Right to life?

“… What happened?”

“I couldn’t live with being no more than somebody’s possession anymore!”

I’m in shock! Hearing about the breakup of the 12 year marriage of a friend who got married to her Prince Charming at the age of 16 has knocked me for six. I can still see the way they looked on that day… She was so young, so beautiful and so sure of her destiny in him despite the age difference and him looking proud and so handsome. And 3 days ago, hearing her say that she had divorced and returned to Pakistan stunned me.

Sitting across from her in the living room of her aunt’s house here, I listened to the story of how a fairy tale wedding was a prelude to a living, breathing personal hell. It seemed like a tale one reads in the newspaper of a how a child bride of 16 was so carefully molded into a woman beyond reproach in her appearance, her outlook and her personality until she was no more than a vase sitting in the hallway of the house that was her prison for more than a decade.

“I was a showpiece! His ultimate accomplishment! I was going to be the ugly duckling from Pakistan that would turn into a beautiful British swan in the hands of a master.”

Manipulation, emotional blackmail, and a regular stream of verbal and physical abuse served to ensure that she was the perfect Pakistani turned Brit hostess in London where no English stiff-neck would find anything to fault in her dress, in her mannerism or her speech. She was to be perfect. And when she faltered it was a simple matter of instilling some discipline.

But at what price did her freedom come? The only reminder that she has children is the one photograph that is now on the coffee table where we sat.

I may be biased. I don’t know any truth about their relationship except what M has told me. Hard as it is to believe our contact over the past 10 to 12 years has been erratic although being family friends meant that we kept getting news of each other and occasionally did talk, apparently that too when ‘he’ allowed it. All the rumors suggested a match made in heaven and a living embodiment of a fairy tale. But the woman sitting in front of me on that floor had traces of fear and nightmares in her eyes. And she was frightfully calm.

She wasn’t regretting her decision because she believes it her right to live her life for herself before she lives it for someone else including her two boys. As she puts it, they are as much his as hers but she couldn’t continue to live in a house where nobody could even see her cry. As she puts it, once her duty of giving birth to the children was done, they were taken away to be brought up my hired help and were being schooled by the grandparents.

“I didn’t even feed them! They’ve never slept in my bed and beyond the very formal good mornings and good nights and occasional meals they don’t speak to me. When I finally cracked, he said the children wouldn’t go and when I looked at them all I could see was him. They were his as they always had been. I was simply the means of bringing them into the world and beyond that nothing. The identify more with their grandmother than with me. They had nothing of me in them and when I realized that I walked out.”

And now, after coming here, her parents refused to let her back into the house. They say she disgraced them and their values by walking out on her children. It is the wife’s duty and obligation to keep house for her husband and obey his every say. And as for the abuse, Islam justifies that it can be used to discipline the wife. Somehow I don’t think forgetting to place a fork on the left side or the right side of the plate is one of those conditions. And I don’t think whipping with a belt hard enough to leave marks on the back comes under Islamic code of conduct between husband and wife. From my limited knowledge, a husband is allowed to discipline his wife only under extreme duress and that too if it’s causing some detriment to religious belief and even then to take care not to mark the woman and explicitly not to hit her on the face.

Is this what marriage is? The only way it works is if the woman is completely subjugated. No personality and no wishes of her own, she conditions herself to work endlessly to satisfy a man’s emotional, physical and other needs? What about her right to life?

I’m not advocating equality of sexes. I am open eyed enough to admit that Islam does not propagate equality of sexes. It thrives on the differences and builds on them in light of obligations and rights on both parts. It’s the both parts that so many men in our society regardless of their economic or social stature don’t understand. They know to a man that they can beat their wives, they can have up to four wives at a time, and that the wife is supposed to cater to their every whim. What about the fact that they are supposed to be kind and gentle to their wives, treat them well, keep them happy and ensure that their emotional and physical needs are met as well?

And I’m staggered by her parents’ response. Since when did having children become something for which she would continue to suffer abuse when technically she wasn’t even bringing them up. Would the Islam that allows a woman to refuse a person if she doesn’t like the look of him, condone her staying with a person who counted her every breath as an allowance and a boon from him? Why have they chosen to believe the man they know routinely hit their only daughter on the basis of one phone call where the gent in question was crying about M’s cruelty and callousness in walking out of a marriage despite his protests over their own daughter’s declaration of what she went through when she has the bruises and scars to prove it?

There is so much in my head right now. Is this marriage? Is this religion? Are these things a failing of our society or of an individual? Was it right or wrong? How do I judge? Should she have compromised? Would she have lived if she had?

A Conversation With One of THEM!

I am concerned about how many people are convinced of the bullshit that is being presented as the true and fair picture of the genocide in Lebanon. I have relatives in the States like so many of us do these days… Not many people who don’t have somebody or the other in Amreeka. My cousins are all quite educated and portray themselves as pseudo modern individuals who actually know what it means to have a life. I had an online conversation with one of these individuals. For background, please note that he is an MD and went to the States at the age of 6 when his family immigrated nearly 25 years ago. One would assume that since he grew up in a household that is quite traditionally Muslim and Pakistani he would be a relatively balanced personality even with the very powerful brainwashing media machinery that is at work. Unfortunately, he has displayed a tendency to be dense enough for somebody to like me to hit my head against the nearest wall for being dumb enough to try and have a conversation with him about the state of world affairs today.

My post tonight, is a testament to this fact and is a transcript of an actual online conversation with my very Americanized Illiterate nincompoop of a cousin. I shudder to think that it is a glaring example of classic American mentality in real life.

Him: “Israel just needs a few more days… A couple more cities and Hezbollah will crash out just like Saddam…”

Me: “And what about the people… the children who are dying…”

Him: “Every war has casualties.. People are dying in Israel too.. Why don’t they move? It’s not like they don’t have a warning…”

Me: “The only casualties in Israel have been soldiers… I have the facts to back it off straight from your screwed CNN!!”

Him: “Aw CNN occasionally gets fucked up too… Israel needs to make sure no crazy gun wielding Muslim shit heads can attack it! It’s allowed” (Him)

Me: “You’re the Muslim shithead!! How are the children in Qana Hezbollah and why should they leave their homes because a paranoid homicidal maniac in their neighborhood has taken it into its head to cleanse the land of all evil! This is a holocaust… A real one… Unlike the fictional one the Jews have hanging over everybody’s head”

Him: “You always were emotional. So kids died… It’s a sacrifice for their freedom! Their kids will thank us one day!”

Me: “What kids? The ones they’re gonna produce from heaven?”

Him: “You know what I mean… Besides I ain’t a Muslim shithead… I know the kalma and I can see the justice in removing Saddam Hussein and speaking against Al Qaeda. I support democracy and America’s doing the right thing. You guys just can’t deal with stuff on your own!”

Me: “Us Guys??? Where did you come from? May I remind you that you spent 5 years of your life here??? And America and Americans like you know Dick!! And what stuff can’t we deal with? Life? Which is why the US and Israel with its staunch support in bloody UN and UK has taken it upon their delicate shoulders to take that from us by bombing us from Pakistan to Afghanistan to Iraq to Gaza to Lebanon? What’s next? Iran?

Him: “You’re paranoid and as to Iran… You know they have nuclear warheads that can hit Israel and the US… And their president is crazy man… I know you’ve heard his speeches!”

Me: “Ahem! To my knowledge the ONLY country in this skewed crazy overrun by Muslim terrorist states who are only concerned with blowing America and Israel sky high into millions of tiny smithereens that owns the world’s heaviest nuclear arsenal and has ACTUALLY used it is America! Is it Muslim? No! Is it a terrorist? Abso-fucking-lutely YES!!!! A THOUSAND TIMES YES!!!!”

Me: “But I suppose Japan screwed them, h-uh?”

Him: “Look! You’re a little upset! So we used a bomb… They attacked Pearl Harbor!”

Me: “Why didn’t they just bomb Tokyo? Or one of their ports?”

Him: “’Coz…. It was strategy! Hit ‘em hard and they’ll tumble… Like Taliban and Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein!”

Him: “This is where Hezbollah and then Syria and Iran will end up for having nutcases at their helm!”

Me: “Are you really actually this dumb or is it an act? You moron! If this is the case, Americans and their like will have to pay a thousand times more for having no-brains and war mongers like Bush and Blair and Olmert at their helm. ”

Him: “Sometimes you sound crazy… You’ve been watching too many of your moolahs speaking out… You’re educated enough to get it!”

Me: “Yeah I’m educated enough to get it… Americans want oil… Oil in Arab states! Israel wants total power and an Arab free land that extends from sea to sea i.e. the Arab states! You scratch my back; I scratch yours! Everyone’s happy! So a few people die in the process! Who gives a flying rat’s ass?”

At this point am pissed enough to feel a vein throb in my temple and sign out… Never pleasant.. The vein I mean! Of course the conversation wasn’t much fun! But it worries me!! My cousin has never been one of the smart ones and since Americans elected George Bush for a second term, it seems to be a good indicator of the general trend in I.Q. in the States.

Please don’t let this conversation reflect too poorly on me or my intellectual capability… Remember that one can not choose their relatives! And he’s the only one who seems to have his head screwed in a little sideways…

Blogword of the Day: Space

Mama and I have an argument every few days and it is always the same… I can understand her concern and her worry…

But I don’t know how to take it away

It’s not that I expect you to come stand in the space beside me anymore…

It’s just that I still keep thinking of it as yours…

To Speak of The Mundane

Petty petty concerns…

What to have for dinner? I hate this diet!! I look like a cow! I wanna lose weight but oh God, can i do it without the exercise and the diet? I think eating Dunkin Donuts definitely blows off my diet… What to do for admissions? Do I want to study further? I know nothing in this bloody exam! Why am I going to a crapola wedding of people I don’t even like? Do my ears lok better up or down or is that my hair? Is that a pimple on my upper lip? My car’s making noises! Why am I standing here smiling and listening to this person…? I swear I don’t understand a word of what he’s saying? Damn, when do I get my cheque? I think I’m broke… The world is out to get me!!! AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH…

While in another part of the world, the air is rent with:

a song of innocence

A poem by John Bart Gerald

they sing in chile

in an empty stadium

seventy thousand more

sing in el salvadorthey sing in peru

brazil guatemala a song for you

the poor sing

babies mothers fathers

priests sisters brothers

the song of missing the song of disappeared

the martyrs’ tongueless notes of suffering

eyes pressed to flesh

the blind notes of where were you

from vietnam cambodia laos they sing

they sing from names chiselled in a black stone wall

from the silent death camps of europe

they still sing
they sing along death row

with each moment’s breath

condemned to death for innocenceor circumstance or guilt

of lives broken to death’s use

and sing along back roads when the food runs out

when winter takes the last sense

tuneless in the corner of an old age home

in each city song of a final no

they sing along the road to basra

the retreating army going home

farmers shopkeepers in ill-fitting uniforms

defeated without firing a shot

riding hot metal in the sun

they sing a song of fire

the unresisting angel of each soul

rising like flames from each desert brother

thousand on thousand angels joining their god

sing over whips of sand over

the new world ordered mass graves

of human family

winds between the continents sun across the sky

thrust of spring in stalk and bud

summer’s leaf and flower fruit and berry

sing with their innocence

a spirit passing here in words

How easily can all these songs be heard today from Lebanon to Palestine, from Iraq to Afghanistan, from Bosnia to Chechnya and within our own land…

Blogword of the Day: Rain

I am…. RAIN

You Are Rain

You can be warm and sexy. Or cold and unwelcoming. Either way, you slowly bring out the beauty around you. You are best known for: your touch Your dominant state: changing

What Type of Weather Are You?