Sunday, June 26, 2005

happy birthday to my green-eyed siren, the truest believer, keeper of the faith, the bravest, trustingest, lovingest, biggest heart in the world! i love you so much, you are a pivot of my life...mineminemine!!! hahaha :)

Mina at 12:23 PM

5 comments

Saturday, June 25, 2005

ho ho, i played scrabble the other night and i kicked me siblingses bums into superspace! bwahaha! i was on faii-yah! 'yield' on triple-word. 'jilts' on a double, and J on a double-letter score (realised baad main i could have put it on 'roof' and verticalled to a triple-word for eight more points but i was totally winning anyway so oh well). 'inflates' : seven letter on an S, so eight letters, double word score, OAYYY HOAAYY! other random good words....'trivia', 'bring' in a really tight space. it's tricky being the only one making words on 'road' and 'log'. haha! i'm being a show-off but it was such a good game. khekhe. now i have to go get pretty for ugh dinner at gymkhana and amma just said 'you're going to be the hostess for eight teenagers'- and it's true! NOOOOO!!! it's too hot to get pretty, i don't want to make small talk and sana isn't here so i have to do everything. and i don't want to urge everyone to nahien nahien eat the tikkay! and be the friendly, slightly frightening older college wali girl wearing a big sparkly ring and eyeing everyone sleepily because i WILL be sleepy (massive lunch is still sitting in stomach) and dreaming of three pillows and a book, and the impending doom of the quiz i wanted to stay home and study for. i'm only going to sit in the airconditioning and also see if the much-vaunted haseena daughter is indeed haseen and also to- OH NO! i just realised that aunty A will be there and i recently made a complete jackass out of myself with her on the phone, i thought she was meesha and i told her to 'chubbay!' :O oh no! she was so sweet about it but STILL!!! CRIKEY! *breathe*
chalo never mind it's okay, i would not be me if i did not do such beautifully cultured, refined things. aunty A is a jaan. i will not giggle goofily. and i still do NOT like phones. and better run otherwise i'll be running out the door late and wearing my blue chappals instead of other shoes. heheaha.

Mina at 7:18 PM

14 comments

Friday, June 24, 2005

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand,
Vanished from my hand,
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping.
My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship,
My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip,
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin'.
I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Though you might hear laughin', spinnin', swingin' madly across the sun,
It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin'.
And if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind,
I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're
Seein' that he's chasing.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.


Bob Dylan
Mr. Tambourine Man
Bringing it All Back Home, 1964

Mina at 9:54 AM

3 comments

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

the universe is seriously messing with me :P

Mina at 11:49 AM

8 comments

Sunday, June 19, 2005

last friday afternoon i was trudging along the cooking sidewalk towards the front entrance so i could go to shanni khala's. bag was heavy, ponytail was high, summertime making me squint. and then i saw it. in the middle of the square of lawn adjacent to the building was a big fat rubber hose, the ones the colour of frog underbellies jaisey hotey hain yahan. this one was unusually big and fat...and it had two holes in it at, one in front and one lower down. they were wrapped round with brown box-packing tape, but there was a misty spray shooting up a few feet from each hole nonetheless. i stopped and stared at the water sparkling in the late afternoon light, and i was six years old again, running through the sprinkler on a sultry afternoon nothing like this one, shrieking and slip-sliding in the wet grass and dancing like a small pagan earth-worshipper.

so i stand and stare at the little fountains and all i want to do is run through it, back and forth a few times, and skip around in the water and yell 'yaaayyyy!!!!'.
it's really hot.
but i'm wearing a white shalwar.
water! water! it's so pretty! it's like pixies and fairies wearing diamond dresses and dancing on the wind!
there are guards looking at me from the parking lot across the road, and behind me are more boys materialising outside the khoka.
it won't take long.
but i'll have to come back for my bag and i'll be wet. and then i'll go to Quran class not only wearing a teeny-tiny kameez with teeny-tiny sleeves, but a WET one at that.
i want to run through the damn favaray! i don't care about being soggy!
but you can't! all the icky men will stare at you! your reading package will get wet and it isn't yours! and you'll have to take off your watch too, and then all the spontaniety will be killed, and i think all your thinking has killed it anyway!

so i longingly stare a little more at the garden of eden behind the bushes. it's like neverland and i can't go in because i've begun to think too darn much.
'i'm old.'
it comes out on a sigh, a little more wistful than i expected. i tear my eyes away from the mirage, the patch of cool green bliss and trudge on down the shimmering concrete feeling ancient and boring and, strangely, lonesome. maybe if i had had a partner in jumping i would have done it, or someone to tell me how stupid an idea it was because then i would have definitely have grabbed them and ran through the water :)

Mina at 1:35 PM

8 comments

maddended spiders are not allowed, but for now..ha, just for now, 'la vie en rose' in my head: just a little indulgence, today is only once.

Mina at 11:17 AM

2 comments

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Once there was a woman, and a man, and they lived in a city by the sea. One day Allah Miyaan decided that since this couple wae so particularly nice He'd give them a present. So He went off to the room where He kept all his goodies, the things He liked making presents out of.
'Hmm.' He said, tugging his beard, surveying the shelves. They were crammed with jars and bottles and tin boxes (the kind you got biscuits in when you were very small, where do you think they came from in the first place?), all kinds of shape and size and colour. Allah Miyaan perused the array, wrinkling His nose, squinting at labels.
'Blue eyes. Hm..no. Pink ribbon? Maybe.....ah, bubbling laughter, that'll do...mhm, generosity...oh, didn't know I had two jars of silliness, goody good.'
And so forth. But He didn't take a single jar off the shelves lining the walls, ceiling to floor. Something wasn't right....He needed inspiration. He rubbed His nose, and turned to look outside the window. Outside the window two butterflies were doing a little jig. Butterflies are by nature never alone, and are just tiny bits of show-offs. They like prancing about and flinging their prettiness about like pixie dust, but they aren't conceited in the least. They just enjoy being as drop-dead beautiful as they are with an endearing child-like glee. Tiaras, incidentally, were put into their inventor's head by a pair of scheming butterflies with way too much time on their wings. Anyhow, Allah Miyaan watched the butterflies giggle and whisper, hovering unsteadily in the soft light of early morn. He grinned, and began taking containers and jars off the shelves, and mixing up some magic in a big bowl of beaten gold.

It was afternoon when He gave the mixture in the bowl one last satisfied stir. He wiggled his fingers over it, and it began to swirl and glow and sing, faintly. It sounded like what is today known as the song 'Chitta Kukkar' but at that time only Allah Miyaan knew that. In many parts of the world they've still to make the discovery. Anyhow, the mixture was bubbling away nicely, and was beginning to waft the lightest scent of fresh-brewed Colombian coffee when it began to put together a small holographic image, shimmering like a butterfly over the beautiful purple goo in the bowl of beaten gold. Allah Miyaan's face creased into a pleased smile. He loved what He saw- loved it so much, in fact, that He decided to divide the magic mixture into two.

Back in the city by the sea, a doctor peered at a small screen, and all of a sudden the woman and the man heard three thuds- one soft and steady, and two smaller, faster ones, like the sound of small feet running barefoot over a marble floor. The doctor smiled.
'You're having twins.'

Twenty years ago to this day, two butterflies were born, and one of them flitted into my life. Happy Birthday, little one :) I love you!

Mina at 5:33 PM

7 comments

Friday, June 17, 2005

if everyone thinks they can come dance on my head whenever the fuck hell they want, from the cat to almost everyone i know well, you got another thing coming, thankyouverymuch. because i'm cheerful and control my temper does not mean you aren't pissing the fuck hell out of me every time i put myself in your shoes and try to understand where you're coming from. if i keep looking for the good, trying to figure out why you do what you do while i really should just blast you and have done with it, that does not give anyone the license to play doormat with me.

why do people only take you seriously after you've insulted them, or shouted at them? what the hell's wrong with all of you?! good things don't happen to good people because everyone's too busy trying to take advantage of the good people because the good people are the ones who aren't mean to you even though you're being the annoyingst fuckface on the planet because they are the proponents of the silver lining and love and faith and all the other prettypretty things nobody believes in any more, like truth and beauty and goodness and dignity and really listening to what people are saying and going the extra mile for a loved one. noooo. sub ulloo seedha karlein apna and buss! that's all there is to it, as long as some poor fucker like me is around to take your bullshit all the damn time because 'do unto others' you know, the world is great. you have your cake and eat it too, until the poor fucker loses her temper and boots your ass through the door until you stop talking through it. gawd. what a piss-off. it isn't like we have n number of lives to live keh we can be so content with living this one like an ignorant animal savage. You'd think we'd aspire to be bigger and better and higher in the mind and soul, and then you could say you really lived.

"Others are brave out of ignorance, and, when they begin to think, they begin to fear. But the man who can most truly be accounted brave is he who best knows the meaning of what is sweet in life and what is terrible, and then goes out undeterred to meet what is to come." - Pericles' funeral oration for the dead of the first year of the Peloponnesian War.
That's the kind of brave I want to be. That's the kind of brave we all should be, otherwise we live the way we do now- petty and foolish and most of all, so self-absorbed that you cease to notice the people around you. If you were a hermit crab that'd be okay but you aren't, and when you stop giving your own little life so much importance you might realise how much there is to do with yourself, how many hills to climb, places to explore. No wonder everyone's miserable all the time, we all live in fear. The sunshine is harder to face than the dark so everyone lives there all the time, whingeing and whining about how crappy their lives are and how they have to have the job and the career and the degree and hai hai it's so IMPORTANT i will DIE if i don't have a cushy, successful life! what're you going to do once you've got it all? eat the house? have the degree tattooed on your arse? crappy life, crappy life, my head will explode if i hear it one more time- OF COURSE YOUR LIFE IS CRAPPY! YOU'RE SPENDING IT ON BEING A BETTER FUCKER! you're looking at shadows on the cave wall all the time, no wonder you're so confused, turn the hell around and make your own shadows! walk through the fire! you know something is wrong with your life but you don't know what it is, so i'm telling you what it is: you are stuck in the goo of being mundane. you are stuck in the mire of fear, in the stinking pit of self-pity. you are ordinary and you don't like it, and you're ordinary because your priorities are ordinary ones. if you're selfish, then why aren't you happy? aren't you getting everything you want? sounds just about right, doesn't it? anything glimmer in your head? ah! surprise! life is not just about you, it's about getting past you and climbing into us. them. life is bigger than you and me, and 'tis such a damned shame we spend it scratching away in the dirt with a stick like chickens instead of trying to fly. icarus fell into the sea, but he got the closest to the sun than any of us did. we're all standing on the ground laughing at the poor stupid sod who was such an idiot, trying to get to the sun. what would we know, we've never felt that kind of freedom of spirit, that courage. we're too busy being glad we didn't fall into the sea because we have so much to do with our lives, woo hoo! let's go buy a really big telly now!

the bottom line is that if you're a shitty human being, chalo that's okay. everyone's shitty in varying degrees, if you weren't you'd be a prophet or a saint. but if you don't give a flying rat's ass about being shitty, you might as well jump off a cliff because you're an utterly useless appendage to humanity. i honestly think Allah did not intend for humans to be the cowardly selfish scum that we are, 1 lakh 24 thousand prophets is not a joke, and i'm not even counting all of philosophy. you cannot and should not allow yourself to be a fucker. the fact of your life is much bigger than your puny little self. realise it and be proud. do your life the honour it deserves.

and i am not your nauker, if i'm nice to you it's probably more because i am trying to be a good person, and less because you're an extra-special superduper example of humanity. everyone wants to be a princess/prince but everyone's forgotten that royalty got respect yeah because they were powerful and rich but also because they acted like royalty. nawab ki aulad weren't allowed to be fuckers and that's what made them special, a cut above all the common horde. i have got to be better, braver, trust myself, know what i want and get it, but with grace and dignity. live with respect and kindness and the best principles i know. live, and live well. be a good friend, sibling, child, lover, the best i can be so i can wake up every day and be glad, and thankful, and proud of what is truly worthy of pride, not the shallow accolades of this silly little world. and now i'm really really late for european history, so g'bye, and be well. and if you read all of this, i lift my hat to you :)

Mina at 10:03 AM

25 comments

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Welcoming another beautiful niece to the world, yay! Born yesterday in Bhopal. Mother and baby are doing well (and hopefully father is too, lol).

Mina at 10:03 AM

3 comments

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

today i was a 'noble savage Hun' in european history, haha the only girl volunteer so i got to choose what to be- the huns, china, or rome. i wanted china kyunke they were cool uss zamaney main but fahad sad 'oo be the noble savage' so i did- spontaneous, wot- and it was funny. i got me a plain of pennonia, bwahaha ;)

i knew "something" was going to happen today!

Mina at 1:17 PM

2 comments

Monday, June 13, 2005

random addtional note(s): i looked up aaj and stuart betha tha! out of the billoo, just like magic :D yay now we can go egging. happiness. i like stuart.

reenie is here. walked up in the hall with butt outside A-3 and it was like she had never left :)))much happinesses all round. she begins to laugh her bubbling-up hansi whenever she sees someone she likes on campus and runs off like a little stripey t-shirted elf to hug them. gels only ;) cow has gone to get clothes now, leaving me whining about my tab-undone assignment and drinking evil orange masala that only looks pretty, but is garam and too orangey and ew, saltyish. very greek aunty i cannot recall right now.

speaking of greek, a much pending note. other than the fact that i very much like khurram husain (he said 'craven' and 'pittance' in the same sentence today, my word-glutton heart goes garden garden) all the ancient names (shaaid abhi bhi hon? koi bayeed nahien, dekhna hoga) for greek islands sound so pretty keh i will name all my girls after them (them sounding mostly feminine). hello, this is my number two (kyunke everyone should have a big brother, it's just sweet) ('tis a phrase that never fails to tickle the juvenile part of my funny bone, hehe you're doody) chaleis, and this is cyrene and sinope. it really IS pretty. i shall to-ta-lly do it, Inshallah. chhey bachay karney hongey ab to keep it even. three boys and three girls. hahaha! i saw a baby being born on national geographic and it wasn't as gross as i thought it would potentially be, but then again i am not a squeamish girl unless raw livers-with-gallbladders-attached are concerned.

also, please pray for the safe delivery of a niece of mine. we have many books to read together.

Mina at 3:05 PM

5 comments

i refuse to drink more tang-ORS masala! NO MORE! bhaar chooley main jaye electrolyte dehydration and muscle spasm and red fire-lizard hallucinations! WHERE'S THE BEEF?

sigh. i hate being pyezened.

(tubelight: ohhh no wonder mood off hai, subha se sirf eik jam-toss khaya hai)
(delirium can be a little funny, lying fetal position on the bathroom mat at fajar time)

Mina at 2:54 PM

3 comments

Friday, June 10, 2005

yoda ate his first (official) (semi- grr, ammara) solids today! yayyy! bread and milk for breakfast, standing on my foot! i'm so proud :D

Mina at 12:53 PM

18 comments

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Mina at 11:46 AM

7 comments

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

today was amusing. in european history, we were doing basic european geography (following this sarky quote from braudel: 'geography proposes, history disposes'. cue eye roll.) and khurram husain was throwing random questions at the class; those rhetorical i-don't-really-need-an-answer-to-this question-because-nobody-knows-the-answer-to-questions-like-these. so.


he asks aisee, offhand, listing penninsula sticky-out bits, 'iberia, anyone know where iberia is?'
before he can answer his own question, a boy wearing glasses and a checked shirt speaks up.
'spain'
husain nods, appreciatively, and carries on. (abhi no-one notices, smart hoga nerdy geography boy, chalta hai.)


'does anyone know where africa's name comes from?'
'a roman general called africanus.' (arrey wah)

talking about the mediterranean, husain mentions how no country's ever been able to gain control of the area, the last attempt being the turks fighting someone i've forgotten.
'anyone know when that was?'
up pipes same boy.
'1571'
now everyone is impressed, including the instructor, who exclaims,
'that's correct- how do you know all of this?!' (i mean, okay for iberia but 1571 and africanus? hudd hi hogayi)
without missing a beat, the boy fires back:

'age of empires!'

Mina at 6:03 PM

10 comments

Monday, June 06, 2005

so y'know, how it goes with the smallcat. spends his day driving me insane: attaches himself to my leg while i'm pumping the syringe up to feed him- matlab, are you crazy? what do you think i'm doing at eight-thirty a.m if not catering to your highness' gastric needs? and i am thanked by four paws full of claws lodged in my left leg. Maaaashaaalllaaahhh. then he runs around all day long. runs like the progeny of ben jonson, skidding around corners, jumping on the sofa, mewing madly and pawing at my book. acha bhai. your stomach is full, your chin is wiped, what's your problem? i am decidedly irked when i have settled down to a nice long uninterrupted read and a pile of mewing fur and bones insists on standing on my stomach between me and my pages. o-kay then. i have to eventually abandon my georgette heyer and pump some more milk down the damn cat's throat just to shut him up, or coax him out of my parents' room so he doesn't jump on a napping mother. when yoda is not running around madly or trying to attack my arm, he is trying to attack ali's leg, or figuring out how to climb the swivel chair and onto the desk with the computer and sana. then he decides wa-hey! let's go take a dump where i'm really not supposed to so that mina has a really creative clean-up to do! fine, i'm your mother but really. there are limits, and the ultimate one i think is following me to the bathroom and sitting outside mewing plaintively while i take a shower, not because he misses me or anything as preposterous as that, but because he associates every bathroom with being fed. greedy little fart. so i spend my day ranting at the cat, peeling it off random sofas and threatening it to leave him at hassan's while uss peh eik joon ki nani nahien reengti and persists on being an ass of the highest order. in the evening i'm curled up on the one-seater, watching telly and the cat reappears- meeeooowwww yes your canines are entirely intact i assure you, sahib-e-aalam- clambering up onto the couch to walk over me again. i ignore him, because i have already told him he is in high disgrace and will be treated with appropriate severity. after a while he plops down in the space between my arm and the back of the couch, drapes his front paws over the crook of my elbow and gives me a few kisses (licks, but it equates). then he proceeds to flomp his face down on my arm too, and fall fast asleep. purring.

so then y'know, how it goes with the smallcat.

Mina at 11:56 AM

9 comments

Friday, June 03, 2005

yours is the music for no instrument
yours the preposterous colour unbeheld

—mine the unbought contemptuous intent
till this our flesh merely shall be excelled
by speaking flower
(if I have made songs

it does not greatly matter to the sun,
nor will rain care
cautiously who prolongs
unserious twilight) Shadows have begun

the hair’s worm huge,ecstatic,rathe….

yours are the poems i do not write.

In this at least we have got a bulge on death,
silence,and the keenly musical light

of sudden nothing….la bocca mia “he
kissed wholly trembling”

Mina at 4:01 PM

11 comments

i have loved,let us see if that’s all.
Bit into you as teeth,in the stone
of a musical fruit. My lips pleasantly groan
on your taste. Jumped the quick wall

of your smile into stupid gardens
if this were not enough(not really enough
pulled one before one the vague tough

exquisite

Mina at 3:29 PM

3 comments

Thursday, June 02, 2005

I Heart Tina ;)

Mina at 1:07 PM

7 comments