No khatirdari here

It is gonna be American Thanksgiving on Thursday and then Eid on Friday, Inshallah. Usually we have people over for Thanksgiving, but this year I haven’t bothered to invite anyone. I still want to cook for Thanksgiving, though.  And then the next day is Eid. So this coincidence could potentially make for way too much cooking. Even though I have not invited anyone over for Eid, and we don’t know anyone well enough for any Eid milan unannounced but expected popover stuff.

I am just cooking because I am imposing on myself a pressure to play a role of wife cum-family cook who produces holiday meals. My husband could care less and would just as well enjoy ordering a pizza. And my kids are way too small to care. So it is all me. All in my head.

I don’t want to invite anyone for Thanksgiving. I just don’t feel like it. I know that’s bad. I am getting so anti-social. We get these huge turkeys over here and every year I end up freezing a bunch of leftovers even when we do have guests. So this year I bought a fresh leg-thigh piece. It is still pretty huge. And I have no clue how to cook this thing. I was thinking of pan searing it in butter and then baking it. But for how long? Maybe 45 mins to an hour? I just don’t know. I will have to research. I hope I don’t screw the dang thing up. But you see, I MUST cook turkey. Even if it just a piece of the bird. It is a compulsion.

And then the next day is Eid. Once again, I am being a recluse and have invited no one. And no one has invited us. That is how it is in Dubai. We may go all dressed up in our Eid finery to the Global Village or to a mall. So sad, I know. At least on Eid day 2 we are invited to a one-dish party. I plan to do dam ka queema. But for day 1 I am tempted not to cook anything. Yet I feel I should just to go through the motions. Isn’t that so silly? I will probably end up preparing my husband’s family recipe for qabuli pullao. I should make a sweet dish but actually no one will eat much of it but me. My husband isn’t too crazy about desi sweets so if I make muzaffar or kheer or sheer qorma or whatever he will have one tiny bowl and I will end up eating the rest of it, a bowl here and there a few times per day over the next few days, loading up on ghee, sugar and thickened milk fat calories. No thanks. I write this now. But watch me cave in and make a sweet dish anyway. The qabuli pullao we will eat for lunch. And then we will probably end up having some Eid dinner out at, perhaps at the Global Village at Kausar Pakistani resto. Or if we are at the mall it may be…gasp…Chili’s. Chili’s for Eid dinner? Oh, scoff away but I promise every Chili’s location will be packed and there will be a 25 minute wait for a table. And I will have a fajita salad and my husband will have a burger. Eid in Dubai. Hmmm. Last Eid, I did make a biriani for lunch and then I believe at 10 pm that evening we were at the mall and had Hardee’s burgers.

Anyway, I could invite. But I just don’t feel like it. Some people love entertaining, but I find it stressful. Especially cross-cultural entertaining where I have my American “help yourself, make yourself at home” type thinking and a lot of people here have the “you are my guest so let me attend to you ever so well ” style. I am just not up to playing hostess right now, I guess. 

Somehow I don’t want to play hostess, but I want to play chef. Sigh. I know.  Just go ahead and order that pizza.

 

Pioneer

I have been teaching a blind student. We have never had a blind student in our school. When my supervisor asked me if he could place a visually impaired student in my class, I said sure. We have had visually impaired students in our program before. They are  integrated with the other students, but they use special devices like screen readers to support their computer work, and usually the teacher makes enlarged photocopies of handouts for these students, which they sometimes read with special magnifiers. My student cannot use a screen reader or a magnifying glass. They are of no use to her because she doesn’t have much sight at all. So I really wasn’t prepared to serve her as a teacher.

We didn’t know much about this student before she joined us. What we found out made us realize that she would need a lot of special support. She was born partially sighted, but her vision faded away slowly during her childhood because of a genetic disorder. Her parents didn’t realize that she was losing her vision until she was about 5 years old and they noticed that she kept falling down and bumping into things. There weren’t services here for the blind when she was very young, and there isn’t too much awareness about issues of the blind, so her parents helped her in the best way that they could without much support. She spent her high school career sitting  integrated in a classroom for the sighted.  Her mother read all of her homework to her and transcribed everything for her. When I picture that, it just makes me cry at the thought. I imagine her mother as a dedicated woman with many hopes for her daughter’s success, spending a lot of time ensuring that her daughter got the best out of what was available to her through her scholastic experience. My student was taught to read Arabic braille at some point. However, there were no braille materials  made available to her, so she forgot how to read braille. Braille materials are pretty much unavailable here. But there is a special institute for the blind that opened here a couple of years ago, so this is changing. She was also never taught life skills that would give her independence, like how to walk with a cane. Someone led her around everywhere. She is very bright, and she learned a lot completely aurally. From what I know, that is what it is like for most blind people here, in terms of facilities and educational opportunities.

When the admin at my school realized that this student had many special needs, they set the ball rolling to find support for her. In the meanwhile, she sat in my classroom, and I have been trying my best to help her out. I am completely unqualified for this. I have been giving her extra attention, but since I have a whole class that I am responsible for, I conduct class as usual, and she spends much of the time just sitting there or nominally participating in group work. She says she loves class though, and promises that she gets a lot out of just listening in. Teaching her has made me very aware of how my materials and methods are completely geared towards the sighted, so I have researched online a little bit about how to integrate blind students into activities, and how to support blind students in other ways. But  I am really untrained to truly help her. I am just doing the best I can and hoping that I don’t fail her too much. Isn’t that terrible? I am sure that this was the situation for all of her previous teachers and she just floated through school with them doing the best they could, given the circumstances. Luckily, after Ramadan, the only institute for visually impaired people here stepped in. Now, mashallah, she is undergoing intensive training. She has learned a lot of computer skills, and she uses a reading and writing program that reads everything aloud for her and allows her to type. She picked up all of the tech stuff really fast, mashallah, although she types very slowly thus far. She is also learning to read in English and Arabic in braille. Her helper from the institute says that in about four months, she will be armed with what she needs to be fully integrated into any classroom. In addition, her helper has been teaching her life skills. She was taught a special method for eating…the helper explained to me that blind people here hate eating in front of others because they are shy about making a mess, and so they learn a special way to eat so that they can feel confident when they eat in public. Such a simple thing that the sighted take for granted! Subhanallah. My student has learned to use a cane so that she can walk independently. Her family doesn’t like the idea of her using a cane, but her mother has been supportive. She loves her cane, though. I know that sounds weird that her family wouldn’t want her to use a cane if you live in a place where seeing a blind person with a cane is a normal sight. However,  there really isn’t much awareness about blindness here and her family fears that the cane draws attention to her. It is really complex…I don’t want any single person reading this to look down on the people here…in countries where the blind have a lot of facilities and services there still isn’t much more than superficial awareness about blindness among sighted people unless blindness has touched our lives in someway. This is a country that had hardly any schools or hospitals less than four decades ago, and I still occasionally have students who have an illiterate parent, so I just want to make it clear that this is a development issue and has nothing to do with some cultural deficit in the people here. So as facilities and services for the blind grow, and the public becomes aware that it is useful and perfectly normal that blind people be educated, independent, and empowered, things will change. But in the meanwhile, my student is sort of a pioneer with her cane and all. If people stare, and they do stare…let them stare. They will see that someone who cannot see is learning at the same school as them, and know that blind people can do everything that they can. This will affect how everyone who sees her thinks about blindness, and things will change for the better for all blind people here. I think the traditional attitude here about the blind has been to see them as among the misakeen, and as people who need protection and sheltering from the outside world, rather than people who can be supported to become independent and integrated. I have learned that there are a few other blind students completing their higher education in this country and they are among the first to do so locally. The institutes that serve these students have faced many of the same issues that my school has. Ideally, the situation would be better, but it is an honor to have the opportunity to learn about this and to be able to take some tiny part in a beneficial societal change.

 

Mugambo?

There are just some things in Urdu/Hindi that I will never get. Sadly, many of them I won’t even notice because they are layered cultural references or belong to specific regional accents, and I don’t even catch them. So they are lost on me. Sometimes in a foreign language there is what you understand and there is what people are really saying…and you as a non-native speaker cannot judge the discrepancy between the two. This happens due to a simple lack of acuity with second language listening comprehension skills related to level and proficiency, but also due missed to cultural cues. Other times, you catch the cue and realize there is some deeper meaning at work, but don’t get the reference as a cultural oustider. Some cultural references crop up again and again. But I never ask about them or google them because it would be awkward to stop a group of people in the midst of their chuckle filled conversation just to ask “Who is Mugambo?” “Mugambo KYON itna khush hua?” And in my busy day filled with sporadic net surfing, the name Mugambo never pops into my brain. And so I don’t remember Mugambo until someone mentions this mysterious name again!

Still, I start to paste pictures together. Light bulbs go off months after I hear an expression or cultural reference because its meaning finally becomes clear to me by some uncanny incident or occurence. A realization sinks in. Silently, I will affirm to myself: “Oh, so that’s why he said so-and-so looks like a Pashtoon film star in that outfit.” “Ah hah! So this is a mutiaran!” I will know where someone is from when they say “Mereko udhar-ich mila.”

I become ‘in  the know’ in that ungainly way of a non-native speaker. It would be too silly for me to use such expressions myself…I would feel disingenuous. I am too much of an “FOB” so to speak. I would be like the guy who says “That is a sucks, yaar!” Instead of “that sucks.” How long would my husband have to live in Texas to be able to say y’all? My New York dialect speaking parents don’t say y’all after 30 years in Texas. Can a des-raised Pakistani say y’all if he has Pakistani-accented English? Is that okay? Does it sound phony? Do you see what I mean? Maybe my husband will love the Texan accent and go Southern all the way when we move there. Yee-haw.  He has a des-raised cousin in another Southern American state who has a very interesting convent educated Pakistani English-small town Southern American English accent combo. I think he says y’all.  Anyway, I still don’t feel proficient enough to actually use such references or special expressions unless there is some humor in the fact that a foreigner is saying them (maiN teri aisi ki taisi kar doongi!!!), but at at least I will know what the heck the references mean.

And so I keep building my repertoire.

Guess what? There is a blog post that explains  Mugambo! If only I had known before. But then I feel sheepish, googling up Mugambo, watching Mugambo youtube videos, just so next time I will ‘get it’ when someone says “Mugambo khush hua.”

 

Gharelu Talks

My mother in law is visiting right now. Her older sister is also here from Karachi on a long term visit to her son’s place. He  lives across town from us. Part of my MIL’s family lives in India and it is very hard for Indians to get visas to Pakistan and vice versa. So after trying unsuccessfully sometime for a visa, the elderly folk are having a meet-up here in Dubai. Her younger brother and his wife are here from Hyderabad Dakan. My MIL’s family is from Lucknow, but her brother married a Hyderabadi woman and settled there. There is a sort of rivalry between Indian Hyderabadis and Pakistanis, and in Pakistan between Lucknavis and other U.P. origin “pure Urdu speakers” and Hyderabad Dakan origin Pakistanis. Since we have a few Hyderabadi families as neighbors, I get to hear some really funny things as part of this rivalry. Somehow a lot of my husband’s U.P. born relatives who migrated to Pakistan ended up marrying Hyderabad born Pakistanis. It was a trend of that generation (I guess the families felt that these arranged matches were more appropriate than with the, ahem, Punjabis? Anyway, the younger generations have married with just about every community and even some foreigners like ME!) So the conflict is an ongoing source of jestful  contention for my ILs. Whose food is the best, which community has the worst slang and weakest Urdu, etc. My MIL says that her brother needs and escape from all of the Hyderabadi vegetables and is planning to cook him loads of meaty Lucknawi food, all of which he supposedly pines for in the culinarily tortuous landscape of Hyderabad. His Hyderabadi wife gets annoyed by this and says that the vegetable centered diet is not because of the Hyderabadi cuisine, it is because Little Brother has been diagnosed with high BP, high cholesterol, Type II diabetes, and so on! Could my MIL please not use so much oil! Since I am a foreigner, I stay on the middle path…I happen to LOVE hot, sour, and spicy Hyderabadi cuisine as well as the more delicately seasoned Lucknawi/U.P. fare of my husband’s family.  I am happy to be invited to dinner either way What time do we eat?

Several months ago, my husband’s elder brother went to the UK from Pakistan to find a job and eventually settle. After much hunting, mashallah, he finally landed a position. My BIL is very well educated (US degrees) and has a lot of work experience, but in this economy nothing is sure. It was by sheer coincidence that the employment agency BIL was using hooked him up as a financial consultant for a Pakistani-British company. No one at the agency has any Pakistan connection. It was just that the right position came up and the company owners happened to be Pakistani. Mashallah! I am so happy for him. Now, Inshallah his wife and three children will follow him to the UK very shortly. BIL had applied for UK immigration years ago, but decided to move now, because according to him, there are educational opportunities in the UK that wouldn’t be available to his 3 children in Pakistan. I know his kids will adjust quickly since they are all 10 and under. The move will most likely be the hardest on his wife. She is a professional yoga instructor, though. So, hopefully that will give her opportunities to meet people and keep busy. The move also means that my IL’s house will be empty. No children. They lived in a joint family before. But thus is the state of many of my husband’s older relatives’ homes: all of their children have migrated abroad.

 

Villagers on the wall

Sometimes our old housekeeper A. would tell me the details of the latest Indian serial she was watching. Or about the Pakistani version of Judge Judy, which she liked to watch for the mirch masala factor. Or maybe a movie she had seen. I would sometimes do the same, and tell her about some of the English language programming that I saw. My favorite series for a while was Prison Break, but I was never able to explain that one to her in an interesting and comprehensible way…imagine me fudging around in Urdu saying, “See, there are these two brothers, and one is on death row, and the other is a genius, and he gets this tattoo,”…somehow that was too hard to explain.

Last year, I went to our local film festival for a few screenings of international films. I saw a Vietnamese film, a Pakistani film, and an Iranian film. They were all great. I related the stories of all three films to A. later on. She listened intently to each story. The Iranian and Pakistani films both dealt with poor peoples’ stories.

After I told her about the Iranian film, she said, “That is so strange that the audience likes to watch films about poor people when you all have money.” I said, “That is true, I guess the stories are human interest stories, but somehow they are more ‘interesting’ to monied viewers if the protagonists are poor and struggling. I don’t know why that is.”

“Hah!” she sneered, “Indian people have pictures of villagers on their walls. They love to put pictures of villagers on their walls!” I knew she meant that in the upper class Indian homes where she worked, there must have been decorative art depicting village scenes. I had seen such art work myself in Indian and Pakistani homes. A group of women in a courtyard, one churning butter, another thrashing some grain in a basket, all in colorful clothes with large nose-hoops in their noses. Images like that.

She continued, “But those rich people would hate a real village. If they came near to a real village they would complain ‘this place smells like shit,’ and hold their noses. They would say ‘look at those disgusting children with dirty faces, keep them away, don’t let them touch me.’ They wouldn’t be able to stomach the flies everywhere.”

I said, it may be so, but I think a lot of modern Indians like the romantic ideal of supposedly ’simple’ village life. Or maybe the pictures are just beautiful.

“No, Indians would hate a village. They are such snobs. They would wave us villagers away and say we stink.” (Yes, I know that 70% of India’s population is rural…in this conversation, A. means upper class urban Indians like the people she worked for most of her life.)

I said, “White people (goray) like pictures of villagers, too. We even have calendars of villagers and poor people on our walls. Actually, a lady at my work is selling such a calendar like that for charity right now. There is a poor person for each month!” Come to think of it, the pictures were of poor children from developing countries.

“Hmmmph?” she snorted incredulously. It sounded inconceivable that someone might own such a thing. Why would someone want to look at a villager or a poor person, one for each month?

“No, I am serious!” I insisted. “We even take tours of different countries to go see villagers and take their pictures.”

“Hmmm,” she thought for a moment. “When I was a child in Nepal, white people would come through our village on the way to climb mountains. They sometimes brought us candies.”

“You see!” I said.

The conversation ended there, but it got me to thinking. Why do us ‘rich people’ (paisey walay—if you are computer literate, you are one of us, unlike a good chunk of the world) take interest in art movies about poor people? Why do we use poor people as decorations for our homes and offices? Actually, I like those rural scenes of women working in their village. I, too have been attracted to pictures of large eyed “ethnic” people in pictures. But it really is a ludicrous form of decoration if you think about it. A poor person staring at me from the wall, his or her ‘exotic looks’ and perhaps a cultural costume entertaining me. A person made into an object. An impoverished person objectified for the rich. Actually, that is pretty atrocious.

But what about the films? Everyone in the theatre was so enchanted by them.  I cried during them. They really were great films. They were Ramchand Pakistani and The Song of Sparrows.  I feel there is benefit from such films because the characters are not one-dimensional, flat people. And viewers learn a lot about other people from such films while being entertained. It is an issue of class privilege, though. White privilege, too, although not in the context of this particular film festival as 90% of the film goers were brown. But when these films are screened in the West and much of the audiences are white, there is that extra dimension of not just poor, but poor and brown. I had read about the issue of “ethnic” photography and art in anti-racism literature before. A. sharply articulated what she felt was wrong with such art, too.

When I read some critical reaction to the widespread acclaim of the Slum Dog Millionaire film, the words ‘poverty p*rn*graphy’ popped up. Somehow there is a voyeuristic element to watching a film about the lives of the ghareeb. Some of my favorite films would fall into that category in some ways. It is a hard thing to hash out. I always thought of such films in a positive light, exposing new perspectives, humanizing different lifestyles that ‘we’ might not know much about. But I can see A.’s point very clearly. Anyway, it is just something to think about.

 

Happy Eid al Fitr

Happy Eid al Fitr to you and your. Hope you achieved a lot during Ramadan, and that you have a blessed Eid!

 

A day in the life

What did I do today? Left work at 2 pm.  I went home. My two daughters were still asleep, as they sleep in the afternoon. I changed clothes, freshened my make up,  and waited for the girls to wake up. Prayed Asr. Then nanny came out and we both got the girls ready to go to The Plaza. Something about The plaza, that simple plaza with the rope climbing clown, draws me in with a magnetic pull. I packed the diaper bag. Everyone got in the car. We dropped the nanny off at her husband’s place for the weekend. Then off we headed to The Plaza. I had called my friend D. earlier in the week to tell her that as I often do, I would be bringing the girls to the indoor play area on Thurs. Be there or be square. Play date. I entered The Plaza. What a rush. Toddler D was so happy to see the plastic clown man climbing up and down his 4 storey length rope. I dropped off an old ring for sizing. I brought some receipts for some things I had purchased last week and showed them for coupons in a raffle. Maybe I’ll win? Then I walked the girls over to the play area. I paid a fee and we entered the beautiful play area. There is a tiny tots area and several other places inside, including a place for water play, a sand area, a fake store for kids to play shopkeeper, a library, and of course a foam covered jungle gym. D. is not there. Maybe she won’t come.  I sat there, just a few other moms are there. Mostly it is nannies watching the kids. There were some regulars there.  Those  two pretty French sisters. And this whole gang of Central Asian women meet there every Thursday for a playdate and let their kids run around. Once one of their nannies told me where they were from. Was it Kazakhstan? I can’t remember. The Central Asian kids recognized my baby and came to say hi to her. I sat and played in the baby area with BabyA. My friend D. showed up with her daughter. We chatted for sometime while our daughters crawl around and bang on plastic toys. Later my husband arrived. He played with Toddler D. and took Baby A. off of my hands. D. and I talked for a while more. The time flew by. It was nearing maghreb time…iftar time. I said my goodbyes to D. and my husband and I got the girls ready to walk across the parking lot to Desert restaurant. I put Toddler D.’s shoes on. I washed both girls’ hands with soap. Rubbidy dubbidy, washin the haathen. We walked across the lot and past the shisha coal fire of a coffee shop. Toddler D. is always fascinated by the fire. “Yeh to aag hai.” “Aag bahut garam hoti hai.” she says every time we pass it. “Ham aag ke upar khaana pakaate hain.” Baba must have said that to her once and in stuck in her head. On the other side of the fire is Desert. It isn’t fancy. It is a self-styled Pak-Indian buffet. The host knows us from before and pointed us towards our usual table. We haven’t been there often. Maybe four times. But I guess we are recognizable.  DH went to get some fresh pakoray and chutney. Other diners followed his lead. A waiter brought us sharbat. The azaan hadn’t sounded yet. We waited perched over our pakoray. I fed Baby A. fusilli pasta that I had stashed in the diaper bag. Toddler D. spilled sharbat on the table and the waiter saw it and said “Oh shit!” It wasn’t a big spill. I helped him wipe it up, but he was visibly annoyed. So sorry. The azaan sounded and we tucked into our crispy pakoray. Toddler D. had some, too. I gave potato pakoray to the baby, as well. I got up to get my plate of food before the stampede of the elephants happens. I was in luck, I filled my plate while everyone else in the restaurant was gorging on samosay and pakoray. Otherwise it would have been elbow kushti. I selected biriani and some other chicken dish for myself. I got some desi style chowmein, French fries, and Lahori fish fry for toddler D. I fed Chinese noodles to the baby to keep her busy as I scarfed down my food. DH went for his plate in the meanwhile. We wanted to finish quickly because DH wanted to get home relax for a while and then and head for taraweeh prayers. We ate up. I got a dessert of soggy, orange, sickly sweet shahi tukray. For some reason, I relish the stuff.  I know I wouldn’t touch the stuff if I weren’t fasting. The blood sugar roller coaster caused by fasting makes me lose all self control. So I ate the soggy fried milky bread with glee. It was time to go. DH drove towards home alone. I went back in to The Plaza to deposit my raffle coupons. Then I packed the girls into the car. I know it is taking me forever to get into the car…open door for Toddler D., let her climb into her car seat, put bags in passenger seat, put baby in car seat, fold stroller, put stroller in trunk. The parking lot was pretty full at this time and the shikaar was on. Drivers were hunting for an empty space. So I didn’t feel so bad that a family in an SUV was waiting behind me. I took out my parking meter coupon from my dashboard. It still had 40 minutes on it. I gave it to the SUV’s driver. He was so happy about that. Then I drove off into the night towards home. We listened to songs in the car and sang along heartily. I didn’t care that nosy buggers who glanced in my direction on the highway could possibly see me jamming out to Barney. We arrived home. DH has left already. I changed each girl, then put each one to sleep. I washed up, changed into pajamas, prayed, came down stairs, removed the baggies of half eaten snacks and empty bottles of milk from  the diaper bag, and then turned on the dishwasher.The nanny had pretty much straightened everything earlier in the day so that was all I had to do. Then I turned on my computer, connected to the net, checked my usual haunts, and then came here to tell you about my day. The girls are sleeping like babies, mashallah. I guess because they are babies. I am really exhausted because I didn’t sleep well the night before, and fasting makes me feel drained. I just want to veg out and I plan to head to sleep soon. So that was a day in my life. Or an afternoon and evening at the beginning of the weekend in Ramadan, I guess.

 

Stranger Afraad

I know three women dating PK men. Recently, each one of them talked to me about her love life and asked me for advice.  In all three cases, I clammed up. I couldn’t say what I really wanted to say. I just didn’t have the mental energy. I didn’t want to knock down all the dominoes, dissect the stereotypes, and pass the judgements.

Case 1: She is in her early 40s, divorced and has a kid. She is from Canada. She has been seeing a PK guy. He is in his late 20s. She said he is the nicest guy she has ever dated. So polite. So eager to be helpful in anyway. He does little things for her to make her feel special. He is so good with her kid. She wanted to know more about him and his culture. Could he be ‘the one’? How do I find being married to a Pakistani man? Is my husband very conservative? I told her that Pakistan is a pretty diverse place and there isn’t really one particular culture. So sorry, I really can’t answer that. But good luck. She told me she thinks he is from someplace…Pashmina…Pashmavaar? Have I heard of it? Sorry, I say. Don’t know much about that place. Most people there are pretty conservative, though. That’s all I know. Good luck with that.

Case 2: My friend is of Indian origin but from Africa. Her family went to the US when she was little, though. She said she has been dating a PK guy. He is from, uh, she thinks it sounds like Shaamaa…no Peshavabaar? She thinks. She likes him, and she thinks he might be the one. However, he keeps making all of these anti-India comments to her. And it is starting to bother her. Because she realized by seeing him that she is Indian. So it is getting on her nerves. What do I think about this? Are all Pakistanis really so anti-Indian? How should she deal with this? I actually could say a lot about this. But I didn’t say much. I say, just tell him to stop talking smack about India because you are an Indian. Bharat mata ki jai!

Case 3: This is a girl who works at a shop near my house. I don’t know her that well, but we always chat when I see her. I guess I have known her for a couple of years, though. She is from a South East Asian country. I know she has been dating a PK man for a while. She is also considering converting to Islam. Recently, she has discovered that her man, who she thinks is from Pasheewa, is married.  He has a family in…whatever city it is he comes from. But he wants to marry her. He isn’t in love with his wife. She is a cousin. It was an arranged marriage. He is so sorry he hid the truth. Please forgive him, he says. What would she do? Aren’t second wives allowed in Islam? I told her, well, you can think with your heart or with your head. How would your parents feel about you marrying a married man? This isn’t what Islam ‘permitting a second, third, or fourth’ is about. Imagine if you were his first wife in PK? How would you feel if you discovered that your husband had taken a second wife? I wanted to continue and give my full thoughts. But I left it at that.

Honestly, I have never dated a Pakistani guy. I only married one. I converted to Islam when I was 18, I don’t have adult dating experience at all. I can’t say I know what these women are going through. I am a conservative person, and I am left shaking my head at these Muslim guys who are off bonking around like this. (what’s up with them all being from Shampeshaawam…and why couldn’t any of these 3 women say that city’s name? ) Yet how can I really give input to these women without knowing these men? By delving into the murky waters of pretending that I can know what an individual is up to just based on his or her gender and nationality and background? Just cuz I married a Pakistani doesn’t necessarily give me any insight, really. Or does it? Maybe it isn’t about nationality at all, some people just need a pinch of common sense. I bet you know what I wanted to tell these women. Or maybe I am second guessing you, too.

 

Now it’s okay?

When I first started blogging, it was rare for Muslimahs, specifically hijabis to show images of themselves on their blogs. I recall a sister-blogger with whom I occasionally talked to on the phone telling me that she had actually gotten chastized by some fellow Muslims for putting a painted image of herself on her blog and allowing some online publication which had published some stuff of her’s to post a real pic of her. That was like four years ago or so. Now, a lot of Muslimahs have their own images on their blogs or as avatars or gravatars or what have you. Niqabis, too with full-face covered, eye-only images. Although hehehehe for whatever reason it seems to me the niqabis always liked to have that two eye image popping out in their blogs, not unlike my header above, like “hey, salaam y’all! I am a niqaabi, just FYI!” I am all into anonymity (though I am not so strict about it), but I think it is good that sisters who are freer with their real-life identities are okay with posting their pics. I mean, what is the point of having the hijab on if no one is supposed to see you at all? I thought that one aspect of  traditional understandings of the purpose of covering and hijab was that it fully legitimized public visibility and so I don’t know why people would have a problem with a covered up pic.

I know in some Muslim cultures pictures of women are really frowned upon. That is the case where I live. I could write a really long post about that issue. But that is cultural. Not religious.

So I was happy today when I noticed on a favorite blogger’s blog, who happens to be on blogspot, a whole gaggle of hijabi followers, bright faces peeping out it tiny images in her sidebar.

Times have changed, I guess.

 

Have a blessed Ramadan!