Contrast

There is a light and dark in each of us. We are genetically inclined towards one or the other - "Nature". How we choose the light over dark is defined by the restraint we are all taught to exercise, the values that are instilled in us - "Nurture".

But thats not enough. Choosing one over the other is a daily exercise. Each morning you wake up, the remnants of darkness will be simmering in the deepest recesses of your heart and the sparks of light will be lying in wait for you to choose them to put an end to the darkness... for the day at least. The next dawn, the battle ensues anew.

The trick is to recognize both for what they are..  You don't choose one over the other... you choose what kind of person you will end up being.

The Dark manifests differently in different people. It can demand blood in some or be as basic as lies and deceit in others. Yet at the core, it remains the essence of evil.. the devils pitchfork.. many names.. same end.

The Light is the call of the Almighty... Cautioning.. No!... Ordering restraint, control, fidelity, truth, honesty, fairness... All the things we know to be good & true in this world.

We are not perfect and we are prone to weakness. Each day we wake up and lose ourselves in the meaningless world surrounding us. Our choices are made unconsciously and without thought as are our mistakes. Yet through it all, we constantly hope for forgiveness. Through every lie we fabricate, every  deceit we breed, we carry the justification for our actions close to our teeny tiny dark little hearts, hoping that someone else can find the light that we find ourself incapable of harnessing on our own.

And sometimes there are forces externally that attack our light, like the evil eye... like black magic.. all of which are acknowledged to exist - But there is always hope in the great court of the Almighty. Where evil exists, so does the human resolve to defeat it.

All you have to do is remember one thing -
"No one has any power over me!"

No one can make you think or do anything that they want because you are stronger than them... their evil..

You are the greatest creation of the Almighty and you WILL NOT BOW DOWN before ANYTHING created by his hand. No evil, no envy, no devils followers can win as long as the belief and love of the Almighty burns in your heart.

Our desire to let go and dance in the wild can be fulfilled. The circumstances are all that you need to ensure that light prevails.
I miss me. Sometimes I feel a weight of a thousand untold stories in my heart but there are too many pieces and I think I've lost the plot. A million pieces of an unfinished tale...

I wonder how much time is left. I hope I leave happy beings behind...

Moonlight & waves

Here's what the Burj Khalifa looked like this morning ☺ Went to Fume in Dubai Marina today. It was super neat. The food was really nice. The weather outside was even nicer. Went for a post dinner walk. The wind had a nice coolness to it. It felt good. Took loads of pictures. Buildings mostly... lit up prettily. Reminded one of fairy lights. And then there was the moon :) playing hide n seek with the clouds. It had a rainbow halo around it. Somehow the camera was unable to capture its nooks and crannies .... they way it had back in khi on a particular night in DACC. I guess everything changes with time. Except me.
I'm still me surprisingly... tenaciously hanging on to what I have always been. Not moving forward but never moving back. Life has been kind. Its a sublime existence.
There are no words of wisdom spouting forth. I wouldnt recognize them anyway.

U just have to believe in a higher power and trust that all will be well all the time... and if it isnt... eventually the world rights itself. Theres nothing else to worry about..
Theres a carousel. It brings to mind all the carousels i've ever seen and have memories of. I've always felt the burden of perception weighing heavily on me. The ability to see the reality of ppl is a difficult one at best.... excruciating one at worst. 
But no complaints. Atleast there arent any surprises. U get what u expect, dust yourself off and move on.

Ice cream cones melting.... I fear time may be short...

Life Path :)

So I found this while randomly trawling the internet:
It's calculated on the basis of your name and the number of letters in it.

Given Life Path Number: 7

Meaning of this life path number: Highly intelligent, sometimes philosophical and also imaginative! You have psychical talent and may enjoy your own solitude. Let's call this a loner quality. Since you find it hard to take anything at face value, your path will lead you to study, test, and analyze a great many things. Sometimes it would be beneficial to you to have more faith. Without faith you tend to become very cynical. You are a born searcher and seeker of truth. Attracted to all things spiritual and mystical. Loving natural beauty: ocean, green grass, plants, flowers. Always leaving an air of mystery of yourself to others.

You find it hard to open up with others. If your Life Path is seven then you are wise and studious. Having an perfectionist nature about yourself you are devoted to invetigating the unknown and amounting knowledge. Your field work wise should be someting related to analysis, deductive reasoning, scientific knowledge or technical ability.

Dammit! I knew I should have gone into something scientific!

Damn Chemistry and the burning hatred I carry in my heart for concatenation to this day!

sigh! Too late for regrets. 

its now 2015. It's been a reeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaalllllllly long time since I have been in the land of the living and I am pretty much as clueless about all of it as the day I started. 

So who's with me? :)



***************************************************** I dare to dream... so sue me.. :p GemWorld Copyright © Fars - FS 2004 to inifinity

Just because.....

Life is funny. Just when you think you're starting to forget... you start to remember.

Stuff of days gone by... of a life well-lived. And yet in spite of all the good memories, there are little niggling threads of.. I don't know... wanting something more... like somethings left undone or unsaid.. Like a sense of being incomplete in that past moment.

Parallel lives live on in the mind. Something we all experience after watching a movie or a TV show where you invariably end up building yourself into the storyline as a silent spectator.

And everyday when I reach out and touch a new human connection, I realize that I am not unique. That there are people just like me (woo hoo) mentally and imaginatively out there that experience the same phenomenon of disengagement from their human forms as they go floating about in their parallel lives created by an overactive mind :)

I remember the Jack Lemmon Movie "Dad", where he had a whole family, farm and doting wife and kids dreamed up in golden hued glory inside his head. And I could totally relate :) so fun.

I guess its not surprise since I am a self confessed anti-reality specimen and would do practically anything to avoid it. It's not all its cracked up to be you know.

The best conversations I have are with myself. Not myself myself. But by myself. Usually I'm lecturing someone else in my imagination and there are just beautiful nuggets of philosophy spilling forth from my undiscovered intellect that I am in awe of myself. I never capture any of it. I never write it down.

I don't know why. Like its too beautiful to share. or no one would believe it emanated from myself. Either way the gems are lost in translation when I sit down to try to recapture the thoughts. Lost to me and to the rest of the world out there.

With the advent of the internet, everyone's a philosopher. Self expression is the greatest gift the internet brought to this generation. Suddenly you didn't have to be published in a paperback to be read and shared. It's a beautiful revolution. Freeing, explosive, .... exposing.

While the new generation (the one that is lets say 6 years younger than myself), has no issues spilling its guts in front of all and sundry and then waiting for feedback on their emotional verbiage, its frankly a little bit freaky for us old schoolers. We, who were taught "Silence is Gold", have a tough time dealing with the unrestrained honesty of the new kids on the block on digital mediums.

We were taught the power of silence, control and abstinence from the common evils.. like cursing in public and saying what you actually thought about another person. You had to be polite and politically correct. And frankly, there was nothing wrong with that. I tend to disagree with those that take it too far and become borderline hypocritical, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with the commonplace politeness that was ingrained in all of us back in the day.

Our guy friends never cursed in front of us. My father never cursed. It was an unwritten requirement and kind of a silent respect extended. I appreciate that now when someone curses in my presence and I feel somewhat insulted in a naik-parveen-ish kind of way. And while I understand the world has changed that doesn't mean that I have, and I feel disrespected at a deep subconscious level, because that's just not the way I was brought up.

I still feel offended by public displays of affection, even though we all should be pretty numb to it by now through the TV & Movies and all the digital exposure that we have. I still skip scenes & pages in novels when things cross the line. That's just me. It's the way we were mentally programmed. And it wont change.

So I guess the trick is to stick to what you know and try to pass it on to the next generation and hope it sticks :)

I think I am seriously old-school. But I'm happy and that's all that matters. To each his own. Off to the parallel universe :)

Cheerios
fars

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I dare to dream... so sue me.. :p GemWorld Copyright © Fars - FS 2004 to inifinity

Khalil Gibran - Pity the Nation

I wish i didn't sit here and nod my head in assent when reading the below but the parallels to our crippled nation are too vivid to ignore. Its paralying to the common people who feel powerless to stop the continuous degeneration of the only place we can call home. May Allah have mercy on our souls and rid us of the adversity that is upon us.   Pity The Nation  Khalil Gibran Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.  Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine-press.  Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.  Pity a nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening.  Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.  Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.  Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting, and farewells him with hooting, only to welcome another with trumpeting again.  Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.  Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation. ******************************************************************************************** Fariha's Thoughts of the Day: GoogleName: Fariha GemWorld Blogspot: http://gemworld.blogspot.com MSN Space: http://gemworldfars.spaces.live.com/

speech

i cant write anymore with my hands. they start to hurt. the other day i missed a step on the living room stairs and fell on my knee. Allah saved us.  my eyes feel fuzzy. my minds so far ok. i feel like i have something to say but i'm lost for words. speechless.  why? i dont know! its been a while now living with this feeling. i was psychoanalyzing and i realized that its probably because i am just trying to get from point A to point B without falling down and collapsing. i'm just trying not to think of the effort that is going into each moment and task because if i start thinking when will i do the doing.  everything feels like a favor i am doing for someone that i should be getting appreciation for but the applause never comes.  you put the clothes in the washer... clap clap clap.. you even turned it on.. more claps...AND you DIDNT forget to put some detergent in there.. wow... thunderous applause..  thats how i feel life SHOULD be.. but the applause never comes. i want to work on M's baby book but the time never comes. once home its change, eat, bathe, change, brush, collapse on the bed. wake up at 6am and start all over.  i want to give my nature shots for development and stick em up all over the house and then call everyone i know to gush over them. the time never comes.  i want to buy frames for the damn nature shots. the time never comes.  i want a full time maid. wheres the time? i want to go to heaven and just put my head on abus chest and listen to his heart beating. inshAllah.  i want to raise my babies right so they join my abu in heaven and abu can see them grow from birth to adulthood one day at a time. inshAllah. i have the vision but no plan to achieve it. thats what separates the losers from the winners. sigh. all vision and no plan make jack a dull dull man. i had to say man so it would rhyme. its more satisfying too.  like any normal human being i have the urge to connect, to feel the buzz of being heard and understood, to feel the rush of sharing .. ANYTHING... with another living organism..  we are all inward focused. its the innate human selfishness. survival instinct. think of yourself first. sad but true.  Abu wasnt. he thought of himself last :) it was always about everyone else.  i'm so happy i was part of the everyone else.  i love abu. cant wait to see him.  ami cant either. she keeps saying her time has come and makes me very upset. doesnt really leave me with much. i hope Allah mian grants her health & happiness to live for a long long time whole and hearty. all faculties and limbs and functions intact. i need her.  i love my ami abu. i've been blessed so much because of them that i dont know what to do to repay Allah mian. it may be a losing battle. sigh. innalillahewainnailaihirajioun - 'Surely we belong to Allah and to Him shall we return" :) sighhhh... life has its moments.  ******************************************************************************************** Fariha's Thoughts of the Day: GoogleName: Fariha GemWorld Blogspot: http://gemworld.blogspot.com MSN Space: http://gemworldfars.spaces.live.com/

Hello GemWorld :)

Its been long. Lets just say that and move on without any apologies. Its cloudy. Life is relative. Slightly tiring but there is excitement in silly things. Like sofas and curatins. Manageable. Feel like a part of the rat race sometimes and sometimes supremely disconnected. Old age and aches & pains :) May Allah bless and keep in his protection ******************************************************************************************** Fariha's Thoughts of the Day: GoogleName: Fariha GemWorld Blogspot: http://gemworld.blogspot.com MSN Space: http://gemworldfars.spaces.live.com/

Its been a long time

Its been a long time. I havent written anything much for a while now. I think it has to do with the fact that I’m not reading much. When you are not exposed to any channels of inspiration, you lose the ability to express much as well.


My core inflow of communication is the Disney Channel. Before you think that I have been reduced to watching the Disney channel due to my offspring’s predilection for all things Disney, let me correct you. My offspring only watches Baby TV. The Disney channel viewing is personal choice. I *gasp* actually enjoy it… the simple humor.. the witty repartee :) .. its wholesome and fun and so obvious you have to smile.

And the best part is no body dies and no one goes searching for clues.

I am miscast as an adult in this tableau of life. We should be given a choice of whether we want to graduate to the next physical phase in our development cycle. I say physical because mental development is most certainly not linked to our physical advancement. Men can grow old and die and still retain the intellect of 8 year olds. So there you have it.

I still retain the mental framework of an 18 year old. I don’t know if that’s why I watch the Disney channel. I think Disney just represents everything happy and joyous and sparkly to me … Tinkerbell and Neverland, fairies and pixie dust, princesses and castles and pretty pretty ballgowns.. I love it all. Always will. My best vacation would be a visit to Orlando’s Disney world with a tour of Universals Hogwarts thrown in. sighhh… I need to wait till the munchkins are old enough to enjoy it so I can disguise the visit as being for their benefit rather than mine. Unless they see through it and refuse to go, in which case I can always go alone.. (ecstatic gleam in eyes) hehehehe..

And hence I am eternally addicted to shows the likes of So Random & Wizards of Waverly Place. So Random is my favorite though. Do notice that i keep refering to it as So Random and not Sonny with a Chance which is its actual name :) That's how involved I am in that make believe world :) It just seems so simplistically funny :) the jokes are simple and don’t tax your brains and the slapstick style comedy always appealed to me. My husbands disgusted expression everytime he catches me watching it also provides a few extra laughs … hehehe..

And a funny thing happened on all the Disney shows. Over the summer all the cast members on each show (atleast the female ones) turned a funny shade of orange. I mean I remember thinking how fair skinned Demi Lovato was in season 1 and suddenly she really wasn’t. I mean … Orange. I don’t know if a demographic study suddenly showed Disney that orange skinned kids were considered cooler than regular skinned ones, but something must have triggered it. I am happy to say that in Camp rock 2 atleast the regular color is coming back. Guess it was a spray tan gone wrong on the whole cast. Funny.

I don’t understand tanning. It damages the skin, causes freckles and generally doesn’t really do much for you. I will never understand the logic of burning in the sun to get an even skin tone. You should just love the skin you’re in. Hopefully they’ll all come back to their natural skintones by fall. :)

:) I guess that’s it for the day.


***************************************************** I dare to dream... so sue me.. :p GemWorld Copyright © Fars - FS 2004 to inifinity

29th July 2010 - Thursday

29th July 2010 - Thursday

Today is an awfully sad day in the life of my family. My Munni baji (cousin/popho/chachi) passed away yesterday in the ill fated air blue plane crash on the Margalla Hills. The plane was flying where it had no business to be flying and the end result was the death of 152 passengers and crew.

I landed yesterday in Karachi after our plane landed on its second attempt due to poor visibility in the light rain. For a moment the girl next to me got a little worried because the plane starting taking off instead of landing and we kept debating why the pilot couldn’t see the landing strip when we could see it just fine in the plane’s forward camera. Anyway, we landed and when I was in the car going home we found out about the air blue plane crash. For a moment my heart just sank because I knew how many people travelled that route on a daily basis. A lot of our agency friends were perpetually back and forth along with our family. I said a silent prayer.

Then we got home and I called my cousin to say congrats. She had just delivered her second child at 3am in the morning and was doing fine. I told her about the plane crashing. She hadn’t heard the news. Right after that I called dadijan to tell her that we had arrived. As soon as I said salam, she told me about the air blue plane crash and I said, yes I had just heard about it. then she said, “Munni was on the plane”. And the world came crashing down. I just sat there in shock, the last image of Munni baji from Sammo’s wedding floating in my mind. Her laugh, her smile, her immense positivity. Juni chacha and munni baji had a wonderful relationship. They were always smiles and laughter. And their children were wonderful, beautiful, adorable. All I could think of was “why”.

And there was no answer.

Every time I have gotten on a plane, I have always asked Allah mian if today was it. If I would get off alive. I used to ask myself if it felt like the last day. And somehow it never did. But yesterday I realized that it never will. That the last day will just come upon us unheralded. Only the chosen few are told before the end. Like my abu. Allah mian gave him 3 weeks to wrap things up before taking him away from us. I wish we were all that lucky.

All we can pray for is strength for our family & for all those left behind.

Fariha


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I dare to dream... so sue me.. :p GemWorld Copyright © Fars - FS 2004 to inifinity

rainy days & pakoras n chat n puri bhaji n doodh patti

today was am-ma-zing. it was raining all over the place and for lunch we got inspired to go find some aaloo pakoras anywhere we could find them. lo and behold someone thought of this nimco styled chaat place in old Dubai and off we went.

so we got to the famous chowpati and i was like i want everything on the menu :) and between two people we ordered a plate of mix pakoras that had everything from palak, baingan, aaloo, piyaz, hari mirchain and even gobi i think. a couple of pieces of each to give you a taste with this really funky methi hari watery chutney. then i ordered a aaloo vara chana chaat which had this really nice sweet imly ki chutney on it with piyaz. very nice. and haffoo ordered the kachori chaat which looked much the same sans the vara. then there was the puri bhaji and the puri's were fresh hot puffy and made of AATA WHICH WAS PHENOMENAL. i love aatay ki puris. ooof. lovely. and the icing on the cake was the brilliant doodh patti wali chai. aaye haaaye haaye.. :)

it was cold and rainy and windy outside and we sat inside the little area looking out and eating the nice economical portions. our total bill = 22. :) sighhh.. watta great day.

so when we got back obviously i had to call funanie and tell her about the great stuff and then i had to write it down to capture it for posterity so here it is :)

happy rainy days



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Fariha's Thoughts of the Day:

GoogleName: Fariha GemWorld

Blogspot: http://gemworld.blogspot.com

MSN Space: http://gemworldfars.spaces.live.com/