In Memorium: Fatima Meer (1928-2010)

Power
Value
Being

There are not many people in the world who embody the essence of such words.
And those who were, are fast disappearing from our midst.

She touched lives. She angered at the way the veteran struggle was forsaken by the new dispensation. She was a pillar for the underdog. A voice for humanity.

I remember those words, as I sat and scribbled at her bedside: 'When you wake in the morning, challenge the assumptions that you have woken up with. And make sure that they don't go to bed with you again.'

The gleeful stories about Maulvi and her father, MI Meer and their visits to Gandhi's compound in Phoenix sit side by side on my laptop now. Her voice reverberates on a shiny but shame-faced digital recorder. The echoes bounce off hollow walls.

The spirit of who she was, a free one now; unhindered by the ravages of time that show only in the material plane.
The shell has been discarded.
Fatima Meer has ascended.
Rest in Peace, Prof.
Surely, He is most pleased with thee; free to rejoin now with the Most Beloved.

the circularity of blood and dust

Writing is farcical, if it is not able to create a shift in some way. It must, in some small way, undo the latch to the dusty box that is our potential, and reveal the raw material inside that seeks to become something majestic, at least.

Writing, just like anything else that we might do, is undue banter and rather superficial, if it is not accompanied by a whole range of purposeful conditions. Or at least, just one. A purpose. A need to adjust the everyday meander, dissolve the self-doubts and dissipate the fears of failing and of succeeding all at once. Writing is and must. Writing with a sense that something more must come of it. It must be loaded with that intention to do and be for the greater good; even if the path getting there is strewn with thorns. Writing is a vehicle and a weapon, a building and a bridge. Each might be used or abused; the action is fueled by the intent.

Writing, if you really think about it, is an act of worship.
It is a show of love. And a way to bribe the creative soul into production.
Writing is also a show of hate. A means to burn and destroy the wasteland of minds that prefer the route of the blissfully ignorant. It purges these, tearing unused sinews apart, washes away the rust and then forces the flow of new contemplation into the midst of these healing recesses.

Tedious tasks done, writing is the balm. The disease and the cure.
The bitterness and the sweet are found to be one.
Love is, life is, being is.
Bitter. Sweet. Bittersweet...
Living is.
Dieing is.
Bittersweet.
Living-Dieing.
Circularity breathes reason into being.
Writing gives it form.
The vehicle moves onward, transporting thought from one to another. Me to you.
A building of ideology soars skyward.
Glass shatters at a crazy altitude.
Someone slips.
Someone falls.
A grey suit hits concrete pavements of unreason; it bears the mark of the martyr. Red becomes brown.
Brown is earth.
Like ashes to ashes; like dust to dust.

Living is dieing
Dieing is living
Writing is Living-Dieing
Reviving the dust, the ashes, the blood and the being.
Re-creating, moving, becoming, seeing.

"Keep breathing. Everything else is a bonus."


Copyright 2009 Shafinaaz Hassim

sPiced chOcolate caTastrophe

Chocolate oozes from the pot.

Melting desires, heaving at boiling point

in a restless fit of ecstacy.

Sweetness seethes over the edges,

And the aroma of chilli from the spice-makers palette

rises into the smoke above the mass

of now burnt delight.

The Food of the God's

is reduced to a darkened glory

of cocoa and ashes and

bellowing clouds announcing only catastrophe;

a fitting memorial to the

demise of a masterpiece

of spiced

chocolate

coal.


** note: Theo-bromide is an active ingredient in chocolate that translates as 'food of the gods'. i couldnt resist. not the chocolate, but the reference. the rest of its hardly sweet.

gifted

posts can be writ in so many flavours at different times of the day and night. i find that i write my most rambling posts at these oddish hours of the morning, when all i can hear is the baby from next door whimpering and then bawling its eyes...

my brother asked me something this evening at the supper table: he said, shafs how do u manage to stay awake at night? i didn't think too long for the reply: i am awake at night. in the same way that people are awake during the day. i need to re-form my sleep cycle, especially for the winter months. its freezing. anyway this writing manuscript and editing thing has got me turned around to a whole nocturnal living and i rarely make breakfast the first meal of the day. so the family has been complaining a bit. time to lose my night watch status and re-learn the art of normal sleep time. time to enjoy the gift of night-time sleep.

regarding gifts and being gifted, life lessons need be seen as gifts. that's what dear friend S just said to me. so in that case i consider myself lucky on many counts. im going to reach into my vault of 'gifts' every now and again just in case i forget to be grateful :)

this is an arb post. another one that is. i wonder if it is that im not quite taking this writing thing seriously. or that im relegating the SoApBoX to its original state of being the reflective Dear Diary space that it began as.

so many memories at this hall of famous words and nonsensical ramblings. so much mud flung alongside spray cans of wonder. so much more reasons documented in appreciation for myriad things. i feel a poem coming on. lol. or not.

currently listening to a madeenah nasheed. (little bro just gifted me with a new nasheed mp3-cd of some 300 items) i want to go there. to madeenah. where soul cravings speak a different language. and are thus quenched.

im content tonight. even though im rambling... im content.

Allah Knows...

lets begin at the end...

Zarreen is experiencing a shift in consciousness. I can see it happening for her. But there’s two ways this can go. And I have written two ways in which the book can end. Both choices are part of her reflections; or rather they flow from it. Both will turn out okay. They won’t be dead end. Just that they will be. And that they will signal a kind of finality with future prospects.

And still, I have this nagging feeling in the back of my head, that there’s another way of doing this. A way that I must discover for myself. A midway almost, but not.

Zarreen must have these choices and so must the reader. I want to leave these choices to both parties, and not be the one to make it for them. Zarreen must be willing to make that decision; it’s what regaining her sense of self and her essential autonomy is all about. And for the reader who has journeyed with her, I want to honour the same respect for that kind of choice. That level of engagement. And not to take it as my own, my right as the artist of these scenes; I am just the one documenting and giving form to these reflections, these choices, these bits of life that no doubt, every one of us do and will encounter along the path that we tread.

So there’s one thing that I am sure of… It’s not only my choice to make.

Borrowed Time

I don't want to do this anymore... even though I love it so! I sit here, feeling like some kind of window washer on a glass skyscraper; washing away in this repetitive circular motion with the sunshine on my face, and looking in at the wonders of the snazzy executives in the boardroom with their faces painted; first a sombre grey and then layered in varying shades of pink to fake a blush and rosy lips.

My blush reflected in this larger than life mirror is of the elements ravaging my usually pristine features and of the gust of wind splaying fingers through my uncombed hair. My shades of pink are just those memories of a time before I learnt to write. You know, when I pretended that I was alive and played on in that theatre of life, a smiling collaborator to the puppeteers jesting ways.

My shades of grey are the shadows from that time. And the reminders that theatre is fiction; and real life, well... that's not for novels, dearie. Why, that's made for living! If you dare.

I remember his words now, when I told him to keep breathing. 'Everything else is a bonus,' he said. 'A bonus.'

This is borrowed time. I just remembered.

And I want to do that thing that I love doing. But I also don't. I really don't want to. Not tonight. Tonight, I just want to breath again.

Tomorrow I will go back to being the best window washer in the whole wide world. But not today. Today I want the grime to collect on their windows keeping the sun out for a day. Just a day. Then tomorrow, I will borrow time to be me again. Tomorrow I will do the work. Tomorrow, fingers will tap dance at keyboard. Tomorrow the windows will be clean again.

But only tomorrow.

Today I will rest.

After all, this is borrowed time.

I just remembered.

choices and minds

We all make our choices, she said

You made yours, and I made mines...

Aah, but... the point is that they are choices!

Indeed, she said. Choices, made. But led, by circumstance.

Choices still! he said.

She sighed.

I read your note with great interest, he said.

Yes? said she.

Yes. he said.

Made up your mind then, she said.

Yes. he said.

I see. So what? she said.

You tell me. said he.

I guess there's nothing more. she said.

Nothing? said he.

Yep. Choices, remember? she said.

You made yours. And I did too. Choices and minds are binding things, said she.

Aah? he quizzed.

Ah-ha! said she.

misplaced intentions

these can get so twisted:
intentions, misplaced

like a set of keys;

leaving just a bitter
memory
of the ringing
sound
they made as they
dangled
from the wardens hands,

and a cold
memory
of the day i strode
barefoot
across the stone floor
of that
castle of promises.

bitter and cold;

this handful of
misplaced intentions
remind me just
of temporariness
and my own mortality.

faking it

it would seem that he turned out to be some kind of wannabe super hero...

calls himself 'anon'...

spews out darkness and glib poison at unsuspecting folks
and then slinkers back into the abyss where he belongs.
no call to duty.
no accountability.
just pathetic and drivelsome.

a fake superhero.
unimaginative.
and plainly nothing.
yep. a fake.

just like that

i am feeling an overwhelming sadness tonight. and i dnt know what to do about it.
im typing these words. and feeling a sense of relief in seeing them on screen. pretending that this way, the sadness will dissolve. but its not.
i still dnt know what to do about it.

im drenched. i dnt think i can afford to lose more salt right now.
but its all not always easy to find answers to everything.

maybe sad is healthy. i dnt know.
i dnt know if anyone knows.
but i know that i dnt.

travelling with my characters

Samina walked into the room. Something was different. Everything looked exactly as she remembered. But the place felt emptied of his presence. The smell of his cologne. The knowledge that his eyes would meet hers at some point. The sound of the grandfather clock down the hallway alerted her to the receding daylight hour. She scanned the room once more for some consolation. The persian rugs still welcomed her, as they had always done when she was a little girl. Her father's study had a mystery about it that held her in awe. But it was his energy that embraced her more than the essence of the place. And now, it was just as desolate and abandoned as she felt. Now that he was gone.