Muslim Girl

Those Wretched Acres

Those Wretched Acres
Where solitude was plenty and happiness undone
Smirked the lazy rays of an indifferent sun
Upon an orphan grave extant

Some thirty years forgotten, in a dying city
Resigned of hope and gaiety
Flashed an eye the color of a lone desert

A love-child he was, Aahil Unknown
Born to acres spent in war
In error, those holy lots living in hate
Penned his days with bestial philosophies
The orphan, taught well by the fathers of slaughter
The craft of strapping death to his bosom and blood artistry
Learned none the ways of his age

Across the fields of dust from the boy
A mute girl blessed the earth
Quieting the clamor of ruins
And chanting mythical verses with her astral eyes

His scar-kissed face, a dream of youth
Statuesque and stately, none matched his faultless form except she
Unsettled in a labyrinth of ebony curls and scrambled semblance
Her frame most ordinary, unequaled to Aahil Unknown
But a fascinating simplicity that mocked empyrean beauty
Reviving Aahil’s childhood and consuming his solitude
She challenged his world of disdain
Tickling his wounds with ivory buds of hope
Harmonizing his Cimmerian shadow unto her own
Till those two in childhood rhyme
Matured into one for infinite time

But this veiled friendship was hard to keep alive
On those wretched acres that forbade life
Where likings were crushed and lovers stoned
To keep conscious the dead of war
Seasons soon, on a day as heartless as another
A hasty arctic wind whispering misgivings
Halted to greet the warrior alone
Resuscitating the fears of a soldier in love
Those wretched acres that stained fingers with red
And rifled any devotions except the holy pledge

Weighed Aahil the pendulum of love against strife
To find his boundless adulation for her rise
Thus scattering the beads of faith of the land
Aahil advanced with flighty feet for her hand
To take her beyond those bloodthirsty confines at eventide
Before the hallowed men could see his guise

Present and past, life and death, all akin
She caged his eclipsed eyes with fingers blanched
And set sail on a crippled canoe nodding in the quieted sea

Returned the mute girl ages hence
Consumed of age and silenced eyes
To those wretched acres at mid of day
Her weary fingers telling tales of sorrow
To that orphan grave extant

-Based on a thousand true stories

Fair n' Lovely, Dark n' Ugly

“It is a curse to be born a dark woman in this country.”  Her expressive eyes, carefully sculpted nose and very full lips engraved on a chocolate complexion would never allow a foreigner to think her color would be the bane of her 28-year-old life.

Amaya William’s earliest childhood memory sways her back to the windowsill she was tied to at her home in Mumbai, India, being punished by her mother for her sister’s deviltry.  Stripped of her clothes, stark naked, her body was etched in pain as Mom rubbed ‘lal mirchi’ (red chili powder) on her full-blown tiny frame.  She was five at the time.  That was a preview of her life’s coming attractions.  The stoic girl quietly states, “That’s just the way things were in my house; I was punished for any and everything.” 

The fiercely independent girl is dressed casually in a simple white t-shirt over a pair of dark-brown cotton harem pants; her square shoulders and straight posture gives her an air of confidence and a noticeable physical presence.  She cups her compact face with both hands, the plastic black bangles dancing around her wrists as she begins a stroll down memory lane, recollecting those painful years growing up.  We’re sitting in a cozy little restaurant set up on one of the less busier streets of Bangalore, India, perhaps to escape the shoals of traffic.  They take you around the world with their foods in small, thin paper plates.  But their specialty is the fruit shakes, which is one of the reasons Amaya and I chose the place.  

After a blithe waiter, quite generous with his smile takes our order of two mango milkshakes, Amy, as most address her, tries to light a cigarette, struggling against the restless monsoon wind.  I have been here a little over a month and still marvel at the remarkable weather, the garden city’s first element that won me over as soon as I stepped outside the airport on the last day of May to experience India for the first time from the United States of America. 

As I shape my first question, she is deeply focused on the smoke escaping in perfect little circles from the opening of her mouth.  There seems to be a transparent honesty about her demeanor that I noticed the first day I met her at the publication company I was interning for.  She bears a loud and clear message in her guise: I am what I am, like it or not. 

For Amy, the color discrimination began at home. Four sisters, born in succession, but “I am the black sheep of the family, literally the “black” sheep of my family.” The fact that her other three sisters were born lighter than her made her the object of constant discrimination.  Although she says she has blocked most, some memories are so stubborn, no matter how much you try to edit, erase, they remain just as they are.  She remembers how her mother would vigorously rub fairness creams on her face and her body in hopes of lightening her color when she was about eight years old.  “I associated dark with being dirty and ugly because that is what I was made to believe.”  Little Amaya would scrub herself for hours, thinking her color would somehow fade, that the ‘dirt’ would rub off.   The dejected eight-year-old girl tried to hang herself from a ceiling fan at her Mumbai home.  “Of course, that didn’t work all that well,” she laughs while I cry, without tears, for her past, envisioning a dispirited little girl, suicidal at an age when one doesn’t even understand death.  All because of the misery her skin color brought upon her.  

As a child, Amy desperately longed for affection, attention from her parents.  She quietly watched as her sisters were coddled with countless hugs and kisses, while she was never even addressed by sweet names.  Her parents would often leave her alone at home when they would go on a ‘family’ outing.  “Another incident that is stuck in my mind is when Dad had come to watch a dance all of us participated in, and after the performance was over, we ran up to him, but he literally pushed me away and hugged my other sisters.”  The only reason, she adds, that her three younger siblings were favored over her was because they were fairer.  “Who will get married to you,” she remembers her mother’s caustic words, echoing her relatives’ barbed comments on Amy’s dark skin.  “All I saw when I looked in the mirror was a black cloud.  I never thought dark can be beautiful.”  I catch myself thinking on and off during our conversation how it would feel to feel so ugly. 

Amy developed an eating disorder at the age of 12 or 13, and “my mom didn’t even notice.”  She’s placid throughout the interview as if she has become numb to it all.   That was the inside story.  Outside her home, at school, Amy had become quite sentient in discerning the color politics.  She was a talented singer and a ‘decent actress’ but was never given the opportunity to participate in any of her school events because “my color was always against me.”  And when she entered her teen years, she got stuck in an abusive relationship with her first boyfriend, and tolerated his verbal and physical attacks for years simply because, “he was the first person who told me that I was beautiful.”  She says she had never heard the word beautiful and her name in one sentence before and that made a world of a difference to her and was reason enough to keep her bound to him for six years.  “I seriously had no self-esteem, no self-confidence whatsoever.” 

As a result of this deep-rooted complex, after the breakup with her first boyfriend, Amy flatly says she became ‘promiscuous.’  “I was always vying for attention.”  Still, she says, most of her boyfriends would be afraid to introduce her to their mothers because she was dark.  The times she was able to meet a couple of her boyfriends’ mothers, one had said, “oh, you’re half South Indian, that’s why the color.”  Another one had told her son after meeting Amy, “but she’s so dark.”  Unbelievable.  I think about what a mountain people make out of one little remark on skin color in the West, and how it is generously accepted in the East.  They fight against it in the West, but live with it in the East.  “Just yesterday I was passing by a bus stand and repeatedly got called a “Negro” by some guys.”  She says she is so used to being called names like ‘kaali’ (blackie) by strangers that it just doesn’t faze her anymore.  “If I were to enter the marriage market, I would definitely have to settle for someone who is much, much older than me and far from the type of men I like,” she says.  She’s right.  Almost all the matrimonial columns that appear in print and on line here list ‘fair’ as a requirement.  She manages a smile that reflects acceptance, forgiveness, and to a degree, pity – pity toward the mainstream Indian society who is brainwashed into believing that dark cannot be beautiful. 

Amy has managed to change her family’s mindset and her parents, today, are genuinely apologetic for their behavior.  “My mother started changing her mind when I was discovered at a beach in Vizak by a photographer who wanted to click my pictures.” But even now, it’s “you’re dark BUT you’re beautiful, not you’re dark and beautiful.”   

            Twirling a strand of the thick black medium-length hair framing her face, Amy says this obsession with fairness is so deeply ingrained in the masses, it’s at a point of almost no return. White is simply better, she says.  And not only is it more attractive, but equates to a better husband, better job, and a more successful life in general. “In most companies, if I was competing for a position against a candidate less qualified than myself but lighter in skin, she would get the job.” Dark skin is associated with dirtiness, ugliness, and at its very best, seductive.  Seductive only on the ramp, or in Indian films.  “But even in Bollywood, Aishwariya Rai will always be better than Sushmita Sen mainly because of her color.”  The heroines of this monstrous film industry are usually light-skinned, at least the good girls, but who is chosen to do the seductress roles or steamy dance items? Ask anyone who is familiar with Bollywood, and the first face that pops up would be of sultry Bipasha Basu.  That is just the way it is.  Fair is innocent, desired, pristine. And dark, for the most part, spells doom. And it’s no secret either. 

Amy takes me to visit a popular chain, “Health and Glow,” scattered around Bangalore in every district of the city.  Just as I am warned, we encounter a dizzying range of fairness products.  The shelves are swamped with a variety of whitening soaps, masks and creams by Fair and Lovely, L’Oreal, Ponds, Garnier, Avon, Jolen, just to mention a few.  Some claim to turn your color shades whiter in ‘just 7 days,’ promising you beauty, romance and, adjusting to the so-called modern times in which women are stepping up in the work industry, power.   

‘The modern Indian woman,’ a term I heard countless times during my trip, unchained from archaic mindsets, rules and regulations to gain an identity of her own.  Now she has the freedom to be her own person.  She is fabulously independent, has power over her life and DOES NOT have to live with her dark skin.  That is the prejudice reinforced by in-your-face advertising for cosmetic products.  Here, the color of your skin can do wonders or blunders to your life if you are a woman.  We talk about the promotion of this dangerous prejudice and I recall the ridiculous commercial featuring top Bollywood stars, which I initially thought was a spoof! The campaign, consisting of several episodes, involves a dusky Indian actress, Priyanka Chopra, former Miss World, who is dumped by her fiancé, the famous Saif Ali Khan, for a light-skinned woman.  The heart-broken girl finds her hope in a jar of Pond’s White Beauty cream, and sure enough, her complexion is transformed, and so is her ex-lover.  The only fairness I found in Fair and Lovely was that they don’t discriminate against sexes; the company recently launched a product for the guys.  The commercial: A sinewy young man wearing trendy clothes and riding a motorbike is rejected by his beloved because of his dark skin, but after using the magical ‘Fair and Handsome,’ his color changes from brown to bright white, casting a spell on his sweetheart. 

Our interview ends at Amy’s apartment, which she shares with three other single girls.  We flip through some beauty magazines in which she points out the dusky models, saying, “only in the magazines Zee (my nickname).”  It’s a farce that dark women are considered beautiful here, she says.  “A big lie.”  Although Amy has grown to love herself, “there are still times I feel insecure about my color.”  And while the family scars have been treated, she admits she is not attached to her parents and one of the reasons she moved from Mumbai to Bangalore was because her identity there, at home, was largely dependent on her color, in fact, that was, pretty much, her only identity.  

The ride back to the guesthouse in the rickshaw transports me back in time to Pakistan, where I spent three weeks before arriving here.  India is not alone in its prejudice against dark skin.  In Pakistan, darker-skinned individuals are often at the bottom of society making up majority of the lower caste.  A remark made by a poverty-stricken ‘maalish vaali’ (masseuse) while I was in Lahore is pounding my memory.  (Translated from Urdu) “Whether your child is black or white, a child is still a child; my parents love me even though I’m so dark.” 

(Two months ago) Razia Bibi, a plump woman in her forties with a round face greets me with a wide smile exposing a set of straight, white teeth as I come out of the huge room I am staying in.  It’s a lovely house that has the look and feel of ‘old Lahore.’  Most maids and servants don’t even offer a handshake in Pakistan according to the norm; while the Muslim country condemns a caste system of any kind, the practice tells otherwise in almost every household, middle to upper class.  I am introduced to her by my host, my auntie’s 70-something mother.  Razia comes home every single day to help relieve ‘Nani’ (grandma) of her arthritis pain with an oil massage.  I step forward to give her a hug and her dark eyes show surprise as I put my arms around her. 

Razia is dark, very dark, just as most servants and lower-class members of Pakistan’s society I have seen in the past.  She has smooth, clear skin but her face appears to be invisibly scarred by suffering.  I can see it.  Within the first hour of meeting her, I learn she is quite talkative.  She is the breadwinner of her family and works seven days a week to support her unemployed husband who is addicted to heroin and all her five children.  Razia is the second wife of a man who has twelve kids in total but has stopped working since years while she has many more years on her face than she has lived.  Her honest exhaustion, somehow, puts me to shame. 

We are sitting in the lounge without any electricity in the cruel heat of summertime.  While Razia unfolds her life to me, I notice that she speaks as if she is almost apologetic of her color.  She had been kidnapped for marriage, and is trying to tell me how worried her parents were even though ‘she is black.’  I listen quietly, trying to harden my expression of sorrow for her life and absorbing the gravity of what she has just said.  I notice how her otherwise dolorous eyes light up when she speaks of her ‘fair grandchildren.”  That is the only characteristic she speaks of repeatedly when she talks about them.  I am too overwhelmed by the tragedy of her entire life to push the subject of color discrimination further with Razia, but the seed for my story has been planted by her comments. 

I spend the rest of my stay in Lahore observing the fairness fixation.  Compared to Indians, Pakistanis are usually lighter in skin, and when it comes to beauty, a number of them think they are superior than their neighbors based on skin color! I hear derogatory comments on Indians by a few Pakistanis which begin with ‘kaale’ meaning ‘dark ones.’  And these are people that belong to the educated sector.  India and Pakistan have long been rivals since the partition of 1947, but to use skin color as an attack is just pitiable.  They don’t realize it, and I don’t make them realize it, at least yet. 

Every single salon I walk into offers a variety of whitening services which include ‘face whitening,’ ‘body whitening,’ etc.  And those are the more expensive, sought-after services according to the employees.  The markets are also inundated with fairness products, mostly for women, reinforcing long-held prejudices against dark skin.  You see powdery white faces on Pakistani television, weddings, parties and the red-light district where prostitutes have dipped themselves in foundation shades lighter than their skin tone. 

The rickshaw jerks and I abruptly come back to the present.  We are not far from my temporary home in Bangalore.  I wonder where this color fixation came from, how these cultures became so terribly infected with this ridiculous obsession with fairness.  Is it a carryover from the colonial times during the British rule when Pakistan and India was one country? White was superior then, and although they have long gone, white remains superior.  We’re less than a minute away from my destination.  I glance at the meter to pay the rickshaw driver his due.  I gather my belongings as he pulls the colorful little vehicle in front of my guesthouse.  The old white dog, imperturbable by her surroundings, is sleeping outside the dwarfed gate of my temporary lodging.  My thoughts follow me as I step down from the rickshaw.  In the dark of the night, I walk toward the main door thinking that neither India nor Pakistan was able to gain independence from the British. 

 

(My first freelance story written for Illume magazine)

The Postman and the Prostitute

By a street dark in its virtue

Where sinful transactions were made in love

Passed a wandering messenger

Whose flight led him to a fractured window

 

Packed in his coarsened satchel

Were smiles for some and tears for others

The day had been sealed and the evening old

With delivery of a minute-lover to his paramour

 

As shadows of men whose pockets jingled

Passed him by on mute feet

To stone lovers of this evil hour

Stood the postman captive to an ancient tune

 

Under the spell of the maiden fair

The jingle of ankle bells and a voice he knew

Sinless eyes over an artless smile

Humming a song of timeless rhyme

 

But the pleasure district of Prustam village

With all its glitter and lascivious smell

Was not his place

How then would he follow the harlot’s trace?

 

Return he would when light would break

With an anonymous letter to this maid

Whose unshed tears he yearned to free

By bearing a letter penned by he:

 

“Life frowns at me with her furrowed brow

For death is helpless against my vow

I return to you with my promise’s crown

Traveling with a debt that weighs me down

With secrets of my broken pride

Solely to make thee my bride

 I am left unfinished ‘O ancient person

Until I give you of my soul …”

 

When morning blushed across the sky

Off he was to the sphere of stain

To deliver to a stranger

The letter of his fate

Greeted him those sinless eyes

Filled with kohl and innocence divine

Enveloped in vanilla threads, whispered she

“Write we not, nor do we read.”

 

And so began the first of many recitations to come

Of love and promises

To the shunned one

Silencing the cymbal and drum

 

Tara and Amar met often in time

Sipping cardamom tea from silver cups

Savoring pine-nuts under the peepel tree

Laughter-bond and sorrow-free

 

Yet the mystery lingered

Of the eyes he knew

From a dream or a life

Centuries due

 

Dismissing the penman

Bound by a night of price

She lost soon her heart to the messenger

An unwelcome passion in the district of pleasure

 

On one blurry night when the moon was vague

And the street active in dealings of shame

Wondered Tara of her fate

‘The Postman is a foolish dream from which tomorrow I shall awake’

 

But he had taught her how to love

With only her soul and made it pure

That must be said, she told herself

‘Before I bid him farewell’

 

That night when Tara shut her eyes

She found herself in another time,

Belonging to another name

In a palace that knew much fame

 

Musical instruments and their masters

Staged the manor with lyric offerings and elegant dancing

All in reverence for the Raja

But her eye held fast to one commoner

 

None other but the postman was he

Playing tunes of love for she

And gliding she to his melody

Journeys across the Haveli

 

Their love wrapped in their music true

To reach far above to the blue

Swinging the trees and passing zephyr

To the lowly ears of the Raja cruel

 

On an evening cold upon the sun’s retire

Waited Maya for her lover dear

Singing their song under the Asoka-tree

To face an unexpected fear

 

The beastly Raja soiled her pride

For she entertained his thoughts for more than a while

Her breaths were timed and perish so near

Reached her lover far too late to find his beloved no more

 

Men in steel on their flight

Faithful to the Raja’s command

Hurried on horse with their torches bright

To crush him alongside his unwed bride

 

Whispers of ruin became their tune

With royal roses and a shovel in his hand

The Raja made a place for them

To sleep in the land

 

Tara jolted from the past

Untangled by the mystery of the postman

Tis not a dream she saw

He was her destiny in the life that passed

 

Waited she the morning flush

To find her lover long due

This day she would sing the ancient song

That bound their spirits forever long

 

The postman left his home too

Eager to deliver his last letter

To the woman he forever knew

He left on foot to the district of doom

 

Stopping at a garland shop

To stamp his love with a fragrance sweet

The postman froze to see

 The face of his killer on a wrinkled sheet

 

Time stood still

As the postman traveled years behind

To recover the secret of his past

Clutched to this life so very fast

 

In reincarnation they did not believe

Till forced they were to walk its path

Entered the postman back to this time

To claim what was his for all his lives

 

-Zeenat Umar 6/20

(Inspired by the ancient Indian belief of reincarnation)

Mind Control

How would our life be different if we started using the right side of our brain more often? Most people use the left hemisphere of the brain to govern their actions and thoughts; according to the Silva Mind Control, created by Jose Silva in the 50s, training your mind to function at the alpha level, a state in which the brain frequency is between eight to thirteen Hz, through a series of exercises enables you to use both brain hemispheres. The gist of the Silva method is to use more than just the five senses.

The Silva method teaches you dynamic meditation achieved at the alpha level which takes you to a deeper senses of awareness  closely associated with intuition. The alpha level can be attained in about two minutes; the program takes you through a longer session to program your mind to link the physical and mental relaxation with specific numbers, the 3-to-1 countdown initially, but once you master this meditation technique, it should not take you more than two minutes to reach the desired state.

Silva experimented with his own children to help them raise their IQ levels some fifty years ago, and has been actively researching the human mind ever since. The program offers books, audio, video and classes taught by experts across the globe to help people guide themselves through their higher intelligence, or ESP to take control of their lives. For more information go to

http://www.jose-silva.net/content/articles/josesilva/visualization.php

Word origins

I've been reading a book on word origins and some stories are definitely worth sharing! Some of my personal favorites:

The English word martinet was derived from a Frenchman, Jean Martinet, an Inspector General of Infantry, who was reputed as the strictest, most fanatical drillmaster France had ever known during the rule of King Louis XIV. The noun is always used in a negative light by the user for a person who demands unquestioning obedience. 

The adjective laconic, speaking less with more meaning, comes from Laconia, where the residents were known for their economic use of speech. Per legend, when Philip of Macedonia attacked the king with the message, "If we capture your city we will burn it to the ground." The king's response: "If."

Sycophant, bootlicker, comes from the Greeks. The etymological meaning of the word is fig-shower, from the Greek sykon, fig, and phanein, to show. The fig-shower was the person who would tell the officers of the fellow who would steal the figs in the groves or rattle on the fig-dealers dodging taxes. A sycophant will try and get into someone's good books through excessive flattery, submission, etc. In other words, a bootlicker.

Chauvinist was inspired by Nicolas Chauvin, a French soldier, who made a mockery of himself in all of Europe because of his incessant reverence of Napoleon Bonaparte.

By the way, the name George, derived from Geo (earth) was the first farmer, or earth-worker!

Clooney dating Benazir Bhutto's niece???

Wow! That is definitely an eye-catcher. A friend of mine just sent me a link on 'rumors,' the latest being George Clooney dating Fatima Bhutto. I don't really like to comment on other peoples' personal lives, or even read about them because I think it's a waste of time on our part and energy on the writers' part, but I have to admit, I'm guilty of reading this one. Maybe because the whole idea is so wild, or maybe because I've been quite interested in everyone who makes up Bhutto's family tree these days.

I'm not going to violate my principle of not commenting on peoples' personal life though! If they are, it's their business, if not, shame on the person who started the rumor. Oh, and here's the link:

http://gawker.com/5150702/george-clooney-dating-slain-pakistani-leader-benazir-bhuttos-niece?skyline=true&s=i

The natural clock - Sleeping and rising with the Sun

I've been diligently following some tips I picked up from a recent lecture I attended on sleep habits, which tied in to the importance of offering the morning prayer, Fajr, for Muslims on time, that is, at dawn. I've been offering all my prayers since I was about twelve or so, on time, EXCEPT, Fajr. So I set a goal for myself this year, for spiritual reasons, of disciplining myself to wake up early morning even if it took rearranging my lifestyle at large. Wait, read on, this is not about praying Fajr on time (I know most of you are not even Muslim), it's about how sleeping patterns affect your productivity, health and  your general sense of well-being. It makes sense and it works!

Tip 1 : Use the sun as your source of energy. Rise and retire with the sun. Trust me, starting your day at 6 a.m. and ending it at 10 p.m is a natural energy boost. In the days when electricity wasn't invented, that is how people functioned, from earning their livelihood, raising families and taking out recreation time. You feel more efficient and, as a result, become more efficient.

Tip 2 : Try and keep your sleep environment associated with sleep only. That means no watching television, working on your laptop or studying in bed! This is important because you become conditioned to doing certain things around your sleeping space, and if sleeping is not one of them, you may have a tough time dozing off.

Tip 3 : Don't break out of your routine. A lot of people like to sleep-in on weekends, but this interrupts our ""circadian clock" which regulates our cycle. If you keep vacillating, your body gets confused as to what time it is supposed to sleep and wake.

Tip 4: Finish eating at least two or three hours prior to bedtime to avoid discomfort during the night.

Tip 5: Avoid caffeine! Even if you think it doesn't affect your sleep, it probably does. The quality of your rest and sleep will be heaps better if you take it out of your body completely, which is definitely one hell of a task, but even reducing it will help. The effects of caffeine can last up to eight hours in adults, so you definitely want to avoid it close to sleep-time.

Sweet dreams.

Popcorn, coke and Slumdog

"It is written." Whether the overriding theme was destiny or life in the slums, I loved it for a number of reasons. Slumdog Millionaire represented Indian slum life quite accurately, from the open toilets, kidnapping of orphaned children and how a lot of gangsters are born. We all are familiar with the notion that danger helps us forget the miseries of our lives, which was a subtle, but powerful aspect of the film. The direction was superb, acting was great and the music extraordinary.

My friend and I went to Santana Row to watch the 9 p.m. show on a weekday and most of the seats were occupied in the theater even after four weeks. I must say, Cine Arts sells the best popcorn! If you are going to watch a movie in the theater, you might as well go all out and treat yourself to the whole deal ... i know it might not be the healthiest choice to stuff yourself with popcorn and coke, but i think it's acceptable once a month or so.

Back to the movie - so, of course, we were slightly more familiar with the dynamics, my friend being an Indian herself and I, having visited India less than six months ago. (By the way, some of the subtitles were not entirely correct). The one thing I couldn't comprehend, though, was why Danny Boyle picked an actor with a British accent! Anyone faintly acquainted with India would know that slum dwellers would never acquire that accent as long as they lived in India! It was such a blow to the movie, in my opinion, because it was so brilliant otherwise. But moving on the more serious issues, Danny did a fabulous job of depicting slum life in Mumbai. I've seen those slums during my last visit and the real feel was actually more appalling than it looks on screen. And believe me, the kidnapping of orphaned children is not an exaggeration; it happens extensively in both India and Pakistan. In fact, a lot of times, the children are not even sedated before their legs or arms are chopped off so that sympathy earns them more than average money mendicants make, which makes me think how ugly the world can be. The same world you and I live in. And this world is becoming more connected than ever. God help us all.

Life or Land? Will there ever be a solution to this endless war

I know a lot of Muslims would not agree with this solution, but it's definitely something to think about: What if the Palestinians simply surrendered and gave up their land to protect the lives of their children? Obviously, the Gaza conflict has been a hotbed of controversy and I've heard a bunch of perspectives on the issue from family, friends, strangers ... but this one, proposed by my sister, kind of stuck in my mind and I've been thinking about it for over a week now. Is the bloodshed really worth the land? Of course, many would argue that the sacrifices of the countless people who have died for this very cause would be wasted, and many Muslims would argue that this is true jihaad, fighting for your rights, fighting for justice, but firstly, children aren't even supposed to be part of any jihaad, according to Islam, yet they are pulled into this war day in and out. It's not fair to them. But again, is fighting for fairness or justice worth the lives of so many children? It may be easier for someone who is so far away to say, yes it is, but imagine if you were there in the middle of that bloodshed with your children, what would you do?

This land will never have peace until one side surrenders. Of course, this solution also has a bunch of question marks; which countries are willing to accept so many Palestinians as refugees, considering how pathetic most of the world has been in rising against the recent atrocities against these people. Where will they go? And will their children really have a better life or are they just better off dead. 

As for Obama, I am very, very disappointed in him for not speaking out initially about the Gaza conflict. Whether he has taken office or not, he should have been the man he claims he is and stood up for justice.

The third gender, the in-betweens

Black or white.  Male or female.  Not always.  There exists a gray area as part of the human race that doesn't fit the 'he' or 'she' category.  The in-between gender. 

My friend and I were sitting at the famous "Benazir Kulfi" shop in Lahore, Pakistan.  It was around 11 p.m. but the street was exhilaratingly alive.  We had just started devouring a popular Pakistani desert known as kulfi - it's a whole bar in the shape of a horizontal drum of frozen, flavored milk when I spotted a tall hijra across the street; you can recognize them anywhere, by the way they dress, by the way they carry themselves.  I remember the first time I met a 'hijra' in Pakistan many years ago walking around my grandmother's neighborhood, dancing for interested-looking people just for a few rupees.  My cousin and I had stopped to watch the exaggerated dance to an Indian song the hijra ws singing in a man's voice.  Every time I saw them, they were always dressed as women either begging at traffic lights, entertaining people by dancing and singing in their usually hoarse voice.  After talking to a few eunuchs during my last trip to Pakistan a few months ago, I understand why not a single hijra I have come across has adopted a profession other than prostitution, dancing, begging or selling prayers: they are not allowed to by the society they live in; it is unheard of for a hijra to have a respectable job.  The Pakistani ssociety humiliates them with their eyes, their body language, yet when it comes to entertainment, the hijras are called upon to perform dances at weddings or other parties and paid with lots of snickersand a little money.  Most people are very conscious of not having any sort of physical contact with these eunuchs, not even a simple handshake, almost as if they will infect them.  The majority of these hjras in Lahore live in the red-light district, Heera Mandi, but not all sell sexual favors; the ones who do not wish to engage in these activities simply make a living by begging.  And according to Saba, the first hijra I interviewed at Benazir Kulfi shop, some "sell prayers."  (translated from urdu)

Saba was a little different than the average hijra you see roaming the streets, calmer and seemingly religious.  Although layered with makeup to make herself/himself known, Saba said that she does not 'feel like a woman or a man.'  I summed up the courage to ask her within the first few minutes of the interview what exactly made them physically different from both genders.  (Translated from Urdu) "We do not have the reproductive organs of a woman or a man, we just have a hole over there by birth where we urinate from."  

During our half-hour conversation, Saba thanked Allah (God) numerous times by allahmdullilah in response to me asking her/him whether or not 'she' felt angry at 'her' ill fate.  (They generally refer to themselves in the female gender)  She said that she prays and goes to the mosque regularly and while during her childhood she did question God's will many a time, she accepts her fate and knows that there is a reason their kind exists that they do not understand but it is the way God made them, then allahmdulillah.  She said humans cannot comprehend the will of God and why He makes certain people the way He does but her faith does not allow her to cry over something she has no control over, something that was clearly His will.  And because of religion, Islam, Saba does not make a living out of prostitution but just giving people duas (prayers) and has to 'dress up' as a woman so she may be easily spotted for the sake of earning money.  People of Pakistan give money to hijras out of sympathy and supersition - some believe that denying a hijra money will result in bad luck. 

My friend politely asked Saba whether she was sexually attracted to men or women and Saba replied, "we have no such feeling for either sex; we are not born with them."  She said she lives with a group of hijras because that is their only social circle.  They have never been and never will be accepted as part of common soceity; the only people they are accepted by and can lead a peaceful life with are hijras. 

Saba roused my interest in the hijra community and shortly after my meeting with her, I visited a run-down apartment where three hijras resided.  Only one, Simi, was home.  She looked more like a woman than Saba, with softer hair and softer features.  In fact, it would be quite easy to mistake Simi for a woman if she did not talk in her manly voice.  I was a little uncomfortable in the apartment, not because of Simi, but because of the scandalous neighborhood.  Simi differed from Saba greatly.  She said she always felt like a girl, and in fact, was actually born a man! It is hard to differentiate between the ones who are physically and mentally in-between.  Despite their differences, Simi and Saba both left home when they were eight or nine years old.  Their family members were 'normal' and lead normal lives which of course, made it impossible for them to live there.  So they found their families with each other.  Simi was not a prostitute either, but she was a professional dancer an was often called to parties to perform. 

It must be formidable to feel differently than the gender you're born as, and even harder to be born with no gender.  But these people still deserve respect and a chance at leading a somewhat normal life.