this is my circle...wheres yours?

Henceforth I will carry an indelible piece of blazing red chalk. I shall draw a big circle around me, which will have the powers of moving with me while I move, of bouncing off people who try to step into MY circle. It will burn the groping hands that insidiously make their way in crowded spaces, it will decimate the seemingly enquiring fingers of women as they caress/ greet you and the red chalk will be my haven and it will, with nuclear force throw those of their feet who rudely bump into me with no concept of an apologetic glance. And one more joyous destruction my little red chalk will cause, it will grind invasive elbows of those who sit next to me while travelling thousands of miles in the air.

Anal, isolating, condescending, nose in the air...however, someone can describe my sentiments, I have had enough.

It seems people in in this country, particularly those from the fertile plains of vacuous culture have not wrapped their heads around the necessity of "personal space". This innocuous, unnecessary tidbit that has been passed down by the hands of natural selection, seems to have passed right through a certain group of homo sapiens. This lot still bumps, grunts, shoves and pushes for daily survival. Even though they have adopted other gadgets and facets of evolution, these not-so-homo sapiens still feel the need to crash through crowds, and while miming the gestures and contraptions of driving, they grunt and shove their way through swarming vehicle infested lanes applying the "might is right" principle.

Being objectified by men, leading to their quick reflex grope, is as insulting as comprehend able but the amazon woman who bulldozes through the crowds, elbows locked and loaded, shoulders freshly armoured is unbearable.

If you do not fall out of her way in the blink of an eye, she will pivot and glare. The auntie glare that I have come to detest. These women come in all shapes and sizes. There are the naive debutantes who think the world is their catwalk, then there are the spineless females who will immediately try to hide in the crowd after shoving you and then the self assured aunties who will stare you down and if in the mood, pass a disparaging comment on your hair, skin colour, weight or attire. And of them, the worst are those who have protected their own self with big black cloaks and self assured in disguise, they eradicate the entire purpose of the veil: purdah, hayya and most of all the genteel manners Islam advocates.

This breach of personal space is often conducted using a verbal barrage. One recent incident:

I was standing in a small clothing outlet, waiting for the salesperson to find me the right pair of jeans. A lady was sitting there, while her very young daughter was in the changing room. Their unabashed conversation about the size of her daughter's thighs with the shop keeper is a blog post for another day!

I felt her eyes scalding my skin through my clothes as she "checked me out." And as uncontrollable as diarrhea, she asked me "Do you know what safaaid zeera (white cumin) is?" I responded with a noncommittal nod. The woman then proceeded to explain what it looked like, its usage in daily cooking and what it felt like when touched. When she was met with disinterested silence, she asked me again whether I knew what the godforsaken seed looked like. Finally attributing my silence to medieval eager shyness, she rattled away a recipe of safaaid zeera paani (white cumin seed water). And punctuated it with "accha baita?" twice. No explanations to what good the concoction would do me or what prompted her to have this one sided conversation. Perhaps, even the presence of a warm human body translates into an avid reply to such women!

Later, I came to the conclusion that either she gave me some miracle weight loss recipe or an acne remedy. Even later, I realised how easily she kept on invading my space, ignoring my closed body language and my poker face.

I can tolerate and even appreciate the genuine hug, or those who are bound by their need to lean close enough for me to smell what they had yesterday for lunch. I cannot and will not accept, condone or waste my time comprehend the bulldozing auntie, the concerned busybody or the neanderthal bigger phallus attitude.

The next time I will simply take my red chalk out and very soon, and the criminals will be identifiable in a line up by the incriminating results of the red chalk!

Fake soup and children

It has been a tough week. Alone, infected and driven to the bone with work. What pulled me through. No it was not fake love this time round! It was fake soup. From its fake white chicken on a synthetic foil red packet that could have very well had a condom inside it, to the fake soup that had a fake smell of fake wholesomeness. Yet, for those who are for some "abnormal" socially deviant reason living alone or are too busy to boil the broth, that red foil was more valuable than safe sex.

The honest too goodness faux smell of the powder broth actually activated the receptor cells of my olfactory senses and duped my brain into considering unpeeling the red foil as a labor of love. Some evolutionary throw back to caring-for-the-brood-gene actually works when fake caring and the warmth of powder soup is cupped between the hands!

Keeping my sinuses intact, the other conversation that entertained by mucus clogged brain was fake children. The two lahori loves of my life, Rakae and Mehr have been mercilessly going on about children that I do not have, do not imagine and do not foresee in the future. Fake children. What possibly do their well intentioned words bring to me? They bring the promise that there can be someone who can be the seeder of thoughts of actual children and yes perhaps an actual sperm donor who will donate actual soup and actual coffee and make me want children one day.

So why do we do this? Put up with fake soup and children? Because the real ones are too hard to achieve in this libido and silicon driven book we rush through and because we might replace the fake with the real someday.

nocturnal notes

its just that moment at the end of a long hard day that we cannot bear that one tiny push, one tiny prick, that ideally we should ignore. it all falls apart at the seems, from the inside out in such a haphazard mess of toxin waste that even the bravest of men cannot wade through it to see the crumpled ball of weakness that is us curled in our foetal position. i was recently at a book launch that showcased a book which was at best cliched and at worst nauseating, when a newly found friend pointed out that it felt like the room was not full of humanbeings but of uterus'. sometimes in the worst moments i wonder whether it does actually boil down to simply that. a uterus with an umbilical cord that someone detached from only one end.

it all leads to...food

Perhaps I am stating the obvious, something that no one works to better because everyone is so used to it, like men scratching their nether parts in public, too many stray dogs and of course the smell of urination on every road side.

The lack of entertainment in Lahore that is not directly related to food is one of those in your face dilemas that we just take in our stride precisely because its been there for too long.

A good month is one which showcases one concert and one party. Nothing that can be shared by everyone. Some high end club event is not conventional entertainment.

A good week becomes where one attends a few meetings or attends a rally. One can tell that even the rich have run out of places to be seen and to buy out: the most regular 'gt' is a protest for the judiciary. On a positive note, at least someone is interested on any level in the antics that our government plays at.

I was out today with a friend, post lunch of course. Since I am not indigenously from Lahore, I often turn to my friends for entertainment solutions. So she thought, we wasted some CNG, added to the carbon emissions: too hot to sit in a park, too broke to go bowling in a place where two lone girls could venture safely, only two Indian movies up in the closest cinemas, the zoo had no parking since it was a Sunday and...

Nothing, she could only suggest PC for coffee at which we both laughed since we didn't even have money for bowling, let alone a cup of over brewed over priced PC coffee.

other than work and some very slow directionless activism, what is there to do in the city of Lahore?

Hold that thought while I go fix myself a plate...