It's Raining!!

 Yes, it's raining here. And I love it. The smell of fresh soil, the constant pattering of rain drops, the chill in the air, the warmth of the shawl drawn tightly around  myself, the hesitance to get up in the morning, not to mention the great relief from the summer heat... Sometimes it rains so heavily that my ears ache from the noise of rain falling on the sheets in our terrace. Sometimes it rains very softly and gently, and it is at times like these that it rains in my heart too- a rain of memories, dreams, hopes, fears and a few tears.
 It was on a rainy day that my best childhood friend left this world after a losing battle with a fatal disease. So, naturally, rains bring back memories of times spent with her, those lovely years... There are other memories too- those of watching rain falling on the roofs of nearby houses from my dad's house, and particularly, of bathing in the rain once from the terrace of my grandma's house, along with my sisters, mom, aunts and cousins. Then there are the countless dreams that are better not mentioned.
 All in all, I am glad when it rains. Though there are a few sorrows that accompany rains, there is something in rain that makes it a sweet, bearable pain.

Count Your blessings

This is something to ponder... If you woke up this morning with more health than illness... you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.  If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation... you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.  If you can attend a meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death... you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.  If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep... you are richer than 75% of this world.  If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace... you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.  If your parents are still alive and still married .. you are very rare, especially if you are from the West.  If you can read this message, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all. So, the point is, just count your blessings!! God has given you a lot more than you can ever  thank Him for. Edited from http://www.beautifulislam.net

Repentance

Al-Muzni who is Aboo lbraaheem Isma`eel ibn Yahya said:

I entered upon ash-Shaafi'ee during his illness which resulted in his death, so I said to him: "What is your condition?" He replied: "I am journeying from this world, and departing from my brothers, drinking from the cup of death, and upon Allaah - Exalted is His remembrance - arriving. And no! By Allaah, I do not know if my soul is travelling towards Paradise or the Fire!" Then he started to weep, and he said:

In You, the Creator, I raise my longing, And even if I am, O possessor of kindness and generosity, an evildoer, a criminal,When my heart became constricted and my paths became narrow,
I took my hope in Your pardon and forgiveness as an opening and an escape,
My sins seemed very great to me but when I compared them to Your forgiveness,
I found Your forgiveness to be greater,
You are and still remain the only One who can forgive sins,
You grant and forgive out of Your benevolence and generosity,
Perhaps the One who is the source of all goodness will forgive and overlook my mistakes,
And will hide the sins and burden that I accumulated,
My sins seemed very great to me, so I turned (to You) in humility,
Were it not for my contentment in you, I wouldn't, O my Lord, have seen any comfort at all,
So if You forgive me, You would have forgiven a sinner, A rebellious, oppressive tyrant still sinning,
So my crime is very great, past and present, But Your forgiveness that embraces Your servant is greater and higher,
So whomsoever holds fast to Allaah is truly saved from mankind, And whomsoever's hopes are in Him, will be far removed from any regrets.

From http://www.beautifulislam.net

Insecure

I don't know why, but I'm feeling so insecure now a days. If this continues for a while then I'm afraid my emotions will get the better of me. I can only pray to God the Almighty to give me patience, and peace of mind and help me retain my sanity. I'm leaving everything onto Allah.
Thawakkalthu alallah, la haula va la quwwatha illa billa, hasbiyallahu ni'mal vakeel va ni'mal maula va ni'mannaseer.

Lonely

I feel so lonely, so terribly sad... I don't know if there is any particular reason (or many 'particular reasons') behind it, I only know that there is this great sorrow, gnawing my insides and threatening my sanity. I wish I could be anywhere but inside my mind, my being. I wish I were someone else. Calling to my aid the beloved poet, I can voice my feelings of insecurity, my confusions, my fears and tears, thus:
 " If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
   If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; ",
and even go on to cry out aloud:
"O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
 I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!".
But where we differ, he and I, is in that I am not brave enough to hope as he did that if Winter comes then Spring will definitely follow it. My sorrow, I'm afraid, does not hold promises of future joy- for it is the future that brought this sorrow in the first place. I'm helpless in the face of it, a little girl all alone in the a midst of a vast sea of sorrow and (seemingly) endless misery.


 

One More Book

   I just love books... I don't know why, but it has always been so. There are people who brand me as a bookworm and hate me for it but that's just the way I'm.. I can't help it. I love the smell of books, their covers, their titles (not all), sometimes the style of writing, sometimes the story or the suspense, sometimes a particular character or a couple, and yet other times, the place where the story is set. I love authors.. I admire them for the work they have published; even those that are not that good (I believe people should admire them even more because they had the guts to publish whatever rubbish they have written!!).

   So, there is this dilemma: which is my favourite book? Normally, I name a few books I have read and add that I like many others too. But if God gave me the chance to read one more book, just one more, then which book will I read? Of course, being a devout Muslim, the last book that I would ever like to read is The Holy Qur'an. But if the choice is one more book before The Qur'an, then I will have a hard time deciding which book to read.

  I'm crazy about harry Potter series ( I love J.K.Rowling's way of writing, how she includes humour even in the most serious situations) but then I've read them so often that I almost now them by heart. So there's no point reading them one last time. Then there is Letter from Peking by Pearl.S.Buck. But that too is almost as familiar to me as Harry Potter. I like most of the books by Orhan Pamuk, Erich Segal and John Grisham, but as my very last book? The answer is no. Curfewed Night is a book I like very much, but then, it is not fiction- I would be too sad knowing that as I read, people elsewhere are suffering those atrocities. And if I were to choose Khaled Hosseini's book, that would be a dilemma in itself- I still can't make up my mind whether I like The Kite Runner or A Thousand Splendid Suns the most. And there's the fact that there are a lot of books that I haven't read yet (The Good Earth, The Collaborator,etc), and lots yet to be published or released, and still others not yet written.

   So, what can I do? The truth is that I will not be able to decide which book I like so much so that I would choose it to be the last book I would ever read, even if I was given another lifetime!

'Curfewed Night'- a review

     Kashmir. The bluest of skies cradling a glacier of clouds over the peaks of the Himalayas. A wide valley spreading out in the gentle, soothing green of paddy fields. Metalled roads falling like black ribbons toward the valley; tall, elegant poplars by the roadside and shorter, greener willows along the wedge of paddies. Snow-covered buildings and mountain peaks, and the frozen Jhelum river, and so on. This beautiful valley, considered to be the "Paradise on Earth" is well-known. But the cruelty inflicted upon the people there has always been suppressed. While Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine received international attention, issues of Kashmir have been limited to small articles in the newspapers of India and Pakistan. It is to change this pathetic situation and bring out the truth about Kashmir that young Kashmir journalist Basharat Peer has written the moving memoir Curfewed Night.It is the first book written by a Kashmiri Muslim about the tumultuous history of Kashmir, and has bagged the Vodafone Crossword Non Fiction Award. It is, in the words of Khushwant Singh, 'beautifully written, brutally honest and deeply hurtful' . 

     Basharat peer was born in a village in the Anantnag district of Kashmir, as the son a Kashmiri bureaucrat and a village school teacher.He studied political science at Aligarh Muslim University and journalism at Columbia University. He has worked as a reporter at Rediff and Tehelka, and has written various articles for The Guardian and other reputed dailies. Basharat Peer was a teenager when the separatist movement broke out in Kashmir. The massacre of innocent Kashmiri people at the hands of the Indian army prompted countless young men, whose resentment against Indian rule was till then expressed only during cricket matches, to cross over the Line of Control to train in Pakistani army camps. It was around that time that identity cards, 'crackdowns' and security checks became a part of Kashmiri life. Travelling became dangerous; no one could be sure of reaching back home from school or workplace. Empty chairs filled classrooms as many have left school, and some the valley itself, out of fear. Peer was sent off to school in Aligarh where he might be safe. He attended college and became a journalist in Delhi but Kashmir- angrier, more violent, more helpless- was never far away. Drawn back to his homeland to search out the stories that have always haunted him, he resigned from his job and began writing about the valley- he paints a harrowing and intensely moving picture of Kashmir and its people in Curfewed Night.
     His pain is evident when he describes how the monuments and shrines of Kashmir were either destroyed or taken over by the army- 'Pari Mahal', or the Palace of the Fairies, had become the world's most paramilitary camp; the library of Islamiya College, the oldest college in Srinagar and the 600 year old shrine of Nuruddin Rishi were burnt down in gun battles; Hindu temples and Buddhist stupas were dying from neglect and misuse. Streets which have earlier smelled of cardamom and cinnamon now stinks of burning tyres and tear gas. The cities of Kashmir have lost their nights to curfews. Mothers and 'half-widows' of 'disappeared persons' fight for justice in city squares and parks. They keep hoping till they see the dead body or the grave.
     'Curfewed Night' is the story of Kashmir. It is also the story of countless people who had to suffer the consequences of the battles between the army and the militants- Mubeena who was gang-raped by the Border Security Force on her wedding day, Shameema who fought with soldiers and saved one of her sons from being sent to a militants' house with a landmine (her elder son was killed in this way), Rashid Nazki the poet who was silent after losing half of his family in a grenade blast, Kashmiri Pandits who had migrated forced to live in one room brick huts, and a number of other innocent people buried in named and nameless graves. Basharat Peer hopes that one day the war being fought in Kashmir and the reasons for its existence would disappear like footsteps on winter snow in his childhood.The book ends in a note of optimism as a bus service has been started between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad. As the CNN review rightly says, Curfewed Night is a book that will stay with you long after you flip its last page.