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Book recommendations?

What is the best book you have read? I am looking for something engaging, tranformative, and soothing.

I ask because in roughly 4 weeks, I will be in a tropical country on a beach. With nothing but a book and a pina colada for ten days. My goal is to catch up on all the reading I missed out on during law school. A book a day for ten days, a beach, a county full of good portions of beef and beautiful people, and of course good company. Yup, sounds like paradise.

Now give me your recommendations!

Pls :)

Why I smiled today.

  • 40 minutes on the elliptical, with me and the “Sexiest Men of the Year” issue of People
  • Getting gently scraped on the cheeks by falling autumn leaves
  • Crunching those leaves under my cute, new, flats.
  • Chai and samosas at noon while listening to a lecture on Art in Karachi
  • Sporadic hot chocolate and lunch with a friend (thank you!)
  • A thoughtful email from one of my favorite writers :)
  • Lean Cuisine Lasagna
  • Ghamdi’s Ramadhan Dua permeating through my morning

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Why I smiled…

  • Just me, my space heater, old library books, and my laptop. Writing away productively for hours.
  • Cozy Sunday brunch
  • Scented candles that are always burning
  • Turning my heat up to 78 degrees (just for a bit!)
  • Apple cider
  • Thanksgiving groceries
  • Going to fancy balls in sexy shoes
  • New York skyline at night
  • A quiet prayer in the dark
  • Contentment during utter confusion and instability
  • A choir concert filled with nostalgia
  • An unexpected friend request
  • Buying suits with a favorite young cousin and watching him suddenly look all grown up.

He taped her in the shower.

In the midst of the million other things I had to get done, some how I managed to have a four hour (no exaggeration) conversation with a certain aunty jee (”AJ”). AJ and I were discussing a recent event in our community that shocked, perturbed and disgusted me. Of course the community did not have quite the reaction I was expecting anyone with half a brain or even half a conscience to have.

A certain college student had just arrived to our town from the Motherland (here on out DF = dear fob). He was put up in his aunt’s home where her teenage cousin also resided. We had always known DF to be a little sketchy. Porn was always coming out of his drawers, something about him just rubbed us the wrong way. He was the kind of guy you would cringe while hugging, and could never make comfortable eye contact with.

A few months after peaceful coexistence in his aunt’s house, we felt that DF was coming around. Had we misjudged him? Perhaps piles of porno are normal for teenage pakistani Lahori school boys?  We were opening up to him, letting him into our lives, and I was slapping myself for being so damn judgmental and wrong about another individual.

Until we found he had ordered spy cameras. With porno, piles of clothing and cigarette butts these receipts turned up. We looked further to find the cameras installed on his computer, with a straight on view into the bathtub of the basement guest bathroom of his aunt’s house - where his 21 year old cousin, Sania, showered everyday.

Sania cried when she found out, she screamed, some dishes were broken. But in front of the elders of the family there was a surprising silencing. They looked the other way. He was sent back to the motherland for the summer, where he was promptly engaged to an innocent girl of good khandaan.  “A good wife will “fix” him.” “Achee ladki sab theek karleygi.” Sania’s parents did not want to cause a “rift” in the family - so they forgave him. “Forgave.”

And they said…

“His parents will handle him.”

“His dad has done so much for us.”

“I can’t tear my family apart because of this, beta.”

“What other house can I stay at in Pakistan?”

“Just get over it. The larger person forgives.”

AJ was so overcome with warmth and happiness about these said events. She was giving me examples of how beautiful this family and their forgiveness was.

But what is forgiveness, when it is denial meant to keep your family together? If you forgive a rapist you do not know, who has no connection for you, perhaps you have exercised an impossible virtue. But forgiveness to shut a family up, to put dirt under the rug, is no forgiveness - it is stupidity. Stupidity when we let sexual criminals run about, going as far as setting them up with other’s daughters. And when we speak up, we are told to quiet down. When we don’t, we are the family’s trouble makers. We are blamed for tearing relationships apart.

But perhaps some relationships SHOULD be torn apart. Perhaps when we shake things up a bit will these sexual criminals learn that their actions will have consequences other than quick marriages, soft reprimands, or a new, separate apartment.

And today I saw DF. I said salaam with a quick glance. AJ commented on what a sweet boy he was.  And I, too, was silent.

Grr to me.

Why do I always sleep until noon? Why do I never go to the gym as planned? Why do I consume so many pancakes? Why is it that my day begins and ends with an online board game? Why is my room never clean? WHY AM I THE LEAST PRODUCTIVE PERSON EVER?

I am a burden on the world, and just that.