the b. files: an escape from the mundane

the b. files:

She was the B-ness, and only she was that......

Tuesday, September 09, 2003

My Fotolog

Today was a busy but exciting day. I didn't know my job description included decorating - the gardeners were here and I was directing them where to place the potted plants and stuff. Issuing Orders! Me! hehehe. But Pakistani men don't usually like to take orders from females. They think it's below them or somehing, esp. since most of them still belong to the dinosaur age and keep their women locked indoors. It was cool though. Then the Photographer came to take exterior shots of the building (for the Bldng. Development Authorities License) and I put on my madam foremans cap and pointed out angles. As my cousin dear sez... tight tight!

Every Ramadhan, our Islamic Center holds Tarawih (my Dubai-friend was so glad to know we have taraweeh for ladies here hehe). AFter the prayers, we have a half hour lecture on the para. I felt that instead of giving them an abstract lecture on what we read and what it says, etc, we should give the audience something more concrete. In school we don't study Sociology as a whiole, we do chapter by chapter, topic by topic. We should have Quan classes like that too, giving people concrete information and guidance from th Quran instead of long lectures.
Shazia, the partner, and I sat down and compiled a list of topics to make presentations on. These include

RIghts and duties of Women in Islam
Inheritance
Raising Muslim Children (aulad ki tarbiyat)
Importance of Ahadith
Quran and Science
Prophets of Islam
Sources of Income in Islam
Seerah
Nikah and its importance
Effect of Media on us

and other random topics. Later on, we'll develop these into a full certified course. Cool?

My sister and her journalist friend started a magazine here - Isamic family magazine. I'm Youth Editor. I've been writing quite a bit nowadays - I have these short spurts whereas a good journalist is like a tap - can write loads when the deadline is given. I hope that snce I'm planning to be serious about this publication, I'll be able to develop that - discipling myself, etc. Writing seriously is not just like blogging - an outflow of random thoughts and descriptions and relation of events. It needs knowledge, ideas, something worthy of being transmitted across. And they- the editors- are really professional about the whole project. Sent all these rules and stuff, topics and deadlines, meeting dates etc.

I'd post something up here but it's all in the computer at work, and the electricity went off before I could save. But anyway. It feels good to be productive. And the more you do, the more you feel like doing. It drives you on in a way.

I also have good news about University plans; my family's only concern, which was huge transport problems, as Univ is the other end of the city, and its bus system was awful and unreliable - and it's too far for me to drive myself (yah Yaz, we all know you do 120 but Karachi isn't Bay Area and there isnt a freeway, just a concrete jungle and blaring cars). Anyway so I find out it has a good new safe efficient tranport sys, and grandfather just breathed a sigh of relief.

Now if I only had a magic wand by which I could zap O. away.... faaaaaaaaaaar far away.. into thin air.. no, not thin... jsust far far away... hen my life would be just... neat.

Tight.

From: the b. filer | 3:38 AM |

Friday, September 05, 2003

Alright.

I typed up a nice long blog at work. Then I saved it in my floppy, carefully placed my floppy in my purse amidst the gum wrappers and glowinthedark stars, and went home. Back home, I closed my inbox, set my msn on busy, and sat down to blog.

The floppy was... the wrong one. It had "billing records" scrawled on it, instead of "B's personal pooh" and my insignia of a pentagon with a large S in the center. I so totally flipped out.

Then in anger I loaded MS Word, and typed out another blog, more about my irritation at how it happened. I mean, there was no other floppy there, I was so careful in emptying mine of students.mdb and blah, and loading some articles for our newly setup magazine here.

Then my computer crashed. It had this "Error in System Registery" thing every few days after which we have to reinstall everything, Win98, MS office, even the LAN card and all that.

On another, happier, note. I sacrificed the internet cable yesterday to my sister (who wanted to chat with husband *rolls eyes*, because I was so totally engrossed in that awesome program, Microsoft ACcess. It's so incredibly cool. I made my own Switchboard with "Manage Accounts", "Tackle Tasks", "Recipe Rave" etc, and set up the databases and informations systems. It's cool, ms access is really easy and fun.

Anyway I'm going to go finish up that Peach Melba. For the benefit of dessert enthusiasts:

Peel and core five peaches. Just slightly immerse slices in water, bring to a boil. Add approx. 1 cup sugar and crushed saffron. When the syrup is ready, turn off heat and cool. Serve with chilled cream.

I was about to write, "Cold cream", and then realised someone might take it to be a jar of face cream, "fair and lovely" or something. Sigh.

http://www.fotolog.net/bfiler/. This aint gonna be updated... long story, but the digicam has gone before i could upload the photos. Sorry. I had some AWESOME karachi shots!!!!!

From: the b. filer | 11:22 PM |

Thursday, September 04, 2003

Sorry... mini hiatus... but Insha'Allah I will blog tomorrow. Promise. Meanwhile, it's 6:39 AM, gotta make lunch and go to my office (five computers!)... thanks y'all for visiting and sorry for the delay =)

Patient to Doctor in OR: "Doc, do you believe in God?"
Doctor: "Ofcourse I do. I deliver babies."

Subhan'Allah!

From: the b. filer | 6:41 PM |

Sunday, August 31, 2003

It's been a while, so says the great macharwala... to top it off with icecream and a cherry, so do I. Thing is, like the great macharwala, I look at blogging wiith noble aspirations. Spreading the truth. Enlightening young minds. Opening up channels of illumination and a road to discovery. Speaking out. When it boils down to actual blogging, its all about me and my sad life. But actions are judged by their intentions, arent they? So buzz off :p
Anyway if I restrict my blogging to good ole illuminating stuff (like Umbrige's first speech. illuminating, not interesting, said Hermy, err Hermoine.., I'll be blogging once a month. So why is this, my dear adoring fans? Is it because the mass of slimy grey matter that resides in that pretty head up there is devoid of anything intelligent, astute, some rare sort of knowledge which, if I impart on the rest of you lamentably uninformed, will change your lives forever? Subhan'Allah, no. I may be young but I know.. what I know (so says the great macharwala, who by the way has gone offline so this is the last oblique reference to her) Anyway so to quit the roundabout words... quite simply, I dont have time.
I have a job.
yes, me, the little B. FIler, incompetent at everything from getting up to moving without banging against every door, chair, table, sofa (it rubs off from abez, i hear), to math and numbers, replacing one cup of sugar in walnut pie with three (it turns into caramel, which makes it thrice as good!), science and just about everything, has actually got a job. And how is that possible?
Because my mother believes in me... sigh... how I so love my mom. Lol. ANyway so yeah I'm tagging along to Moms school (academy of educational excellence, i call it), and doing somehting called atoming? automing? automating? Ah yes. Automating the whole system from accounts (me! and doing double entry.. oh the horror...), to student entry, admissions, salaries, and a whole lot of other stuff. And actually... its fun. The kids are adorable (into 3), the teachers are way cool.. and I made nice friends. One of them was doing this course in Dubai under Dr Bilal Philips and I'm in the process of hounding her for notes. Now she's doing something from American Open University.
And the computer lab is great! it's got a laser printer and a cd drive and... *ok, stop*.
and i want to do some other stuff. I need to learn driving (my newly made friend, teacher at mums school, has been hounding me for days), need to learn arabic too (atleast basic), need to get off my writing-blogs-only and get down to serious journalism (18th time i mentioned that in this golB!)
whcih reminds me, got my ID card made... well actually filed the papers. It was soo cool, it surprised even me. FIrst you go to this little man on the computer where your number (132) is hanging in a computer screen above his head. You fill in the detatils like name, parents NIC, educ etc while he types on his urdu keyboard. Then to the next counter, where a digicam (olympus camedia, mm) takes your pic, and you check it on the monitor before proceeding (no, my smiles not right.. snap again..) Then off to next dude where you sign slickly on this piece of paper, and it passes through a scanner and then whee! its on the screen! then finally, you clean your fingers and press them on this little piece of glass and OMG! Lookie! Your prints on screen!!

T: We've had this stuff in the US for ages. But nice to know you're catching up.
B: Oh, shut up :p

My second grade students are over for class. Sigh. *roll eyes* In the meantime, I'll go bake myself some honey-butter cookies and dig out the recipe for miniature chocolate ecalirs and cinnamon buns!

From: the b. filer | 12:32 AM |

Sunday, August 24, 2003

Yesterday, decked up in all the glory of the faded grey qameez, sparkling white crisp shalwar and dhobi ki crackling dupatta which makes up my school uniform (grammarians, go! –for you lamentably uninformed, grammarians are the sorry species which have a rep for being the snobbiest, snottiest, loudest and most bizarre… I’m not kidding.), I went to school for my prize distribution ceremony.
On the way, we (ie, my sister, chauffeur, mwahahahaha and I) passed this car which was literally bounding on the road, weaving in and out, and the stupid drunk driver was waving his arms out of the window and grinning like a silly old man. Says my sister, “Someone should revoke his license”. Right. Pakistan. Talk police who stop you on the road for some or the other inane reason and return your papers after you’ve paid the bribe money. Talk drunk teens crashing into other cars and killing families and getting away because their Uncle is the high commissioner of the subordinate of the officer of the general secretary of the… you get the point. Anyway but the ceremony was good fun; met up with loads of friends and traded news: (You’re going to Warwick! great! You? UCL? Nice. You got into Yale? Congrats! Oh, me? No, not Columbia. KU. Yeah, Karachi. Yeah. No kidding. Yeah. I know.) Not that I was particularly interested in meeting them; guys and girls sitting thigh to thigh, guys with earrings and girls in tummy baring lycra, guys with long hair and bandannas and girls with chewing gum and walkmen… typical genus of a generation ruined by too much money, pampering parents, rock music, little supervision.
When I got there, at first I thought, awww wow, I used to study here, man, those were the days… but then sitting amongst everyone, listening to them talk, “Man, I have three concerts this month!” “Yo, dude, what’s up with you? You look totally on dope! Have a smoke?”, I thought… “Wow… I really don’t belong. Two years after studying together, I was still sitting among strangers, in a kind of alien species land and feeling completely out of place. It was sad.
Later, when the “few words” (read: hour long speeches by the principle, chief guest, president of the council of the… etc) had ended, standing in queue for receiving my prize (English general and Sociology highest % all year *grins*), I suddenly noticed the Chief Guest: a male. So, you might be thinking? The more astute hijabis among you might guess what I’m blabbering about… SHAKING HANDS! I was mumbling and grumbling to my friend for a full 15 and a half minutes about how I was NOT going to shake hands even if he didn’t give me my prize (measly books anyway) and since I was officially an ex-G they couldn’t throw me out for insulting His Highness the High Commissioner of the British Embassy in the Humble Secular State of Pakistan. I remember my other thingy’s ceremony where the dude had literally grabbed the hand of a ninjabi who had held her hands back when receiving her diploma. But, all credit goes to the Brit Council guy; he was cool and grinned knowingly at me and handed me my blue-and-red ribboned parcel. Just hope the pics come out okay of me waving my ringed fingers out of reach.
So, the books, which come to my 57,394th grumble of the day. Plato: The Last Days of Socrates. I remember thinking, when my Lit teacher was jabbering something about Socrates bravely facing death and the poison cup and not escaping the way his friends advised him, that how come he was a hero for that while no one said the same about Aimal Kasi, the Virginia CIA guy? He stood strong in front of the executioners and died reciting the name of Allah. But no… he was labeled a good many things which I don’t want to talk about right now. The other book was by some hotshot who made it big by some erroneous shot of luck, Gabriel Garcia Martinez or something, “Chronicles of a Death Retold”, and in my list of the 10 worst books I’ve ever read (incl. one which won a Booker Prize, 99), it would come out as no. 2 or 3 maybe. It’s the story of how the brothers of a returned bride sought to regain her honour and the honour of their family by slashing their sisters thingy to death (gotta read between the lines, I’m not going into graphical details right now). And the murdered antagonist, of course, was a Muslim (a rotten one, and an Arab-Spanish one at that) Now, being a student of Advanced English Literature, I do have an appreciation of books. I don’t dismiss a book on first read, there are many many different aspects of each novel which come out as you delve deeper; the plot, the story, the vivid characterization, the setting, the landscape, the timeline, the style, the use of words, the descriptions. At first read a book may appear superficial and boring but there are often hidden aspects which cover depth, psychological analysis, and social understanding of the writer. But this book really crossed the limit; it was obscene, confusing, obscene, without story, obscene, bland, insipid, and colorless and something that might have been written by an incarcerated patient at the Federal Prison for the mentally twerped.
I have a good mind to write a letter, or go in person, to my Lit teacher, who also serves as Assistant Headmistress, and ask of her the purpose of distributing this book to about half a hundred already misguided students? I’m not asking her to give me something as beautiful as The Sealed Nectar (one of the best biographies of the Holy prophet) or Islam and Fundamentalism. Give me Charles Dickens for all I care. You can even give me Ramona Quimby or Willy Wonka. Give me something I can feed my mind on, you know all those big fancy words they use in school speeches like “character building” (strictly for the birds), “mold our students into fine young boys and girls who will be the nation builders of tomorrow” (albeit USA nation builders), “For generations, Karachi Grammar School has been producing clear thinking and splendid…”
I’m typing…
“To whom it may concern…”

I remember when I was studying Surah Al-Kahf in my Qur'an class, and we were discussing the story of the Ashab i Kahf, something struck me. I’ll briefly run over the story in case someone doesn’t know it. There were these young people from an elite class who lived in an excessively materialistic society. However, they rejected the life their people were living and felt there was a higher purpose of life. These men, who by the way were all not known to each other, felt that unless they left their society for a while, they would lose their aakhirah. As they set out on their journey, Allah in His infinite wisdom and grace brought them together in a cave where they decided to rest awhile. Subhan’Allah! They went to sleep and Allah saved them from their tyrannical King. Their dog protected them by standing guard. This how Allah helps His true believers. When you do something for Allah, he can make the supernatural happen. They slept for 900 years! So, I conclude, the lesson is, When man takes action, Allah helps him.
Obviously this is a small example, but I’m just illustrating that no matter how small or insignificant a matter is, you can always take action. We often complain that we can’t do anything and that the system is so and so and we have no power. However, we can never find out unless we step forward to cause change. When you feel you have been unfairly marked in a test, you go straight to the teacher. Similarly, if you feel that something is wrong – do something. Write in the newspaper. Have a petition signed. Send letters or go in person to people in charge. At least try to tell people that it is wrong. I am often surprised when I mention a Hadith or an injunction or an opposing point of view to my classmates and find out that they are doing something because they don’t KNOW it is wrong. They are simply following the crowd. And they are grateful for being told. Don’t ever assume someone is not interested. But I digress. The point is, don’t be scared to stand up. Fight for your rights, whether it is for your dress code, not attending a “compulsory” ball, being rejected, etc (gotta run, sister home. later)

From: the b. filer | 11:21 AM |

Friday, August 22, 2003

- edited -

From: the b. filer | 12:46 PM |

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

- edited-

From: the b. filer | 5:36 AM |

Friday, August 15, 2003

Four Fridays ago, I was celebrating with my family my sisters Nikah. Calls were pouring in, the house was bounding with laughter and joy as we all looked forward to welcoming a new member of the family, we were all excitedly dressing up and laughing together.
This Friday, we sat in shock looking at each others faces as news of my cousin’s husband came… My Khala called in hysterics from Mauritius… my cousin, one of my very favorite, a very young girl same age as my sister, full of enthusiasm and joy, always laughing and smiling as I remember her and being excited about everything, married a few years back and living in Reunion… her husband, young handsome and just like her, full of joy and vitality, in Malaysia on business was hit by a… COW which fell on him as he fell from his motorcycle (driven by my other cousins husband…) and promptly died.
It’s as simple as that. A question of seconds. Two seconds your breathing stops, three seconds it takes to fall from a motorcycle, to get squashed by a car, to ram into a wall and be crushed. It doesn’t take long.
The whole house is in shock.. it’s unimaginable, it’s like you rub your eyes and find out my Khala calls back and says, he’s okay now.. just some minor head injury…
Just to think we spend all our lives preparing for this moment. How prepared are we really? When we are raised on the Day of Judgement, we will be in the same state as we were when we died. How will that be? In a party pounding with music, laughing with friends? In prostration? On our way to the mosque, to work, to something frivolous?
Sometimes when in class we are caught unawares talking and the teacher asks us a question, although we know the answer we are blank for a second and don't know what to say. Its like we "freeze". Imagine in the grave when the final dirt has been thrown on us and the angels are standing in front of us for our questioning. What is the name of your Lord? Your Prophet? WHat if we cant answer? Is there any guarantee the words will come to your lips?
We will be asked five question in the grave. What did you soend your youth doing? How did you earn your money? How did you spend it? Will we be able to answer?
Exactly one year ago I blogged that my other cousin's husband was in a car accident in India.. and died... Between this one year and the next, who can guarantee what else will happen and what state will WE be in? And are we doing anything?In this one year, have I stroven to improve myself? TO get more focused on MY life and remember what my real goals in life are? On the day of judgement, we will look back on our lives and think it was.. what? 1 day? 1 hour? So insignificant? And for that pleasure of one day we are forfieting a whole eternal life? For who? For what? TIll when are we going to keep ourselves in this blindfold, this little illusory world of glass and chrome and what?

From: the b. filer | 10:35 PM |

Sunday, August 10, 2003

Quick post at 1:46 am. Sorry for the delay, but computer was gone.

I just want to say.. I'm happy. happier than I have been for a while...
and my anti-darwinism has been reaffirmed after I read "The Lost World"...

funny convo of the day:

the B-ness: I always thought omg, i dont know what i want to do in future, and today i read in this book
the B-ness: that smart ppl dont know what they wanna do until they;re in their late 20s
the B-ness: hah.. feels so good
T: wow
T: i feel so smart
T: i have a good idea of what i want to do
T: and im only 19

From: the b. filer | 1:51 PM |