Tasneem

Her name literally means the milky river in Paradise. I always wondered how someone could be named so aptly. She had creamy white skin and the softest cheeks you ever felt. Her hands were so perfectly rounded at the fingertips they gave the impression that they were made to be looked at and admired and not have to do an ounce of work. When she smiled her eyes twinkled like that of a mischievous child trapped in a toy store. She loved happiness, I mean who doesn't right? But this one, she chased it and tried to capture it between her fingers. But it tended to elude her all her life. She was inherently kind, not just to us saps of human flesh, but to animals. I mean who notices how thirsty the birds are on a scorching summer day when all you want is to lay around in the air conditioned comfort of your house right? Who thinks about the pigeons looking for food each morning? Or how the cat that dirties your building's corridors gets hungry each afternoon. She had a knack of noticing the little things. She would remember to put a note on the refrigerator when she went out to get veggies from the vendor, so that her kids wouldn't wake up and not find her and wonder. She would regularly forget where she put her glasses and forget to wipe them clean, they were grimy, but she would remember to cook her children's favorite meals every day. She remembered to make a note of each and every call her husband got and take down a message in case he got upset and ensured that her daughter's uniform was sparkling white.
Tasneem needed to be loved in return. She had a couple of bratty children, who loved her, but forgot to show her, through their actions, exactly how much. Tasneem needed someone to give her medicine and monitor her health and diet, but she never demanded that her two children do anything for her except be around to give her company. Tasneem needed company but she didn't realize that eventually children grow up and find their own friends and forget the most important person in their lives. Tasneem needed someone who would understand her agony and sympathize with her lot in life but she got a husband that could not come to terms with the fact that he was dealt a hand by fate that he considered unfair to his superior being. And now she has left them. She's gone like the angel that protected and served and then silently slipped away without asking for anything in return. Her children yearn to tell her that she was not weak like everyone had told her all her life, she was a titan, an absolute Mohammad Ali of life. She battled her demons and whacked at the curve balls that life threw at her like a true champion. Her two brats want to let her know that they are proud to have been her children and they are whatever they are because she taught them so well. But that is the true nature of time as we know it, it flows constantly and we cannot have it back no matter how much we want. We can only hope that God has given the soul some provision of having to look at the world as it moves forward as our decaying bodies lies prostate. For if that is the case Tasneem would be smiling down on us even now, like a child trapped in a toy store.

Buraimi

A nomadic childhood has its ups and downs. The downs are many and the ups few. In short, it is not pleasant to have to leave a place you start to consider home when you are three or four or even six or seven or eight. Heck the agony of being the new kid in class completely outweighs any sense of adventure you might anticipate in exploring a new land. There comes a time when you stop making friends altogether. You stop having any expectations from strangers and invent your own ways of entertainment. Although a sad existence you grow up with one hell of a colorful imagination and the ability to chameleonize, if such a trait even exists, yourself to any surrounding. No body remembers you as their childhood friend and you know so many and such a variety of people that you really tend to forget where exactly you met them. Among the varied landscapes I got to inhabit as a kid one of the littlest spit of God's earth was named Buraimi. Al- Buraimi as the Arabs like to call everything. At the time I was there, it was an open border between Al-Ain and Oman and many of my relatives in Dubai used to drive down for the weekends, which was more of an inconvenience then blessing. When you're small all your memories depict things much larger than they actually were. Hence if you visit a place you remember as a kid you will find it to be really quite smaller than how you imagined it. Now Buraimi was so tiny that my memories also portray it as a very limited space. The only structures in the entire place(seriously) was the five or so storey high apartment that we inhabited the third floor of, a dirt road in front, across which lay my father's office. My school was a twenty to thirty minute trip into Al-Ain, which was a glorious city full of parks and villas that I got to see mostly on weekends or rushing by through my dad's car window each morning.
I made some extraordinary friends in this desolate place and formulated the most intriguing form of spending hours of afternoon time when my family insisted on taking a siesta. Lat me tell you that all my friends were imaginary. Yup they were all a figment of my imagination and boy did we have a riot of a time together. to give my 'friends' more of a character I would sit in front of the dressing table mirror and talk my own ear off. the magical thing about that mirror was that it was a perfect circle with two dissection at the left and right. Some genius had added hinges to those two dissections so that it could be moved inwards and your image multiplied manifold. Hence whenever I yearned the company of many I merely turned the two portions inwards and viola! I had a whole party to chat with. But even in my minds eye I knew that friends had to go home to their mommies, so leave they did and I still had hours to kill before anyone woke up. That was when I scrambled to the very edge of my room's window and watched the trailer that brought in the latest Toyota cars for, lucky for me, there was a showroom on the ground floor of our abode. It was thrilling to watch the shiny new paint on those four wheelers and how the workers would fold out the panels to bring down the cars on the top floor of the trailer. Like I said it was a sad existence but it taught me to depend on myself for fun rather unlike the generation today that needs so many gadgets and social outlets in order for them to have fulfilling days.

Loans for lawns!!!

One of the happiest memories of summer for me is shopping with my mother for the latest lawn prints. Summers here are so unbearable that one is not left with any fabric options to keep your skin breathing other than lawn. There was a time when one could easily purchase the length of material required for a shirt shalwar and dupatta within the attainable sum of, would you believe, 300 to 500 rupees. Lawn was considered, rightly so, an essential and a necessity for the scorching months of summer. Each year prices for a suit rose by at least 200 rupees but even that was bearable. Not to forget that this fabric doesn't do well with washing and hardly lasts longer than one season of sweat absorbing. Before the ugly monster we all now know as 'exhibitions' reared it's useless head lawn suits went for a maximum of 800 rupees. In one fell swoop the 'backyard' designers, as I like to refer to them, aided by the marketing fronts provided by their supermodel friends turned this fabric for the masses into an item of luxury, their prices touching the levels of an outfit made from silk or chiffon. As is the case with everything in our country the bandwagon was thronged and designers of minimum to maximum repute jumped aboard. Now all your see are thick thighed, paunchy, gaudy, bleached, bejeweled, ladies that need something new to blow their husband's/boyfriend's/uncle's money on. They are seen swarming these dos and hoarding the material like the sacks of sugar that are hoarded to hike the price. Not to forget that nowadays the prices range from 2000 to 8000 rupees per suit. But the rich of this country have proved that just eating citizens taxes doesn't satisfy them anymore.They would like to out do each other not only in terms of the number of maids they can hire but buy each other out at the expense of the economy. The working class is also party to this madness and here's reminding them that each time you spend 7000 rupees one a single attire you could have made seven of the same had you used your consumer discretion and not risen the demand for a fabric that is not even acceptable at a formal do.

Inspiration

Dawn showers
There is something magical about a moment you share with only yourself. There are no witnesses and the only sound to keep your company is the coming and going of night time traffic and your own breathing. I woke up to the sound of running water at 4.45 this morning. After doing the mundane,checking for leaky faucets and such, I looked out my balcony. The only thing visible through the downpour were twinkling lights of a faraway traffic light that was stuck on yellow, like they normally are that late. Something made me step out despite the chill in the air, my lack of warm clothing and yes even my insane fear of making the slightest rustle when the kids are asleep.
I'm glad I threw caution to the wind this time. For the first time in my life I was comfortable with my own company and watching the world showering at the crack of dawn filled me with an inspiration that only a loner can truly understand. Yes there are those of us that are essentially supposed to be alone yet we insist on seeking company. But that's a story for another time. So greetings if you are reading this and stay aboard if you have ever felt like you do not belong anywhere but within your own head. Over and Out!