Ghost of Eid Past

I have not posted my weekly escapades in the kitchen in observation of Ramadan, but will resume the food posts that have assimilated into the identity of this blog sometime next week. It has been a blessed month in many ways. Having the company, comfort, and distraction of family and friends after hearing about my cousin's tragic death was heartening. This is the last week of Ramadan, which means my favorite Islamic holiday of the year is only a few days away! Eid-al-Fitr, known as Choti Eid where I come from, is almost upon us! I want to make this holiday matter to my daughter like it once did to me, and I want to celebrate this particular Eid in my cousin's memory, because I remember him most clearly in his finest Eid clothes, smiling widely, eyes shining.

I cannot begin to describe what kind of excitement this holiday brought for us as children. It stretched to not one, not two, but three days of celebrations and festivities. Every morning for the three days of Eid, a holiday marking the end of Ramadan, my sisters and I would dress up in brand new outfits: Stiffly starched cotton shalwar kameez, shiny raw-silk angrakha tops with white churidaar pajamas, and one year, Jamavar lehengas! And these were only for the first day of Eid. The next day, we would have frilly knee-length dresses, with white socks and shiny black shoes, which our mother always referred to as "court shoes," or long skirts with lace borders and chiffon tops with ruffled sleeves and fancy pearl-shaped buttons. The third day was much calmer and we could wear whatever we wanted, which always ended in really inspired combinations put together by my youngest sister. A denim mini-skirt one year with a a white eyelet top and a yellow dupatta draped around the ensemble like a sari. 

Choti Eid was a time of unbridled excitement and gluttonous eating, but the best days were those leading up to the big celebration, especially the night before - Chaand Raat - "the night of the moon," referring to the sighting of the crescent moon before Eid day. Crowds rushed in flocks to neighborhood bazaars. Every year, the market in my parents' neighborhood held an outdoor shopping event on Chaand Raat. Shopkeepers set up small stalls under huge tents and canopies. The makeshift market glittered with bulbs strung along cords that ran through the length of the tents, swinging above our heads. Each stall sold the same wares, colorful glass bangles, cones and sachets of henna, shiny metal rings with cheap crystals - exciting items for little girls and easy on their mothers' pockets. 

From photos.thenews.com.pk

We would get the last-minute Eid shopping done on Chaand Raat. We would match different sets of bangles to small pieces of fabric leftover and returned by the tailor after he stitched our Eid outfits. We would buy any items that were missing, maybe a pair of shoes for one of us, a belt for another. We would rush home after shopping with our mother who was invariably nervous about all the tasks that still remained incomplete. She spent hours on Chaand Raat getting the house ready for guests who would visit us the next day. She straightened up the drawing room curtains, polished the furniture, shampooed the carpet, took out cheerful new sheets for our little twin beds. When all this was done, my sisters and I took turns making intricate patterns of henna on each others' palms. My middle sister was always left with the unpleasant and interminable task of putting henna on my hands. I was so particular about each line, each dot, each curve, that she was subjected to terrible scoldings, pinches, kicks, and slaps from me if she wasn't absolutely precise in copying the design from a magazine or a book. By the time we went to sleep, tired, happy, our hands covered in small plastic bags so we wouldn't get the drying henna on our sheets, we could still hear our mother buzzing around the house like a worker bee, dusting the shelves, fluffing cushions, stirring foodstuffs that were steaming on the stove already.

The next day, we would wake up to the sound of our uncle, Chachoo, crinkling fresh notes of money next to our ears. He would be dressed in a starched shalwar kameez, having just returned from Eid prayers at the neighborhood mosque. We would look up, bleary-eyed, not remembering what day it was, our hands still covered in plastic bags, cold from being outside the covers all night and stiff from the dried henna. Then we would look at his big smile and the new banknotes in his hands, and suddenly we would remember. "It's EID!!! Which means...it's time to get Eidee," we'd say and sit up in bed. Yes, this was the highlight of Choti Eid. All the elders gave money to the kids, plucked it from cleanly stapled piles of 10-rupee bills freshly withdrawn from the bank. We would put away our very first installment from Chachoo in our little fanny-packs or wallets or pouches and run into the shower. Once dressed and ready, the Eidee kept on coming from relatives, from our parents' friends, from neighbors. We would receive hordes of guests at our tiny house, embrace them, and say "Eid mubarak!" Blessed Eid. Several festively dressed families would show up at once, relax in my mother's immaculate drawing room, and enjoy the items laid carefully on her tea-trolley. A steaming teapot covered in an embroidered tea cosy, surrounded by her good china on the bottom shelf. On the upper tier of the trolley was all the good stuff: chanaa chaat, potato fritters, samosas, black forest cake, cutlets, macaroni salad, kebabs. We would stuff ourselves silly and almost always nap in the afternoon. 

This year, far from Lahore and my childhood, the responsibility of making Eid exciting falls to me. We're going to do Eid differently in my house this year. First off, there will be Eidee, yes, but there will also be beautifully wrapped gifts for everyone, because to me presents are more exciting, more personal. I will bake layer cakes and loaves of banana bread. I will make chicken cutlets and chanaa chaat. My baby will unwrap a lovely new toy, especially for Eid. Some things will be reminiscent of the Eids of my childhood. There will be new sheets on the beds. The house will be scrubbed clean, every last nook and cranny of it. I will take out the fancy tea service and the lace-trimmed napkins. I will put henna on my palms. All the while I will remember those who are not physically present in my home this Eid and those who are no longer in this world. I am determined to make it a good day.

Half a Goodbye

I wonder if it is a kindness or a punishment of fate that the south-facing window of my aunt's house in Old Lahore opens into the graveyard where her son is buried. I imagine her standing for hours on her frail legs, her small frame wrapped in a shawl, next to that window, looking upon his grave. As my cousin's illness ate him up by degrees,  his mother was certain he was going to die even on good days. She didn't understand the biology behind the Hep C that wasted away her son's liver, but she knew he would not get better. She had learned it in her dreams. 

We had been close as children, my cousin and I, but I don't remember that time well. We drifted apart as we became teenagers, the five-year gap in our ages accentuating our differences as individuals. When I think back to our shared childhoods, I only recall images and sounds. His big grin. His hoarse voice. A song he liked to sing. His beautiful penmanship on a small chalkboard in my house, in a long letter, the only one he ever wrote me. I wish I had saved it.

I have learned that in his last days, his younger brother showed him pictures of my family on Facebook. I have learned that he saw my daughter and said to his mother, "Ammi, how beautiful is this little girl!" But he said it in Punjabi, so it sounded sweeter, more like him, and it hit me like a slap. Ammi, aeh kinni sohni aey. I wish selfishly that my aunt had picked up the phone then and called me. I wish selfishly that I had talked to him, said goodbye. I wish selfishly that I had known more about his illness than the vague, blanket statement, "He's sick." When you learn someone is sick, after all, you expect them to get better. You don't expect to get a g-chat message from your sister when you are in your office and have no choice but to remain entirely composed, saying, "Did you hear about Jugnoo Bhai?" And you certainly don't expect your shocked response to be whispered into your palms as they cover your face, "You silly boy," as if he had simply made a mistake and could undo it with your admonishment. 

I have felt weary after his death, like I have been angry and resentful too long because of things and people that don't really matter. When I mourn him, I also mourn my childhood, that sense of being safe, one that he probably had for only a handful of years. He had to grow up really fast. I did, too, but I had more good years of happiness, and so I fared better. When I feel the pull of Lahore now, resurrected in the wake of my cousin's death, I don't miss the city proper at all. I dream about Old Lahore - the narrow alleys and streets of the neighborhood where my father grew up. The tomb of the saint, the darbar, lights strung over the dome like an army of glowing fireflies in the night for the annual Urs, next to the huge pre-partition stone building that was my grandfather's family house, divided into several enclaves for his brothers and their children, the hand-pump in the middle of the verandah, curious faces in those windows... There will be different faces now, some absent, some aged. 

When I go back home now, it will be a journey to connect the dots, trace my way back to my roots to claim them. I will go into the house my grandfather and my father shared with their family. I will walk into my aunt's annex, look upon the saint's tomb and the graveyard that encircles it from the south-facing window of her small apartment. I will see names that I recognize on the gravestones. It will be a fitting homecoming, a lasting goodbye.

Photos from the Facebook page of Hazrat Shah Abul Muali

The Manifestations of Grief

Grief manifests differently in each person.

My mother, whenever she encountered death up close, in a loved one for instance, shrieked. Long, ragged screams erupted from her 4'11'' frame and staggered me. It was terrifying as a child to see her convulsing in the sorrow that spilled out of her in uncontrollable waves. Even back then I knew that I would never want others to see me grieving. Expression of grief made me self-conscious. It took me away from my immersion in the boundless ocean of melancholy, disturbed the sanctity of my feelings.

I have become full of conflicts as an adult. I have a public blog in which I write about motherhood, challenges, triumphs, failures. I fight loudly and belligerently for everything I believe in. My anger lurks like a beast just under my skin. Sometimes, in circumstances rife with argument, it pounces, eyes wide, the whites showing a little too much, voice snarly, hands gesticulating wildly to make a point. Or, I shut down, distance myself, and sometimes even physically remove myself from the vicinity of the source of my agitation. My anger becomes a cold, hardened thing. My responses to gibes are amused smirks, a slight shake of the head, a look that says, "Come on, don't embarrass yourself," but I say no words whatsoever.

Conversely, and counter-intuitively, I am intensely private about my grief of any magnitude. I cry in solitude, and if my control lapses in moments of weakness among friends, I feel like I am drowning. I put a leash around the act of crying. My throat tightens with the effort it takes to keep my face normal, serious, lips pinched. My eyes fill up again and again, but my voice does not waver. I don't let it. Sobbing is for later, saved and savored like a prayer.

This is why when something happens that warrants sadness, I go about my day quietly, and those who know me best keep saying, "You're upset, aren't you?" "You're sad." "You don't feel like talking." I never lie. I keep my eyes on the task at hand, dinner on the stove, dishes in the sink, a poem on the computer. I think about lost time, hug my baby for comfort, write a poem or two, deal with it the only way I know how - by telling myself I will only cry when I am perfectly alone, so I can give myself up entirely to the act of grieving and be done with it, once and for all. And of course, I never really am alone, mired as I am in the ordinary details of being alive. All the while, silently, my grief evolves. It starts as a seed of discontent and never stops growing. It germinates. It writhes its way into becoming a plant. It flowers. It blooms. It bears fruit.

Then one day, just like that, when I least suspect it, the fruit ripens, and I am suddenly very aware of it. I am at my desk, sipping my third cup of coffee during the lazy hours of an unremarkable afternoon when my grief grips me from the inside, clawing its way out. I am shaken by its force, its demand to be acknowledged, recognized, celebrated. It happens in the most unremarkable way. An email pops up in my inbox about a charity set up by the parents of a 1-year-old baby who died unexpectedly. It is the manifestation of someone else's mourning, a family I hadn't known before this moment, but their story becomes a fierce tempest and my carefully contained grief sways maniacally, this way and that, until it is uprooted, escaping out of me. I fight it for a few seconds. I try to control my face as it effortlessly contorts with an unexpected sob, but even as I take in large gulps of air, I know that it's time, I must give in.

So, it happens unceremoniously and not at all in the way I imagined. It is not an act of worship, it doesn't happen in a temple. Instead, I have run to the restroom and locked myself in one of the stalls. My body is ravaged with the force of my sobs. This sudden release is shocking. I lean my head against the cool walls of the stall and let my grief, ripened and ready, lead me away.

It's alright to give in, I tell myself. It's alright to never forget those for whom I grieve.

I Saw Neil Gaiman!

I will never be as devoted a fan of Neil Gaiman's as the ones I encountered on Saturday, July 6th, but I am really happy that we share a Venn diagram. I realized this at the reading and book signing for Gaiman's new book The Ocean at the End of the Lane in Santa Rosa. The evening was arranged remarkably well by Copperfield Books at a local high school.

The queue curled around the low auditorium building, stretched through corridors, looped around stairs and passages, and emerged at the entrance. My friend Rebecca drove me there, a two-hour car-ride from Palo Alto. When we finally stood in line, one copy of the book in Rebecca's hands (I bought the audiobook, performed by Neil Gaiman himself), we actually didn't talk to each other for a good 15-20 minutes. I concentrated really hard on my hands and fingernails while Rebecca pretended to read the book. It wasn't because we didn't have anything interesting to say to each other. It was because Gaiman's fans were monumentally more interesting than us! We were shamelessly and happily eavesdropping. 

Some gems from the conversations around us (forgive me, I am paraphrasing):

I would gladly stand in line all night just to be in the company of a god [Neil Gaiman] for a moment.

Who the hell names their child North West? That kid is in for a lifetime of therapy.

[On legislation regarding women's bodies and choices:] NO! Did you, a man, just say that about my body? Are you for real?

There were more - so many more that I have forgotten. I was impressed that Neil Gaiman's work appeals to such a diverse audience. Isn't that the mark of a really good writer? I know that some people were planning to stay until 2AM just to stand next to him and get their books signed. I am certainly not his biggest fan, even though I love his work, but I understand that motivation. If I didn't have a baby waiting for me at home, I would probably have stayed, too.

When the doors to the auditorium opened, the noise suddenly swelled. I could sense excitement mounting in the crowd. Neil emerged from the curtains at 5:30 on the dot - and then there was craziness. I am sure people driving on the road outside the school could feel the sheer vitality that ran through the audience like a dangerous rumor. People stood up and cheered and clapped. A woman sitting in front of me couldn't contain herself. She started to giggle and jump and pump her fists in the air like a little girl who had just discovered a pile of candy. The adoration that Gaiman's fans have for him is, quite frankly, astounding and fascinating. I am a fan, too, a pretty loyal one at that, but I am no match for the majority. And yet, the thrill of seeing Neil Gaiman gripped all of us - it was apparent in my fierce clapping, too.

Let me just say this. Neil Gaiman is AMAZING! When he talks, you want to listen. It's not just because he has an English accent - that may be one reason, of course, but it's mainly because he is funny and charming and has a really great voice and seems to genuinely care about his fans. This last reason is really moving. For me, at least, Neil's reciprocation of the love he receives from his fans, is simply fantastic.  Neil was committed to signing all night if he had to, just so every last person who wanted to meet him would get that chance. He was also committed to signing not just as many copies of The Ocean at the End of the Lane as you happened to have, but also one other book. Of course I knew peripherally that Neil Gaiman reaches out and acknowledges his fans - I follow him on Facebook and Twitter, but to see him doing so in person, and to witness the response of the crowd - the way they bent forward in their seats, hanging on to every last word he spoke, laughing (sometimes hysterically) at all his jokes (and what a great sense of humor, by the way, quick, dry, ready, self-deprecating), was an experience I will never forget. There was this almost tangible chemistry between Neil Gaiman and the audience. He commanded the room, but he did so in an inclusive manner - the audience was in on the jokes; it was not a performance, it was a dialogue between Neil and his fans, despite the fact that he did all the talking.

Since I had already finished the audiobook, I appreciated the excerpt he chose to read aloud. It was one of my favorite parts, one in which our young hero is sitting in the kitchen of the Hempstocks, the one in which there are daffodils and pancakes and jam and honey. The one in which there is respite from fear. During the reading, someone's phone rang. Neil, without missing a beat, said: "You have to turn that off. That's the deal. I read, you turn off your phone. Otherwise, it gets really embarrassing for you." The crowd LOVED it.

He went on to answer some questions the audience had submitted. Some paraphrased gems:

Question: What advice would you have for a new writer?
Neil: I would tell you to go and write!

Question: What would you say to a writer who thinks they are not good enough?
Neil: Do not feel unique in your tragedy. (This after relating a long incident in which he doubted his writing during Anansi Boys, called up his agent, and was told that he does this every time he is in the middle of a book, and in fact, all of her other clients do it, too. "So I am not even unique in my tragedy!")

Question: Something about bee-keeping as a hobby.
Neil: Everyone should have a hobby that can kill them.

Neil also read from his unpublished book for all ages Fortunately, The Milk. I won't say much about it, except that it will be released on September 17. You should pre-order it. Read it. Enjoy it. If it's available as an audiobook, I will buy both the hardcover and the audio version. It was supremely entertaining, especially the way Neil Gaiman performed it. 

At the end of the reading, we swapped the unsigned book with a signed copy (Neil signed 400 copies for Copperfield Books earlier that day), but for many of his fans, it was going to be a long night. I am sure they did not resent it, because to them, waiting in line all night was a fair price to pay for spending a moment in the company of this god.

It was a really good day.

Photos by Rebecca McCue

Two Poems

I have been trying really hard to write, but have been able to think only in images. Here are two poems I have written recently. The title of the second poem may be why I have been unable to compose an intelligent post. 

Today, I am thinking of this lone bird flying over Old Lahore. And also thinking of the sky in the same neighborhood on basant day, littered with kites in every color, and of the happy children who flew them. I was one of those children once, too, watching others flying kites, people who loved me, whom I loved. No matter how many miles there are between them and me, the loss of one of them is still heart-breaking, maddening. And that's all I will say about that.

-Weatherman-
"And which way does the wind blow,"
I ask him.

He carefully tears a sheet from his book,
and blows it away in pieces -
one end of the page in his mouth,
his fingers changing its landscape,
his breath giving it wings.

Words, like tiny insects,
slanting and beetle-black,
dance in the air,
kiss the swaying grass,
descend into the valley.

They don't even make a sound.

He plucks a verse
from my hair.
An incoherent line
ripples on it
like a dismembered ant.

"Downward, it seems," he lets go.
It flies behind its comrades
as if to prove a point.



-In Mourning-
I swirled you into a potful of milk

maybe you got lost in the cupful that boiled over the edge

I turned away for a moment,
or for years,
and when I looked back,
some of the milk was racing down the rim
in frothy bubbles

maybe
you were scorched then
from the inside out,
you sizzled on the stove-top,
turned tree-sap brown in some places, wax-like
and honey-comb golden in others, toffee-like,
smelled sickly-sweet, metallic
like dark brown sugar burning in butter,
like freshly spilled blood at the feet of a corpse

Mundanities Matter - An Apologetic Rant

"Anything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful."

-Gertrude Stein

A safe haven - my office.

Let me say this again. I am a full-time clinical researcher, poetry editor of a bi-annual literary magazine, occasional writer, decent home cook, and most importantly, mother of a 21-month-old well-adjusted toddler. My entire existence doesn't just benefit from making routine critically important; it depends upon it. I know I am not the only woman in the world who is juggling a career and motherhood. I know others do it their way. I know their way may be better than my way. However, my way works for me and my little girl. It ensures my sanity and celebrates the things that are important to me, which mainly revolve around me being a homebody. My best day is one spent at home with my baby, some baking and cooking, and a little bit of writing. Perfection. It may be boring for some people, but for me, it is blissful. 

Mama Cook, Baby Cook.

There was a time when my ideal day involved libraries and bookstores and restaurants and walks, but I am fundamentally changed now. I understand that I fall short of many of my loved ones' expectations. Twice now, my 15-year-old brother who is visiting me after 5 years has expressed how disappointed he is that I have not spent "quality time" with him outside (or, arguably, even inside) the house. My mother is managing her own shopping, too, not asking me to accompany her, leaving me within my invisible, intangible, but very clearly defined circle of comfort. My sisters-in-law, by turns, offer support for my decision to remain a hermit and encourage me to come out of my shell. My stubbornness astounds even me at times. I put myself in all of their shoes - my choices must be disconcerting and maybe even disappointing for them. I am not the person they remember - I am distant, regimented, governed by the turns of the clock, by ritual, by habit, and sadly, not by relationships and feelings save those that involve my daughter, because there simply isn't any room inside me.

A recipe or a poem? Could be either.

All of my mental energy is taken up by two forking realities with one convergent point that is hidden somewhere inside me, knotted and wrinkled, convoluted conflicts: professional success and motherhood. If I were to graph my mental state daily, it would not appear in the form of two parallel lines running smoothly, one depicting me as a mother, the other as a professional. Instead, the graph will be non-linear, jagged in some places, smoothly curving in others, one curve swirling lazily into the other at some points, the two intertwining in places, clashing, converging and diverging again, one forming crests sometimes while the other dips low, depresses into the negative quadrant... But they do run in a semblance of harmony at times, too, usually everything remains constant for long periods of time, until they start falling and rising again, a low rumble registered by the Richter scale before The Big One hits,  inevitably when I am least prepared for it. For me, there is no such thing as "work-life balance." There is work. And there is motherhood. And that is my life - not balancing, but swaying, see-saw like, sometimes staying steady in mid-air, but the collapse always comes in the end, it's simply a matter of time. 

A therapeutic practice - cooking at home.

I am perpetually afraid of this collapse. Maybe, my loved ones will gain a little understanding of my constant need to control things and the state of high anxiety that pervades my every waking moment after reading this. I am afraid of losing reigns of the carefully constructed and precariously suspended components of my life. Because when that quake comes, and it does come more often than I would like it to, usually without provocation and for perfectly organic reasons, I am the only one who picks up the pieces of my sanity that are salvageable from the abundant carnage. And this is why I hold on to apparently mundane and insignificant details of my life with a death-grip. This is why I sleep before 11PM, why I guard my baby's bedtime vigilantly, why I don't make plans over the weekend, why I disappear into my words as I furiously type, one eye on the clock, the other on the sentence I am composing, why I don't answer you when you call my name a few times - I am not really there, I am trying to plan the next day, thinking what to cook, when to be home, writing my blog, editing poetry, balancing my meetings and tasks, and about a million other tiny details that are absolutely essential to do. So, consider this a public apology to everyone who is disappointed in me. You are going to have to put up with my eccentricities for a few more years unfortunately, until I achieve a zen state by mastering this elusive work-life balance, or until Jahan goes off to college. Hang in there, friends, family, loved ones. I still love you - just not as much as I love my sanity.

Photos by Rebecca McCue

Fleeting...

One of the best things about living in Northern California is the temperate weather. The weather, on average over the entire year, is pleasing to the senses and food for creativity. If there are a few rainy and bleak days over the winter, the sun compensates by coming out for a while to raise the spirits of Californians. If there is a heat wave in the summer that causes people to crank up their air conditioners, clouds take over the sky right after, a wind starts somewhere near the ground and blows upwards, cool, crisp, dancing serenely over the skin. The weather in this part of the world seems to apologize for being temperamental for a few days, and its apology is poetic, lyrical, epic, astounding. 

Recently, we were hit by a fierce heat wave. My air conditioner was running without a break for a week. The sun seemed to pierce the skin, so sharp was the heat hitting our bodies. In Pakistan, temperatures are much worse, humidity is high, but the heat is not dry and pinching like it is here. Maybe it is the thick blanket of smog and dust that makes the heat suffocate you in Lahore. The thick sweltering July air forms a bubble around you. It doesn't needle you; it goes for the kill; it smothers. By contrast, during the heat wave in the Bay Area, the sun stood like a traced full-moon in the painting of a child. Its rays, jagged-toothed and razor-sharp, made our skin prickle. Even those of us who have recently arrived from the murderous 50 degree Celsius days of Lahori summers chose to stay indoors and rest. 

And then in the magical, appeasing way of Northern California weather, a wonderful thing happened. The sun decided to take a day off, clouds gathered on the horizon, people once again left their homes in the late hours of the afternoon, and I could see them zipping along the jogging trail on the hill I live on as I drove home from work, contemplating the pleasant change in weather and the stark tan on my left arm with a narrow strip of skin a distinctly lighter shade of brown, marking the placement of my watch. In the evening, the wind picked up. It seemed to be born out of the tall bushes along the uncultivated land behind our housing community. The weeds rustled and swayed and the wind continued to gather momentum until it climbed up our legs, swirled around our waists like a dance partner's arm, flew into our faces, our eyes, our mouths, and whipped our hair every which way. It came in, cool and unbound, through the open windows of my house, flickered the flame on the stove, kissed the petals of my orchids on the window-sill, twirled the basil leaves in a lazy pirouette.

My sisters-in-law, one nursing her eczema exacerbated by the intense heat and other other nursing heat-induced lethargy, perked all of a sudden and began to walk from one room to another. "It's like Murree," they exclaimed, thinking of the beloved hill-station of our childhood vacations in northern Punjab. Night had fallen and we decided to welcome the pleasantly surprising weather by going outside. They grabbed their sweaters and I pulled on a winter coat over my pajamas. We looked funny and old and young at the same time. Three women walking around a fountain - the work of a genius landscape artist. The wind slapped us relentlessly, but we were gleeful like small children in a surprise downpour. It was a moment in which I felt completely connected to them. We could just as easily have been teenagers devoid of all adult responsibilities. There was something meaningful in this unplanned, unorchestrated togetherness, the wind continuing to pick up force as we talked about nothing in particular. I can't even remember what we said to each other; I only recall that moment of perfect tranquility, three sisters, out in the elements, together, satisfied, happy. There was a little bit of magic that kindled and caught fire, even if it was felt only by me. It was not just the weather's apology, but mine, too, for being immersed in work and circumstances and motherhood so completely that our one moment of perfect understanding happened on a green metal bench near a fountain in my neighborhood, a celebrated silence over the roar of high winds. 

We laughed and shivered and laughed some more over things that were not really funny. One of them suggested a quick trip back to the house to make three cups of coffee or peppermint tea or something that sounded equally welcoming before returning to the fountain to talk some more. We headed back to the house and I put the kettle on. One of my sisters ran to her room, the other opened up her email. The kettle didn't whistle for a long time. We sat in silence, each once again absorbed into her own world, swimming through the things that mattered only to her. I prepared our cups. "Shall we go?" I asked. But we all hesitated. It seemed too difficult all of a sudden to go outside with our cups full to the brim of welcoming and rejuvenating hot drinks. The moment, the magic of it, the harmony, the marriage of elements that brought out the feeling of a perfect understanding between us, was gone. We settled into the sofa instead, one sister on either side of me, and talked again about meaningless and meaningful things.

On some low level of consciousness, I observed that we had a moment, or at least I perceived that we experienced something extraordinary by that fountain, a connection, an understanding, something harmonious that brought us together, and that it was gone now. But not completely. Whatever I felt out there in the wind was an extension of our relationship, and its passing was to be rejoiced, not mourned. We are struggling in our own personal journeys, finding meaning in our lives, defining what comes next in our individual destinies. We often forget to celebrate the love we have for each other, and sadly, take it for granted. That instant, out there by the small lit-up fountain in the fierce wind, was a reminder to me of what we are to each other, how our shared childhood has forged a bond so deep inside us that it becomes apparent at most unexpected of times. Much like the elemental forces in this place I call home now, these reminders have a way of surprising me.

Remember Kulfi?

We are in a small Indian grocery store near our house. This store is better than the rest. The aisles have enough room in between for a cart to glide through without ramming into items on the shelves. It is well-lit. There are two different sections, one for snacks and produce, the other for all staple items: Basmati rice in cloth sacks, durum flour in large paper packages, steel pressure cookers, lentils of all colors, shapes, and sizes, vegetable oil, ghee, and a rainbow of masalas, some in plastic packets, others in glass bottles.

A very old Bollywood song blares on the stereo - it is from the original Bombay era, from a time when the Indian film industry was not called Bollywood. I hear Lata Mangeshkar's voice accompanied by light percussion and soft strings. The song is sad, but it is oddly uplifting after a day of negative reflection.

Image from chandigarhdhol.wordpress.com

I pick up items that I need. A bag full of onions, one of tomatoes. A bottle of Nescafe instant coffee, a gallon of milk, a pint of Half and Half, cilantro, bananas, Lipton Yellow Label Orange Pekoe, mangoes that don't remind me of Lahore. Usman stands next to me and eats a kulfi he has taken out of the wall-to-wall freezers at the back of the store. I decide to break my resolve of staying carb-free for this sweet treat. I bite into the kulfi - this time, I am reminded of Lahore. I recall long, thin bamboo sticks draped with the softest, sweetest, homemade ice-cream with milk and cream and sugar and cardamom, stored in makeshift refrigerated carts that had slabs of ice at the bottom and a metal shelf at the top with small conical holes to accommodate the ice-cream sticks. Old men would pass through small residential streets yelling "Kulfi!" This was before the specialty ice-cream company started sending their younger ice-cream sellers out on the streets with actual refrigerators on wheels, playing the Pied Piper song that summoned kids and adults alike with crumpled up twenty-rupee notes in their hands. But the kulfi-walla had a certain pull, too. His hoarse yell called us out of our houses on hot afternoons. We would rush to our mother, begging her for two or three rupees to buy ourselves kulfi. She would always put up a fight. "You don't know where it's been," she'd say. "It probably has germs!" But we would beg and plead and cry relentlessly, and she would eventually give in and give us the money. I don't remember ever getting sick from Lahori street food. It would probably kill me now if I dared to try it, having been away from those germs for over ten years. 

I come back from my transporting bite of export-quality kulfi to another Lata Mangeshkar song and my cart full of groceries. It is time to pay and go home to a baby who has reportedly refused to nap. I am still eating the kulfi as I pay. "It's so good!" I say to my husband in Urdu. The guy at the register smiles at us. What is he thinking, I wonder. He probably thinks I remember what the kulfi in Lahore tasted like. He may have had a similar childhood on the other side of the border in India. Did he run after kulfi-wallas, too? Does he remember what it was like to run on those potholed streets that filled up like canals when monsoons came with an elemental force? Does he remember the faces of those old men selling their homemade ice-cream? Does he remember at all? Because I don't. 

A Sick Baby Wants Her Mama

It is an irrefutable fact that babies need their mothers, but when babies are sick, they want their mothers. My baby finds comfort in the warmth of her mother's body circling hers. She puts her little hand on my arm and clings to it before drifting off to sleep, making sure I don't move away. When she half-wakes and looks at me, she smiles, plops back down into the pillow, and closes her eyes. She is too tired today to do much more. It is only a stomach bug, but I am staying close to her despite the presence of other caregivers - her dad, nanny, aunts, grandma - because she wants me and no one else.

I know from experience that she will never stop wanting me to be near her when she is distressed or sick or sad, but we won't always have the same circumstances to indulge ourselves. She will grow up and I won't be able to enclose her completely within my arms, both of us huddling under her favorite blanket. She will be in school and wait in the office of the school nurse, welcoming enough with pictures on the walls, a water dispenser in the corner, but it won't feel completely comforting. The wooden hard-backed chairs will seem cold, the floor will squeak against her sneakers. But she will be a big girl and swallow the Tylenol that the nurse gives her before going back to her classes until the end of the day. She will go off to college, live in a small match-box of a dorm room, or in an off-campus house full of roommates. She will sit alone in her bathroom if she gets a stomach bug, she will cry, she will wish for her mom to be there. She will have friends, however, who will take care of her, and bring her oatmeal and warm milk in bed. She will be grateful for having them in her life, but she will still miss her mama. I know this, because I lived through it all.

After being in labor for three days, when my water finally broke and I went back to the hospital for the third time with the hope of getting admitted and, by consequence, an epidural, biting down on my lips and silently crying as the car lurched and halted during the morning rush hour traffic, my eyes heavy, dazed with a combination of pain and morphine from the night before (which had not worked), I wished for my mother to be there. I wanted her, or no one at all. At the hospital, when the admitting nurse, no doubt irritated from her shift and probably burnt out and disillusioned, said to me, "Well, you're having a baby, you're supposed to be in pain," I thought two things: 1) I wish I had the strength to punch you in the gut right now, and 2) I want my Mama. When I heard my husband snoring behind the curtains and had still not been given an epidural five hours after being admitted, and when my nurse (the really, really nice one) put me in a hot bath to help the pain, I still just wanted one person: my mother. When it was all over and I held my baby in my arms, I wanted to be held by my mother, too. Instead, I had to tell myself that her voice over the phone had to be enough. At home, with my new baby, I frequently hid in my bathroom and cried for no reason at all, or for many reasons - sleep deprivation, the realization that I was actually a mother now, feeling no good at being a mom, wanting a massage, et cetera - and the crying was always accompanied by the same litany: "Mama, mama, mama, mama."

She is here now, my mother, giving me a few weeks of her year, away from her home just for her first-born who is still her baby despite having a toddler of her own. She cooks in my kitchen, soaks 5 almonds in a porcelain cup every night, peels them in the morning and gives them to me with the belief that they will improve my memory. She irons my clothes when I am in a rush, asks me if she can oil my hair, massage my back. I say no. I am too old for all this. I need to take care of my baby, but I sure do appreciate all the help. I still want my mother in more ways than I understand, but I can't bond with her the same way. I reason with her and it sounds like arguing. She gets angry with me, like she did last night, "For god's sake, have a bit of tolerance!" I am no longer able to have relationships that are burdensome. I find it easier to walk away from people who do not have a positive presence in my life rather than letting them linger for "old times' sake." She cannot come to terms with this. I am not her little girl anymore. 

I know Jahan and I will get to this point one day. I will be puzzled by her, not by something she does, but by all of her as my mom is often bewildered by me. I know my baby will not stop wanting me, but life will get in our way. I will not be able to take her in my arms and stroke her hair. She won't cling to me with all the will in her little deflated body whenever she becomes sick. And it may not be possible for me to hold her hand through the most important journeys of her life - I hope that's not the case, but it may happen. For this and many other reasons, like the fact that holding my baby is the best feeling ever and providing comfort to her is highly rewarding and satisfying for me as a mother, I choose to coddle her endlessly when she is sick (and otherwise, too). She gets to sleep next to me. She gets to hold on to my arm all night. She gets to wake up in the middle of the night, kiss me, and go back to sleep again. She is the queen and her mama is at her disposal for one simple and profound reason: A sick baby wants her mama.

Unequal Infinities and Chocolate-Raspberry Layer Cake

“I am not a mathematician, but I know this: There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There’s .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.”
-John Green in The Fault in Our Stars

Though the idea of some infinities being bigger than others in John Green's new YA novel The Fault in Our Stars has to do with two terminally ill teenagers finding "forever" in a terribly finite amount of time, it made me reflect - not on anything in particular, nothing grand and monumental like My Life or My Past, but a superficial touch upon the surface of memories, like the gentle patter of rain against a tin roof. 

"Some infinities are bigger than other infinities." If a moment stands crisp in my memory like the clarion call of a church bell clanging, does it transcend time in a way, does it occupy an infinite continuum within the finite reserves of my consciousness - because, let's say a strong emotion exists forever, infinitely, then haven't I, on occasion, created my own small infinities? Hasn't everybody?

Last week, I attempted to make Bon Appetit's Chocolate-Raspberry Layer Cake. It was the most complicated dessert recipe I have tried so far, and I had chosen the wrong day for it. It was difficult for me to focus last Wednesday. My family was all around me, the day was warm, my baby was circling around and through my legs like a cat, and my kitchen was a mess, full of clutter and noise and people. I positively revel in the concentration it takes to bake a good cake. I like being vigilant about each step so my cake doesn't fail. It allows me to focus on something other than myself, which means, I may be baking in my kitchen, but I am not there, not really. So, if you call my name a few times and I don't answer, it's not because I am ignoring you, but because I am in the zone, detached, far away, unwound. But last week, I was simply not achieving that state of heavy-lidded, slack-jawed convergence on the cake, and so, since my body did not relax on its own, I decided to dip a finger into my imaginary Pensieve and search for a memory to stabilize me. 

I was 10 or 11 years old when I baked my first cake. It was such a complete catastrophe that I did not attempt to bake a dessert from scratch again until recently. So last week, as I felt my concentration lapsing and my Chocolate Raspberry Layer Cake inching closer and closer to a similar fate of failure, I transported myself away from the noise, from the laughter around me, from the warm afternoon sun filtering in through the window and falling relentlessly on my neck, from the jangling pans and scattered flour and cocoa powder on the counter - snow and sand. I was instead in my mother's cool kitchen, dimly lit because of the neighbor's wall blocking the sun. The small 4-seater wooden dining table was littered with mixing bowls, bags of flour and sugar, eggshells, dirty spatulas. My sisters were bursting in and out of the kitchen excitedly. "Is it ready yet?" It was a November afternoon, my mother's birthday. I spent hours on the preparation. It was a basic yellow cake - I remember the amber color of the finished product that smelled of eggs and felt like a small boulder. It was my first personal failure. And what did I do? Well, of course I decorated the cake and served it. I simply could not accept that my creation was anything less than worthy of being served and enjoyed.

I wonder if that was overconfidence or faith in myself or both. I wonder if there is a way to channel it again, the absolute conviction that what I had achieved was good, or at least good enough. Instead, in my kitchen last week, I was wringing my hands, wiping small beads of sweat from my forehead, disappointed in myself for not being able to pull off the Bon Appetit recipe successfully. Whereas the ten-year-old me not only served the cake, but also insisted that the whole family taste it, last week, the present me haplessly tried to reassure herself. "It's OK, it's OK, it's OK." It was OK in the end. More than OK, actually, the cake was delicious, but I realized something: I doubt myself now. I don't just factor failure into the equations of my endeavors as a possibility - I consider it to be a likely outcome. There is a subtle difference between the two, but it's enough to make me hold back, shy away, and say, "No, this is not for me." 

After hearing my family praise my cake, I leaned against my clean kitchen counter and unspooled an infinitely long thread backwards in time. I touched that little girl who exists in the small infinity of my yellow cake disaster memory. "How are you not afraid of failing?" I asked. But she didn't hear me. I looked closely at her. "I know you," I whispered. She watched the ingredients in front of her with heavy lids and a slack jaw. She wasn't there, not really. 

Photos by Rebecca McCue