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Az and Ray!!
Believe it or not, but Az loves this song. This morning he ate his ragi porridge only when this song was on TV, and then he started refusing to eat when the song got over. I had to play the song on my mp3 player in my fone and then he started gulping down his ragi again! Kids these days!!!:D But this crazy song is a favourite of almost all of us at home! Heard that the movie was absolute bakwaas though!
If anyone is planning to pick up any books, then do take a look at www.indiaplaza.in.
I first bought The Inheritance of Loss here at a huge discount. But the best deal I got here was for The Reluctant Fundamentalist. This book is available everywhere for Rs.295, while at Indiaplaza they’re selling it for Rs212, plus No Shipping Charges! Thats great!
I’ve also pre-booked the Harry Potter, Part7 book(The Deathly Hollows..gives me a thrill and chill JUST thinking about it!), and they’ve got loads of offers lined up for interested people. For one, the book costs about 900 bucks!(Why is it SO expensive???!!How are kids going to buy this? It will take a year of their pocket money or a lot more cajoling of parents to make them buy it..This is one time, I’m SO glad i’m not a kid anymore!!) At Indiaplaza, they’re selling it for about Rs600. Plus, they have lots of offers, that are very tempting. They’re going to be sending gift coupon worth Rs 600, to buy any thing in Indiaplaza, plus they’re giving out dvds and game cds and other goodies!
So, do check out the book section at Indiaplaza.in!
This August, it will be 17 years since my father passed away. I was 12 at that time, and it seemed like the end of the world. I didnt want to live, I didnt want to exist in a world which didnt have my abbu.
Today, the pain has gone, leaving memories, some good, some bad.
Right now, I was thinking of abbu. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the features of his face, his eyes, his nose..and tried to recall the quality of his voice. Although I have his photographs, we have only one cassette which has his voice. He had been recording my voice, asking me to sing songs, rhymes, read Arabic verses, so he could listen to it when he was in HongKong, if he missed me a lot. I was just 4 then.
What would our world have been like if abbu was still with us? Oh god…it would be so very different. While its not like we are unhappy, or not content with life, if he had been here today, I know for sure that our lives would have turned out differently.
There are so many times when I dont think of him. Life is full with so many events, but when I look at Az, run my finger across his lower lip, which is almost exactly like abbu’s lower lip…I remember abbu. I cant even begin to imagine how happy he would have been with his two grandsons or to see that I was trying to be a writer. I see ammi struggling with so many things, managing such a big house, paying taxes, income tax, house tax, and I sense her frustration at having to cope with all this…there are so many times when I am so mad at Allah for taking away my father.
There are so many times when I miss him, his presence, his voice so much.
This book has been getting a lot of attention in the media, with most authors, critics going ga-ga over it. I picked up the book recently, and found it riveting enough ( and easy to read also) which made me finish it within 2 days.
Firstly, Mohsin Hamid is a Pakistani writer whose earlier novel Moth Smoke also got a lot of recognition. I had borrowed it from a library about 4 years back and read it then, when I was going through a phase of reading a lot of Indian, Pakistani, Muslim, ethnic fiction. The novel was intriguing, but I didnt like it very much. I cant pinpoint the reason now.
Anyway, coming to this book, it is the story of Changez, a young Pakistani man who is a Princeton graduate, and is working in an upmarket evaluation firm in New York. This is just before 9/11 and post 9/11, how Changez changes and why he changes forms the crux of the story.
The narrative is in first person, with Changez striking a conversation with an American outside a busy Lahore restaurant. However, conversation is not what it is like. Its more of a monologue, with Changez repeating the American’s questions to us. ( We dont hear the American speaking at all). While decidedly an innovative technique, I personally felt that it was too strained. And to make an entire novel hold on to that conversation, where events wove in and out of Lahore and New York, …I’m sorry to say, it smacked of artifice. Also, Changez’s tone is mismatched with Changez’s character as is revealed in the novel in the latter half. His belligerence towards America is in direct opposition to his attitude towards the American. And this is where I feel the story has failed. The entire premise of the story built around that seemingly one-sided conversation feels out of place.
Anyway, the good parts…I have to admit that the book paints an elaborate picture of the post 9/11 world, particularly towards Pakistani muslims. Changez’s self discovery, and his increasing feeling of betrayal towards his own country, his realization that making money in America forces one to live in a microcosm, where one has to wear blinders to avoid looking at what the world is doing…all strike a feeling where one knows what he is talking about.
His love story with Erica the young American girl is complex and interesting. Where she is caught up in the past with her own demons, and unwilling to live in the present, these feelings are transferred to Changez when he moves back to Lahore.
The novel has a languorous pace, but it picks up speed especially towards the end, which makes one feel that we have rammed into a hurtling train. I still wish the author had not focused so much on technique(the conversation), because his content is worthy of better.
I thought of the time I had written this and I wondered how soon a year has passed by! With it, my priorities have changed tremendously. I’m no longer a worry wart when it comes to Saboor, although by 3.30 pm, my eyes are begging to be given some sleep and I have to peel them open to wait for him to come back from school.
Today, Mansoor had gone to drop him. I couldnt go because Az was sleepy and it wasnt like Saboor minded. Yet, when Mansoor stood outside the gate, Sab kept waving at Mansoor to go back, and Mansoor insisted to stay back till he went inside his class. Apparently, they were taken to field assembly and then shunted off to their classes. When it was time to go, Sab however got a little emotional it seems and told Mansoor to come quickly in the evening. 
He came back from school today, upset that his class had been shuffled and only 8 of his old classmates were with him. I wanted to remind him that if my plans are on track he wouldnt be in this school next year, but instead in, St Josephs European High School, but thats another sore point with him, so I just shut up and listened to him rant.
He didnt have any homework, but I made him sit down and write tables(he wrote tables thrice in school he protested!), and he fought with me about WHY one has to learn tables in 1st standard, and then 2nd and now even in 3rd?!?! I told him, he’s going to need tables ALL his life!
Well, last year was admittedly better than the year before where he had such a horrid teacher. This year, I do hope his teacher is an understanding soul who will excuse his slapdash handwriting and not plague my unnecessarily!
One of the best books in the series!!!! And now the movie is going to be here soon!
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Need I say any more??
From April, to May and even in June, the wedding season is on full blast! Starting with Fathima’s wedding, almost every Sunday, we’ve been attending weddings. It has now come to this point that I am sick and fed up of biryani!
The worse dilemma is that I keep seeing the same set of people at every other wedding, and so, I dont want to repeat what I wore for that wedding at this wedding. Add to my woes, I have to think of what Az will wear, I have to keep two back ups for him, and also think about what Sab will wear, whether he will wear formal shoes, or slip-ons with his clothes.
At today’s wedding, Az was looking absolutely smashing in a sleeveless top and white pants!:-) But he got excited for some reason, and he jumped up and down, and stuffed his fingers in his mouth and promptly threw up. Gosh! Then he fell asleep and while I gave him to Mansoor to hold while we ate, he got up and bawled away.
Next week, my bum-chum Sadaf is getting married! We grew up together and were in the same class till 5th std, until Kannada and Hindi second language options drove us apart. But after all these weddings, I’m really looking forward to a few weekends of quiet, and peace. And no more biryani please!
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I know absolutely nothing about photography. I doubt I\’ll ever learn anything either. But armed with my 2 megapixel mobile camera, I feel a little happy, that I can click whatever catches my fancy.
February, March and April are the months when the trees are ablaze with colors. A particular favourite of mine are the yellow flowers that look like a sun-burst. But no matter how hard I tried, I wasnt able to take a satisfactory picture of them. This is all I could get.
As I said before, I know nothing of lighting, or composition or anything else…I took this pic a month back, but remembered to transfer it to the computer just now.
