Homebody Discovers a Lost Blog Post

Was just deleting some old files when I came across this. I hope you enjoy. No, there aren’t any more unpublished posts. Hope all of you are doing well!

I’m growing old. This bothered me five minutes ago. But now it doesn’t. Here’s why.

So this year I turn thirty. I am told that thirty is the new twenty. This is a sweet little lie because even homebody is not that bad at math. Not anymore. Thirty is the new thirty. (Ms. Soares will be so proud of me; she once banged my head against my desk and then hers against the wall when I once wrote 2=3 as the answer to an algebraic formula and delightedly demonstrated my conclusion to her at the end of the period.) Fact is if I was living a hundred years ago I would be ‘on the shelf’. I’d be dead in a decade; while today I have about forty more years to go, if all goes well. So I’ve lived almost half my life – unless I live to be eighty or ninety. In any case, there’s no point speculating. The fact is: homebody is ageing.

Age, for me, has manifested itself on my body. I used to be flat. Blissfully sexless, which was so comfortable because I didn’t have to wear a dupatta everywhere. But now, I’m bootilicious, which is not a dream come true because I want to hold on to that pre-teen anorexic look that represented the old days for me. It made me feel comfortable, that I was still that little girl whose father was still alive, who watched Captain Planet and ran mad over the house, not worrying about thunder thighs and support bras and other items of clothing to make sure not everything flung itself all over the place with every step I took. Now, I have to make sure I’m more, shall we say, contained.

And the thing about weight gain that most gets you down is that you don’t fit into all those pretty clothes that hang in your closet, waiting patiently to be worn. You could wear them six months ago, but hormones kicked in, metabolism kicked the bucket and gravity started its magic. You begin to spread and spread until one day, your clothes suddenly go taut on you; despite the fact that you’re holding your breath and sucking your tummy in until you burst a kidney. And there’s that ominous ripping sound when you sit down.

So, five minutes ago, I cleaned my closet and took out the outfits that I hadn’t worn for a year, because I was waiting to be thin enough to wear them. I thought there would be three, maybe four.

There were TEN outfits. Beautiful ones. With the most exquisite hand and needlework. And I’d only worn them once and then kept them aside for ‘special occasions’. Royal blues, reds, greens and maroons. And oh. That one beige, glittering masterpiece of chiffon and silk.

I lay them on the bed and examined them. I would probably be able to fit into them if I exercised diligently for a month. But I had been telling myself this for over a year. My body was changing, the pre-teen look wasn’t coming back. Ever.

But as I stared at these outfits, something clicked. I took them off their hangers and folded them, lovingly. And I put them in a bag and gave them to my cook, whose son is getting married next month. He took them stoically, he doesn’t like being in a position where he needs help. So I kind of sidled up and put them next to him and told him he should take the ones he could use. He took them all.  

And five minutes ago, I checked my closet, which is emptier than it has ever been. There are no longer countless clothes; each kameez hangs solitary and proud. And suddenly, I feel deliciously free – empty but full of possibility. I have aged and this is my new body and those clothes were for an old me. There’s more of me, physically yes, but also in terms of the experiences and tidbits of wisdom that I like to think I’ve gained. The old me had a lot of hopes and dreams which were no more. The new me has new hopes and new dreams which need some more breathing space.

My ten year old self was precocious, my twenty year old self was uncertain. But at thirty, I’d like to think that I’ve settled into who I am. Which means that I can truly BEGIN to live life on my terms: terms where I have space, where I am independent and where I can breathe freely and deeply,  just like the clothes in my closet. . After all, homebody just created space for who she is about to become. Which is terribly, terribly exciting, don’t you think?

Homebody Writes Her Last Blogpost

This is my swan song. The last entry. The proverbial cherry on the cake which has been sufficiently baked and to overcook it would be a shame.

You  see, most bloggers start out enthusiastically and then months later fizzle out slowly and inexorably; so that a year later you realize that you haven’t read anything from them recently; and you click on their link and you see a notice to the effect of ‘last updated three years ago’. And that notice fills me with sadness, it’s like seeing a dead cat on the side of the road, or like tea that’s left too cold in the cup on an ignored side table and you’re forced to drain it down the sink. I love this blog far too much to do that to it. I hope you have drunk your fill; enjoyed what you have tasted; but this is a gentle notice that there will be no more refills. I think the start of a project is auspicious – why shouldn’t the end of it be also?

I write this post with great sadness. Not because I’ll miss blogging – which I probably will, but because my decision to end comes concurrently with the news of someone’s diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. One day this person was fine, the next day this person was operated upon and the doctors discovered that the cancer had spread its tentacles to surrounding organs. And I thought to myself, if that ever happened to me, what would my reaction be? I couldn’t rejoice in my safety and temporary immunity from bad news – thirty years on the planet have taught me it’s no consolation to know you’re okay when someone else is suffering. Even if that someone else isn’t terribly close to you. I just sat and thought about what I would feel if I would die a year from now and I realized that I would be filled with regret that I hadn’t written more stories.

I have a very strong suspicion that I’m a writer. I think there are many stories within me that I need to tap. But just as pressure builds before a volcano erupts, just as silence precedes the storm, these stories will unveil themselves to me only when I give them the creative space to become. Right now, my creative climate is very dependable – regular showers that wash the pavement, soon to be forgotten. My blog posts are precious but also trivial – they don’t allow me to feel the longing and anticipation that will allow for a more significant piece of writing. A friend, mentor and writer told me that I must feel the ‘silence within the soul’ before the stories come. These blog posts interrupt that silence and I don’t want that to happen anymore. So I must pave the way.

So what has blogging taught me? It’s taught me that you write when you are fundamentally discontented with what is; it’s a way of figuring out who you are and why are things the way they are and also a way of coming to terms with the contrast therein. It’s taught me that it can bring you a lot of joy. It’s taught me that there are a lot of wonderful writers around me, whose blogs I’ve read and enjoyed and will continue to do so. It’s introduced me to a wonderful online community, who I met at a dinner party in a beautiful house that reminded me of the Von Trapp household in The Sound of Music. It also taught me that the instant gratification of readership and comments is the ultimate confidence building machine – writing is a lonely process and to embark on it, you need to have a supportive group that reaffirms your inner suspicion that you are, in fact, a writer, even if you aren’t published yet. And when you have been in this group, you can start venturing out alone, on your own. You have the emotional strength to go on a journey that’s frustrating and quite arduous.

So I end by thanking my readers. Some of you I can thank personally, others I thank in this post. You have given me confidence, praise and a lot of happiness and I hope your dreams come true.

And therefore, ladies and gentlemen, homebody takes her last bow. It’s been a pleasure.

Where Homebodies Dare…

Another thing about homebodies – they like to travel. It sounds paradoxical, doesn’t it? Not really.

Living carefully, prudently, hedging in your desires means that once a year, or once in a while, you yearn to break loose from all boundaries and inhibitions and do something that is completely different. And with a biker-chick soul, I want to occasionally do something that is outrageous along with it.

Last year, I went to Turkey. I had made plans to be completely imprudent: I’d dance on table tops and kiss Turkish men and go dancing at night, all night. I would be repressed-but-now-out-of-control-Pakistani-woman-of-the-world-without-mum. I would be a force to be reckoned with. I’d drink alcohol and eat EVERYTHING. I would ‘live’ to the fullest, like I hadn’t ever before.

But reality was a little different. You see, homebodies lack spontaneity and their sudden yearnings for freedom aren’t necessarily coordinated with my own. This meant that none of my homebody friends were ready to come with me. So I booked an escorted tour on which the average age was 55. And my dreams of indiscriminate hedonism went down the drain.

There was no one to sleep with, although Frank, a sixty-something darling said to me, in front of his face-palming wife that he’d flirt with me if he’d just brought his Viagra with him. I was adopted by a lovely Indian couple and Yogi, as we called him, wouldn’t let me splurge on ridiculous trinkets because he said that as surrogate parent (he was baby-sitting me throughout the trip; quite successfully in fact) he found he couldn’t allow me to waste my hard-earned money. And then when I wanted to take a sip of alcohol, a seventy-something kindred spirit named told me about his son’s experience and said, ‘Now, do you really want a glass of wine?’ Another beautiful friend from Britain encouraged me to take a sip and told me she’d take care of me, but remembering the warnings, I desisted. Besides, a sip and then being taken care of is hardly hedonism, right?

And yet, and yet. Turkey is permanently lodged in my soul. Not just because it’s a beautiful country - a hot air balloon ride above the rugged ridges and exotic rock formations of Cappadocia, with the sun on one side and rain on the other, is quite possibly the highest point of my life, literally and metaphorically. But that’s not why Turkey was amazing for this homebody.

Turkey was my first stint at independence. Despite warnings that I’d be bored, or get lost, or get raped, I still traveled alone. It was planned, financed and executed by me. I went thinking I’d see interesting new things, which I did. But what made the trip for me was the people.

I met some of the most beautiful people who have ever existed – a man who designed gems and grew flowers and who loved his wife, another woman who wrote her soul and giggled and learned to cat-whistle in Taksim square; and another who designed the most amazing costume jewelry for craft fairs. I met a woman who was discovering her rock-star soul at sixty, after having left an abusive husband. I met two gay ladies who were passionately in love even after twenty years. I met a man who mourned his dead wife still; so much that he was trying to walk his grief out along the ruins of Istanbul.

I remember thinking one night, in an Italian restaurant at Taksim which served the most amazing Spaghetti Bolognese, that all these people had once been homebodies like me, they were probably still homebodies. But they still had a sense of adventure, a zest for life that showed in warm smiles and shining faces. And there you go, epiphany hits: being a homebody is a really cool thing; much cooler than dancing topless on table tops. The freedom of the soul is much more important than anything else, and these men and women taught me that. I felt blessed to be among this wise, funny, inspiring group of people: they were spiritual rock stars and biker chicks and infinitely cool people.

And now, like Vianne Rocher from Chocolat, the wind changes for me too. I feel the same tug to dare to travel to another land. Last night, I dreamt of Andalusia. I think it’s time for homebody to venture forth again.  

Homebody and the Face of Pakistan

I was ecstatic when Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy won the Oscar. Then I became slightly depressed that she won an Oscar at 33 when at 29, my biggest achievement has been to eat 10 Kit-Kats in a row, really, really fast. But I’m the only one comparing, so whatever.

So in the wake of the congratulations and twitter dedications and facebook updates (in which I too came up with a little ditty: Don’t just congratulate – donate! To http://acidsurvivorspakistan.org/you-can-help )I came across a lot of articles about the ‘face’ of Pakistan – not just a terrorist face but a smiling woman in a sleeveless Bunto Kazmi graciously dedicating her success to the unsung heroes and women for Pakistan. And suddenly, I remembered another face that I had encountered back at the University of Karachi. I don’t know why I think about this person often – but I decided to write a blog post talking about why HE represents the curious, contradictory and surprising face of Pakistan to me.

I don’t know his name; about which I’m very ashamed because he sat with me in philosophy for six months. He had kohl-rimmed eyes, unshaven cheeks and a permanent frown on his face. His skin was pock-marked – he’d had a bad case of small pox when he was young, it seemed. He wore a loose shirt and extremely tight trousers. And he glared at me whenever I giggled too loud. Through the course of the six months, his views were clear – he was an MQM following Muslim who believed that the sound of a girl’s voice asserting a contradictory opinion was an anomaly of nature and a blight upon society. I used to avoid talking to him, labeled him as a Mutahida Fundo and had nothing to do with him. I never tried to engage him in debate or discussion and am ashamed to say that I snickered whenever he spoke to make him feel uncomfortable and unvalidated.

So it happened that my philosophy course ended and I went my way. A year later, as I walked down the Arts Lobby, I was stopped by a man calling me: ‘Madam! Madam!’ I turned around to see his scowling person marching my way. I took a few steps back, wondering if my anti-Altaf rantings in class had inflamed him to take action. My defensive side perked up and with a raise of an eyebrow and a haughty ‘Jee?’ I asked him what he wanted.

He reached into his back pocket and took out a photograph of me.

I was stunned.

‘You dropped this when you were taking documents out of your file to pay your fees. I picked it up and took it before it could go into the wrong hands, koi ziadti nahi ho jai. And then philosophy ended and then I didn’t see you around – I don’t usually come to the Art’s lobby. So, here you go and in future be careful with your photographs!’

I think he would have been satisfied to see my jaw drop and remain dropped as he walked away. This long-haired hooligan who I had dismissed for a pseudo-gangster and dismissed had actually done something remarkable chivalrous, even though he didn’t like me. From me he had received cattiness, dismissive comments and even sarcasm and yet he had kept my photograph (a singularly unattractive one) for a whole year because he didn’t want it to be misused.

And this long haired gangster/gentleman represents to me the face of Pakistan. A face I don’t quite understand, a face that was easy to label but a face that leaves room for contradictions. And Pakistan, like other societies, is a mix of the most radical contradictions – of chivalry and chauvinism, of hate and love, of ignorance and wisdom. It’s a rugged face with kind eyes and a bright soul. It’s a face to be studied, painted, sketched, mulled over, redrawn and re-understood. It’s a face that cannot be put into a category.

So whenever I read an article about the ‘real’ face of Pakistan, I smile, because how can a society ever have just one face? But if it were to have one, it would be that of my philosophy student, never to be categorized, always elusive, always surprising but ultimately, worth the interaction in the end.

Homebody’s Ode to Z

Z is my niece. She’s precocious, stubborn and has a toddler’s tummy, just like I do. Doesn’t matter that she might lose hers once she’s grown up, while I’ve held on to and lovingly cultivated mine.  An affinity to eating, an overdeveloped vocabulary and a mean streak are just a few of the things that homebody and her niece have in common.

Since Z is my niece and exactly like me, I love her to pieces but am secretly deadly afraid of her. She’s the only three-year old who effectively stopped me from kissing her by sticking out a rather pink tongue in the general direction of my lips as they traveled towards her cheek. Every day she does something or the other to best me. This has never happened before and therefore I honor her with an ode to her wiliness.

Disclaimer: There is NO exaggeration in the following vignettes. Homebody has told the whole truth, the vicious truth and nothing but the truth.

***

Z’s a keen judge of character. She’s the only one who saw my ex for what he was. And she was only three years old at the time.

Me: Z, this is M. Is he nice or bad?

Z: (looks critically at M’s humorless person) He’s a bat. Did you know that in Urdu a bad is called a chimgadar? I think you’re a chimgadar, a black chimgadar.

M never wanted Z’s name to be mentioned in his house again.

****

Today, two years later, Z has reminded me of her naturally evil side. She torments A, her younger brother in a manner that is close to ingenious. It reminds me why I don’t mess with her. She’d chew me alive.

Z: (holding up a glass of juice) Look A! I’ve got juice.

A: (mimicking older sister) So do I!

Z: Let’s have a competition, A. Let’s see who can drink the juice first.

A: (gulping it down and gasping for air) I WIN I WIN!

Z: No, I win because I still have juice left to drink while you don’t. Nananananananaaaaaa!!!

A: (looks crestfallen)

***

Me: Z, Happy Valentine’s Day! I got a rose for you!

Z: Thank you. I’m going to make a Valentine’s card.

Me: Really? That’s so amazing.

Z: How do you spell it?

Me: V-A-L-E-N-T-I-N-E

Z: Now I’m going to color it.

Me: How delightful!

Z: It’s done!

Me: (reaching forward)

Z: Not for you. For A. Happy Valentine’s Day, A.

Me: (looks crestfallen)

***

Z: Shazoo, I’ve made a picture for you

Me: Wow! It’s a beautiful golden lion!

Z: So that it can eat you. HAHAHAHAHA.

***

Me: A! Come to my godi!

A: Why?

Me: Because you’re my gol-matol bacha! Now come na!

A: OKAY!

Z: A, she’s making fun of you.

Me: NO I’M NOT A!

A: STOP MAKING FUN OF ME!

Me: But… I’m not.

A: I’m going to sit with Z!

Z: (grins diabolically)

***

Another similarity – Z and I are both writers. I write on my laptop, while Z practices spelling and spins the magic of words on a toy soft board with a blue dollar marker. This is the first poem she wrote:

Some tmies its not easy being pink all the time.
but when i do be all the colours
i am glad to be my self!

When asked to comment upon life, she wrote:

When you read Quran
God will be happy for you all the time.

When I asked Zaina to write a poem about me, she didn’t even have to think. Here is photographic evidence of her abuse:

***

Z: I’ve made a worksheet for you. Match the animals to their clothes.

Me: But there are only numbers here!

Z: (who by now has started playing teacher- teacher without informing me) Why are you asking stupid questions?

Me: Sorry.

Z: What are you waiting for? Draw lines!

Me: (Drawing – looking up hopefully at scowling toddler)

Z: Let me see. No. You got it all wrong. (Takes red marker and crosses everything out)

Me: Can I go now?

Z: It’s not chutti time yet. Now, write a sentence and draw a picture.

Me: (writing) I love Z

Z: Not that nonsense.

Me: Okay. I live in a house.

Z: THAT’S NOT A SENTENCE!

Me: Okay… The cat ate a mouse who ate the cheese.

Z: Good. Now draw a picture.

Me: (drawing a picture of a broken heart, a house and a mouse and a cat and cheese)

Z: THE HEART IS WRONG! (crosses out with a red marker)

Me: (hopefully) But you like the other drawings?

Z: Yes. (Takes paper away from me, writes her mum’s name on sheet of paper with a little heart and goes to mum) Ammi, look, I made Shazoo do your work.

Me: What do you mean?

Z: This was Ammi’s  worksheet.

Me: What? Why’d you make me do all that work.

Z: (evil Cheshire cat grin) Because I was playing a trick on you!

Me: (stares jaw dropped at retreating form of matkoing toddler)

***

Z and A are playing a game. A is shooting people and killing them and Z is helping them come back to life.

A: (going to my mum) Bang! I killed you!

Z: (following) Tring! You’re alive again.

A: (to me) Bang! I’ve killed you!

Z: (to A) let her remain dead.

***

Why Homebody is Morbid

Positive people are surrounded by positivity. I am morbid because I am surrounded by morbidity. I can't shake the feeling that I am living to the backdrop of impending tragedy that will chew my to pieces and swallow me whole. This is because I hear conversations like the one recorded below. ALL.THE.TIME.

Following is a typical interchange between my mother and our neighbor as we drive to a majlis. You may imagine me sitting in front, trying not to listen but soon the dark cloud inside our corolla has oppressed me as well. In the end, I slump and begin to think that there will be no more rainbows, ever.

R: Thank you for picking me up.

A: Arey, what thank you? It’s my duty as your neighbor.

R: You’re very kind. I still drive, but at night, after my husband’s death, my children tell me it’s not safe.

A: (who’s an expert on IT’S.NOT.SAFE conversations) Of course it’s not safe. Imagine what can happen to a woman driving alone at night: tire puncture, abduction, theft at gunpoint.

R: Haan, bilkul. Bhai those things can happen during the day time as well.

A: That’s why one should keep a driver.

R: But drivers these days – did you know – my late husband’s cousin was murdered by her driver. He stabbed her and then drove over her. She had tire marks over her face.

A: Toba, Toba. REEEALLY?

R: Haan.

Silence; each widow savoring another gory story that has potential to be used for social conversation. Or to tell her daughters why it’s best they stay home all the time.

A: How’s your mother?

R: Fell in the bathroom.

A: Oh NO!

R: Yes. Poor thing, she’s ninety and she fell on her face. She looks like she’s wearing goggles.

A: Oh No!

R: Yes. Do you remember last month I fell after returning from T’s majlis.

A: I do remember! How are you now?

R: Bas, a few aches and pains. I remember saying to God, as I was in the process of falling, I remember, I said, ‘Allah spare my bones.’

A: Haan bhai. One’s health and mobility is so important. I just visited my late husband’s superior officer’s funeral. His wife, third wife, by the way, is in such bad shape. Uff, I tau shudder when I think of it.

R: Really? Third wife?

A: Haan, first one was uneducated. Don’t know much about the second one. But the third wife is not old at all. But she has Parkinson. Toba, I had heard of fingers shaking but this poor woman was shaking and twitching everywhere. Tongue also. And she wasn’t being able to say anything. She was on a wheel chair. And she’s childless. Who is going to take care of her now?

At this point, Homebody interrupts and asks them if they can talk about something less depressing.

R: Haan, bhai, we should talk about good things. At least we have our health and can walk, Allah is kind.

A: Allah is very kind indeed.

Silence. Scanning for good-things-to-talk-about. 0 search results revealed.

A: Aur batao, how is your daughter?

R: Oh she’s very good. She has been looking after me well after my husband passed away.

A: Such a good man he was. I remember he and Wasi used to be such good friends.

R: I remember. But that’s how the world runs, I suppose. The men die early and we women are left to mourn them.

A: Haan. Sometimes I miss him terribly. It’s not a good experience being alone.

R: Bhai there are so many women living alone these days. My cousin died and his wife was a dentist in the USA. Then she got severe osteoporosis. Couldn’t bend down. Had to come back here. Lives with her sister. And now she’s gone blind.

A: I think I remember you telling me. Does she have an abnormal child?

R: Not abnormal. Badtameez.

A: Acha.

Destination reached. Conversation interrupted – the rest of the gory details to be discussed on the way back home. And that is why homebody has bouts of morbidity. Not that you asked. But I decided to tell. Just because. 

Homebody’s Awards for the Karachi Literature Festival

Yesterday, homebody rubbed shoulders with Shoba de and envied her patli qamar, laughed affectionately at Willy Dalrymple and gave a hug to Mohammad Hanif. Of course, the fact that most of these people were on stage while I sat in the audience and didn't really talk to me personally proved no obstacle in the way of my fanciful imaginings. It left me so excited that I sit early in the morning, sipping my morning-tea-without-sugar, struggling to write this blog post even though my eyes are still not entirely open.

A great many adventures took place, mostly in the Carlton’s ladies’ bathrooms. One was out of operation and homebody found a man in the other, asked him what he was doing there and then ran out before he could reply. Another hapless bathroomite reported to have walked in on a lady reprimanding a scarf-wearing woman who had wet the entire bathroom after wuzu. But the purpose of this post isn’t Carlton hotel (though my humble request is that OUP choose another venue with better food and catering) it’s to give a series of awards to the people who made an appearance on the first day of the festival.

The highlight of yesterday’s event for me was Willy, as Kamila Shamsie so affectionately called him while moderating his event. Dalrymple was a natural story teller, a big white teddy bear in a creased blue-coloured cotton shirt reading out from The Holy Mountain, The Road to Xanadu, The City of Jinns, imitating the Pakistani accent and telling the mike-walas to be ‘khamosh’ and talking about how the Ahmed Ali’s of this city hate Karachi and wish to go back to Delhi; while the audience, including homebody, laughed and hooted and found him utterly charming. He was a master story teller and a natural performer, the Bee’s Knees, the butter-content in the literary choc-fest. He gets the award for the King-Pin, the lovable Panda Po.

The Diva Award goes to the resident sex symbol at KLF, which was undoubtedly Shoba De. This literary star, dressed in a hot-pink sari told women that they didn’t need to look like frumps at sixty. Instead, they could take the pressure off and look glamorous in an off-shoulder midnight blue Armani gown: ‘You don’t have to be the stereotype’ she said in an attempt to give women all over the world hope. She proudly proclaimed that her tattoo represented the feminine principle and motherhood. Her composure was momentarily ruffled when after rendering a proud proclamation that she had paved the way for women writers in the sub-continent, Mohsin Sayeed (God bless him) stood up and asked her what she thought writers like Ismat Chughtai, Qurat-ul-Aine Haider and others before her had been doing? Ms. De leaned against the podium for emotional support, smiled graciously and began to talk very fast, amending that she was just citing a personal example. For homebody, Shoba represents the ultimate rebellion, because it was her book that homebody read at twelve years of age when she was absolutely forbidden to do so. The raunchy descriptions of sex during a funeral as one sister cheated on her own flesh-and-blood with her brother in law are still fresh in my mind. Evidently, they are fresh in the mind of the male reading public because five mustachioed men sidled up next to her, attempted to touch her bare back but were glared away, said something complimentary and sidled off as fat, balding men are wont to do.

No literature festival is complete without the Grinch and the KLF 2012 Grinch Award goes to Hanif Qureshi, a man who might have guts, but also a case of irritable bowel syndrome because he looked massively displeased throughout his reading of Buddha of Suburbia. What he read was fantastic, full of homo-sexual innuendos and shaved chests; very witty. But the inner-Grinch is not to be thwarted and when a woman got up and asked him, a little tactlessly, that he didn’t seem to like women (based on the women he presented in his fiction) he paused, twitched, proclaimed, ‘That’s a stupid question,’; glaring into the awkward silence as the moderator tried to cover it up. Now quite frankly, I think he deserved a tomato in the face for that answer. He has come to a literature festival in a city where people are just getting used to such events. The public can be depended upon to ask silly questions. As a writer, even as a good writer, even as the ‘biggest name’ (whatever that means) at KLF, a question like that merits an answer because it’s a badly worded perception of his literature which he could have corrected, explained, or used as an opportunity to explain how a piece of fiction doesn’t necessarily represent a writer’s own biases. But he just snubbed her, felt superior and moved on. And the general public loved him for it. Mr. Grinch continued to be bombarded with more stupid questions about the brilliance of Karachi and the ‘hush-hush’ themes he wrote about (again, badly phrased question which Qureshi also made multiple sardonic references to) and ended on popular applause. All the world loves a Grinch.

The Rockstar Award goes to the audience-puller; the man who evokes such adoration by virtue of his wit and writings that his fans giggle, hoot and call out his name feverishly every time he walks on stage. If he ever broke into song, there would be a stampede and men and women, old and young, would hold up lighters and wave their arms from side to side. Mohammad Hanif rocked again with the book launch of Alice Bhatti, but the focus of the questions remained on his first book, A Case of Exploding Mangoes which showed that his second book didn’t quite touch the pulse of the nation as the first one. The reason Homebody is a Hanif groupie is not because of his writings or his sense of humour – it’s because of his patience with questions from students and aspiring writers who insist on asking him how many drafts he writes and what advice, in thirty seconds, he can give them that can trigger off their Inner Writer. He is not just a ‘writer’, he’s someone who makes other people believe that, if they tried, they could write too. That makes him rock-star in homebody’s book.

But the real highlight of KLF is not the writers. It’s the people who go to listen to them. There are aggressive aunties who follow writers around and fight with the moderators to get an autograph on their newly purchased copy of a latest novel; there are emos who grab the mike when the moderator has selected someone else and tell the writers how their writings helped them to get and stay married (which I must admit is a mammoth achievement) and then press-conferencers who sit next to homebody and don’t let her listen to what the writer’s saying because they insist on telling her what their opinion of the proceedings are. There are head-nodders who express their assent vigorously and their heads roll off their necks (but they pick them up, re-attach them and continue to nod), there are sleazy-smilers who will adore every ridiculous thing people on stage because they feel that if you are on-stage, you are undoubtedly right. There are angst-driven intellectuals who scoff at each question the moderator asks and there are whiners who can’t get over the fact that everything began forty minutes late. And finally, there are aspiring writers who gaze starry-eyed at these gods of the written word who have done what they most want to do. And these last are the soul of the literary festival and I give them an enormous KUDOS for being a part of the event and hope that their dreams come true.

Homebody Becomes Sadistic

Don’t get me wrong. I love my mum. But there’s nothing as satisfying, delicious and tickling than teasing her so mercilessly that she stops talking to me. 

My mother is a conservative sixty-something. Her name is Razia. She is the model of piety, getting up early to say her Tahajjaud, then Fajr. She proceeds to read the Quran and then has breakfast. After which she goes out gardening, tells me I need to lose weight and clean my closet and the soles of my feet, talks to her children on the phone and then says her afternoon prayers, followed by evening and night prayers.

But where there is such virtue, there is also naughtiness. I am convinced of it. This is my theory about her.

She has a crush, though she will never admit it, on Najam Sethi. She will giggle like a little girl every time he flashes a crooked smile at the camera and lets loose a sarcastic comment in Punjabi. Her heart goes pit-a-pat when she listens to Hamid Mir, Geo at night provides her with her daily dose of excitement.

So when my mother, with a tasbeeh in her hand snuggles in her favorite red blanket in anticipation of the mustachioed eye candy at night; she is shocked to see a geo parody of a song that goes: ‘Razia ghundon main phans gai – oy hoy oy hoy’ (translated roughly as Razia stuck amidst gangsters, haw hai haw hai!)

Ammi springs up as if someone has slandered her.

‘What is this? What nonsense? Why Razia? Why not another name?’

‘Haw Amma!’ I say, ‘Hamid Mir knows you like him. He and Najam Sethi like to think of themselves as gangsters. You should be flattered.’

‘Bite your tongue!’

‘Ooh, sexual metaphor!’

‘You need to get married! What fahaash baatain!’

But this jibe at my marital status will not stop me. I’m inspired. The amusement in me bubbles into ecstasy. I start a bhangra like the cartoons on the geo parody.

‘Ghundon main phas phas, Razia phas phas!’

‘Dhat! Look at you! How dare you make fun of your mother? You’ve become sadistic!’

“Razia badnaam hui, darling teray liye!”

“You are vulgar!”

“Well, better that than a lesbian, no Amma?”

Ammi recoils into resentful silence while I do a bhangra around the living room, crash into a table and fall down.

“Serves you right,” she says in a disapproving voice.

Well, yes it does. But oh, homebody is still grinning like an idiot as she signs off with this most immature of blogposts!
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… Razia Badnaam hui… oi hoi oi hoi ;)

Homebody Fights with Mum

So my mum and I had a fight today over a dream she had.

I woke up early in the morning and checked facebook only to discover that 28 out of the 33 notifications I had were ‘likes’ by people and students and the other 4 were Castleville requests. I felt the void of communication; like I was alone in the center of a social vortex where everyone else was busy while I sat in the boring calm of an exciting hurricane. I felt left behind.

Amidst the haze of despair, I saw my mother walk into the living room – she had just woken up. And I noticed the aura of anger and resentment almost immediately. It’s like I have some intuitive radar for it – she doesn’t have to say or do anything, she doesn’t even have to look angry but I know, through my rage-dar, that I’m in deep, deep trouble.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’

 ‘Something must be. You’re upset.’

‘I didn’t say I’m upset.’

‘You didn’t have to.’

‘Don’t put words in my mouth.’

‘Okay FINE! Sheesh.’

Silence. I reflect on how my mum and I are very like most married couples. This dynamic we have isn’t just restricted to matrimony. And you ask why I’m phobic about marriage.

‘I had a dream…’ she begins.

‘Mmhmm…’

‘I had a dream in which you came to me and told me that you were gay. And I threw you out of the house.’

I shall not tell her that I have been of late, having impure thoughts about Dorothy Parker who said things like ‘brevity is the soul of lingerie’ and other fabulously bitchy things. Besides, it’s perfectly normal to be attracted to intelligence. But I’m squarely heterosexual, despite falling in love with dead female poets by reading about them on brainy quote.

‘Well, that wasn’t very nice of you,’ I retort.

‘Kia matlab hai?’

‘I’m your daughter. You can’t kick me out.’

‘It’s my house. I can do whatever I want.’

‘A parent who kicks her offspring out on the street in a temper is a failed parent.’

‘A child who betrays her mother by sinning against God is a failed offspring.’

‘If I’ve sinned against God, why don’t you let Him kick me out of heaven. Aap kahaan say Allah kee advocate ban gayee hain.’

‘I’m your mother and I forbid you from being gay.’

‘Ma, you can’t forbid me from being gay. It isn’t something I can control.’

‘Allah killed the entire nation of Lot for being gay!’

‘Allah condemned them for being hedonistic and inhospitable. Everything would have been fine if they were discreet about things.’

‘Where have I gone wrong that my own daughter talks in this way about such shameful things?’

‘I didn’t start it, you did! And I can be gay if I want to. Which I don’t. In any case, kicking me out of the house wouldn’t stop me from being gay. I’d just move in with my lover!’

‘You need to get married.’

‘I agree.’

Silence.

‘Ma, you know you’re being ridiculous.’

‘I’m trying to save your soul, that’s what I’m doing!’

‘But I'm NOT gay. Do you remember how you were angry at Abu because you dreamt he was having an affair?’

‘I did no such thing.’

‘Well, you did do such a thing. And then you refused to speak to him for a week and the poor man didn’t know what to do. I refuse to be emotionally blackmailed by your nightmares!’

‘Nightmares are an omen for the future!’

‘No. They’re the result of having too much sweet and sour chicken last night.’

‘I’ll not talk to you until you can talk to me respectfully!’

‘Maaa!’

‘I can’t hear you.’

So I’m getting my share of silent treatment, first for being gay and then for being disrespectful. Or perhaps because being gay is being disrespectful to my mum, in her eyes. Oh well. I’ll get her some Di-gas and she’ll be fine. 

Homebody Talks Dirty – Part Deux

So in the last post I told y'all about how I discovered and became immune to sex. But then an old friend told me how she found out about the facts of life and it was so juicy that I decided it merited a special blog post. I shall now recount the story of sex in my friend’s voice.

“Hai, Beta! What do I tell you. I was so fifteen years old and I heard my grandmother telling my mother to take special care of me. ‘Girl’s need to be protected,’ Nani said, ‘and aaj kal the zamana is so bad that these days all a man has to do is touch a woman and she gets pregnant. Uff!’ Now as I listened to this, I became very nervous around my male cousins – made sure they didn’t touch me. But then one day we were going for Eid shopping to Meena bazaar and what do you know? A man touched my bumpy! I tau almost died! I was touched by a man, and there! Bas I came home and my older cousin Mina was over.

‘Mina Baji,’ I said, ‘Mina Baji, my life is over!’

‘What has happened?’ she asked.

‘Mina Baji, I’m…I’m…’

‘Just phoooto na!’

‘I’m pregnant!’

‘Hai! I will die! No! Are you sure?’

‘Yes!’

‘How did this happen?’

‘Mina Baji, a man in Meena Bazaar touched me on my bumpy.’

‘So?’

‘So Nani says every time a man touches you, you get pregnant!’

‘Arey pagli kaheen kee! That’s not how you get pregnant!’

So I asked how does one get pregnant? And she went home and brought a magazine in which a man was looking constipated and the woman was looking like she was going to die. And she explained what went where. That, beta, is how I found out about sex!’”

…Question to my readers: How did you find out about sex? Care to share?

Homebody Talks Dirty – Part One

Hang respectability. Let’s talk sex brothas and sistas!

So the idea for this blog post originated when I realized that a friend of mine had a little seizure in his head every time the word ‘sex’ was mentioned. Well, that’s not entirely true. Two of my married friends casually threw in a teaser: ‘Oh we were having sex so we didn’t have time to have tea with you,’ and he jerked spasmodically, covered his ears and walked away. When we asked him if he was feeling okay, he said he could handle the idea of sex, but TMI (Too-Much-Information) like that about people he knew gave him a visual image in his mind, which he really could do without.

So my married friends had a blast teasing him and springing random bits of unwarranted information on his blushing little ears while I mused about my experience with sex. Or the visualization of it. I realized that part of the reason I was a prude was because of the manner in which I found out about what sex was in the first place.

Flashback to sixth grade. Future homebody, the epitome of innocence, was merrily day dreaming in the school bus when her YOUNGER friends started talking about sex. Taboo topic. Ears perked up. Looked behind.

‘Sex is so disgusting isn’t it,’ J, a little fifth-grade midget says.

‘Totally,’ homebody agrees.

‘Too bad our parents had to have sex.’

Homebody freaks out. She jumps out of her seat, bangs head on school of the bus and blacks out. Wakes up and sees friend’s concerned face hovering above her. Springs up and says, ‘YOU TAKE THAT BACK!”

‘Huh? Take what back?’

‘MY PARENTS DID NOT HAVE SEX. THEY ARE PERFECTLY RESPECTABLE PEOPLE.’

‘Um, Shazaf…..’

‘HOW CAN YOU BE SO DISGUSTING? SO GROSS! SO TERRIBLE AS TO MALIGN MY POOR PARENTS! THEY ARE NOT LOOSE!’

‘Dude, you do know that sex is necessary for people if they want to have children.’

‘NO IT IS NOT!’

‘Oh I get it! You’re joking with me!’

‘NO I AM NOT!’

‘Listen, I’m not lying. People have to do ‘it’ to have kids. Why else do you think all married people have children? Do you actually think we came with a stork?’

‘NO WE CAME IN A BASKET FROM HEAVEN FROM GOD!’

Meanwhile, all my seniors and juniors have collapsed into hysterical fits of laughter. I turn red in the face, thank God that my stop has come and get off. I march inside and tell my puzzled mother that I am disappointed with her behavior and that I need my space right now. I go to the study, take out the encyclopedia where diagrams tell me that reproduction requires the disgusting merging of unmentionables we call sex. And then I get the image of my parents. Together. Like that. And I start crying. I go on a three-day fast and have nightmares. I stop talking to everyone until my friend sits me down and tells me it’s quite okay for married people to have sex. After a month, I have accepted the facts of life.

And then I did what every new student of sexual education does: I write a dirty story to explore sex in writing (because homebody had no other avenues to take advantage of) I write a story about an illicit encounter with a thin woman and a fat man, Homebody is embarrassed for two days. But then realization dawns – the trauma of hearing ‘parents’ and ‘sex’ in the same sentence has made my brain lock down all images. Even today I can’t visualize people having sex. Never. Nada. I think it’s a survival technique my brain created, with the result that I am now totally cool with the topic of sex. Because it has now become completely intellectual in my mind. I’m woman-of-steel-sexual-nerves.

So here’s a tip to my TMI-shy friend: just imagine them at it enough times, you’ll get so sick of passing out, you’ll be immune to it.

What Homebody Did at School

So homebody has found out that she is not alone. In fact, she has found another name for herself: she is a Stickler and she is proud of it. The dictionary definition of a stickler is:

A person who insists on a certain quality or type of behavior

And I am nothing if not a woman of quality, especially when it comes to proper punctuation. I was lent a copy of Lyn Truss’s ‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves’ and Truss is, I have found, a kindred stickler spirit who was so devastated by the crimes of punctuation around her that she wrote a book about it, which was lent to homebody by a fellow stickler. In it Truss argues for the cause of the hapless panda who, due to the inopportune placement of a comma, is accused of murder in the sentence: ‘Eats, shoots and leaves” when really, all it wants to do is chomp contentedly on bamboo and leave the crimes to mankind.

Truss and I are both, and I quote, ‘scarlet pimpernels of punctuation’, rescuing hapless commas and apostrophes from the ignominy of incorrect usage, saving creatures from near extinction while we are at it. After a fabulously entertaining book on a subject which would bore the underpants off most readers, Truss does us sticklers a service by providing a series of stickers that we can put on signs, books and other areas prone to mis-punctuation. So now I’m a stickler as well as a ‘STICK-LER’, get it?

And so this scarlet pimpernel – aka homebody – did a little pirouette when she came across these stickers because there has been one instance which she has been twitching to correct. Outside the teachers’ bathroom lies a nefarious and offensive sign that says:

TEACHER’S ONLY

It’s ridiculous. It’s a travesty, I tell you. For one year that apostrophe has mocked me, laughed at me with its illegal existence. But now I, thanks to Truss's panda stickers, can correct it.

And so my friend and I tip-toed to the bathroom door, made sure no one was inside and did this:

WALLAH! And then to admire our handiwork, I took ONE more shot for your viewing pleasure.

There. PANDA.SAYS.NO! Punctuation problem solved.

Onward ho! Chalo chalo, Butlers Chocolate Café chalo!

Homebody meets a Dementor

Have you ever met a dementor? I met a real live one when I went for my visa interview at the American Consulate. She didn’t fly around in a black cloak but she did try to suck out my soul. She sidled up and sat down in front of me.

‘Are you applying for a U.S visa?’ she turned and asked in an adenoidal voice that most women use when they have screamed at people for the vast majority of their lives. After I said I was, she proceeded to ask me what type of passport I had.

‘Um. I’m not really sure.’

‘What if they ask you what type of passport you have? What will you do?’

‘Um. I don’t know.’

‘You should really have done your homework. These Americans will look at the slightest excuse to deny you the visa.’

At this point my eye had started to twitch.  It starts to twitch whenever I begin to panic. The twitching usually transfers, with increased stress, to my upper lip to do an Elvis Presley before it travels down to my arms and legs. I was beginning to panic. My heart beat faster. I tried to read whether there was a ‘type’ section written somewhere but found that everything was becoming blurry. I took a look at the stern-looking American officer who was currently rejecting entry to a very sweet old man who was assuring her that he was a ‘stable persons’. I looked back at the woman in front of me, her sharp eyes registering my panic with a satisfied expression.

‘Don’t worry. They probably won’t ask you. I, on the other hand, have a D-type passport. They don’t bother us,’ she said smugly.

I gave her an admiring look that congratulated her on the excellent sense of possessing a D-type passport, whatever that was. The woman next to me, who had been relaxed before this conversation started, also tensed. If you were to see us, you’d see one long-haired woman with slightly burnt-looking skin straining to look back at two wide-eyed, shaking and twitching women.

‘Where are you going to go?’ the dementor asked the woman next to me.

‘I want to visit my uncle in Texas,’ she replied.

‘Oh. Texas has terrible weather.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yes. I live in Florida. That’s where Disney World is. The entire world comes where I live. Which is why they give the visa so easily to us. Koi problem nahi hoti. Texas main tau usually people go to disappear. There’s a huge Pakistani community there to sponsor you over there. So Visa officers are a bit wary.’

‘Oh.’

Both of us victims exchanged scared looks. I began to wonder where Pakistanis disappeared in Arizona and New York? Or Arkansas? Perhaps if I said I wanted to visit Alaska, my chances would increase.

‘Yes. By the way,’ she was looking at me again, ‘what time was your interview supposed to be?’

‘At seven forty five.’

‘Oh ho. It’s eight fifteen now.’

‘Yes. It is.’

‘Your time has passed. Perhaps they’ve skipped you.’

The room began to whirl around. I could barely sit up.

‘My time was nine, so they will interview me then. Perhaps you should ask them when your interview is going to be. Perhaps they will reschedule you?’

I frantically considered my options. If I got up I’d be told to sit down by the security guard with the fearsome curled-up moustache. If I kept sitting perhaps they would skip me over. I just looked down and tried to still my quivering fingers. I was so nervous that my behind started twitching as well. That had never happened. It was a most unpleasant sensation.

Suddenly, a voice boomed. ‘Token number 67!’

I was token number 67! I got up and dropped all my papers and heard the dementor say, ‘Don’t show you’re nervous, they’ll think you’ll have something to hide! ’

Too late! I thought as I warily approached the visa officer. I handed in my passport. I knew the dementor was taking a keen interest in my proceedings. I could feel her eyes boring through the back of my head.

The visa officer asked about my marital status. I said I was divorced. Since there was no privacy in the hall, the entire hall heard this. I heard the dementor say, ‘Tsk, tsk, so young. Looks a bit headstrong if you ask me.”

The visa officer took a look at my pale face and then at my photograph. She typed something on her computer. Behind me, I could hear the dementor say, ‘Did you know they’ve rejected three people before her?’

I tried to stem my twitching by concentrating long and hard on the diamond ring that the visa officer was wearing. It moved with her typing fingers. After a few moments, she looked up and said, ‘Well, Ma’am, congratulations. I don’t think there’s any problem with your application. Please wait for a call from American Express to receive your passport with the stamped visa!”

I blinked thrice and then said a shocked ‘Thank You’. I walked down the hall, crossing the dementor who was now working her magic on a young medical student who, it seemed, had forgotten to breathe.

As I came out in the fresh air, I felt the black-hole effect of the woman die down. As I drove home, I wondered what made people like her tick? What joy did she get in making the entire room so nervous, so terrified, so panicked that the fear and despair were almost palpable? What twisted place did dementors come from? Does Azkaban exist? Is it a metaphor of evil – the kind that is so malicious that it will rejoice at the sight of you lying curled up on the boulevard of broken dreams?

Perhaps it does. The only thing to be done with such people is to not let them play on your fears and insecurities. To believe that your fears are false illusions – that the universe is basically gentle and that such people, who play on your fears, are actually the most scared of all. They must be in a lot of pain to give so much pain to other people, no?

Oh well. I’ve left this particular dementor far behind. And I’s gots the Visa! Chalo Chalo Alaska Chalo!

Homebody Feels Insecure

There are days like today which come as a big, giant, red light at the cross road of your life and make you stop in your tracks and reassess exactly where your life is going. In my case, I found it was going down. Deep deep down.

I woke up, stretched and immediately pulled a muscle in my back. I coughed and spluttered and spewed and muttered and limped to the bathroom with a hand on my back, willing it to straighten so I could resume the day a respectable, posture appropriate to my home-sapien-ness. I tripped on the bathroom mat (again) and took a short, hot shower which helped soothe the pain. As I brushed my teeth, I remembered that I had dreamt about people laughing at me and my biology teacher telling me my feet were too dirty and offering to clean them for me.

I then remembered dreaming about falling down a hole. Of course, any eager-beaver who’s read a psychology book will tell you that this is a symptom of insecurity. It’s happened many a times that I have reported a dream to have someone tell me: “Oh, that just shows you lack confidence” and smile at me sweetly as I sink deeper into my seat, becoming just a tad bit more unsure of myself because I’ve unwittingly let them inside my head.

But this dream was different. I was blonde and wearing a blue frock and falling in with my little finger daintily curled against the dark walls, which, as one looked carefully, were spewing digits. I was inside a computer. 

Oh well. Weird, weird. Let’s not over analyze anything.

And then it happened. I was rummaging through my teaching materials and I dropped my ‘passport’ or external hard drive on the floor. I didn’t think much of it until ten minutes later when it refused to load any information on to my laptop. I was frantic. I rushed to school and asked the computer technician what had happened. 

He said it was damaged and needed to be fixed.

Yes, yes, but what about ALL my information?

Oh. It was gone.

WHAT THE FREAKING HELL WAS HE TALKING ABOUT?

Madam, please. We are a civilized educational establishment.

Madam starts hyperventilating, twitching and pulsating like Manimal before he turns into a jaguar.

"Madam, Take it to your computer-wala. I’m sure the problem lies with the motor. Your data must be safe."

Madam has turned as red as the jaguar in the eye of the night. Or whatever. She has lost all coherence and is ready to kill someone.

Small little computer technician cowers in his chair and is about to ring for security.

To cut long story short – I didn’t kill him but berated myself for my stupidity for not creating a back up of the information on some laptop.

And then I remembered my dream. I was falling and failing in a digital universe. Two years of work, writing, presentations, lesson plans, reports and papers were all locked in on that little black box of doom. And it was letting me down. I was no longer homebody. I was digi-body. My entire LIFE was on one chip that refused to cooperate. No WONDER I was anxious and fearful all the time. I was unknowingly hanging by a thread which had just snapped.

I am digi-body whose life is centered on the laptop. The problem is, my laptop, like my sister’s pet dog, succumbs to a virus once a year. I back up with USB. USB falls ill every two years. I back up with external hard-drive, which dies if you drop it. Now I’m being told to email stuff to myself. And then gmail asks me, one day, what I will do if my gmail account is corrupted? Now we have a new solution. Drop-box. DROP box. I’m falling into the cyber-universe and the only option I have left is to fall further and further down.

No wonder I dream of falling down a deep dark rabbit hole and getting stuck in a perplexing world. The universe, on days like today, seems as bloodthirsty as the queen of hearts. The only thing to do, really, is to go to bed and have a good cry. And hope to God my data comes back, by some miracle or the other.