Desert God

Beautiful paragraph from Pauline Searle's 'Dawn Over Oman'...

Almost as dramatic in a quieter, less aggressive but more ominous way is the desert. From the Umm as Samiim, the Salt Flats, in the west of Oman, the silent wastes of the Rub al Khali, the Empty Quarter, creep up upon one like the mists of time - nothing, nothing and yet more nothing as far as the eye can see. The silence is so deep here that ears ache from the very pressure of silence. One is alone with one's God now - this is what life is all about and there is nothing between Him and you. This is the type of country where Islam was born: simple enough for a man to find his God and where he can easily believe that God can find him.

Image from Martin Hartley Photography

Time Travelling on Empathy

When I came upon these paragraphs in Pauline Searle's 'Dawn Over Oman', I felt so sad for the monarch of Oman of the past 40 years. It took me back to America, my silent dead phase, when I'd longingly look at other people's families and friends who'd express emotional support and understanding every step of the way - for bad semesters, burnouts, and moments of madness.

First let us go back to 1962 and to Sandhurst in England, where the young Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the only son of Sultan Said, was passing out as a second lieutenant in the Cameronians. Watching the new officers on their big day were members of their families and close friends as well as military dignitaries, but for the young man from Arabia there was no family present, only a middle-aged British major and his wife who had been detailed by his father to keep an eye on him and who were to exert such a tremendous influence on both father and son in the years to come. Major F. C. L. Chauncey, who had originally come to Muscat as British Consul in 1949, had retired in 1958 from the Foreign Service but, owing to his close friendship with Sultan Said, had returned almost immediately to Oman as the Sultan's personal adviser. Cast in the old colonial mould, for better and for worse, Major Chauncey, ex-Indian Army, took his job very seriously. He and Sultan Said were very much akin in character - autocratic, obstinate, but with great integrity and even greater determination that Oman should progress only in their way and in their time.

With surprising forethought, Sultan Said decided to send his son round the world for three months to broaden his horizons. Accompanying the young man were the Chaunceys to guide the young Qaboos and to restrain any youthful enthusiasm which the Sultan himself so distrusted. But this broad-minded action towards his only son was to be the last.

...

The young Qaboos personified to the Sultan the dangers of the future. At all costs he was not to be contaminated by the modern world. There was only one way to prevent this: to keep him isolated. Qaboos, who by this time was living near the palace in Salalah, little realised that this would be his home for the next eight years.

Within

Nighttime once more
Thank God
For silence
For dark
For stillness
For deep blue and black
That drown the details of the world outside
That lull the ugly voices that shout over mine
At night I win

I hear

Memories that live
Filmroll
Some screams
Some smiles

Relive an admirer
Or a suprise
The memory is mine
The memory is alive
Revisit and heal
Woman and child

My own sister am I.

The Light from a Supernova

I used to feel so stupid in America.

I was a super-confident well-adjusted 18-year-old when I moved to America by myself in 1999 for university. Until then, I had had the reputation of being very talkative, charming, pretty, extroverted, artistic, and a quick learner - I was a go-getter, my English was solid, and I was a star! That is what I had learned of myself, a delicate jigsaw puzzle that I had carefully put together piece by piece over the years with feedback from the people in my world - my family, my teachers, my friends, oh my darling friends. I was all over the place. I would win contests, I would get selected for special programs, I knew what I was good at, and I was so, so confident. I just knew I would conquer America - they would love me!

I continued on my super enthusiastic streak for about a year after having moved to the US. I didn't make many friends. A girl in my dorm told me that someone had told her that I was a phony. I didn't know what that meant, but it hurt a lot. Why would someone say that when I was nice to everyone?

I felt stupid having to ask people to repeat what they were saying because I'd miss words in their strong southern accent. I'd feel so stupid when they'd slow down and stress every word as if I was testing their patience.

The first part-time job I applied for (university catering), the interviewer/manager, an overweight white woman with short grey hair, grimaced and tossed my handwritten application aside and said she couldn't read my writing (but my teachers had always recruited me to work on special handwritten documents in school). She did hire me though, and I quit 2 weeks later. No one had told me that it was the worst job on campus.

I couldn't believe that I didn't get hired for the next job I applied for, one that I really, really wanted, the one that I would be so good at. Even after the interview. When I had been typing up the application on a computer at the computer lab, a Pakistani student had ridiculed my answers, saying that the manager didn't care if I was proud of the DNA model I had presented so well at my high school science exhibition (but the application had asked me to talk about something I was proud of).

I distinctly remember developing tunnel vision and having the bottom of my stomach fall out when I received a rejection letter for the first scholarship I applied for as a university student.

I felt so stupid around American students. They knew so much about computers and American pop culture. They didn't know any of the English songs I knew, and many said I was weird or exotic. Everytime I'd have to ask "what is (insert random American cultural reference here)?", I wouldn't know what to say when they responded with "you don't know??".

Most American students did not return my friendliness, many did not even know I was there. Some did. Most of my friends ended up being international students. One overweight grumpy white American girl in my dorm hardly ever responded to my greetings, and I felt distressed at the stoic glances she would give me in return. Eight years later when I ran into her in another city in America at a pet store she was working in, I greeted her once again, and she was startled but still didn't look happy to see me. She didn't look anything to see me. Another white boy in my dorm, who was friends with this girl, looked a lot like one of the members of the Irish boy-band Westlife, and I'd happily tell him so, but he'd only reply in monosyllables and never talk to me himself.

I wasn't in on a lot of the lingo in America. I felt so stupid being misunderstood and having someone think it was humourous to make fun of Indian accents in front of me.

I felt so stupid misunderstanding social cues in America. I didn't know what dating entailed, how to respond to boys here, what being gay was, what a condom looked like, and why dancing always had to be dirty. I felt so lost.

I felt so stupid when I didn't know as much about computers as the American students, even though I was a Computer Science major. I didn't know what ethernet was (we'd only got dial-up in Oman in 1998), and in 2000, I felt so stupid when someone introduced me to copy/cut-and-paste. Before that, I used to manually type information that I wanted to extract from websites. Most people didn't even have computers, forget the internet (or ethernet?), in Oman at that time. I was the only person in my class in Oman that knew advanced MS Word features, but here, I didn't know what most people were talking about. Everyone was so tech-savvy, I felt so stupid. If I ever asked a question, they'd say, "you don't know??".

I felt really angry when a white American student tried to argue with me about an English word he said didn't exist. Of course it did, but he didn't accept it.

I felt really hurt by comments about how ugly, fat, mis-shapen, and probably retarded I was following me from college and after to my workplace. Someone once sent me hate-mail saying I was ugly and had chink-eyes like a Mongol. I heard at work once that I had a huge head and that I was so fat that I looked pregnant.

I felt really stupid in America, but one day I stopped trying to play catch-up. Maybe one day I will once again begin to feel like the superstar I used to be.

Star light,

Star bright,

The first star I see tonight,

I wish I may,

I wish I might,

Have the wish I wish tonight.

Restoration

Something that has been bothering me for 15 years has finally been resolved today.

In 8th or 9th grade, I had come across a poem a girl in my batch had written. This poem, along with creative work by other students, had been displayed for a while on a public chartboard for all to see. The chartboard would be updated regularly, like once a month or once a week, I can't remember exactly how often. I do remember when I was asked to update this chartboard by the teachers who were in charge of it, to take down its old collection and put up newer student submissions in its place. Regarding the work that had just been taken down, not every student had come back to claim their work, and the teachers certainly didn't want to keep unnecessary papers, so the leftover stuff remained with me. The poem in question was part of the leftovers.

The poem was wonderful, and I was stunned that that girl had come up with something like that. Everytime I came across that bunch of papers over the years, the same thought would occur to me. I felt terrible for feeling that way - was I jealous? No, I know what jealousy feels like, this wasn't it. Maybe I was resentful that it wasn't something I could come up with? I felt so guilty for thinking this way, I hated myself. I went over the poem so many times that day in that sweaty corridor - I could not keep my eyes off that page - that I'd committed it to memory. How could anyone not? It was so fluid, so run-a-long, so perfect, how could that girl have written that poem? How could I have not?? I was the lauded writer of my class, my batch, of the world!

These feelings bothered me for many years. They would crop up at odd moments in those spaces between my thoughts, the spaces where your real self lurks in the shadows of the daytime sun, the nighttime spaces that yawn into wakefulness and swallow the pretenses of civilised, safe, monitored thoughts. I hated myself for feeling this way, and I hated myself for not having written that poem first.

Until today, when Amitabh Bachchan, whom I follow on Twitter, tweeted a line from that poem. I balked. I googled. Turns out the poem is a famous one of anonymous origins.

The Cautious Man

There was a very cautious man
Who never laughed or played.
He never risked, he never tried,
He never sang or prayed.

And when he one day passed away,
His insurance was denied.
For since he never really lived,
They claimed he never died.

The disembodied whispers that had tormented me in moments unlived by all but myself have found their peace. The sun and the moon are divorced no more, the sky is one.

Echo

When mommy stays in bed
When daddy stays at work
When children want to play
When children want to please
Their parents
Unhappy parents
People unhappy
With themselves
With the world
Who can't see their children
Blurry phantoms on the edge of their rage
Asking for permission
To get in
Dying
Just dy-ing
For a smile
Little pups
Wag wag wag
Thump my restless tail
Stand on my head
So you can think I'm smart
"That's my kid!"
Crush me not

Who tells these children
That their parents
Are too wounded
To notice
To nurture
Anything
Outside
Chasms with so much noise inside
That the voice outside
The plea outside
Could never
Cannot
Get in
Be heard

?

.

Not Sonia Gandhi

For the last time, this is Reese Witherspoon. Even NDTV aired this picture thinking it was Sonia Gandhi...

Shattered Faith

One last carton had remained unopened for months. I finally opened it. Out of the objects from what seemed like a previous life, one item emerged, perfectly representing the last chapter of my life, hidden from view for over a year in 15 lumpy tired-looking boxes that had travelled across the world. The gist of a whole decade, a chunk of my life, I now held in my hand.

Be careful - it can cut you.

Regarding intolerance

An excerpt from one of my favourite books, 'The Land of Far-Beyond' by Enid Blyton. The travellers from the City of Turmoil carry the burdens of their misdeeds along the narrow and difficult path to the City of Happiness, the Land of Far-Beyond, where they have been told they will lose their crushing burdens. The book is based on 'The Pilgrim's Progress' by John Bunyan.

They went on for a good way, and then met a man who called upon them to stop.

"You can't pass by here unless you tell me what is in your luggage!" he said, looking at the burdens on the backs of Mr. Scornful and the children. "Nobody takes luggage to the City of Happiness. So you must be carrying something you shouldn't!"

"It isn't luggage," said Mr. Scornful, not at all liking the look of the man, who had rather wild eyes, and a hard mouth. "It's - well, I hardly know how to describe it - it's just a burden we can't get rid of till we reach the Land of Far-Beyond. So pray let us pass."

"What's in the burdens?" asked the man, his eyes flashing. "You must tell me!"

"Oh, don't be silly," said Mr. Scornful, getting tired of the wild-eyed fellow. "Let us pass - or I'll knock you down. Who are you, any way?"

"I am called Intolerance," said the man. "I live here, not far from the path. I see travellers going by on their way to the City of Happiness. But a lot of them don't deserve to get there, and I try to stop them."

"What right have you to stop anyone!" cried Peter. "You've no right at all! Let us pass."

"Tell me what's in your burdens first," said the man. Then, as nobody answered, he looked with his mad eyes at the loads on the traveller's shoulders. "Ah - I can see what is inside them! I can see!"

"You can't!" said Anna.

"I can see selfishness - and unkindness - and spite - and greed - oh, what terrible burdens! No one carrying those deserves to go to the City of Happiness!"

"I dare say, we don't deserve to go - but we are going all the same!" said Mr. Scornful. "The Stranger told us that we might go there, and he should know because he came from there. You've no right to try to stop us."

"I detest the things you carry in your burdens," said Intolerance. "I hate sinners! I hate people who do not think exactly as I do."

"It is right to hate sin, but it's all wrong to hate the sinner," said Mr. Scornful, impatiently. "You're a sinner too because you hate people who don't think as you do! Now get away or I'll push you over!"

"If you dare to lay a finger on me I will open the gates of my dam over there, and flood the path!" shouted Intolerance, quite beside himself with rage. The others looked and saw that the gurgling stream beside which they had walked for a mile or two, had now swollen into a rapid river that almost overflowed its banks. Near them was a stone dam which kept the river away from the path. In it was a sliding iron gate. Intolerance ran to open the gate of the dam.

"I'll flood you! I'll sweep you away!" he shouted. "You dare to threaten me - well, I'll show you what I can do. This is my River of Hate. I will let is overflow the Banks of Persecution, and sweep you off your feet. Then maybe you will crawl back to me and beg my pardon. You will say I am right, and will think as I do, and believe what I believe!"

"Stop!" yelled Mr. Scornful, as he saw the man turning a handle that lifted up the iron gate from the opening in the dam. "You're mad, fellow! Why try to drown people just because they are not what you think they should be! Stop!"

But Intolerance was half-mad, and he opened the gate in his stone dam. With a rush the water poured out, sickly yellow in colour, and swirled around the feet of the four travellers at once. They yelled, and tried to run from it, going forward on the path as fast as they could. But the water followed them, licking round their knees now, pouring over the banks and down to the path.

"I hope it doesn't get any deeper," cried Anna, trying to keep her balance. "Mr. Scornful, yell to him to shut the dam."

But all the yelling in the world would not make Intolerance do anything he didn't want to! He stood beside the dam, shouting.

"I'll rescue you if you'll say you're sorry, and will agree with me!"

"Silly fellow," said Peter. The boy had found a firm place on the path, and had dug his feet hard into it to withstand the force of the water. "Anna, Patience! Come here to me and hold on to my arms. I'm steady here."

The two girls were almost bowled over now by the water, which had reached up to their waists. With Mr. Scornful's help they reached their brother, and held on to his arms.

"You're as steady as a rock, Peter," gasped Anna. "I was almost in the water just then! And goodness knows where it would have taken me! It is pouring away into the field over there. Oh, how horrid of Intolerance to treat us like this."

The water rose higher still. It reached to the children's shoulders, and up to Mr. Scornful's chest.

"We shall drown soon," said Anna. "Oh, Peter - don't you think we'd better yell to Intolerance to stop the river overflowing - we can easily say we're sorry, and that we agree with everything he says - even if we don't."

"Well, I'm not going to do that!" said Peter, holding his sisters very firmly indeed. "We've a right to think as we like, and to do what we think is best. Why, Intolerance would be a real tyrant, if he had his way - trying to make everyone think as he does! And see how wicked he is really, for all he pretends to hate evil things! He has nearly drowned us in his River of Hate!"

"The water's up to my chin!" groaned poor Patience. "I'm holding on to you, Peter - but the river is very strong."

"Look! There's a raft!" suddenly cried Mr. Scornful, and he nodded over the water, which was now a raging torrent. The children could just see the raft bobbing on the surface. On it was a sturdy youth, who was holding a rope in his hand, ready to throw it to anyone caught in the flood.

"Hie!" yelled Mr. Scornful. "Hie! Can you save us?"

The youth heard his shout and threw the rope at once. Mr. Scornful gave it to the two girls, and the youth pulled them to safety on his raft. Peter swam up to it and Mr. Scornful waded over and pulled himself up.

"Goodness!" said Peter, shivering. "That was a most unpleasant adventure. Does Intolerance do this kind of thing often?"

"Whenever he can," said the youth, paddling the raft over the water. "But as soon as I see the water rushing over the path I get out my raft of Independence. It has saved many a traveller from Intolerance's River of Hate! My name is Charitable, and I'm quite the opposite of Intolerance!"

"I am glad you came when you did," said Anna, trying to squeeze the water from her clothes. "I should have been swept away the very next minute. I simply can't imagine how it was that Peter stood so steady!"

"Oh - your brother's name is Peter, is it?" said Charitable, his grey, wide-set eyes looking directly at the boy. "Well, you know what the name Peter means, don't you? It means a rock. So Peter is like his name, is he - steady as a rock when trouble comes along! That's good."

After some time the youth reached the end of the flooding water. His raft scraped on the ground and he jumped off. He helped the girls to the dry ground, and then waved his hand to where a big bonfire burned nearby.

"I always light that when I see the river flooding over the path," he said. "Then travellers can dry themselves."

The children and Mr. Scornful dried themselves gratefully by Charitable's big fire. It was a curious fire for it seemed to dry them completely in no time. Even their clothes underneath soon became dry. Charitable piled on more twigs when the fire died down.

"Why doesn't somebody punish Intolerance?" asked Peter, holding his steaming coat out to the flames. "He has no right to treat people like that."

"Oh, sooner or later he will be swept away in his own river," said Charitable. "And I don't mind telling you that I will not be out on my raft that day! He is the one person in the world I won't help, for he has persecuted others so often!"

Maya

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
- The Holy Bible, James 4:14

My parents have reached that stage in their life where their friends have started passing away. Over the past year, at least two families that we've known have lost their husbands and fathers. These were the adults that seemed immutable to me, fixtures that the tent of my life was pegged to in the sandstorm of the desert of life, people that remained the same as I progressed from kindergarten to high school to grad school to respectable fulltime employment to quarterlife crisis.

Yesterday my mom caught up with a friend she had gone to school with in a faraway time in Lucknow, India. My mother remembered the schoolgirl version of her, and now, decades later, she discovered a widow in her 60s who had 4 grown children living in various countries in the Eastern hemisphere. In the process of catching up with her friend, my mom discovered a few more girls she used to know who had passed away. One of these was a good friend from her schooldays whom she had lost touch with.

This comes at a time when I'm immersed in the history of Oman as part of my research for a book. During such periods, I may be physically present in the current time, but my mind and soul are suspended in that realm where I'm outside the dimension of time, looking in at all the ages that have come and gone and are yet to occur. Cities forgotten except when discovered buried intact under our feet, lives that were lived, and faces that once had strange names. Echoes of trials, sorrows, betrayals, and joy. Powerful kings and queens, bloody battles, great civilisations and cultures, youth and life, noble ideals. The wind stole them all, and the earth bears silent witness to their shadows even as we unknowingly build lives over their remains.

While my mother contemplates the meaning of the quiet end of the lives of the girls she once giggled with, the image of a novel whose last sentence has been neatly written and the book closed continuously runs in my mind. A dull sense of loss suspends itself within my stomach. I am feeling the absence of people that once were, even though I've never met any of them, none of the schoolgirls, widows, kings and queens, travellers, godmen, warriors, healers, dreamers, fathers, mothers, and children. I mourn them. I miss them all in the quiet place where there is no Time, where even I have no name, no face, and no voice. I never did.