The beautiful thing about Islam is that its construct is identical to our own existence- beyond the necessary mundanities of borders and boundaries for ordered corporeal life, at its heart, lies romance.
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Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream. (Paulo Coelo)
Intention: less words, more action.
fire at sunset
Written on the 14th August 2005:
Yawm-e-Azadi PakistanIt seems so strange to think that one year ago to this day, i was stringing up rows of paper green-white flags around a marble-floored balcony.
We were competing with the neighbouring haveli across the dusty road. A rivalry had started up between the kids and their neighbours (one that the neighbours were most likely blissfully unaware of) as to who would be the first to decorate their house with the widely-known signs of Pakistani patriotism. Since the neighbours had decorated the house on the night of the 13th, and there was no sign of the kids having lifted a lazy finger by the time that dusk was about to fall on the 14th, the rules of the competition were quickly changed; which house would be decorated with the most splendour and zest. The kids thought they had this covered, as they brought out reams and reams of plastic flags, paper flags, flags of cloth, and the crowning glory, the piece de resistance; a parcham so gigantic in size that it could have easily doubled up as a parachute off the balcony. This really was the daddy of all daddy flags.
Once everything was in place, and we all stood back, tired, hungry and increasingly sweaty in the gathering humid heat, but looking at our handiwork with admiration. The competition with neighbour ji had almost been forgotten in the process of working together and laughing together. But hold on! the final touch was still left to be made; as we struggled to hoist up the huge jhanda upon a make-shift flag pole (a hastily stripped tree branch). Finally, triumphantly, we stepped back with huge grins, hands on hips, as the flag slowly rippled in the summer evening breeze, gradually morphing into a silouette against a breath-taking eastern sunset.
In different moments throughout that evening, surges of belonging, of fierce belonging, washed through me. I realised then that whatever happens, wherever i may end up in this world, there will always be something connecting me, tugging me back to this earth, whether i like it or not, whether i acknowledge it or not. Just as a part of me will always find peace and contentment only here, something of this land will always belong to me, and no human being has the power to take that away.
I unexpectedly found a missing piece of the jigsaw that is ‘me’.
And just for the record, we totally whooped neighbour ji’s ass when it came to expressing pakistani pride
The wanderlust has been kicking into overdrive over the past few days. I can’t seem to find peace in physical stillness- my legs ache to walkrunskip miles and my eyes yearn to see blue skies and mountains and my skin wants the caress of a cool wind reeling past and carrying away the restlessness of my heart. I can’t definitively put my finger on what brings this on… i suppose it’s always there at the edges of my mind and the only thing i can do is engage in distraction techniques… unfortunately i haven’t found a distraction technique which completely gets rid of a simmering sense of frustration.
I’m ashamed to say that in some moments, where the simmering boils over, i wonder what i might have done if i hadn’t become a medic… if i’d had the freedom denied by cultural heritage to just run… if i’d not been so loaded with my own fears and insecurities about the world. Would I have been free to reach the heights and travel the distance?
And what precious gifts would I have lost in the alternative?
Alhamdullillah-hir-rabbil-alameen
All praise is due to the Lord of the Worlds
The impatient, self-deceiving soul longs to reach the top of the mountain tower stretching out in front, but fears the difficulty of the path that has to be travelled. How much easier it is to look into the distance horizon and see the beauty of the silhouetted landscape in the burnished sunset, and wish to be there instead.
Up ahead, just around the corner and out of sight, and regardless of whether they are ever reached, spring’s wildflowers alongside that spirit-path continue to sway and whisper His eternal praises.
I’ve googled the title of this post in quotation marks, and google comes back to me with ‘no results found’ for the single most affective sentence i can ever remember reading.
I don’t fully know what the sentence meant to its writer. I feel no need to overtly ask him, just for the sake of knowing. Instead, i am content in the joy of knowing that these words, this beautiful string of words express a unique shade of the human experience. Different souls mix uniquely different hues of His palette and still reach the same, un-named, un-lettered depth of colour.
And how do we know that the blue of the sky that you see, is the blue of the sky reflected in your eyes?
= )
I turned 26 yesterday and as always, my mind turns back to the days of old… i’ve now reached the stage where ‘days of old’ are actually days as a fully sentient being- i truly am old now! I’ve dug up my old blog posts after much searching for old and lost passwords, and have laughed and sighed at the thoughts and range of high emotions of the younger, naiver me. As I read through them, i’ll intermittently post up the “best bits” as a testament to a soul in formation. I can confirm that the dynamic flux continues as i take each breath, alhamdulillah
A private blog entry, emailed to a close friend in 2004
(nb- pseudonyms used to uphold patient/healthcare worker confidentiality):
Man, have I had my good days my good days and my bad days there. I have laughed and smiled, I have learnt, I have observed, I have appreciated, I have been told off, I have reflected, I’ve even cried into my alky-gelled hands and watched others turn away from the crowd and do the same. I have seen how the people thought to be the ones to rely on, in the end were only there when it suited them; and saw other individuals, people who had been written off at the first glance, absolutely shine. I hope that maybe, despite everything, I shined sometimes too.
For me, the best moments at the hospital were when I was left to sit beside patients’ beds, and smilingly (tentatively) ask “how are you doing today?” And after this, and many other, ice-breakers most people would deem me worthy enough to unfold their lives before. Many didn’t, and I appreciate that too- reminds me of how far I still have to go, yet.
“Mr. Sycamore”, a cheerful elderly gentleman with lung bronchiectasis and overlying infection- as well as an absolute cracker of a goitre- had been in the corner of the respiratory ward for as long as I could remember. I had been briefly introduced to him by the respiratory consultant on a routine ward round, on account of the defibrillator box implanted in his chest wall and the course crackles plaguing his lower zone breath sounds. As the consultant concentrated on listening for whispering pectoriloquey, I had also noticed the fantastically huge midline swelling on his neck. On asking the boss whether this was a goitre, he nodded his head slightly and turned back to Mr. Sycamore.
I went back a few days later, intent on targeting Mr. Sycamore for a run-through of h thyroid examination. My introduction and enquiry into his health wandered into a general conversation about his life. He told me about all the things that he had done as a young man- how he had been a member of the British Army in the Second World War and had travelled to North Africa. He told me about how he had visited Paris this year, and fulfilled his ambition to climb up the Eiffel tower (only being seventy-something young :O ) and saw the Moulin Rouge. A sigh escaped as he continued to stare out of the window, and explained that it was nothing like what it had been 50 years ago. How he didn’t really expect much from life at his age now, and literally spewed at the notion that his goitre of 25 years may be growing retrosternally and slowly compressing his main airway. I found myself returning again to look at the big blue squiggly lines contrasting vividly against the red-hot skin over the zinger of a swelling, mentally making a note of something I had read; “distended veins over a thyroid goitre may be a sign of thoracic inlet obstruction due to retrosternal growth of the goitre”. Mr. Sycamore just scoffed.
He asked me about my training as I looked for chemosis and exophthalmus, and I described how I had just started out and was “enjoying every minute of it” (it becomes an automated response of sorts). Out of the blue, Mr. S then questioned why women “wore that towel on their head”, as he gestured towards my headscarf. I instinctively cringed on the inside and tried to explain how it was a symbol of faith that some women wear, rather like crosses for Christians. The one thing I’ve rated about all elderly folks, is the delight they exhibit when they’ve discovered something that results in happiness for whatever reason. Often for no reason at all, I’ve noticed. This was no exception, and I beamed in amusement right back at him as he clapped and exclaimed, “You learn something new everyday!”
As I got up to leave and go to the midday lecture, he reached out with a frail, wasted hand and gently tapped the side of my face twice, and said, “You’re going to be a wonderful doctor”. And on the many days that you genuinely have your gravest doubts about that, the sincere words of the people who matter the most at the end of it all, can be the thing you need to pick yourself up and brush off that surprisingly heavy load of dust you’ve been collecting along the way.
The last time I saw Mr. S was as he slowly walked out of the respiratory ward in his hospital pyjamas, in order to “stretch the bones” as he put it. Exhausted from a week of no sleep due to his new, noisy patient-neighbour and accompanying snores, his irritability and weariness were testament to his wish to “just go home”- and I patted his arm sympathetically before hurrying on to meet the rest of the firm for teaching. I took the rest of the week off because I was ill. The next Monday, I went to enquire after him but found a new patient in what had been his hospital bed for nearly 3 months. In a weird way, it seemed sacrilegious. He was an institution on that ward bay.
In the entire hullabaloo of the upcoming O.S.C.E.s, I never got round to stopping the S.H.O. and asking how it had been decided to discharge Mr. S. Sometimes, I find myself thinking of that weary, lop-sided smile and hope that he’s managing okay, alone again in the ground flat he longed to get back to.
To all the doctors, nurses, and especially all the accommodating, patient patients (no pun intended),
Thanks.
I’m re-posting a du’a (prayer/supplication) that entered my heart on the day i turned 20, and still remains there-[with revisions to the age number ; ) ].
…Dear Allah, You know what’s in my heart, and my hopes and my dreams and my fears and my nightmares, dear Allah, thank you for every single day that passes by, for every single miniscule miracle, for the molecules and the neurones and the cells and the thousands of metabolic pathways and blue volts of electrical sparks crackling through me and not shocking me, and the perfect harmony in which each detail integrates with a million others just to allow me to be here- aware, allowing me to sustain my existnance without me consciously trying to. Dear Allah, i know that at the moment, absolutely fairly, i’d classify myself as basically a doofus and a waste of space, but Allah, You’re ar-Rahmaan and ar-Raheem. You understand just why i’m a loser and you understand how i want to rise above the loserishness and you know, fulfill those dreams. Even if i don’t completely understand those dreams. Or why i even have them. And it’s You that gives me the strength and hope to just make it to another day, even when i wish sometimes that You didn’t. And You are absolutely Awesome. I mean, I think You’re awesome, but i’m also equally aware of how little the feeling of my awesomeness of You can actually define or understand just how awesome You really are. Dear Allah, i know i shouldn’t be freaking out about turning 20. Because frankly, that’s the lamest reason in all the world to freak out- i can think of a million other things to be freaking out. But You know me- i’m like that, i can’t help it. But Allah, i know that in the midst of all this confusion and fear for the future, which what this basically is, You’re there. So it’s okay. Y’Allah, please grant me, and help me to realise the strength i’ll need, that everyone of these puny puny humans need to make it. Please help me to be a better person, to grow and to learn, to experience all this world has to offer without being scared of how it may change me. Y’Allah, let me make a difference to even justone person, let me touch someone’s life, make them stop, make them see You with piercing clarity, even if it’s for one second (although it’d be cool if it was for a lifetime), let me fight the good fight. Basically all that mushy stuff that i mumble away all the time in my head and my heart and in my duas but feel stupidly ridiculous articulating. But You don’t think its ridiculous. And that’s another reason why You’re so, so awesome.
Y’Allah, please, please, let the next 20 years be filled with You.
Ameen
After giving the exam earlier this week, i feel light and free. Not even the grey skies, bone-infesting chill and gastroenteritis seem have dampened the core of happiness inside, alhamdulillah. And as i type, Muse perfectly articulate the resistance that realisation brings.
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It’s amazing the feeling of profound relief brought by one foot’s pressure on another, to ease small bones back into place. The depth of feeling brought on, by the movement of millimetres.
The first snowfall of 2010 is pristine.
A dazzling white blanket settles over this portion of earth. But what is even more compelling is the quiet, dignified silence that accompanies it.
Along with the silence comes strangely tangible sense of peace.
Our winters night sky, normally so dark and turbid, tonight reflects the light of city street-lamps onto an opaque white sky of snow.
The midnight sky is lit up in an eerie, apricot glow.
The usually high-flying, jubilant washing line stoops in bowed reverence, touching the ground under the weight of crystallised white.
The gleaming thick powder contrasts sharply with each darkened, outstretching tree branch it has settled on. Every crevice, linearity and curve is perfectly, almost painfully, highlighted.
Stretched as far the eye can see, the world is covered in the simplest of nature’s crisp, pure adorn. No differentiation between stone, earth, wood or grass remains- just gracious submission.
So much beauty.
This world feels like cold velvet.
And in the silence of the snow-night, He calls hearts back.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has published an interesting report this month, entitled ‘Believe in Humanity – A consultatation with G20 governments‘. In it, the document details the responses of ‘representatives’ of 14 various G20 governments, plus Kenya, to a series of questions exploring the views of these states on issues including;
As you might have discerned, 14 of the G20 countries (…plus, Kenya) replying would mean that 6 of the hallowed states did not (despite earnest efforts on the part of the research team, as the report takes pains to emphasise). The 6 non-responders were China, India, Russia, Indonesia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia- and therefore no majority-Muslim states took part in the report. Although the report postulates that non-participation of these states appeared to-
reflect the lack of an articulated international humanitarian policy and related capacity more than an unwillingness to discuss the matter
I’m not sure which justification is worse. It makes you wonder, if a governmental machine can’t even be bothered to churn out a questionnaire reply to arguably the most high-profile, global NGO in existence, what hopes are there for any manner of concerted, desperately-needed attention to the real humanitarian issues facing these governments’ people on the ground? Not to mention the fact that, in order to uphold the basic ethos of this great deen that certain governments use to justify the validity of their existence, the consideration and acting on humanitarian issues affecting its citizens and those beyond its borders must be a hefty agenda priority.
The results and views of the different ‘evolving’ and ‘traditional’ (read; G8 peeps) humanitarian aiders make interesting reading, and I would definitely be intrigued to see whether the opinions expressed in the report really reflect views of the particular governments they claim to- from the quotations provided there certainly appears to be an element of very personalised responses to the questions posed.
Click here to read the full report and executive summary
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