of disorientation have subdivided the whole underclass of female society into two further categories, the ones we party with and the ones we marry. Of course, we can be creative that way. Even if we are gutsy enough to take the same woman home to mum she has to behave in the conventionally conservative and naive manner or she will not only never be accepted as a bahu but will end up as a social pariah on the account of not being “happily married.” God forbid if even after these trials she is married and the husband dies. A whole new chapter of misery begins as the word “remarry” does not exist in our dictionary, in its place is a torn piece of the page charred and burnt as the one who dares to utter this word would be.

Basically, its male insecurities which lead us to treat the fair sex in this manner, the inability to accept the fact that they are like us and in some cases far stronger mentally (try putting a infant to sleep at 3am instead of grunting and rolling the other way) which leads us to this state of paranoia. In this state, we the men, try to suppress them in any way possible so that we never have to look ourselves in the mirror and answer some hard questions – questions about standards of morality and sin which our religion holds both sexes accountable for, not just women

I think its time we stop touting symbols from our history and start following some of them in letter as well as in deed. Our religion and our culture do not allow us to treat women the way they are being treated in today’s Pakistan and we must put a stop to this. For the first thing the generation to come will learn will be from their mother – no matter how cool the father thinks he is.

_____________________

Published in the Tribune blog on 15/7/2010

Filed Under: Published Articles, Relationships // Tagged: , , ,

Jigsaw

Posted on January 4, 2009 //

The last day of the year; not even the whole day, just a few of the last twelve hours. It is, after all, the season for doing jigsaws.

 

The frost is still on the ground as we walk through the woods to the river, our breath coming in cold puffs, steaming out in front of us. The grass crunches white, the trees stark black against an empty sky. The river itself swirls, opaque and grey. I swap my father’s last affair for your father’s boat with the Jack Russell standing erect on the front, like a little barking figurehead.

 

We climb the slope and step out across the fields. Sheep, their wool black and white, but flashed with blue where they have been served by the rams. Your Christmas visit to your uncle’s for my husband’s pheasant shooting. And on we walk, to the semi-frozen duck pond, where the birds struggle and slide across the ice. Skating memories exchanged; yours on rollers and mine on blades; breakneck speed for chains of giggling girls, arms linked, criss-crossing the ice in time to the music.

 

The shapes are filling the background to the puzzle. Less of the dining room table is showing through.

 

We move to the pub. A glowing Christmas tree, deep red sofas, the rich brown of your sweatshirt. And now we scrabble through our histories, searching out all the important pieces; school, college, jobs, careers – the solid facts slotted rapidly into place, one after the other. When we have finished, there are still gaps, but not so many now and the basic picture is taking shape pretty well. We are happy, laughing, your blue eyes dancing as the year draws towards a close.

 

But there is still one corner of your jigsaw missing. I am puzzled; corners are important, they hold the whole frame together, after all. And somehow, I know the right question to ask. Your face changes; I hold you as you sob, and then you pick up the piece from the dark corner of your mind and put it down on the table. Our hands touch as we manoeuvre it into place. The comfortable image I had been piecing together shatters and reforms; a jagged black hole that you are spinning into even as I watch.

 

I grasp your hand tightly. One final piece and I am made to understand.

Filed Under: Relationships // Tagged: , , , ,

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month

Posted on November 12, 2008 //

The two minutes silence begins. Some of the people in the room stand, but I sit, head bowed, in a pose of solemn remembrance.

But all I can think of is the moment I crushed your little paper poppy when we hugged, and the feeling you are somehow as lost to me as the fallen were to them is bouncing around my brain and tugging at my heartstrings. That’s me all over though; even in the blog; I am so absorbed in the personal the bigger picture often eludes me.

I try to force my thoughts back to those who have given their lives for what they believe to be freedom. The three ancient soldiers at the cenotaph in Whitehall today; the 2,700 who needlessly died on 11th November eighty years ago as, knowing the armistice was coming, the gun crews pumped out ammunition they didn’t want to carry home. The needless slaughter in all corners of the world that continues today.

Instead my screensaver pops into my mind. You love it; you comment on it every time you see it; I would send you the picture, if only I could. It is a field of poppies.

“Don’t disappear on me.” It’s where we started, an endless, aching, six months ago. You never promised me that you wouldn’t and now I believe that you have.

Filed Under: Relationships // Tagged: , , ,

Terror in Ziarat

Posted on October 30, 2008 //

A massive earthquake has hit Pakistan yesterday morning in the Ziarat region, 60 km to the north east of Quetta. According to eyewitness reports entire villages have been flattened as the initial shocks were 6.4 on the Richter scale and after shocks around 6.2 and 6.1 which were felt in the afternoon in the same area.
The casualties are piling up as we speak because relief operations are still underway and rubble is being removed to check for survivors. uptill now 200 people have perished with 500 injured all over the region.
Most houses have been destroyed due to massive boulders falling down the mountains during these shocks. Rescue workers are digging mass graves as there is fear that bodies left in the open might spread disease. The worst is yet to come I am afraid as 12000 people are now homeless and out in the winter cold and as we all know this region is below zero at this time of the year.
Its time once again that we got together as a nation and donate whatever we can to help in this effort, the first requirements like last time will be tents, foods and medicine. Please do what you can as several NGOS such as “The Mercy Corps” have sent their teams in the affected area and aid can be sent through them. i would advise anyone who wishes to donate in the effort to check out the organization and whether it is “present” in the affected area right now. We must help though…

Donation links

Mercy Corps

Edhi foundation

Message from “The street kids of pakistan org” for Karachi residents who wish to help

The Volunteers are collecting stuff for the survivors of the Earthquake – Balochistan- please send warm cloths, shoes, blankets, Torches with cells, water, medicine, tin food.. please drop the stuff of at 7/2, zulfiqar street 4 opposite Carlton Hotel:

Details: 300-2332142, 321-7272-369

Note: Truck to Balochistan will leave on Saturday Eve, so kindly drop of all donations before that.

Filed Under: Announcement, Day To Day, Relationships // Tagged: , ,

Autumn

Posted on October 20, 2008 //

I am picking up apples from the garden. Again. I have given bags of the fruit away to everyone who wants them, but still they tumble from the tree. Sometimes they even have the audacity to fall on me as I am gathering their compatriots beneath, the little green bastards. But still it feels like a crime to waste food.

I stand up and stretch. All around the leaves are turning to deeper yellows and oranges, drying into every shade of ochre and brown. In the mornings the mist rolls onto the fields, but the afternoons are bright and sunny – unseasonably so after the damp summer. Beneath the trees the cyclamen crouch, purple harbingers of autumn first, and then winter.

In the greenhouse, he is picking the last of the tomatoes, most of them as green as the apples on the grass. They won’t ripen now, and even if they do, they will remain bitter. Such a rich harvest the garden is finally offering us and we do not have the heart to throw it back in its face.

Chutney is the only answer. He continues to dismantle the tomato plants as I rush to the supermarket for vinegar, sugar and spices. And then, in the kitchen, we stand together and chop. Apples, tomatoes, courgettes, onions… ginger, coriander seeds, cloves, chilli… once together they barely fit in the pan. And then they simmer on the stove as the afternoon fades to dusk, and the dusk into night.

Tomorrow, I will start to write again. Write properly, I mean, a new novel. The feeling that I can create something worthwhile, weave a little magic even, has come back to me after the long months of waiting, after the long, heart wrenching weeks of the summer. The falling of the leaves is like the closing of a chapter, but I will not waste the words and feelings, rather I will take them forward with me.

Filed Under: Prose or Prozac?, Relationships // Tagged: , , , , ,

Splitting assets

Posted on October 15, 2008 //

It seems Pakistan is not the only place where insanity comes into play every day in life. A couple estranged and seperated recently in Cambodia have taken the weird and hilarious step of cutting their house in two as a seperation of property exercise. I can just imagine if this practice is adopted in say hollywood what would the end result be?

Full Story

Filed Under: Humor, Relationships // Tagged: , ,

Hats

Posted on October 7, 2008 //

I am a wearer of hats. One day – four hats – same head underneath. I think.

Hat 1 – 6.15am

This morning it’s a struggle to leave the house; so much to do and I daren’t be late. Dirty washing flung into the machine, sandwiches made, fruit sliced, yoghurt poured, cake cut, bags packed, coffee machine on… last leg of the journey to the door in sight…

In the bathroom, he sneezes. Twice. ‘Two for a kiss’. I kick off my shoes and charge upstairs, swearing under my breath, expecting the perennial ‘You took your time’, which is wearing a little thin to be honest.

He turns from the shaving mirror, razor in hand. “Sexy dress” he tells me softly “I don’t think I’ll be working late tonight.” The kiss tastes of shaving foam, but I don’t mind.

A tiny pillarbox with a feather and a veil… if you look carefully you will see the stains from years of wear.

Hat 2 – 11.00am

The young man from the auditors pokes his head around the office door. “Is this a good time?” he asks. I push my chair back from my desk and smile; I guess now’s as good a time as any.

But there are few problems, and none I can’t resolve. He congratulates me on the order and preciseness of the finance department; I say nice things about the professionalism of his audit team. Transaction complete, we shake hands and he leaves.

Another fairly sizeable crust earned. I am paid to get it right.

A bowler hat – what else?

Hat 3 – 3.45pm

The wind whips across the cricket ground, pushing fluffy grey clouds ahead of it. I brave the cordon of small children waiting for their hero to complete his sponsored walk. I know he’s just about to round the corner, but I also know it will be a while before I can talk to him. TV cameras come first.

There is no-one here I know, and sometimes I detest the lonely awkwardness of chasing a story. I put on a sociable smile and chat to the nearest person. At least it passes the time.

A dangerous, exciting number with a wide brim I can pull low over my eyes to hide.

Hat 4 – 4.30pm

“Let’s have a cuppa to warm us up!” He dives behind the bar and starts assembling cups, milk, teabags in a most disorganised manner. “It’s not like my kitchen!” he wails in mock complaint. We compare how blue our hands have become after our brief spell outside.

We take our tea to an empty meeting room where we will not be disturbed. He needs to vent – my role is to make comforting noises.  It has become so much a pattern it could make our friendship seem lopsided – but it isn’t. “I love grumbling to you” he says, and he is more than half laughing, tired blue eyes dancing and alive.

As ever, he has earned the right to grumble because he understands we are travelling a two way street. This week he made time for me when I bumped my car, when he thought I was lonely on my own in London. This week he has learnt to swear in front of me, made jokes at my expense, opened his heart and mine a little further.

I text him after I leave: ‘You really are a good friend, you know – but I’d never embarrass you by telling you’. As usual, there is no reply. I like the way that some things don’t change.

A floppy felt hat in a bright colour, the last word in comfort for the head. Probably waterproof as well.

Filed Under: Relationships // Tagged: , , , , ,

3 British Beaches

Posted on September 21, 2008 //

Dawlish, Devon
A small child with a blonde plait down her back digs in the damp sand with a plastic spade. She wears a hand knitted jumper over her little bikini; she was almost blue with cold when they finally enticed her out of the sea, and her mother has insisted she keep the jumper on.

Her father towers above her, his genial bulk wobbling over the top of his navy bathing trunks. He always wears them on the beach; he only has the one pair; she is too young to think it odd.

Together, they are engrossed, building a sandcastle. First, they dig a rough moat, piling the excavated sand in a heap in the middle. When they are satisfied the scale is about right, they dig the moat deeper, until the castle is almost up to her waist. Then comes the shaping of the rough sand into a smooth-sided bailey, Norman style, steep enough to repel invaders. The moat is filled in at the front to form a drawbridge, the massive doorway picked out in fragments of shell and stone. Finally, the turrets go on. Sand pies from the smallest bucket. They fill it together then level it off, and once he has put it in place, he lets her squeeze the plastic away to leave a perfectly rounded tower.

A train emerges from the tunnel behind the beach. They stand and watch it, hand in hand. He crouches down and explains to her the wonders of Brunel’s engineering, but to her it is just a train. He knows that one day she will understand.

Barry Island, Glamorgan

They’ve been going out for almost a month; things happened more slowly, back then. Instead of going to the funfair, they decide to take his mother’s dog for a walk along the beach. It is a fat, white Jack Russell that they call the rat. It’s real name is Penny, and she wonders why she remembers that across all the intervening years.

Sweet fourteen and never been kissed. But not for much longer. They stop part way along the sweep of sand and let the dog off the lead. He wraps his arms around her and their lips meet. She shivers in glorious anticipation as Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’ pounds from the dodgem cars behind them.

Not just lips, but tongues. She hadn’t expected this; too naive, too sheltered, and she doesn’t like it at all. It isn’t so much the sensation, or even the wet dribblyness, it is more the imagery of his firm pinkness invading her, and she wants to retch. But she doesn’t; she perseveres, she is meant to like this.

The kissing seems to go on forever. Her jaws feel stretched by it and his stubble scratches the soft skin around her mouth. She doesn’t know how to bring it to an end and he doesn’t seem to want to. The dog snuffles miserably around their feet.

Hengistbury Head, Dorset

Ok… Day 7, but really for the weekend. And the moment where you either buy in or decide I’m certifiable (there is no right answer!) Remember that beach from yesterday? I want you to describe it to me in detail – you can chose your medium; written words, images, tell me when we next meet – up to you.

As usual, Owen, there was no reply. And when it did come, at first I didn’t recognise it.

“I went to the coast on Saturday” you told me. “My brother and I took our bikes, persuaded my mum to come along too. We started at Hengistbury Head and cycled almost to Bournemouth, but then it got too busy so we turned back, so I went for a swim.”
“In the sea?” (It hadn’t been that warm a day)
“I had a rash vest on. But when I was just floating there, about 200 yards out, I did wonder whether it was sensible, because the rash vest was grey. I would have been practically invisible to someone on a jet ski, and there was no-one else in the water.”
“Not everyone’s as hardy as you” I grumble, and he grins.

So, Action Man, while I’m texting about thinking about beaches, you’re busy going to one. You buy in, but on your very own terms, and the thought of that makes me smile.

Later, you hug me and tell me how great it’s been to have those daily texts, how they’ve kept you going when things have been at their darkest. You do things your way, I do them mine. And somewhere in the middle, we meet as equals.

Filed Under: Relationships // Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Shimmering Memories

Posted on September 9, 2008 //

Balancing a guitar, the coke bottle, and themselves…

… trying not to trip over the rocks, trying to steady nature to suit their unsteadiness.

“yeh shaam phir nahin aai gi…”, voices lilted, wobbled, and carried in the wind, fading out slowing over the moonlit ocean. The waves splashed the rocks gently, and the fine mist was spray after spray of pleasure.

“mein tumharey kareeb…tum mere paas ho..aur kuch ho na ho, buss yeh ehsaas ho..” … Nothing could take away the perfectness of that moment.. Three solitary figures, perched on smoother surfaces where the wind had sandpapered away sediments, over hundreds of thousands of years. The waves beat against the rocks with the swell of the tide, like the lashings of clothes being washed by an old washerwoman whos penchant for cleanliness persisted with a passion.

“hont khamosh hon..aankhein kehti rahein..” – They stood in the distance, drinking in the horizon one last time. The bags were packed, the trunks were loaded – they gazed at the scene before them in an unsaid farewell – the short stint of sanity, away from the hubbub of normal life, was over…

In that unspeakable moment, standing absolutely still, unmoving, they saw – The distance between the ground and the sky didnt seem so far apart. IT was like peering into a painting..The moon was a flashlight peering through a hole in the sky, illuminating dimly all that surrounded them. The colours and textures changed, from rocky ground underfoot, to sand filled dust… to soothing cool wind that whipped the hair out of their eyes, framing them like rugged red indians in their native spirited costumes.. To the silky sheen of the sky, where there shone a lone star.

The night was alive.. An irridescent energy glowed about them. There seemed to be this perfectness – the spotlight shone down in a steady orb, widening to encompass the tan sands, and the silhouette of the rocks the jut out of silvery waters. Every nuance, rivet, bump in the dark dark landscape stood out, poised as a ballerina in her perfect pose.

He smiled, and held out his hand… as if to say it was time to go…The other kindred spirit had already started on the journey back…

She stood still, almost as if pleading.. just two minutes more… Just a little more…

At last, with a sigh, she savoured the last moments…

She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes tightly shut, and opened them suddenly again – almost as if taking a picture, capturing the memory forever, in her pensieve of dreams…

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Day To Day, Karachi, Relationships // Tagged: ,

Boxes

Posted on September 8, 2008 //

Everything is in boxes. It’s not that I’m packing up to leave; I’m packing up to stay. Stay sane, that is.

 

The boxes I am referring to are, of course, my emotions. One box for my husband, and another, smaller, box for Owen. And the most puzzling thing is – they are entirely separate. Which could be a good thing; or a very dangerous one.

 

Wednesday night: Owen’s reaction when I give him his birthday card – holding him tight while he cries – the almost physical wringing of my heart when I think of it even now – the unspoken certainty that the gaps between us have closed.

 

Thursday night: the warm glow of pleasure as my husband walks through the door – the wonderful familiarity of being in his arms – the bottle of wine that means we talk – wrapping ourselves together as we fall asleep.

 

In terms of my actions I know that I have done nothing morally wrong. There is nothing I have said to Owen, or done with Owen, that I would not also have said or done with a close girlfriend. Tats and I hug all the time; we send silly affectionate texts when we have no time to talk; and when she needs me I will be there for her – hell or high water.

 

But she doesn’t make my heart twist inside. There is no dangerous wondering when something will happen that transcends that boundary; no uncertainty as to what I will do when it does. My safety lies in Owen’s personality, and not my own – and that is indeed a chastening thought.

 

The other box is a safer place to be. When I am with my husband, Owen doesn’t come into the equation, he is given little more than a passing thought.

 

I only wish I understood what was happening to me.

Filed Under: Relationships, Uncategorized // Tagged: , ,
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