A blurry picture but a very, very vivid memory of one of the best days of my life. A major milestone on the journey that I set out on 4 years ago. On my birthday in 2019, I had initiated a shift in my life. With every passing year, I align that shift more to my growing awareness of myself; every birthday I become more ‘me’. (As the Kung Fu Panda says in the third movie of the series- I don’t have to teach you to be me, I just have to teach you to be you! )
I wish I could post pictures from my birthday so you would all see the joy that I am absolutely bursting with! (But I’m not in hijab so I will refrain from posting them.)
Just a day before the D-Day, while attending a lecture in a course on Locating the Postcolonial Feminine that I’ve been taking, there had been a discussion on how women are conditioned to privilege their family- their marital family to be precise- over all other relationships in life. That triggered something in me and I decided to privilege my friends this time- my new bunch of young friends who make me happier than ever. Growing up, I had very few close friends, because I was always different from people of my own age group, always too radical in my ideas and notions for my immediate surroundings. The ones that I did have are my friends even to this day, because they were the handful that understood me and I understood them. My friends from Senior Secondary Girls (Abdullah) were the ones that showed me some of the best times of my life!
But the older I grow, the more I bond with people far younger than me – 10 years or even more. I feel a sense of belonging with them, a sense of greater alignment in our ideas about the world. For so many years, I have felt that I belong to the future. The future seems to have found me now.
And so I decided to spend my birthday in my ‘second home’ with my young, exuberant friends. (Those of you who know this will know what I’m talking about. Those of you who don’t- well, you’ll find out in time! )
Not only did they go out of their way to give me a midnight surprise, I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said that I hadn’t felt more fully ‘me’ in a long, long time as I did that day with them. Such ease of being, such comfort, such joy, such care. I have often said in my posts that I do not believe that unconditional love exists, or that it can be found anywhere. But that day when my friends surprised me, I experienced what it was like to be loved unconditionally, without any terms and conditions attached. To be loved as I am, without any expectation of sacrificing parts of myself in order to be loved. Without any conditions of ‘propriety’ and ‘virtue’ being imposed on me, without any conditions of ‘acceptable behaviour’ as the price of being loved. Darlings, you know who you are. Thank you for this most precious gift.
To top it all, I had two birthday celebrations. I threw my own party for a large group of friends – the kind of party I would never have thought of having on my birthday, if not for my second home.
A tailor-made party of my favourite kind- candle light, soft Sufi music and everyone singing ghazals or folk songs. So we had a delightful mish mash of Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Multani, Sindhi, Punjabi, Urdu, Hindi and English songs! The best sort of music mix ever. I had never realised that my favourite kind of parties are the ones that have a softness, a sense of poetry and a rich, joyous languidness to them.
Every day at my new home I discover bits of myself in other souls, souls that mirror mine. I discover parts of myself that I had forgotten, or even those that I never knew existed.
To have a second home with friends is an indescribable state of rapture. Words fail me now, so I will use the words of my favourite Professor Bazaz:
‘If you have found a home here, a place that fulfils you intellectually and makes you feel like yourself, then it doesn’t matter where you go in life. You will always carry this home within you.’
Thank you for that, Professor. Thank you.
May we all find such ‘homes’ that become inseparable parts of us and keep us ensconced in the comforting cloud of belonging that comes from holding a home, forever, in the innermost sanctums of your heart.
This post was written 4 months ago, atop the upper berth of a carriage in the Prayagraj Express, en route to Delhi from Allahabad. As one of the most tumultuous and bewildering years of my life comes to a close, I thought it appropriate to end it with this post that contains a letter to my sweet little H, the apple of my eye.
I was about to fall asleep on my train berth. I felt cold and drew my blanket over my head, and then idly wondered if I might suffocate and be found dead by morning. Passed away peacefully in my sleep.
That sounds like a nice way to die, peacefully in one’s sleep. Inside a blanket. On a nice little train berth, pleasantly air conditioned, rocking gently to and fro like a cradle, snuggled inside a soft sky blue blanket. I’ve loved sleeping in trains ever since I was a kid.
And as I thought this I wondered what I’d like to do if it were indeed my last night in this human form?
I’d had a lovely conversation without jhagda (quarreling) with my better half after quite a long time! Check.
I’d had a tears-of-happiness conversation with my sister in the evening. Check.
But little H!
His face swam before my eyes. Since he and his cousin little S were asleep together on the berth opposite mine, I hadn’t kissed him or hugged him before sleep as I always did.
And I suddenly knew what I wanted to do if it’s the last thing I did.
I wanted to write a letter to you, my son.
I think I’m just projecting myself over here, because I have always yearned to have something written by my father for me to read. I knew he was a man of letters. Of poetry. Of books and deep thoughts. I wish I could have had something with me that would help me know him better. Who he truly deeply was. His fears, his dreams, his worries, his passions. Every day of my life I keep wishing I knew him more.
But in spite of all my morbid death fantasies, I hope you never have to read this letter as my last to you.
I hope and pray that I stay alive to write you more letters. Because I know what it’s like to have only half of me alive at all times—the other half conjured up only through memory and imagination.
I don’t know who exactly I’m writing this letter to. Grown up Hasan? Teenage Hasan? Child Hasan?
We can never really know who reads our letters once they’re out there, can we?
Little H, I don’t worry about you, because I see you’re a fine little man already. You’re thoughtful, sensitive, independent. You have the sprouts of universal love in you. You’re truthful and understand the meaning of justice and compassion.
You’ll grow up to be a fine man.
I don’t want to tell you who you should be. All I want is for you to be a good human being. What you do with your gifts is up to you.
And you have many gifts: you love animals and birds and insects and trees and flowers. The natural world excites you endlessly. You love automobiles and machinery – cars, trucks, planes, bikes and their functioning. You love listening to me recite my poetry to my mother although you don’t understand a word of it. You like flipping through my thick books and sometimes make me read from them to you, just because you want to share what Mamma was reading. You have many gifts dear heart. Life will show you the way and help you discover them as you grow and evolve.
What I do worry about is that there are too many patriarchal systems around you, woven in inextricable ways that undo all the tapestries of equity and gender justice that I try and weave around you.
I do know that I would be very unhappy if a son of mine grew up to be a man who does not think of women as his equals, as people who have the same rights as him, and who deserve the same opportunities as him, whatever differences there may be in physiology. Be the man who considers women and men as equals, my son, but also the man who understands the differences between sexes and the struggles emanating from them.
For it is important to stress that equality does not mean similarity.
Two people may be very different in skin colour, hair colour, eye colour, nose shape, mouth shape and so on, but they’re still entitled to being treated as equals- in opportunity, in law and in life. In humanity. People confuse equality with sameness. But being equal doesn’t mean being the same.
Equality is the right to being treated as equals despite all the diversity and differences that exists among human beings.
I would be very sad if you did not grow up to respect women. If you saw the privilege that you had as a man and felt smug and entitled about it- instead of feeling that this privilege came to you at a cost to someone else, and knowing that the onus was on you to correct this skewed reality. Knowing that the onus was on you to take enabling action, which allows someone else to flourish and thrive along with you.
Know this, my son: being born into privilege means it is a test you inherited, to see how much of that privilege you are willing to relinquish for the sake of equality and justice in society, in the world. This applies not just across genders, but across groups that are traditionally underprivileged- financially, religiously, socially.
What will matter most is how willing are you to speak out for and support those who are marginalised, whose voices are constantly being stifled and whose presence is constantly being crushed. Nothing would make me happier than seeing you stand up and speak for the oppressed.
When in doubt, always use this mantra—look at the power structure. Where is the centre of power? Who holds the most power? Only then will you begin to understand the lay of the land, only then will you be able to understand who is being oppressed. And if you find yourself in a position of power, remember, power is only given to you to help the maximum number of people you can. That and that alone is the correct use of power.
Always remember this: human beings are all fallible. Do not make demi-gods out of them, do not turn your heroes into people you worship. Always be ready to ask questions and be prepared for uncomfortable answers. Humans are always looking for saviours, and from there stems our tendency to put people on pedestals and worship them. Worship no human, my son! Uphold only the principle of humanity above all else. Do not go looking for saviours. People must make efforts to save their own selves. But beyond that, try and save as many others as you can.
Always try to see things from different points of view, even though that perspective may clash with yours. Always try to understand and explore various opposing points of view, and only then make up your mind. And even then, be ready to listen and course-correct.
And when you have made up your mind, my son – (let me say this with the help of a verse from the Quran) – “And when you have made up your mind, then put your trust in the Lord. Undoubtedly, the trustful are dear to the Lord.”
Happy New Year, little H. May you learn many, many new things this year, and may you grow into a man who is a paragon of knowledge, courage, compassion and fairness. Above all, fairness.
The first post of the New Year. I’ve been wanting to write this for quite some time now, and I wanted this post to be about love.
As it happens, though, this post is about death.
Today morning, the first message I saw on my phone opened
all by itself. I picked up the phone to check the time, but what appeared on
the screen was this message instead. It was from a religious site called
Ali-Walay. I get messages every day from them, but I think I almost never check
these.
My relationship with religion can best be defined, in
Facebook terms, as: ‘It’s complicated.’
Religion has been my refuge and my anchor, but it’s also
been my anguish and my conflict. I have been both consoled by it and tormented
by it. It is my sanctum sanctorum, my ‘safe space’ in this world—the place I go
to when I feel ambushed and weary and defeated and lost. The place I seek
solace in, like a mother’s lap. Or more appropriately in my case, like a
father’s arms, for my mother says I never called out to her whenever I fell
down— I always called out to my father.
I find my solace in prayer, in abiding by the guidelines of
the illuminated path. But also constantly keep pushing against it, trying all
the while to evaluate and test the boundaries, seeking the truth of what has
actually been revealed, attempting to sift from what has merely been passed
down as a filtered narrow version. It reminds me a little of the 6 year old
headstrong son of mine, how he keeps questioning every word I say, probing and
probing and pushing against the boundaries until he is absolutely convinced. It
doesn’t, in any way, lessen his love for me, or the comfort he finds in my
embrace.
So too it is with me and faith. A constant symphony of
solace and angst, a choreography of embracing and withdrawing.
Tending more towards a gentler spirituality than a strict religiosity, I have strived hard, often maddeningly and torturously, to find a balance wherein I can be religious without being restrictive, and try, at least try, to be moral (somewhat, I suppose, though that’s not for me to say) without being judgemental, attempting to stay rooted while remaining open to the world. How far I have succeeded, I cannot say, because it is an endless, infinite journey, never a destination. The ultimate destination and the moment of evaluation can only ever be death.
Which brings me back to the message that manifested before
me today. I say manifested, because it appeared suddenly without any attempt on
my part to read it, or even to open my WhatsApp. I just unlocked my phone, and
there it was, staring at me.
“What is the first thing to be snatched from me when I die?”
said the message, which was in Urdu. “It is my name.”
“For when I die, people will not ask where I am, but they will
ask, where is the laash (corpse)? They
will not call me by my name!
When they read my namaz e janazah (funeral prayer for the departed) they will
not ask where I am, they will ask where is the janazah (dead body)? They will not take my name!
And when it’s time to bury me, they will say, bring the mayyat closer! No one will take my name!”
The lines struck my heart. Not because it was something I’d
never thought of, but because it was something I’d always thought of. The first time being in 2010. My second
rendezvous with death, the first of course being my father’s.
This second death was the death of a college-time friend.
She wasn’t my best friend or anything, and in a sense we weren’t very close. We’d
been in the same school though and even shared our last names. But it was actually
in college that we attended an inter-varsity workshop in Naintial together, and
stayed in the same room for a few days—even ending up having a fight—which
ultimately brought us closer to each other. Or at least, I felt closer to her.
Later we would sit together sometimes and share some very personal things.
Ima, for that was her name, departed from the world in
November 2010, a month after my wedding. The news of her death reached me,
ironically, as I was watching my wedding video with the entire family. It was a
great shock.
Vivacious, energetic, a brilliant mind and a kind heart.
Devil-may-care attitude and a desire to live life to the fullest. Her passing
seemed a travesty of life itself. It felt like a personal brush with death to
me, as in the case of my father. Ironically, just like my Papa, Ima too passed
away in a car accident—wrenched forcefully from life.
The day that she was flown in from Bangalore to Aligarh for
the funeral, I was at my in-laws house, about to get ready for a community celebration.
I was picking out my clothes when I overheard my mother in law on the phone
with someone, saying, “The body will be here around 4 p.m.”
Body!
A sharp stab of pain pierced my heart to hear of my friend being referred to as a body!
Is the physical manifestation of a person so unimportant,
that as soon as he or she ceases to be ‘alive’, they become merely a body?
Where does this thought arise from? Is it because only the spirit is important,
only the spirit that is the truth of the person? Or is it because we are afraid
of death, of the cold pallor it spreads upon the ones it claims, of the perennial
stiffness and silence it brings in its wake? We are made so uncomfortable by
death that we distance ourselves from the ones claimed by it—we relegate them
to the status of a body, an impersonal, indifferent description, proclaiming
tacitly that we have nothing to do with this physical manifestation that has
been claimed by death. Distancing ourselves from the person, thereby distancing
ourselves from death. The spirit, pure and indestructible, belonged to our
realm—the realm of the living—and this body, weak and easily overpowered, bears
no affinity to us.
Our rejection of the earthly, physical self of those we love hides in itself an inherent fear of death. We do not want to associate ourselves with it.
And yet, for as long as I can remember, I have never once referred
to a loved one as a body. Even when they’re in their final abode, hidden beneath
the earth.
For many, many years after his passing, I never even spoke
of my father in the past tense, preferring always to say, “My father is this,”
or “My father does this.” Never was.
Never did. Because he is forever
living, a constant presence in my life. I refused to allow ‘Late’ to be written
before his name even in my wedding card, as is usually done. To my family, I
explained it thus: “Those who know he has departed, don’t need to be told. And
those who don’t know, don’t need to be told either. He is here, and will always
be.”
Even now, when I speak to my husband about going to
Allahabad, I always say. “It’s been so long. I have to go to Papa.” Or “We need
to go to Papa soon.”
He was, is and will always be my Papa. In life and in death.
Forever mine.
When my dearly beloved grandfather passed away, I winced
every time people referred to his ‘body’ being given the ritual funeral bath. I
winced when people called out: put the ‘body’ here on the bed. Why, oh why! He
is a person! He has a name. Not half an hour ago you were all calling him by
his name. How dare you call him a body! Watching my kind, gentle, pure-hearted,
poetry-loving grandfather who was always so full of life, being carried away to
his abode beneath the earth was perhaps the saddest, most deeply grievous
moment of my life. Watching his face get covered by the white cloth of the
kafan, hearing the marsiyekhaans of Jalali recite the heart-rending elegies of
Imam Husain as we stood around Baba and wept with loud wails, watching the khaake shifa on his closed eyes…they are
all the saddest moments of my life. And yet! There was such tenderness in his
death, an inexplicable gentleness that was perhaps a remnant of the kindness
pervading his soul.
He was my grandfather, my beloved Baba even in the shroud.
Even on the shoulders of the men of the family. Even in the van that carried
him away. He is my Baba, even in his final resting place. Never was he a body
to me and never shall he ever be.
For I am not repulsed by death. It does not frighten me. My
love is not restricted to the land of the living, for death is merely a
passage. And beyond death lies the truth, the land of the forever living.
A person is always a person, whether walking upon the earth
or hidden beneath it.
The ones we’ve loved deeply and truly cannot be reduced to
mere bodies, just because we cannot watch them walk or hear them talk, just
because we cannot hear their heart beat anymore, just because we cannot see
them breathing in and out. They were and will be people, real people, in life
and in death, forever ours.
I suppose I did end up writing about love, though, for love encompasses death and moves with it, beyond it, all around it.
Even the Taj Mahal, a monument to eternal love is, after all, a mausoleum.
Today you came to me and showed me how to remove the cheese slice from the wrapping without breaking it. Because you like the entire square intact.
Little Hasan, you’re growing up.
Every day, I watch you grow up in tiny, imperceptible ways. I notice the change in your tone, in your manner of speaking. How you assert your opinion, instead of just throwing a tantrum. I notice how you want more details, more logical answers to questions. I see you rising like the sun and I’m filled with wonder. Awe.
I could never perhaps, be the kind of mother I wanted to be. I could never be the happiest mom on earth, the doting mother, the sacrificing mother. Perhaps I’d never be the woman who gets everything done on time, in the most patient manner. I was perhaps never cut out to be a mother at all.
But the older you grow, the more I wonder at motherhood. It makes me feel things I’ve never felt before. Because I see you develop into yourself, develop more fully into a human being.
For it is not enough to be born human; we must grow into one as well.
You’re growing into a human now, a human who has been given to me— to love to protect, to nurture. But never to control.
Dear boy, this is what I want to tell you, whenever you read this.
I wish to be the mother who learns from you. Never the mother who is irked by ‘young upstarts telling her how to do things better’. I wish to be the mother who is contradicted by you. Never the mother who cannot stand ‘being talked back to’. I want to be the mother who sees the world in a new light, and the light is shown by you.
I want you to be your own person, little boy. I want you to be you.
Just as I want me to be me, as well.
I have always guarded my independence and my identity, my dreams and my aspirations, and never wished to dissolve entirely into the role of mother or wife. And that is why, I think, I cannot look upon you only as my son. You are your own person. An individual. A human. And it fills me with awe and wonder. Beyond being my son, you are someone who has two eyes, two ears, a nose, two hands, two feet—and a brain and heart. All distinct from mine. Why should you see, hear, smell, touch, think and feel the way I do?
I do not wish to see you develop into an image or shadow of me. Why should you? God made you into a distinct individual, with your own destiny. There was a time, little boy, when all I wanted was to be who my father wanted me to be. He was the one who was most proud of me, the one who most pushed me to achieve. And then, somewhere along the journey, I realised that my dreams are my own. I have a path to follow, a destination to reach. And that doesn’t belong to my father; it belongs to me. That was when I cut loose from the dream of being an officer of the law, like him. That was when I went on to explore who it was that I actually wanted to be.
I am my own person. A person who takes her own decisions and becomes who she wants to be. I am not my father’s shadow, and I’m sure he would never want me to be a shadow at all—anybody’s. We were all put on this earth with our own distinct minds and hearts and senses, to reach out to our destinations and fulfil our destiny.
And that, dear one, is why I hope you’ll show me new facets of the world through your eyes. Filling me with even more awe, for the human that you become.
The umbilical cord is severed at birth, my son. Because that is the end of you being an extension of me.
No, it’s not my birthday. It’s not the beginning of a new year. Well, yes, it is the first month of the Islamic calendar, but that is not the reason for this post. Or is it? It may be that spiritual times make one contemplate the nature of truth and belief systems more deeply. Or perhaps, more appropriately, these are merely random ruminations of a twisted, convoluted mind.
So here are six lessons that life hurled at my head. Whack! Ouch.
Everything can be questioned.
Everything in this world— every belief system, every value system, every tradition, all feelings of pride, belonging and origins—all of these can and should be questioned. All heroes can be deconstructed and looked at from critical perspectives. Ideas, narratives, events—all of them have changed forms numerously before they reached you. It is naïve to imagine that all the information reaching you is pure and undiluted. No question is ever right or wrong, though the answers may be. The truth, if at all such a thing even exists, can only be sought through greater and greater probing. The surface of the ocean scarcely reveals what lies within the depths.
Questions are not always expressions of doubt
Isn’t that what teachers in classrooms ask: any doubts or confusions? Perhaps that’s where we internalise the idea that questions are related to doubts and confusion. In truth, questions are merely related to thirst, to seeking. To learning. The word ‘question’ is an answer unto itself; for it hides within it the word ‘quest.’ Every question is a quest for knowledge. Every question is a quest for the truth. It may not necessarily be an indication of doubt or scepticism, it may not be, as we tend to believe, an act of casting aspersions on an entity, tradition, idea or belief system. It may just be a desire to probe further and know what lies in the depths. Particularly in relation to religious and national identity, it is possible for one to live in harmony with those systems, be comfortingly and safely ensconced within their embrace, and yet question them incessantly—perhaps only with the intention of distilling and distilling until one finds the purest version. Or perhaps one would find that no such thing as a pure version exists. Sometimes when you peel off the layers, you find… nothing. There is no core. No centre. The centre is a void, a nothingness—much like the dark nothingness that fills up the universe; the nothingness we refer to as outer space. It stays there, a vacuum with its own existence, a blank that doesn’t feel the need to be filled. That is where questions are supposed to lead us: into the vastness of the universe.
Sometimes one may choose, temporarily, not to enter the depths.
The depths can be frightening. It may not be absolutely necessary for me to know what lies in the depths of the ocean—though it would be good for me to find out. And yet, I may choose only to swim with the waves, I may choose only to see what appears on the surface. Perhaps I’m not ready yet to enter the depths? It is possible. Perhaps I tried and what I found scared me? It is possible, too. Perhaps I tried and was saddened by what I saw? Perhaps I tried and what I saw wasn’t beautiful? Perhaps it horrified me to the extent of destroying the wondrous, serene image of the ocean I had been carrying with me for so long? It is possible. And that may lead me to halt my quest and content myself with swimming in the outer, buoyant waters, full of radiance and joy. And that’s alright. There is a time for everything, and perhaps my time for getting closer to the truth has not yet arrived.
Sometimes a lie may give life.
Ironic, isn’t it? Sometimes a false hope, a false belief may inspire you to move forward to victory. Sometimes an imaginary ideal may lead you to be the best version of yourself. Sometimes a lie may lead you to believe in the truth of your own ability. Pretty contorted, right? Sigh. This world is such a contorted place. Always spiralling inwards, folding in on itself.
No one will ever be one hundred per cent in agreement with you.
Nope. Not your best friend, not your sweetheart, not your sibling, not your parents, not your children. The only one who will ever agree with you one hundred per cent of the time is yourself. No—not even you. You won’t always be in agreement with yourself either, for there will always be internal conflicts, confusions, rebellions within. That would be your own self disagreeing with you.
Still, the only one who comes close to being always in agreement with you, is you. And that is because every person is unique. There’s only one of every person on this earth. Each of us has a unique mind with distinctive thoughts, and has lived a distinct life with experiences unique to us. Our thoughts and behaviours are modelled by those life experiences, and since no two people ever lead the exact same life, no two people will ever entirely agree with each other. So, dear overgrown child-woman, stop trying to convince people so that they agree absolutely with you or see the world the exact same way that you see it. And stop trying to find people who think the exact same way as you do. No such person exists. That person could only be a clone of you. But you would find it very, very difficult to get along with a clone of yourself, because then you would see, well and truly, how awful a person you are. Seriously.
Everyone you’ve ever met in life for some significant moment has become a part of you. The things people do, the things they say, the things you agree with or disagree with, all of it is within you and comes out at some point in life, in the form of a thought, an action, an emotion. Every person who forced you in some way to think, to act, to alter course, or made you decide to remain on course—all of them are within you, for better or for worse. You will never ‘forget’ any of them, though you may perhaps forgive. Stop trying to fight them. Make peace with them. They could have hurt you or pleased you from outside, but from here, from within you, the only person hurting you or pleasing you is you. Don’t hurt yourself any more.
And that’s about it. None of the above ideas are expected to motivate, inspire or guide anyone else how to lead their life. They are random observations, things I happened to learn till now—and may have to unlearn, moving forward. They are notes to myself; meant only to be read and pondered over. And deconstructed.
Stuck in Sydney posting old photos taken with various camera phones on my world travels. Posting in arty Black and White and includes witty commentary 🇦🇺
Zehra Naqvi 