Archives for 2004

i can hear her whispering, hear her praying into her cupped hands, “oh God, please don’t let this be my life please don’t let this be my life please don’t let this be my life.”
again and again and again.

earlier a bastardised version of a familiar song had played itself in my mind.

love is all that i need / and i found it here in my heart

but it’s windy out. blood rushing to cheeks, waves of gold red copper leaves and a sky the colour of her eyes.

it always works like that, the sudden breathtaking soaring and the inevitable inexplicable plunges.

i will /
let go.

you take a dream, you caress it into being, you nurture it even in times of doubt.
you hold it close, you let it become a part of you and you let yourself breathe in it.

and then, hey there goes that.

i have seen the night sun.

i write in my Orgo lab:
“At this point, it was necessary to remove the stones to become sane.”

but:
275
!

This last weekend I spent all of 12 hours in Toronto. Another 6 hours was spent in transit between the beloved T Dot and the increasingly familiar Kingston.

The flash visit was a result of my being invited to attend a round table discussion being hosted by a variety of associations focusing on what Sri Lankan women living in Canada can do to further the peach process in the homeland.
Sri Lanka, a breathtakingly beautiful island off the southeast coast of India, is presently being torn apart by a civil war. For the most part, the fight is between the Singhalese and the Tamils, but as always there are some in the middle and they must share in the pain.
Sri Lankan Muslims are a minority within a minority. Here in Canada, everyone practically knows everyone else. I have my issues with this “community” but that’s for another place, another time.

That Saturday I learnt a lot about the various voices that go into a country’s building, into its peace and its wars. War affects women and men differently. Rape is a weapon of war and child-soldiers include young women. It was explained to me why so many Tamils living in Canada so insistently stress their identity here – it’s simple, you’re not allowed to be a Tamil in Sri Lanka. Your language is denied you, you are scorned, you are second-class.
The feeling is familiar for most people.
For the first time I was able to reconcile these two seemingly disparate parts of me, my being Muslim and my being Sri Lankan.
And suddenly, I was struck by the similarities.

The media as a tool for shaping societies is something most Muslims are aware of. For the first time I was hearing Tamils complain about their portrayal in the media, too. And it occurred to me that Muslims are getting better in dealing with racism and Islamaphobia in the media. We’re getting louder, more organised. I never would have admitted it, or even seen it, before.
And it also occurred to me that the parallels between Sri Lanka and Palestine are striking.
And so, as I said, when it comes down to it, wars everywhere are basically the same. The pain and the death, the memories and the girl’s shaking hands and everyone’s averted eyes – it’s all the same, across borders drawn and imagined, across deserts and jungles.

i had to leave a half hour early. the Senator had already left, murmuring things about our meeting the Prime Minister and everyone else was munching down on lunch.
outside it was a foggy day. fog in Toronto isn’t something i’ve experienced often. and i’d never been down Gerrard before. this was a “non-shopping” section. the stores were seedy, the cars were rusting.
i’m waiting for my dad to pick me up and i’m hoping that my brother hasn’t forgotten my bag. it has my textbook in it and i have an Orgo midterm on Monday.
thinking slowly as i am, i just barely note the van that passes. I’m not paying attention, but why would i be.
A skinny head pokes out the front window of the passing van. Blond hair, pasty white skin, sharp bones and a black bandanna.
“FUCK YOU BITCH.”
i turn lazily, watch the van speed away from me. the thought of reacting does not occur to me, because it’s too late. what do you yell at the back of a minivan?

i’m standing there in my fire-coloured sari-wrapped jeans and my white scarf with the gold threading.
and honestly, i didn’t care.

five minutes, ten.
i’m craning my neck looking for my father and his beat up TO car. i think i spot it to my left and i turn to watch it. it slows down at a curb near me.
at the curb are two aging white men. one has lanky grey hair that hangs around his face. his friend is stockier, younger-looking, balding. they both look like they’re in their 40s.
the balding one seems to be looking in my direction and he puts his fist up, then a finger.
for a good minute i look at him, wondering very slowly whether he’s giving me the finger.

it’s a relatively empty street.

and i’m wondering what to do.
do i react, with my father there in the car waiting? my father hasn’t seen, this i know. and what would i say – “excuse me, are you talking to me?”
i walk towards the curb and the car and the men resume their conversations.
i get into the car and we drive away.

i’m expecting that going back may feel something like a punch in the gut.

It was God who created you;
yet some of you refuse to believe, while others have faith.
He is aware of all your actions.
He created the heavens and the earth to manifest the truth.
He fashioned each one of you – and each one of you is beautiful.
To God you will all return.
He knows all that the heavens and the earth contain.
He knows all that you hide and all that you reveal.
He knows your deepest thoughts.

The Holy Quran – 64: 2-4

We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, or the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time or conditions of our death. But within all this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live: courageously or in cowardice, honorably or dishonorably, with purpose or adrift. We decide what is important and what is trivial in life. We decide that what makes us significant is either what we do or what we refuse to do. But no matter how indifferent the universe may be to our choices and decisions, these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. And as we decide and choose, so are our lives formed. In the end, forming our own destiny is what ambition is about.

- Joseph Epstein

I long have had a quarrel set with Time
Because he robb’d me. Every day of life
Was wrested from me after bitter strife:
I never yet could see the sun go down
But I was angry in my heart, nor hear
The leaves fall in the wind without a tear
Over the dying summer. I have known
No truce with Time nor Time’s accomplice, Death.
    The fair world is the witness of a crime
Repeated every hour. For life and breath
Are sweet to all who live; and bitterly
The voices of these robbers of the heath
Sound in each ear and chill the passer-by.
—What have we done to thee, thou monstrous Time?
What have we done to Death that we must die?

- Wilfred Scawen Blunt

it’s not so bad reading books, being able to underline the turning points, the epiphanies. being able to close the book with a sense of complacency, because you know exactly what went wrong, where and why. and you know how all the problems could have been fixed before they were made. you could bookmark the crossroads.

but i’d begun to suspect that life is like that too, without the ending part. that the seniors on the bus were once beautiful young people and that parents have stories.
so perhaps my having begun thinking about it was an omen.
a preparation, of sorts.

she’s nearing fifty but her hair is still strong, still healthy and deep black. but now, stroking her head, i see the strands of gray, the white curls at the forehead.
this reversal of positions frightens me. it threatens my sense of identity. i am no longer the one who has something to prove.

i’m crying now and the white still stands out against the black.
traces of salt now on my face.

this isn’t guilt now, nothing as complacent, as self-serving.
this is recognition, this is hurt, this is confusion and on a very primitive level, this is terror.
and bitterness. why the wasteland? why the years? why must there be scars?

we are the only ones inside, an hour before opening time.
the two of us stand transfixed before the TV. the words are hard to distinguish over the sounds of traffic, of cooking. the broadcaster’s voice rises and falls in accompaniment to the grainy images, in time to the heartbeats inside the black bags.
we stand unmoving, watching.

he joins us, reaches over a half-full pack of cigarettes for the remote and i tense for a second, thinking that perhaps he is going to change the channel. perhaps exasperatedly.
he puts the volume up but still the words are lost to me.

then it’s another story and he turns to the kitchen. “they are killing the Muslims everywhere,” he says.
he comes out a heartbeat later, through the swinging doors saying, “i dunno. maybe God is angry with us,” and he beats his chest lightly, twice. “i dunno.”

what’s there to say.
i don’t know.

outside it is cold despite the sun. and the flags flapping in the wind sound like gunshots (inna de air).