A Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: Review: Gramsci Is Dead

A Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: Review: Gramsci Is Dead: [Richard J. F. Day. Gramsci Is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements . Toronto: Between The Lines, 2005.] Recently, someo...

That Whore Named Fate Part Two

When I watched "The Butterfly Effect" seven years ago, I remember that I felt goosebumps all over my skin.  The whole debate of "free will versus fate" now had a new meaning in my mind. The movie didn't fare too well at the box office but the plot had a deep meaning for me. Evan Treborn (played by Ashton Kutcher) is a psychology major and experiences blackouts and lapses in his memory. He discovers that by reading his old journals, he can go back in time. Having had a traumatic childhood, Evan tries to change the past. But he realizes that every little action he makes has a multitude of unintended consequences. For me, this theory holds that sometimes you need to stop playing God. This is funny since despite my family's religious affiliations and this solid unflinching belief in "predestination," I've never been much of a believeing in "fate and its merciless power" person. I have always been more of the free will person who believes that "we" have the power to shape our own destinies. However, watching this movie and of course, my own life events convinced me that there are powers that are beyond our control and there are some things which we have absolutely no control over.

Each time that Evan time travels and tries to fix things, he ends up screwing them over even more. The love of his life becomes a hooker at one point due to him constantly trying to create a happy ending and changing the past. The main point is that first of all, there is no such thing as happiness. As Julian from One Tree Hill talks about happiness, he describes how it's not a destination but only a state or a condition. You cannot reach a place called happiness because it doesn't exist. As Ellen Hopkins aptly puts it:

"Happiness, you see, it's just an illusion of fate; a heavenly sleight designed to make you believe in fairy tales. You'll only find happy endings in books. Some books."

The point is that you cannot play God. So you just need to stop pretending that everything is under your control at times and just breathe and relax and let life play itself out. For people like me unfortunately, this brutal reality of not being able to control or shape your own destiny is very hard to swallow.

On a positive note, check out the video below if you want to see "The Butterfly Effect," in a positive light:
http://play.simpletruths.com/movie/the-butterfly-effect/

That Whore Named Fate!

Have you ever felt completely and hopelessly powerless? Sometimes there are strong currents that are constantly enveloping you, twisting and turning your body and it hurts like hell. The pain makes you scream in constant agony but there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. You are helpless. The waves and currents are drowning you and you try so hard to swim and untangle yourself from their merciless grasp; but it is an utter impossibility. The more you fight, the more there is a danger of destroying yourself in the process as well as others around you. What do you do when this wretched bitch called fate threatens to shatter you entirely? People say there is no such thing as "fate." It is merely an illusion. But if there really isn't anything known as fate and everything is always under your control, then how come there are times when you feel utterly helpless? There are times when things are just not in your control and you just helplessly watch the tide of life overpower you and all you do is hope against hope that your floating body in the ocean will find its way through and that you shall survive.

These are times when you just need to stop writhing and fighting. You need to accept the circumstances. No matter how much you hate those circumstances. Whether you're an atheist, an agnostic, a spiritual person or a devout religious person who has faith...sometimes the best path is to accept that there is a higher power out there who will take care of all things. Just go with the flow. And accept the circumstances no matter how gruesome they may be. If you can't fight and win, then there is no point in waging the battle. Just move on. Jennifer Salaiz summed it up perfectly when she said:

 "I was in the biggest breakdown of my life when I stopped crying long enough to let the words of my epiphany really sink in. That whore, karma (delete the word karma and instead, insert "fate.") had finally made her way around and had bitch slapped me right across the face. The realization only made me cry harder."

A quote from Lemony Snickets stands out in my mind: "Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like."

During times when I feel this nagging despair and dejection wrapping its ugly, smelly, disgusting black cloak around me, I decide to look at things positively. This was meant to be and whatever is meant to be shall always find it's way (as another famous quote goes). I think of "A View from the Bridge" by Arthur Miller and I'm reminded of how the lawyer, Alfieri, who acts as a mediator in this tragic play watched the events of "fate" run its "bloody course." Powerless and helpless, he was unable to stop Eddie Carbone from bringing about his own destruction. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Miller's tragic play, AVFTB, here is a short summary. Eddie Carbone is the uncle of the beautiful and innocent, Catherine, who wants Eddie to stop being so overprotective of her and yearns for her independence. Enter Rodolpho. He captures Catherine's heart and this fuels Eddie's jealousy. Eddie is secretly in love with his niece (she is not his niece by blood mind you, so his desires are technically not incestuous). Eddie's wife, Beatrice, watches Eddie's passion and the events of the play with a helpless horror. She is unable to do anything about it and that's exactly how I feel at times. Eddie dies tragically in the end due to his inability to keep his passionate and impulsive nature under control.

Many would argue that in AVFTB, fate was not as important as Eddie's actions. If Eddie had been less impulsive, passionate and kept his unconscious and somewhat "incestuous" desires for Catherine under control, then he would not have met such a tragic end. Even so, sometimes no matter what you do, things always happen and you cannot control them. That is why you sometimes need to let go and be content with what you have. Or sometimes you need to settle for half, which Alfieri claims is the better option.

So even though at times, fighting seems like the better option, you need to accept the fact that you cannot win. Eddie did not win and died fighting and Alfieri considers his courage laudable. But if you want to live and survive, then you need to settle for half as the lawyer aptly quotes:

"Most of the time we settle for half and I like it better. Even as I know how wrong he was, and his death useless, I tremble, for I confess that something perversely pure calls to me from his memory--not purely good, but himself purely And yet, it is better to settle for half, it must be! And so I mourn him--I admit it--with a certain alarm."

(To be continued...)

Self-discovery

The Karachi Voice and The News published this story as well http://www.thekarachivoice.net/arts-culture--fashion-desk.html

http://blogs.thenews.com.pk/blogs/2012/08/of-nostalgia-and-living-abroad/

Sending an eighteen year old girl to study abroad, fresh out of A levels, is a really big deal for most families in Pakistan. So when my parents decided to send me to Canada for my university education, they were met with shocked and horror-stricken responses by some factions of our diverse khandaan. Frantic aunties called my mom to advise her against this nefarious and deadly decision. The most common line was:

Haye Allah! Larki ko akelay bhejo gi baahir parney! Bigar jaye gi!

(Oh God! You're sending your daughter alone to study abroad. She will be led astray!)

However, despite the hoo-ha and the voices of dissent, my parents strongly believed that it was vital for me to become independent and learn some of the harsh lessons of life. Shielded from most of the responsibilities of cooking, cleaning, doing my own laundry and leading a pampered lifestyle, my mom believed that it was time for me to pack up and leave and go on a journey of self-discovery and learn what the real world is all about. Well, okay, the “self-discovery” bit was what “I” hoped to achieve. I think my mom secretly hoped that I would learn to start cooking and cleaning and become the role-model perfect daughter that she always dreamt she had but could not find in me. Despite her constant lectures on how important it was for me to learn how to cook, to clean and to behave like a lady ought to behave, I refused to step into the kitchen. It was the realm of domesticity and female submissiveness, the feminist inside me argued persistently. Well, okay. That’s kind of a lie too. It was more about me being too lazy to actually learn how to cook and I had servants to do all that for me anyway. So why worry about cooking when I could dream, when I could go out and explore the world? My naani obviously disagreed and asserted the significance of cooking as a fundamental quality that every woman ought to learn and master. 

“Why?” I asked. Because:

“Shaadi kaisay hogi agar khaana pakana nahi aaye ga?”

(How will you get married if you don’t know how to cook?)

My answer to that was quite simple. “My husband will cook naani. Don’t worry,” I reassured her with a grin on my face.

Anyways, so I set off to the Great White North to explore the world and discover what I wanted from life, and uncover the answers to the existential dilemma of what the meaning of life is. Contrary to what my friends in Karachi think and what I thought initially myself, living abroad is not all about glamour, parties, and all that hunky dory lifestyle that everyone dreams of having. And no, I don’t live a life out of Gossip Girl just because I get to wear boots, leather jackets and fall coats. It’s bloody cold out there for God’s sake! And it’s a tough world out there too.  

At first, everything was like a dream come true. Staying up till four am in the morning during Orientation week, wandering around the magnificent campus (I sometimes pretended I was at Hogwarts), walking by the lake, eating like there is no tomorrow and actually shopping as if I really was living the life of Serena or Blair out of Gossip Girl was like living in a blissful bubble of heaven!

However, as the cold winter months kicked in, I gradually started aching for the warmth and comfort of home, my family, and Karachi. I never could have possibly imagined that I would miss all this. Moreover, I started becoming aware of a keen sense of identity and responsibility. I couldn’t shop till I dropped here because frankly speaking, my family was literally paying through their noses for my education here.

The first awareness of this nagging sense of individual identity and responsibility came about when I was living in a dorm during my first year of University. This was when I was exposed to people from all sorts of different cultures, backgrounds and ethnicities. Living in a gora town, I was often asked amusing questions when people discovered that I’m from Pakistan. 

The most famous one was, “How do you know how to speak English if you’re from Pakistan?”

“Well,” I would explain. “I went to schools where the curriculum and the mode of instruction were all in English.”

This reply was usually met with confounded expressions and more questions such as:

“Why are your schools in English and not in your own native language?”

“How is your English so good?”

“How come you know all about the latest American television shows and movies?”

Initially, I didn’t know how to properly answer such questions. It would actually provoke me into anger and I wanted to simply shout out, “Hello! I’m not from a primitive village and Pakistan does not thrive in the era of the Old Stone Age!”

But when these questions were flung at me, I started wondering. These were some things I had never really thought about myself. Why was my English better than my Urdu? I wondered. And getting angry was not the solution either. People were simply curious about what my country was like and my inability to answer their curious questions properly gave me an awareness of my identity and my country. It was also very hard to explain that while the majority of Pakistanis are illiterate and poor, there is an elite minority that knows how to speak English and everything about the western world. Such gargantuan class inequalities are almost non-existent in the West. It was hard to explain to people that this was all the result of years of British colonialism which has left a lasting legacy and a deep imprint in India and Pakistan.

Such questions ignited a deep love and passion for my culture, language and heritage within me, and I remember how much I missed Karachi. I would often read Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography or Salt and Saffron, which completely captured the essence of my nostalgia as I pondered over some of the problems facing my country and city; class inequality being one of the most prominent ones as Shamsie writes in Salt and Saffron:

“I hadn’t really thought about it before but affluence and lack sat cheek by jowl in Karachi. Between the large old houses near Mohatta Palace...past streets where shiny cars and designer shalwar kameezes and English speaking voices all but disappeared, replaced by tiny storefronts...children selling vegetables or fixing tires or chasing each other along roads without pavements.”

These small, curious questions that were thrust at me regularly made me value the little things about Karachi that I previously never contemplated, thought about or noticed. The value of my mother tongue was the first thing I realized. I missed conversing in Urdu which is quite ironic since my friends in Pakistan all conversed mostly in English and in fact, it seemed odd and funny when one of us would occasionally say something in Urdu. But now, my Pakistani friends in Canada and I ached to speak in Urdu and in fact, preferred to converse in it at all times. Whereas previously, I stayed away from Bollywood movies and Urdu dramas because they were overly-dramatic and useless, my friends and I now yearned to watch cheap bollywood movies and songs. What I realized was that I missed my culture, language and heritage. I missed the heat of Karachi, the halwa puri at boat basin, the flies that twirled around your food, the little street children selling roses on the streets, the biryani, chaatmasala, golagandas, wearing shalwar kameez...practically everything that defined a Karachiite. I missed my maasi who would cook and clean for me, I missed my driver who would take me around anywhere from sea view to Clifton to French Beach.

Speaking of the beach, I missed that as being such a prominent fun place in Karachi every summer, with the sand melting between your feet, soothing you as the scorching and merciless heat of the sun thundered upon your face, almost giving you sunburn. I missed the comfort of the waves that frolicked across the muddy, brown sand and licked my toenails and tickled my feet.

There were numerous things I disliked about living abroad. I hated learning how to cook, I hated apartment hunting, and I hated having to get down on my knees on the bathroom floor and scrubbing it until it gleamed. I hated doing my own laundry and the constant rain and the snow and taking out the garbage every week. I hated having to get a job so I could pay off my rent every month. I hated taking the bus and the subways all the time and not having a car or a driver. I hated learning to be responsible and being scrupulous with how I spent my money and keeping a vigilant eye on budgeting. Oh, and I hated the constant yapping in English which made me miss Urdu more and more. I resisted the urge to accidently spill out Karachi slang words and I even once said to my white friend, “Scene on hai yaar,” during a conversation. Since that was half English anyway, she failed to notice.

But gradually, as the days flew by and I adjusted to the cold, the cooking and the cleaning, I learned to love and appreciate my life in Canada. Lake Ontario became a substitute for French Beach as a soothing place for me to relax and unwind after a hard day of work and studies. Going to the gym became a regular habit because everyone over there was/is a health-conscious freak. And the best part was the multicultural essence of the place; meeting and mingling with people from all sorts of backgrounds, cultures and religions. Daily chores gave me more of a sense of individual responsibility and independence instead of being grinding tasks of frustration and despair. Attending cultural events and dressing up in “desi” clothes became the highlight of the year there. Snow was no longer a pain that made the ten minute walk from my apartment to campus seem like an eternity; it was no longer an atrocity but a winter wonderland. Fights and disagreements with my housemate were now dealt with an air of maturity, reconciliation and compromise.  And yeah, sometimes I did feel like I was living a life out of Gossip Girl when I brought the latest pair of trendy high heels from my own work money- (without feeling a biting guilty conscience gnawing at my insides, pestering me to not spend voraciously).

And did I find myself and solve the existential crisis? Well, I believe the answer to that lies in what Betty Friedan once said, “It is easier to live through someone else than to complete yourself. The freedom to lead and plan your own life is frightening if you have never faced it before. It is frightening when a woman finally realizes that there is no answer to the question 'who am I' except the voice inside herself.” 

P.S: My mom still doesn't believe that I occasionally cook, clean regularly and do my own laundry over there. Sigh! Some things never change.

The Great Battle

The wind whips her unruly hair back and forth

As she runs towards her mother.

Her eyes are filled with fresh tears of sorrow

And her mother embraces her with open arms.

She feels protected,

Safe from the fangs of the pernicious world,

Secure in the sweetness of her mother's embrace;

She smiles with serenity and quiescence.

Lazy, unperturbed summers full of frolic and candies,

Blissful days of exuberance, effervescence, and carefree enthusiasm,

Her life filled with dollhouses and ecstasy,

With tea parties and bundles of love.

She is unaware of the nefarious world of turbulence,

Of murder, rape and molestation,

Of starvation, brutality and repugnance.

With trembling steps she climbs the ladder

Which leads her to the frustrating period of adolescence.

But she falls,

Deep and deep down into blackness.

Fear grips her fragile and innocuous heart.

She screams in agony and pain

As arrows dig deep into her heart,

Threatening to tear it into minuscule pieces.

But hope enables her to escape freely.

She suddenly enters the world of success and joy

And life develops a new and hopeful meaning.

The roses smile with pulchritude and vitality.

Brimming with confidence,

She works with passion to bloom efficaciously.

Pain and misery find their way through,

Preparing to viciously kill her bloom,

To slaughter her dreams;

Using their poisonous fangs to tear her ambitions,

To shatter them into tiny fragments.

Her spirit shatters;

Resilience and faith breaks.

Then she tightly clasps on to hope and faith.

All those who were fakers and deceivers

Seem no longer significant.

Her goals are what matter.

She struggles, strives and fights.

Kicks and finds a passionate strength;

Thrashes but falls.

Hope and faith make her rise.

She fights with vigour and vitality.

Pain killed. Misery dead. Only bliss.

Battle won. 

Annihilation

Sometimes I put myself into the shoes of other people, as a writer and a poet. For example: taking over the body of an old, wrinkled woman or a forty-year old with cancer. What does that feel like? It’s sort of how the artist, when painting a picture of an old, vulnerable, dying woman, feels the necessity to invade her body in order to properly capture the full essence and depth of her pain. He/She needs to feel it so that the painting speaks out to those who can never experience the pain and emotions firsthand. 

I sit here alone on the shore of the ocean floor;

A serene soul engulfed in my own darkened gloom of thought.

The thick melancholic air wraps me in its solitude and loneliness

And I feel all alone,

As the night breeze whips my hair back and forth.

Through misty eyes I scan the pages

Of the book of time

And relive my nostalgic memories,

With tears in my eyes.

My tranquil spirit is threatened

And my heart is wounded.

And as I sit here all alone,

My hand wavers as I write.

My eyes are blurry with fresh tears of sorrow and regret

And I am impregnated with remorse.

My life which was once colourful

Is now nothing but mere shades of black and gray.

I know that my time has finally come

To leave the cruelties that life has bestowed upon me

And to finally rest in eternal peace;

For the angel of death is coming towards me

And the shadow of darkness is looming nearer

And my heart is beating wildly;

But I am not afraid to face death.

As the death clock keeps ticking,

I have nothing to do except fight and wrestle with time.

As I sit here in my pool of tears

With my feet in the foamy ocean waves,

My hand wavers as I write this sad epic of my life.

What have I done to deserve this wicked fate?

I have no where to go,

I have no place to hide.

For there is no hiding from the vicious fangs of death.

At least I won’t be alone after my soul is taken away

For you will be near me. 

And together we our on our way towards death.

Let us make memories of significant moments;

Let us preserve our tears;

Let us preserve our laughter;

Let us treasure our togetherness;

Let us treasure the ecstasies

And press them together like gentle,

Fragrant flowers

In multiple hues of experiences.

So that when we die together,

We will always treasure these precious memories;

As we loom nearer,

On our way towards death.

Let us breathe our last sighs together;

Let us close our eyes together

For the time has come for us to leave this world forever

And rest in eternal peace.

Let us travel together towards our destination,

On our way towards death.

Down the Rabbit Hole...Into Memory Lane.

The melancholy air whirls her around in a desolate swirl of darkness.

The clouds gather closer together,

Cascading the pure night sky

Which is impregnated with remorse.

There is darkness and decay in the air,

Almost like a ubiquitous and pungent aroma

That reverberates through the dreary night.

She looks for light to engulf her and help her escape

From her own darkened gloom of thought.

In the pitch black darkness,

She finds a glimmer of hope

As she spots the five little stars swirling in the pure-blue velvet sky.

They offer support and hope

And ignite the darkness

With an effervescent and exuberant purity.

And she knows that she is lucky and loved.