Musings on Monday Mornings

It says on Hassan and Nadine's blog that though there may be no one reading their random ramblings (I am being polite; "rantings" came to mind first, unfairly), they continue writing, largely, to chronicle their child's early years. While I have been doing the same for Daniyal (for the record, before they even had their kid), albeit irregularly, I am somehow more faithful to this space than the others. Does that mean that I love myself, am more interested in myself or am "father of the child"? Ok that didn't sound cool and understandable at all. Let me retry. Am I writing only for the slowed evolution of my immature-ish mind? Is this only so that I can turn back to an entry on September 2006 and thank the stars that I become more confident/ articulate/ emancipated etc. OR, is this just a huge waste of cyberspace? On an absolute change of subject: I had two friends over for dinner. Other than the fact that I reconnected with the human species (Daniyal an...

I've said it before. I'll say it again. It's tough being a modern woman. Female liberation and emancipation can no longer be used as the panacea to advance personal development and fulfillment. It's a lonely existence, where practicality wins you no favours and even lesser warmth at night (luckily I have a pocket size version who fits comfortable between my elbow and knee!) ... but still, few favours and no warmth. Case in point. Have been ferrying people around the last couple of days. Agreed, of my own decision, initiating from a desire to stay at home...but all the same; lots of ferrying. I got me a license. Driving, that is. And having got it, am mandated to drive. Liberation biting me in the butt. Suddenly I see wisdom in myopia! :) Case in point II: Shahid missed his flight home from Riyadh. Now ordinarily I wouldn't have been so fussy (putting aside the whole loneliness argument for a bit), but at this point in the game, I could have done with another pair of...

Life is interesting. Your entire universe starts revolving around the whims of an infant. One who cannot communicate like from dislike and where you are left second guessing every single move. I sometimes wonder if he knows love. Love that understands and comprehends choice and sacrifice. When I look down at his sleeping face I understand the compromises I am making in being there, the choices disregarded...but his love is simpler, purer. Its a love of necessity, of absolute faith. I suppose the only other manifestation of that kind of love in our lives is in the love for the Omnipotent. A love, simultaneously, of necessity and implicit trust. And yet, I seem to use the word 'love' far too liberally. Man's relationship with Allah is more of helplessness. You have no choice because at a certain point in despair you have no other option than to leave everything to the encompassing ocean of hope. And since we can't bear the thought of no one holding on to the thread and di...

Its one of those days; a slow sun rising, halted in its climb. A steady breeze promising more and expectation not met. It did rain a trickle at night though. As of morning, nothing. The Princess in me is slowly dying. Its a torturous murder. Slow poisoning by reality. As a rule I have refused to sleep in a crumbled bed. It has surprised many bed fellows. First Zareen and as of the last eight years, Shahid. Waking from the bed, the sheets must be ordered before returning. Hair must be made. Make-up removed. One must maintain a semblance of Princely-ness on retiring for the night. But as of late my bones are so wary, my body so racked that I fall into bed in the most graceless, unprincess-like manner. Before, where the little wrinkle disturbed though the night, now one could leave a hedgehog in bed with me and the nettles wouldn't pinch. This is a tragedy since there little in life that entertains and warms more than illusions. And when the illusion breaks, reality is a hard cushion...

We came back from Lahore after the winter break close to a month ago. And since coming back have been trying desperately to dodge one health bug after another. First week in Daniyal came down with a stomach bug... one we brought with us from Lahore. That was the first weekend gone. Thereafter Shahid caught Iblees's own cough, and so the second weekend was sacrificed. With Shahid coughing and sneezing his guts out, I was the next obvious port of call, so the third weekend was spent with me topping 102C on the temperature scale and finally, come full circle Daniyal, has caught the bug. Have spent a miserable month barely making it outside the house once a week. Top it with a weak pocket with little buying power and even the idea of retail therapy no longer cheers. Has my pocket shrunk or has the world become more expensive. Its sad to note that incentive to shop is inversely proportional to money in the pocket. I have never wanted to shop in the last six years, when i myself was earn...

I had written a random mail to the HR department at Gulf News in a moment of absolute uselessness. I was pretty sure that no one would call back; between the recession and me being a full-time mom, I figured corporates didn't see me as someone worth investing into. And though I realise this is severely premature, I just got a call from HR at GN. She wants someone to freelance for a month to help out with one of their publications. As things go this is brilliant. I was looking for a small stimulus to keep my brain working and a little money to line my pocket. However, I am breaking into a cold sweat here. Daniyal is sleeping in the background and I feel like a deserter leaving the ranks. Shahid is right. He's not the clingy one, I am. I'm palpitating. Pace yourself Ambreen. I'll figure something out. I'll take him in with me. Somehow. I'll manage. I'm a professional dammit!

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. William Ernest Henley

...I should have chosen a better title, but my brain is sluggish after eating so much. There was a lunch today at my grandparent's place and it was an event of celebration, after a year of mourning. Sitting inside, in something of a rare quiet moment I thought I saw my Nana from the corner of my eye, looking out on to the garden where the collected party was eating. I think I saw him smiling. I think I saw him saying "Well done Mahreen!" And I think he would have been pleased. He would have liked being there with everyone, his family, collected around him. He would have probably chosen the seat getting the winter sun. He would have approved of the menu. He would have cheered on his "Mars". We all miss him so. The house usually so quiet misses him... But when the noise is cheerful and festive, that house and its occupants miss him most. I like to think that he is still there in spirit. That he is standing there, still a part of everything. I'm glad I was ther...

Cinema Paradiso....I like to translate that as the Cinema of Paradise. Never having seen the movie I am at luxury to make it as I will. Also, I love the music (score) and I am afraid now that the movie will not live up to the image I have in mind. Very few things do....live up, that is, to the mind's picture. Why is that? Do we invest so much of ourselves in the ideal that that nothing compares. I suppose a lowering of expectations is warranted? How did she say it, "Anything less than extraordinary love is a waste of my time". Oh, how I used to love that line. I remember that actor. The movie is in black and white till the time the protagonist looks into his eyes. They go blue and then the movie gets its colour. I used to love the insinuation. He brought colour into her life. Or vice cersa. Indie cinema at its very best! I recently saw that actor again in a B-, bordering on C-rated, film. He had aged so much. Somehow it wasn't the same anymore. Also the B/C-ness of th...

It finally rained. A massive heaving of the skies, and still it's pouring some 24 hours later. That's a novelty for this part of the world. Any rain from the skies is a novelty...and it continuing for some 24hrs plus....heck, that's environmental change for you! I have rediscovered Alexandre Desplat. He throws me to others in his company, and I have a feeling my romance with Ennio Morricone will be rekindling as well. There is a certain calling within that sort of music. Sad, we are (were) never pushed towards the arts while growing up. I might not have become a Morricone, but I would have discovered him earlier. I hope D growing up will be familiar with these names. God forbid he's rapping his years to adulthood to the tunes of the Jay Z's and Britney Spears of this world. But that is the irony of life. God gives you a dose of the dreaded in your kids...probably to balance things out. My thoughts turn towards home and I recall conversations. There was a time when t...

It’s early December and today after months and months of dry arid weather, there is hope of rain. Come dusk to twilight however, so far my hopes are riding the wind. Not a drop as yet. But I'll wait. Twilight is perhaps the worst hour to write anything. The pixies, gnomes and featherlike felines are tugging at the seems of your consciousness and influencing the tilt of every word. You could swing from delicate ecstasy to melancholy faster than a batter on first base. But I am becoming course. I started in such finery :) I just saw a movie where the rhythm and light of Provence are still influencing my soul. I'll let it swing a bit longer before I have to submit to harsher truths.

I rarely ever put up pictures. But this one is an absolute winner. Its been some four months plus away from home, and two-and-a-half months into a change of status. We have a winning smile, favourite words, sparkling eyes and ...yes, I have fallen hook, line and sinker. (About time, I tell you!). A lifelong romance (even if one sided) begins. Life continues to a different rhythm. There is, guaranteed, less sleep, more trips to the loo, leaden arms and legs...but otherwise things are as before. Sort of :) We now measure days through feeds, burps and diaper changes. Through tiny grunts and attractive sighs. We are growing daily. As parents, the Mr and I tend to believe we have birthed the definitive genius...that is until the weekly update from babycentre tells us this is exactly how all babies grow. Damn, it's such an enthusiasm killer. Living as the typical new parent cliche, we take far too many pictures daily and assume everyone is interested in every "goo" and "g...

I am told I have a lot of life to account for in words. Some ten months of life. I’ve been putting it off so long now that the well has swelled so heavy that words don’t seem enough to recount so many days lived. So I will none of it. Rather, I will pick up the thread from here and now….at some 12.30am on a random March evening. Change: it’s been one of my major hesitations. Embracing change. Yet over time I have learnt to abide by the laws of nature …and for lack of a better phrase…go with the flow. Time ebbed and flowed and there was a recurrence of what was once ‘life’. We became clichés again. It is comfortable again …and this city is beginning to redeem itself. God Bless for that!! The change is mental, physical and spiritual. We grew … as people and as individuals. I am still growing (there is nothing that entertains like an inside joke) and there is hope in the future. Where there is life there is hope...and we have life. …I am returning home for a spell ...

I find myself flicking through pictures…some new…mostly old, while a playlist of old favourites plays in my ears. I’m walking a tightrope I know. It’s blatant provocation. A well of old memories. Mostly pleasant. Mostly beautiful. And home is so very far away. He drove relentlessly through the streets of a sodden city in hope of finding a shoulder, a voice that reminds him of home. I just drove. What is it that pushes us through the bareness of nothingness of find that one sensation that calms us? I look at old pictures. He went to a familiar home. Almost, but not quite. Time tethers on a fine balance. Having run its course it clears, granting clarity in hindsight. Always hindsight. It passes and its passing is felt more than seen. There’s a years worth of snaps that can’t be accounted for in seconds. They just are. And there’s the scars to prove the storms passing…but they’re not all seen. Those too are felt. Az, sometimes it’s good losing control and talking about not talking. Cold...

I think pretty much all of sub continental novels somewhere or the other draw upon the power and push of the monsoons. Like the lunar swelling of the tide. Something that is given. Something that affects deeply. Everybody. Today, somewhere near the Saharan desert, we had a morning that was geographically off. It got overcast and much like the monsoons, a gust of wind rose with lightening to shed on this dusty ‘shitsville’ a sprinkle of rain that smelt of home. Home, damn it. Home. Like fresh water on gravel. And for a few minutes we delayed going to work. Delayed donning the suit and the high heels and slowed the pace to sip milk over a heavily buttered jam toast. It’s at times like these when the mind invariably turns to a moment from before trying to recreate a feeling. Then it stretches it, tugging at the ends to try and make it linger longer. But sooner than later the sun comes out to reign down harsh and strong in a typical May-day desert fashion. You battle 6-lane traffic and dra...

6.00pm on a Thursday evening and the clock is taking it's jolly time crawling to close 9 hours of contractual labour...that too on May 1st. There's an irony somewhere in there. Still another 30 minutes to go. So here we are. A bustling, noisy and at times X-rated environment that is slowly beginning to grow in a nice familiar, homey kind of way. There are days ofcourse, but something comes up that makes up for things. Life also seems to be sorting itself out slowly (mash'Allah) and the stars a realigning themselves to resemble what was once life! There are ofcourse days there too...but. Azi, ditto. And thanks. I don't have to say it.

oye... you are my disney friend and my moulin rogue singer buddy.you are bocelli and fern gulli and knower of all things wise and true.you the watcher of last of the mohicans for the nth time with me.my dearest and closest friend!! may allah always keep you in his hifz o eimaan and may this day and all that follow be filled with happiness and glee. :D Amber the Goga! Happy Birthday!

June 1993 - April 2008: Requiem Tonight the sky above Reminds me of you, love Walking through wintertime Where the stars all shine The angel on the stairs Will tell you I was there Under the front porch light On a mystery night I've been sitting watching life pass from the sidelines Been waiting for a dream to seep in through my blinds I wondered what might happen if I left this all behind Would the wind be at my back ? Could I get you off my mind This time The neon lights in bars And headlights from the cars Have started a symphony Inside of me The things I left behind Have melted in my mind And now there's a purity Inside of me I've been sitting watching life pass from the sidelines Been waiting for a dream to seep in through my blinds I wondered what might happen if I left this all behind Would the wind be at my back ? Could I get you off my mind This time

Celebrities OD-ing on drugs—prescription or otherwise—is a not a new phenomenon to Hollywood. Elvis, River Phoenix, in addition to numerous others are a case in point, whose death left a tangible hole in the world of Showbiz. But they are long dead, distant memories, stars that have been immortalised on account of their young passing. But when Heath Ledger was found dead in his SoHo apartment in New York on January 22, it somehow hurt more … seemed more personal. Ledger moved to Hollywood after a few years career in Australia starring in TV soaps and a film that brought him localised attention. In his Hollywood debut in 10 Things I Hate About you in 1999 he played a self assured and independent iconoclast paid to date the college’s hell raiser. He gained popularity with teenage age girls, most of whom looked at him as the pin-up poster of the unconventionally-cute-but-deep foreign student they all hoped to find and fall in love with. His rendition of Frankie Avalon’s I Love You Baby, s...

There is perfection nowhere. It is in imperfection that we mark our individualities. I am a Pakistani, the product of what you see as years of flawed politics, feudal conspiracies, terrorist attacks, women indiscrimination and flagging institutions. But even when pigeonholed through a myopic lens coloured dimmer by a negative international picture of my country, I have never been more proud of being a Pakistani than I am now. We have come through one of the toughest years in our young history — tougher still because there has been no one tangible issue to blame everything on. We have been hit with drought, floods, mindless acts of terrorism, mass political instability and natural and infrastructural disasters. We closely avoid being bombed by the superpowers for one reason or the other and a few days before general elections in our country the entire world looks to us as a forgone conclusion. But even with a silenced media we speak. Even with the ‘rightful’ judiciary in abeyance we so...