Practicing humility

With every passing day, I am increasingly thankful to my mother for many of the religious threats that she used to give us as children. Although not always entirely rational, they instilled in us habits that are difficult to unlearn. I remember her constant refrain that if we ever left any food on the plate, it would anger Allah as we would be disrespectful of his rizq. And that he withdraws His blessings from those who are disrespectful of them. I eventually learned to eat everything that was offered to me, with thankfulness that Allah had chosen to provide for me that day, and I always finished my food even if I didn't always feel like it. Leaving food on the plate was almost unacceptable.

These days, I notice that many people have become choosy about food, or about not eating left overs. It is not only a matter of taste, but also of affordability. Can we afford to throw food away? Can we afford to be choosy about what we eat? Is it really that unhealthy to eat food left over from a day before if the other option offered to us was to eat nothing at all?

Allah has made man weak. From one weakness stems another; from our weakness to consider that we are the masters of our own dining tables, we are led to believe that if we can afford to, why shouldn't we be choosy about food? From that comes the very troubling thought that we are capable. We have worked hard to be where we are, and therefore it is our right to be choosy.

Today, after many years, I was reminded of things my parents used to say and ended up seeking Allah's forgiveness in a stream of tears. For my mother, being choosy about food or calling it names (I would include both "junk food" and "left-overs" as derogatory names, depending on how they're used) was a sin. How could we be so dismissive about food when millions went hungry? And for my father, thinking that what we had was ours was a sin as well. He once sat me down and told me that every bit of money that he had earned was attributable not just to his hard work, but largely to Allah's blessings. Did we not know of many other people who worked hard and yet went to sleep hungry? Did we not know of others who had not had similar opportunities in life despite being smart? How could we then consider this money as ours? It was nothing more than a blessing from Allah.

In that one talk, he made me realize that man without Allah is nothing but a hollow container. Do I owe my intelligence to my brain? Do I owe my hard work to my limbs? Is there anything that I own or possess that I can be proud of? Can I be proud of my parents, or of my children? Can I be proud of my family situation or my talents? And those questions gave rise to many what-if scenarios and of the power that the Lord of Kun Fayakun has. If he takes away my limbs in an overnight accident, what will I be left with? If I suffer an illness that makes me neurologically senseless, what brain may I boast of? Are either my parents or my children of my choosing? Is my money the reward of my hard work?

Hollow. Nothing but hollowness resounds.

The truth is, man's weakness makes him proud. Pride creeps into our beings ever so slowly, and we begin to internalize it. We develop tastes, style, standards. We boast of our riches, of our ability to afford good things to wear, of our talents and skills. We start being possessive about our belongings because we are misled to believe that they truly belong to us. But all that we really are, is weak. 

It is Allah's blessings alone that keep us afloat, and allow us to benefit from so many luxuries in life. If I were to utter an Alhamdulillah with each breath, that would not be enough. Every time I bend my head in prayer, I am reminded of my incapacities, of my lack of really having anything at all. And that is when I beg Allah to save me from the harmful delusions of pride, particularly, since I have nothing to be proud of.

I am a weakling, my Lord who has reached where I have because of Your blessings. If You wanted, You could take it all away in the blink of an eye. And if You wanted, You could multiply it for me manifold overnight. Oh my Allah, allow me to be humble in life, to always seek goodness in others and to remember that I am nothing more than what You choose to make me. Please save me from thinking that there is anything in this world which is not worthy of me, because if You choose, You can show me my worth any day. Allow me to always strive for simplicity and to be content with less. And yet, with the countless blessings that You do have, bless me with surfeit so that I may dedicate myself in prayer to You, and spend in Your way with ease.

And Ammi Abbu, thank you both for always keeping us humble. Ammi, for reminding me after every exam that I aced that I couldn't boast but should only thank Allah, and Abbu for always being generous with his money because it was never his to begin with. Pray for us, that the tree of our life may blossom and grow heavy with fruits of every kind and in doing so, make us only increasingly humble.  

Bringing praying back.

There is a constant reminder in the Qur'an, telling us to be steadfast in our prayers, or as many an Urdu sticker would say, "Namaz qaim karo". It is a verse that we are so used to reading that oftentimes, many of us who get stuck at almost every other line in the Qur'an will read this one over smoothly, "Wa aqeem-us-salaata..."

For the past couple of weeks, I have tried to do exactly this and I feel that it is not only us who have to be steadfast in prayer, but also that praying regularly makes us steadfast. There is a constancy in praying five times a day that almost nothing can take away from you. No matter how grave the events of the day have been, you go to sleep in peace because you know that you have a God to wake up to. There is a beauty in supplicating yourself to the Lord of "Kun Fayakun", the Allah who has always blessed you and who makes you autonomous from every human being. This is the only form of supplication, the only lowering of the ego, the only form of asking that does not denigrate human dignity, but instead increases it. It is a vent for our expectations to the one being capable of fulfilling them all, so that you stop having expectations from people. There is something strongly elevating about praying; it takes you to the above and beyond where people's remarks, their actions and their circumstances which may ordinarily have effected you or hurt you, become inconsequential. For me, prayer is what makes me steady, happy and most of all, independent. Prayer is what keeps me happy and disaffected. It is what makes me regard this world as only a temporary abode; it is what makes me sensitive to people's situations and personalities and allows me to be less hasty in judgement. Most of all, it affords me a conversation with Allah, the best of friends.

Prayer has indeed been made a coolness for my eyes.

To me, Islam's greatest gift to humanity is the routine of the five daily prayers. If a human being can establish that, everything else falls into place. And as my belief from my teenage days goes, it only takes you forty days of praying incessantly to form this habit. And once you start, it is so addictive that it is difficult to step away from it. I had almost forgotten how humbling it is to face Allah, to lower your gaze, to beg Him to keep you from going astray, to praise Him, to be reminded of his numerous blessings, and most of all, to pester Him with requests, to supplicate and to ask for more than your own desires, because you know that His ability to bless supremely exceeds your capacity to dream.

Every Ramadan since I turned 11, and completed the first reading of the Qur'an on my own, I have tried to gain something new from the month. This year, although I have been unable to fast, I am trying not to gain something new, but to regain something very dear that I had lost over the course of the last year. I am trying to regain the utter joy of being Allah's servant before I am anything to anyone else. At the brink of motherhood, this is an emotion which is even more difficult to commit to, but somehow, I know that it is the only natural state of being in which I can ever be truly happy, and truly removed from caving in to the falsity of worldly tragedies.

May Allah grant me His closeness yet again.
I have only ever been Yours, and everything begins and ends with You, and is nothing but a realization of Your love for me.

Zarra sa tau dil hun, magar shokh itna,
Wohi "lan taraani" sunna chahta hun, 
Yeh jannat mubarak rahay zaahidon ko,
Ke mai Aap ka saamna chahta hun. 

Let me steep myself in Your love to the extent, oh Allah, that I see nothing but You in everything that I do see. That is the only existence worth striving for.

Thank You, for everything. 

"For mad I may be, but I will never be convenient."

Living a life that defies social conventions is never easy. At first, it seemed like a harmless, pride-inducing fact that I was the first woman in my immediate family who took up a full time job. And that I was the first woman to be doing a Ph.D. And to get married while doing it. I didn't think about these differences too much because I had parents, who despite having lived a very conventional life, wanted to see all three of us prosper irrespective of whether we were sons or daughters. I took their drive and energy and was determined to transform it into something that would always make them proud. But with time, I have realized that being a woman who chooses to work, particularly in a Pakistani society, is not easy. It is not always because people outrightly oppose you; it is often because instead of appreciation, all you get you is an attitude that says, "Well, it was your choice. Who said it wouldn't be hard?" And also, because of this one taboo characteristic, people will always learn to find fault in you.

I believe that it is women themselves who have hindered their own progress. Most Pakistani women have internalized their situation and have come to accept it as the best outcome possible. Near me, this is an insult to the wonderful female creature God has fashioned. There are two grounds on which women often justify their own choice of being a homemaker: a) if I am not home full-time, my children's upbringing will suffer and b) the first task of a woman in Islam is to look after her home, as the first task of a man is to go out and earn. I have nothing against homemakers; my own mother has been a wonderful housewife and I think she has done a beautiful job of bringing us up. But to justify your own choice by finding faults in the choices of others is a little uncalled for.

First of all, I do not agree with the standard South Asian critique that "western" families suffer from a lack of bonding. Yes, many American parents will not spend as much time with their children as Pakistani mothers do, and they will let their children be independent post the age of eighteen, but what is so wrong in that? I find that many of my so-called "western" colleagues are much better individuals than I am. The men know how to cook, clean up after themselves, take care of their own affairs while at the same time doing full time jobs. I am pretty sure that the men and women whom the world has come to regard as geniuses did not all have live-at-home mothers. In fact, I think that at some point, mothers need to step back so that their children can develop and flourish. There is nothing wrong if a child wants to spend time by himself, or do his own laundry (the use of the pronoun his is intentional here). Also, I find that there is a spurious correlation imagined between the time you spend with your children and their love for you. If you are kind to your children, spend time with them often enough, and work hard so that they may have a better future: they will love you regardless of whether you spent your entire life washing their dishes or not. At least, that's how I feel. I may, of course, be utterly wrong.

On the religious front: one example that never ceases to cross my mind is that of the first woman who embraced Islam, the Prophet's beloved wife Khadija. She was a business woman; it was her sound financial capacity that allowed the Prophet to indulge entirely in spreading the message of Islam. She was a working mother, and the Prophet's most beloved companion. I find it odd that people brush aside that example and claim that a woman is meant to stay at home. I do not contest that a woman's duty is to keep her home affairs in order, but if she can afford house help, she is allowed to go outside and work in a permissible fashion. I also wonder what the limit of those "house affairs" is.

Of course, if I work, my house will less cleaner than if I were to stay at home. Yes, I will not be the best cook. My husband will not always take home cooked lunch to work. My children will not always be picked up by me, but will often have to take public buses home. But maybe, if I face adverse circumstances where my husband is no longer around to help me financially, I will be able to raise my children without any outside help. Maybe, I will be better able to deal with the world if I have already been out in the world. Maybe, I will raise stronger children who will know that a woman's capacities are not limited to cooking and cleaning, but that she is worth much more. Maybe the conversations I have with them challenge them to look at the world in a different way, so that I am able to raise critical thinkers of the men and women whom I give birth to.

I do not claim to be a superwoman. As my Oxford advisor said to me once, every choice has an opportunity cost and every decision is made at a trade-off. I understand that I will lose some things by being a working mother. I know that I will not meet the expectations of many individuals around me. I also know that many others will look at me with a critical eye and forever deride me for the decisions I have taken. But if my contribution can take some weight off my husband's shoulders, if it safeguards me against possible future adversities, if it can help me make a difference to people's perceptions, add even a dollar to the GDP of the world (hopefully, my own country) and can, in whatever small a way it may be, teach women that they are capable of much more than they think, I would have succeeded.

God did not make me, did not give me a brain and physical functionality so that I may limit what I can do. God made me, sent me as His viceroy on earth, so that in the changing times, I am able to prove that I am as much His creation as any man is. And if at the end of the day, I have too many dishes in the  sink or children who can cook their own food, I wouldn't mind at all.

This is an ode to all working women in my life: those beautiful mothers to my best friends who have raised amazing children, those leaders who have taught the world that women are as capable as men, those scientists without whose contribution the medical field would have been distraught, those teachers who have fashioned amazing minds over the years (most of all, my own teachers) and those thinkers and writers who have demonstrated that a woman's sensitivity is often better prone to the literary enterprise than a man's. I recognize now what you must have had to stand up against, and how elegantly you managed to succeed through it all.

For mad you may have been, but you chose never to be convenient.
And I hope I too can live up to that legacy. 

Reminiscing by Riverside

I was naturalized as a Lahori by birth, and I have never really thought of myself as anything else. Eight months in one of the most adventure filled cities has hardly changed me and I continue to close my eyes and recall images of springtime flowers, large steel machines crushing sugarcane into delicious pulpy juice, the emanating smell from a large black wok full to the brim with oil that fries twisted orange pretzels, the sound of rubber slippers touching asphalt, the flowing same-colour shalwar kameez donned by men, the seeping warmth at entering the local bakery, the sight of motorcycle milkmen...the list is possibly endless. There are many like me, who leave their country, travel miles and start living in a new place with new aspirations. They don't always find it as hard to forget as I do. And slowly, I am beginning to feel that I may never forget. Or that I do not want to forget.

And now, more than ever, I want to keep those images, that vocabulary, those sounds, smells and feelings alive because I have to pass them on to another. I feel that if I owe my country my service, I also owe it the love and loyalty of a new future. The task that lies ahead of me, the task of letting my new one know how much Pakistan and how much Lahore is home to me, is often frightening. I am not sure how much they will be interested in me as a mother. Would they even care that I have such emotional ties to a land that I had to leave, a land which is apparently plagued by so many difficulties that return seems foolish? Perhaps they may never even want to visit my home. And yet, I know that as someone who has Lahore, who has Pakistan, emblazoned all over my body, it will be hard for them to escape my reality. And if, by chance or fate, they do physically escape it, I would want them to know how much their mother missed her country even as she was comfortably settled in another. 

It takes me less than a moment to transport myself back into the orangey brown front terrace. The glimmering golden marble reflects the clear sunshine and throws abstract patterns in the air; patterns that have by now been etched into the soles of my feet from too much slipper-less wandering. The solid green chairs invitingly beckon, where I have sat numerous times, doing schoolwork, reading paperbacks, and more recently, checking exams. There are circular marks on the glass-top tables where many a time my tea-mug sat proudly, always accompanied with a couple of almond-butter biscuits. This was the place where I played cricket with my brothers, spent hours languishing in the winter sun, peeled deliciously juicy kinoos and tried learning tennis against a wall. I cut birthday cakes under the star-lit ceiling, rotated barbecue skewers on sweltering coals, listened to the most soothing music and even twirled a dance-step or two. 

Those were my days of utter freedom. This is not to say that I am no longer free, but freedom if defined as a lack of responsibility and worry, as a sheltered existence where there are no mental shackles, and an absence of having to exercise propriety, is certainly no longer a luxury that I enjoy. At the brink of motherhood, I feel even more starkly the change that is to greet me very soon. Perhaps stability is also a form of freedom, one that we too often confuse for boredom. The monotonous play of things is also a luxury and routine is a much-sought after comfort. 

And at the risk of deviating, I also realize that routine is not a self-imposed reality. Routine is a strategic equilibrium that can only be sustained if it is indeed the best option for everyone. Unfortunately, that is not true in every household. Or maybe, for some, fortunately, it is not the only equilibrium. But I miss having a bedtime, having a curfew, having meals at a pre-decided hour and then struggling to keep that routine. Ah! What pleasure it was to meet a deadline, to join my parents at lunch hour, to know that if I reached home at 2 p.m., they would just be starting to eat. The joys of predictability! 

Once my eyes are closed and home reawakens itself in my senses, it is almost impossible to tear myself away. But just like it is important for me to not only maintain, but strengthen my link with the past, it is also important to keep moving forward. There is much that I still need to do before I can justify my links with a city that has produced great intellectuals, poets, philosophers...great people. But Lahore, this I owe to you: for all the Ijaz babies to follow, I will paint you through my words just as I have always felt you and held you in my heart.

Diyaar-e-ghayr mai mehram agar nahin koi,
Tau Faiz zikr-e-watan apnay roo-ba-roo hee sahih.