Saturday, March 26, 2005

Two words for y'all: Howard Schatz. Discovered him today (although 'dance' looks vaguely familiar) flipping through lithos (one of my favourite things to do: flip, picture them framed, and fill in the blanks of where to put them in an imaginary room)...and oh my god. WOW. Most folks are starkers here (Nayyara, just so you don't kill me baad main for corrupting you, lol). Kodak's done a gorgeous job of him here; go get an eyeful, and dream some. It's magic, music caught in a frame.

Mina at 10:51 PM

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a shaved mouse, imagine that....hahaha

Mina at 10:17 PM

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what!?

Mina at 10:04 PM

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Thursday, March 24, 2005

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to save every day
Till eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I’d save every day like a treasure and then,
Again, I would spend them with you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I’ve looked around enough to know
That you’re the one I want to go
Through time with

If I had a box just for wishes
And dreams that had never come true
The box would be empty
Except for the memory
Of how they were answered by you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I’ve looked around enough to know
That you’re the one I want to go
Through time with


Time in a Bottle
Jim Croce

Mina at 3:37 PM

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speaking of stalkers..(these are in order of publication, descending)...titchy small, but muchly funny ;)

Mina at 12:58 PM

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gotta love monty...hahaha

Mina at 12:57 PM

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hahahaha

Mina at 12:54 PM

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Wednesday, March 23, 2005

watching the pakistan day parade without daddy isn't quite right...so i opted for the next-best thing: his mother (mine was having a blast clearing up my desk).

f-16s are very noisy 'cause they fly with all their blower thingamajigs open; it looked like an angry insect...a big, buzzy moth. dil ki hasrat hai; i will go and see it in islamabad next year, come hell or high water. buss. done. Inshallah. yay!

Mina at 12:08 PM

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fishie has a real-life i'm-not-saying-this-'cause-you're-my-friend fan! a cutie young 'un in karachi sent me a note:

hey youre the mina malik who wrote the story 'yellow beginnings' aren't you? I read it yesterday in my schools library and thought it was bloody brilliant!

Youre a brilliant writer! :)

i think i shall be most impressed with myself today *grin*

Mina at 11:55 AM

11 comments

Monday, March 21, 2005

Nude bodies like peeled logs
sometimes give off a sweetness
odor, man and woman

under the trees in full excess
matching the cushion of

aromatic pine-drift fallen
threaded with trailing woodbine
a sonnet might be made of it

Might be made of it! odor of excess
odor of pine needles, odor of
peeled logs, odor of no odor
other than trailing woodbine that

has no odor, odor of a nude woman
somtimes, odor of a man.


Sonnet in Search of an Author
William Carlos Williams

Mina at 2:01 AM

9 comments

Friday, March 18, 2005

pehle i was doing the stupid quiz on reenie/tree-elf/saphiya's blog. then i decided to screw that and write something, maybe something about the gloriously cold weather, the smell of a rained-on world. motorcyclists musing the sky in the middle of the road. strawberries in season now, the one berry i found in the apple-shaped basket that had a long stem still attached. white chopping board, centres of sliced carrots and strawberry heads. juice smears on the board, on my fingers.
i don't want to. i'm tired of inviting everyone to dinner.

Mina at 4:21 PM

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Thursday, March 17, 2005

daano staking her claim :)

Mina at 2:16 AM

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Tuesday, March 15, 2005

okay. comments are back to free-for-all, it's just really annoying to have to log in to comment on my OWN blog. go play now. no anonymous comment wars allowed though, i ALWAYS know who's being mister smarty-pants *pointed looks at people who know who they are* and i will kick your butts.
und'stand? *snaps her finger into a point* jhyoo bettah und'stand.

Mina at 3:10 PM

6 comments

all my bags are packed, i'm ready to go

it comes from nowhere, early morning consciousness. i sing softly.

i'm standing here, outside your door

she types in time with me. aagey peeche.

i hate to wake you up to say goodbye

she picks up the thread, i smile inside my ribs.

but the dawn is breaking, it's early morn

we sing together, just below our breaths, enough for someone behind us to hear snatches of it..the sharper end of an 's', the faint click of a 't'.

the taxi's waiting, he's blowing his horn

she trills her end notes. i sing mine straight.

already i'm so lonesome, i could die

our voices sit outside our personalities, whenever we do this. she always stops when i join in, and only sometimes does she step into my songs. i tiptoe around this rare moment.

so kiss me, and smile for me

somehow we sound good when we sing together. ranges mesh, pitches level each other out, her constant keeping a tune keeps my awriness in check and i sing a little louder so she doesn't lower her voice. she's still shy in many ways.

tell me that you'll wait for me

interestingly, we aren't looking at each other. we're checking our mail, reading blogs, starting today's business. we don't need to look. we're singing.

hold me like you'll never let me go

like all fleeting magicks, this one ends too. she gets up, goes to study. i smack her arm ('no!'), she laughs. i'll see her later.

'cause i'm leaving on a jet plane

yay.

Mina at 9:15 AM

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he was very small. must have been five, or six years old, sun-browned freckled face topped by a shock of caramel hair. one hand, half the size of mine, held a grimy finger up in supplication and a pair of the biggest eyes i have ever seen in a child's face looked up at us from the bottom line of the window. he was very small. i couldn't see anything else but his hair, half a hand and long-lashed eyes the colour of autumn leaves as he stood next to the glass. he stepped away as the light changed, and the car roared around the corner. we adjusted sunglasses picked up in shiny malls across the atlantic and felt fleetingly guilty.

Mina at 8:55 AM

3 comments

Monday, March 14, 2005

he lurks. i notice, only because i always
notice. didn't used to; i wonder what
he wants to accomplish. i said hello the
other day, i'm glad i did. tameez hoti hai. he
was surprised, skittish eyes stilled a moment. his cardigan was too long, it
probably got stretched in the wash. interesting,
you look like a toy policeman from
blyton. round and shiny in places. i like this languid
power, i'm in control and i can make you scuttle
away but simultaneously i am a little
repentant and a little sorry. you have a lot of guts- i admire
that- and your fingernails were clean. i might have noticed
the length of your fingers but the platter- it may look
fluted and seashell-veined prettypretty, but it was
really heavy and i was being a hero(ine) and
holding it with one hand,
concentrating on getting a
sandwich across so i could relieve the strained
wrist. sometime down the week there will
be another khekhe-khakha, another grin at another
appraising set of eyelashes. me, i never thought
it would come to this. it's interesting, i'll give you
that. i like this ability to elicit reactions, be able to really
mess with someone's head if i chose to be (amma would
flip out i think but also be secretly quite
amused) very
naughty and put on my coolly aloof, very
multi-syllable persona that makes people think i'm
an SS wunderkinder just to see what
would
happen. if i'm doing this i may as well
have a bit of
fun, have
a few funny stories to tell ayesha when
i call her next, feed a story or two. it would be very amusing to show up one day
for class wearing a ring conspicuously not one of the regular multiple chunks of silver
and rainbow rocks- surprise!

Mina at 9:42 AM

7 comments

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Now that she's back in action, my sister's blog is tres cool. No bias, promise. Mizz Malik is funny, quirky and one of the rare people who don't use their blogs to moan and spoo about a) their cruddy love lives b) their cruddy lives or c) just crud. Nor does she burst into song and dance around trees. Muchas points to the ScrapBook, may thy remain untainted by the blague.
(n. blay-guh. the unfortunate, infectious disease of using a blog to spout mush)

Tree-Elf's latest post is a must-see. Chauvinistic boy-party inaneity....but it's funny :D

My 'links' column is placed in groups, if you've noticed. The first is the litty-critty space. The second is the altruism space. The third is the comics and then the fourth section for the photograph yummies. The rest is the random things I like and let float around on their (its?) own like cyber dust bunnies or socks that went into the washing machine plural and came out single. Stop, rewind: the photo stuff. New link! New link! Faraz's ShutterBlog is my most recent blog hop. If it were black and white I'd buy it all off him (or at least the autumn ones), print a litho series and tell everyone Ansel Adams was still makin' the rounds in the boonies of California ;)

Random Thumbs-Up: Toe socks. Bless the German for bringing me another pair, this one has little smiley (literally) sunflowers on bluegreenpinkorange stripes. Sweet!

Mina at 9:31 AM

6 comments

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

it is something like rain, almost,
this not-quite love. it
sulks in a cloud, brimming with a harrumph,
a full mouth pouted into
fluted curves. it's so
pretty, this
not-quite anger
grazes water, rippling surface
tension lightly, dragonfly glitter; one
aims to blind and the other
seeks to please

both cling, holding hands
in the dark


their song

Mina at 9:58 AM

8 comments

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

i have it [thanks to huma, fairy bookmother ;)]! finally, i have it [nyah nyah bilal ;)]. and it's beautiful. so far i've read the names of the chapters, and the acknowledgement. and the dedication. pure enchantment, from the jacket to the size to the weight of it in my lap, from the funny deer to the ghalib. uff. keh kaun aadmi hai, i can't believe he's real :D has got to be some kind of magic, to suddenly have the suchlike just drop from the sky in fairly rapid succession *grin*

maps for lost lovers, ladiss and jantilmain [loved that, saad], HOORAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! now to find a way to get it signed....hmm...salmagundi, salmagundi...YAY! YAY! i feel like...like...i won't say christmas 'cause i've only had one, and i won't say eid because nothing that unique happens on eid but just like....springtime. i feel like springtime.

Mina at 9:00 PM

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Happy Women's Day! I won't say do something sweet for your women 'cause you should do it every day anyway hehe. And the women: love thyself. You are not fat, promise. Neither is your skin horrible, your sunglasses outmoded, your outfit stitched wrong or your toes not pretty enough.

Shoaib Hashmi was playing fun things on The Breakfast Show this morning, I got out of the car shaking my earrings to Marvin Gaye's 'Midnight Woman'. And Ray Orbison, subha saverey, 'mercccyyy' hahaha that always reminds me of Amina Khalil and eleventh grade. She'd do the 'mercy' part and I'd do the 'rowwrr'. Been thinking of school, purane zamaney these days; I wonder why.

Neend aarahi hai. Why do our drivers always have to have all manner of pressing urgencies in life all the time? Why did we get a new car? I liked the old one, I could drive it without being afraid that Abbu the Human Microscope would spot a scratch on the paint work (which is a bit exaggerated because when I did scratch the front fender he knew but he didn't chew me out, but still. I'm sleepy and I have a gene that exaggerates everything, plus I'm a princess so y'know. I can say these things *grin*). I am also thinking of several things simultaneously: that the workshop makes me really happy; that Pakistanis are probably one of the most un-PC qaum that exists and that..umm...aye hai, I've forgotten. I will hold forth on these things later when my fingers will type at their regular speed-of-light and not this sedate thik-thik. The keyboard in here is caked in dust; I had a good time freaking Asad out- I painted a graphic picture of all the goo that probably lurks beneath the black plastic, of all the sneezed-into hands that have touched the keys, all the grotty things jammed beneath the letters that make typing such a pain. Of course, I was home. hehehehe. He totally wigged out. Amma would want to throw this thing into a bucket of soapy, warm water- then again, Amma has wood cleaner called 'Soapy', Pledge makes it. It isn't polish, it's actually detergent cleanser for wood surfaces. I like the word 'soapy', it evokes bubbles and babies in the bubbles for some reason. soaappyyy! I can imagine a little kid squeaking it, splashing in a tub. Rubber duckies. Running through the sprinkler. Playing in the rain with Ali, Goldie and the green hose, and Atif khalu dropping by as we were graphically reenacting a Mortal Kombat fight sequence; peeking over the gate completely drenched, hair plastered to our faces. We let in a highly amused husband-of-my aunt, needless to say. hahahahaha. Acha, enough free association. Happy Wimmin's Day, wot! Pink Pride, yay!

Mina at 9:05 AM

3 comments

Monday, March 07, 2005

nobody knows what to do with the paper i wrote for african literature. the TA says it wasn't an academic paper. i know it wasn't: that is the point. i wrote a piece of literature for a literature class on a topic nobody's done any research that i could find on: what happens inside the 'other woman''s head in a polygamous relationship. the second wife, nobody ever talks about her. so i did. let's see what happens: an A is on the line. but i'm glad i did it. i'm tired of writing the same old, pounding out three thousand words of postcolonial regurgitation. it's a formula you learn by the time you're a junior, and i will not be one of those SS wunderkinders that have learnt the formula so well their transcripts are beautiful, but are variants of the same central theme. i didn't come to LUMS to use the formula and whiz by. i came so i didn't have to swallow my opinions and write what was expected to get an A any more. so fingers crossed for my paper, and i'm ready to rock and roll!

Mina at 11:07 PM

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yessiree bob, a pedicure. two hours of it. with bestie girlfriendy, and then off to lunch with another bestie girlfriendy, and hours of laughing, talking, swiping food off each other's plates, messing around with the digi-cam. of comparing toe-shine, wreaking havoc in radio city, cautiously sipping rabri doodh from nirala. sunglasses and perfume in a hot pink rectangle. giggling because scrubbing a foot can be really tickly, and the parlor aunties being rather amused in turn. too much sugar, by far. red, red nailpolish; traffic-stopping bright tomato red for me and darker, blood-maroon for ayesha who never wears red, always pink. shiny, buffed nails, i think that was the best part of it all. tom yang kai (goong nahien tha reenie, for the lunch buffet! boo!), squishy dumplings to be adventurous but skipping the whole fried little fish (don't think they still had the eyes ;) hehe you know who you are). doing the stupid dance in the car. talking seriously, saying things only we can get away with saying to each other. meesha and ayesha dropping CDs left right and center. choosing between robbie williams and norah jones, and then between robbie and a DVD. choosing between natalie merchant and 'rolling with the king', replacing the sinatra i lost to sydra and nat king cole. the weird wax stick 'what's she DOING?', bumping into the boys at jammin' java. fahd's getting thick but the hair! hahaha! my drink is the precise colour of my toes, interesting. 'i'm taking your picture too, don't be jealous'. 'fatay hogayi' after so long! :D nikah pics, all of a sudden young women. and then baby in my lap, the Brigade in the lawn. camera a-clicking, i love rechargeable batteries! nana's beige sweater. singing the little one to sleep, 'fields of gold', 'i'll remember' and 'time after time'. aahh...what a good day. one to put in a scrapbook and laugh over after a few months, maybe a year. we've come a long way, baby. (l)

Mina at 9:36 AM

2 comments

Sunday, March 06, 2005

sweetness 

Mina at 9:52 PM

3 comments

Saturday, March 05, 2005

Jehanara Ejaz (1989 - 2005)

I have no words...it's all too much. Allah forgive us all, and give us enough time to do all the silly, stupid things we think are so important. May Allah give us all the strength and privilege to live our lives such that when it's time, we won't be afraid. May we always be able to put our hearts before our heads so that we can truly live, for whatever time we have. And may Allah give this little girl a place near His throne.

If you do, please pray for Jehanara and the people whose lives will be less bright in her loss.

Mina at 9:39 AM

2 comments

Thursday, March 03, 2005

on muses and boeotian wannabe-ness
one thing that makes me grumpy is having to pare a story down. fifteen hundred words? it's like saying bacha, sari bandh lo do guz kaprey main, aur haan, please look beautiful while you're at it, wot? and yes...i know, beyond fifteen hundred would be a royal pain in the butt to read for four people at a go (which is what we have to do), but eeyaaahh! so i'm stalking it, hoping that the sleepy nighttime clear quiet will do something magic. i need to pare it down and slap it around a bit to make it a cohesive whole; right now it isn't complete. if i can't finish it in fifteen H, then i'm probably going to have to type up something older i wrote in karachi...unless herbert bites me in the bum before monday. i hope he will. finjers crossed.

naya gana
(can't remember their last names so i'll be all familiar here) sajid and zeeshan've got a new song up; saw/heard it on IM this afternoon. notabad. called 'my happiness', there's a video too for all you DSL folkses...it's cute, they've got it rated by food: this track was a bag of doritos and salsa, 'king of self' was eighteen cups of coffee. another thing called 'the jazz bit'; seven cups of tea. i wonder if it's for one of them, or both. seven cups of tea and a bag of doritos is very singularly doable.

aisee.
if you stand sideways in front of a mirror, you will realise two things: where your tummy is going, for one, and two: how little there is to being a body. bodies are mere inches across. that's a very, very fragile thing to be. humans are preedy. wrists and collarbones and toes...sweet, deceptively breakable things.

across da chops!
hehahaha...spent a good while having a go at ol' mister bippy...'hyuk hyuk! you hit like my grandmother!'. maza aya. pumpumupumumpum heheheee

purana gana
rangeela reeee....lata sounds so lovely, trilling away effortlessly...like a shahtoos through a ring. and it is NOT a chichora gana achawwww...yuun ranga hai merey mann main tera runggg...dimagh fail horaha hai althouh i just had a good idea! FINISH UP THE QUL STORY, WOT? that's 1,409 words already and it's still a baby, but you know. setting shetting, s'all there. how come i always volunteer for setting? because i'm a detail freakazoid. yummaayy.

prudie roodie roo
i was called a prude recently, in jest. but it made me think of the mad things i've done and plan to do. and the things i assign priority to. i'm not a prude in the least. i have principles, but i don't think i'm a prude. t'wouldn't do, clan women are not prudes. eccentric, dramatic, effusively expressive, yes, but prudes? no. i'm a nerd, yeah, but not prudish just because i disapprove of certain things and make it known. i'm a nerd, which is great good FUN. not a really proper nerd, but a goodly extentfied one definitely. i even have the glasses, dood. hehe. aye lauff. i leev in house of books and head in clouds, ja!

Mina at 11:56 PM

4 comments

I was going to put something up about the great time I had cooking up a lunchtime feast for Ayesha and Sadia yesterday. But then I read Ali's blog. Rumi, as always.



Completely cleft, straight to the bone, butterfly sliced. Wipe eyes.

Mina at 1:12 PM

5 comments