In the Company of Women

#78 by sisterscorpion

Sis, the fault is not in our stars – only in our nicks! Forgive me if the term “scorpion” puts all kinds of violent imagery (like consumed-upon-consummation males) into our minds and scares away simple souls like this interactor and motivates them to take up defensive positions.

Why in this day and age – when all kinds of beautiful words are available to chose from – take for example – “Laila” (perhaps THE ideal woman and the one your parents had in mind (but they merely ended up one letter off)) of the Laila and Majnu fame – instead we see people going for “scorpion”!

What kind of sadistic, deprived creature would stoop so low, you tell me?!

Where is the woman?! That tree which gives shade – that eternal source of comfort and succor to man kind?!!

Whose company brings joy, warmth, a sense of peace, as depicted in this article – those ingredients so sorely missing in this world – especially in THIS one!

The eternally beautiful woman! Not just physical beauty, but the inner beauty of the spirit, the agent of man’s love, and through love, his lifeline to God.

Instead – upon the simplest of provocations – what a retort!

She hits left, she hits right – she makes those ears ring!

Instead of soft words peculiar to her sex – she brandishes her sting!

Not the angel of love – merely a hobbit!

Instead of the beauty of flowing golden tresses and braided hairpieces and curling locks kissed by the breeze – we have Lorena Bobbitt!

#74 by bjk

Was that a ``welcome to the chowk-nest`` hazing?

You`re free to kiss mine, although I`d have to say, it`d be quite the unpleasant experience.

My post wasn`t for you, it was for her, and because I enjoyed reading her contribution.



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#75 by Jawahara

They`re the ones under my name (Leila Montour).

Just a few additional words of my own! Just my words – so don’t nobody try to look for profound wisdom therein!

(Note: if you are holding your breath for Shakespeare, you may have to hold it for a very long time!)

(Disclaimer: I am no writer.)

Those of you with that satisfied smirk after reading the preceding line – wipe it off right now! You are not it either!

We are not writers – none of us really is. We are all like books with a lot less control over what appears in those pages than most of us would like to think. That is the simple reality.

Words are like children. They come out in many different shapes and colors. We – the individuals – create them but in reality we do not control them (even though some of us think that we do). Controlled words lack life – they are like a lab report or an accounting book, no matter how precise or down-to-earth, they are always boring! Children, on the other hand, are creations of God (the only Writer around) and they are never boring because they are never predictable – a fact sometimes rued by parents just likes some writers read their own words from time to time and shake their heads! And just like sometimes the children won’t come no matter how earnestly the parents keep calling them – the words don’t show up either – driving us mad.

But we love them anyway!

[Writing is a lonely process.]

It need not be. Yet, in many ways, writing on one’s own emotional and other internal resources is like drawing water from one spot – one can draw only at a certain (moderate) rate and still provide a good quality drink – drawing faster than that would invariably lower the water level and degrade its quality and bring out the muck! The trick I suppose is to place a well close to a reservoir which has enough of a body mass that it does not deplete easily. In many ways, perhaps this article describes a situation of that sort.

#75 by Jawahara

[…Do let me know (via email …) which piece was yours.]

You mean you did not even feel the sting!!!

And how come NOBODY welcomes me ANYWHERE?!!!

Welcome sisterscorpion, good to see you here. I too didn`t see either the apologism or the Islam-bashing in this anthology. It was interesting to be a part of this book. Do let me know (via email if you like at jsaidullah@hotmail.com) which piece was yours.

#73 SisterScorpion

O-mi-gawwwd!

Sis, my scorpion of a sis, don’t tell me!

Not another one of those!

You know the type I am talking about.

The type everyone knows around here.

The type that kisses!

Yes, kisses – again and again with those puckers – perhaps for eternity!

Right on the ass!

Hi all,

Well. I`ve went and signed up with chowk so I can comment on this entry and a few others. Aside from the various tangents going on in the discussion section (politics, Shakespeare, various lit, and whatnot), I`d like to thank Jawahara for her thoughts on her writing experience for this anthology, of which I, too, am a contributer. When I finally got hold of my copies, I was so pleased to see the other women`s (and one man`s) writings and to find they were well-done, too. Personally I didn`t see the work as either being a work of appologists nor something with the intention of being anti-Islam, and seeing as both are quite oppositional to one another, I`ve got to wonder just how many of the commenters have read the book as of yet, or are just speaking in a general sense upon other issues in the greater community. There`s religious criticism in the book, yes. And that`s not a bad thing, either, if you ask me. At the same time, there`s plenty of affirmation and empowerment, though I`d never dare to describe it as being appologistic (where`s the apologetics in the book? I`ve yet to find it...) My favorite part of the anthology is its decent balance of various ``types`` (possibly a bad word in this venue, LOL) of Muslim women from different backgrounds and schools o` thought and all that.

Anyway, Jawahara, your sense of writing while ``knowing`` there were other folks out there in a similar boat, caring about these issues, etc is something I myself felt once I read the book. Seeing as I didn`t interact or know most of the other contributers, I was anxiously awaiting the book so I could actually find out what the others had written and produced. By the end of it, I had to say that I felt as though I had sort of ``snuck in`` under the wire into a good book with my own writing, especially as a white american convert to Islam who`d obviously had no experience growing up in my youth as a Muslim or around Muslim folk. But at the same time, I surely don`t regret my sneaking in to share the pages with the other writers and artists in the book.

Regards,

Leila Montour

Apart from the Shakespearean discussions and other stuff, it`s interesting that there are two reactions to this piece. There is the group that considers the writers (me included) Muslim apologists trying to shove Muslim womens` issues under the rug. Then, there are those who consider the book and its writers to be anti-Muslim, hell-bent on insulting Islam. I couldn`t help but notice that.

#69 H<sub>2</sub>

Ama H<sub>2</sub>, stop vacillating!

Make up your mind and stick with it!

Make up your mind – it can not be both ways – is T<sub>2</sub> “lethal” or just “kooky”?

#69 You are now splitting hairs by distinguishing between ``insane`` (which is actually the term you used for those appreciating shakespeare) and ``dangerous``. How many insane individuals would you trust to drive your car, e.g.?

But it is a relief to know that you do not consider to be potential terrorists all those millions of people through the centuries who have read and watched shakespeare`s plays, or approvingly quoted (knowingly or unknowingly) from one of his many great quotes.

The last thing we need is a bunch of unemployed Shakespearean actors hijacking planes and forcing the passengers to perform A Midsummers Night Dream.

Re: # 67

i never said shakespeare `fans` are dangerous - just kooky ! ...... on the other and, fans of that other masterpiece can be quite lethal .......

hamidm: and dont drag the Quran (or Koran, if you wish) and Masadi into everything. That is a cop out.

hamidm: So, appreciating shakespeare makes one a kook? and a dangerous one at that!! Or, as Shakespeare put it: cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.``

And so all those fellows who pay good money to watch Shakespeare`s plays - whether at the Globe Theater or at the Kenney Center - must also be dangerous kooks. Your world is full of dangerous characters, my friend. :-)

Re: # 65

bj,

..... actually i was referring to tahmed himself - he is not that far from masadi when it comes to the divinity of book - he just want to interpret it a lttle different ......... personally i think that shameless apologists like tahmed and bina are just as dangerous, if not more, than obvious kooks like masadi .........

#64 H<sub>2</sub>
[....... but then there are also people who think the koran is a divine masterpiece!]

A pathetic, thinly disguised attempt to get into the good books of T<sub>32</sub> by dumping familiar deluge of drivel on that good ole staple diet called Masadi!

tahmed,

....... good try, but i still think shakespeare is poppycock and balderdash and i put him in the same category as poser khalid ........... in my view he does not hold a candle to naipaul, coetzee and naguib mahfouz - no comparison, period.. bus!

p.s. i don`t know anyone who reads shakespeare for pleasure and seriously doubt the sanity of anyone who does ....... but then there are also people who think the koran is a divine masterpiece !

hamidm #62 Actually. Shakespeare did not really write from first hand experience - he wrote about Danish royalty, Venetian lovers, Moorish guys, ancient Roman politicians - not to mention corals found six fathoms deep under the sea and spirits of all kinds. While all along living the life of a middle income fellow in a small town in england. And in fact, most of the time he simply ``borrowed`` the plot for his plays from some existing source. Hardly the basis for ``first hand experience``!!

If he had not added anything to these plots, he would have stayed at level 1, and been long forgotten as a small-time businessmen who made his money from plots stolen from other long forgotten writers.

What makes Shakespeare great is that he adds a layer to the plot that touches upon more fundamental human experience. He is not just writing about Danish royalty, but about human treachery and ambition. Not just about Venetian lovers, but about two young people whose love for one another is stronger than the communal hatreds of their respective communities. He is writing not just about Moorish guys, but about a man who who allows suspicion and jealousy to eat him away. He is writing not just about corals found under the sea but about how even in death we are not lost, but merely undergo ``a sea-change...into something rich and strange.

These are all issues at level 2. The level where allah ditta and warren buffet find common ground with shakespeare.

Re: # 60

tahmed,

...... sorry, i still don`t get it ...... this discussion about warren buffet is totally tangential and is not relevant to the subject on hand ...... all i am saying is that most writers, specially novelists, are most convincing when they write based on their first hand experience(identity) ............ i have never understood shakespeare and i don`t think i have missed much ..... but if you say he operates at level 2 and 3, i will take your word for it even though i have no idea what it all means .......... personally, i am still having a hard time understanding people at level 1 !

#49 jumpa lahiri made life difficult for many boston-suburban desi husbands who claimed to go jogging or golf on saturday mornings.

hamidm2 #58 Why would Warren Buffet leave behind $37 b. for Allah Ditta and his kids if he did not feel he shared something common with them? He could just as well have tossed it in the garbage dump in that case.

But, not only did he leave this money - he made sure it was used for allah ditta and co. by tilting the world`s richest man to kiss goodbye to his baby - microsoft - and apply his organizational abilities and energies for the direct benefit of allah ditta and co. and by placing ambitious demands on him, like not sitting on the money but rather using it at the rate of $1.5 b. a year.

at level 1 it would indeed be a stretch for Buffet (or anyone else) to do anything like this. At level 2, it is no stretch at all for buffet to share something common with allah ditta - since they are indeed the same species, believe it or not. so clearly buffet was thinking level 2, meaning he demonstrated he identifies himself with the species. and this is indeed a major stream of thinking in the US, as befits a nation that has been the torch bearer for human progress (masadi`s rantings notwithstanding) for the past 200 years. and at level 2, buffet does not need to even travel from Omaha to Okara, let alone borrow allah ditta`s chappals so he could walk the Christian mile on them.

hope you see my point now.

regarding the ps: maybe there are universal thinkers who outdo even shakespeare. but i read shakespeare and loved the things he wrote. just as i loved the things Rumi writes. and maybe kalidas is also very profound in ``shakuntala`` - but i havent gotten around to reading it. and no doubt there are thousands, millions more like these whom no one knows anymore. But hell - i can only appreciate what I have read. That is all I can say in defence of my appreciation of shakespeare.

{``As if the only time I can create something of value is when I can attribute it to something or to someone else. ``}

Jawahara,

Most of my self-assessed creative work can be attributed to Mr. Walker, Mr. Regal, and sometimes that evil foreigner, Ms. Corona. :)

Seriously, this is a beautiful essay that so descriptively portrays the frustrations and eventual triumph of an overachieving author who has set very high standards for herself. I applaud your honesty and admire your talent as you struggle to yet higher plateaus of excellence. If your essay is any indication of your book, I am sure that you will not be disappointed. Good article.

Salim

tahmed,

......... in any case, the point i was trying to make is that there is no way in hell that the school teacher in allah ditta`s village can write a novel about the life of a billionaire in omaha; similarly a novelist born and raised in omaha cannot write anything worthwhile about life in okara even if he spends a couple of months living in allah ditta`s mud hut with his cow and pet goat ........... unless you have actually lived the experience you are writing about it will alwas come across as fake, pretentious and totally unconvincing - in the worst case, like rudyard kipling, you can make a fool out of yourself and the people you write about !

.......... so, notwithstanding your idol shakespeare, a writer`s `identity` is very relevant to what they write ..........

p.s. i still can`t get over the fact that a clever fellow like you can`t see through the hoax that is shakespeare ! ....... do you really think that if the british empire had not foisted him on the rest of the world he would have had this so-called `universal` appeal ?........ do you think any publisher today would seriously look at any of his stuff ?.... the man would have starved to death !

Re: # 56

tahmed,

...... maybe i am too simple minded for all this level 1-3 business ........... as far as i can tell there is nothing common between warren buffet and allah ditta other than the fact that they belong to the same species (some would even doubt that) ........ angelina joile is doing a fine job - and she looks darn good doing it - but there is no way she can `identify` with the starving women in the sudan until she has walked a hundred miles without their shoes and watched her children die of hunger ......... i am not knocking the good work these people are doing - god bless them - but it is a stretch to say that somehow they share a common `identity` ........... just last weekend i risked my life by getting up on a ladder to put back a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest, but that does not mean i will be growing feathers any time soon .............

Hamidm: #55 Actually, warren buffet understands allah ditta and his issues much better than most desi babus do. That is why he gave away $37 billion to help alleviate the kinds of problems allah ditta mentions rather than to build up a dynasty for himself.

While desi babus rant at the ``level 1`` of identity I mention (i.e. their own sweet selves first, their children next, their tribe, nationality, ethnicity, religion and so forth), there is a vast number of western people who see things at level 2. when angelina jolie came to pakistan, she went straight to meet the poor people actually affected by the earthquake - and turned down politely invitations by the high and mighty of islamabad to join them in their partying. when i used to work for an international agency, i would see desi colleagues sticking to 5 star hotels and meeting high and mighty officials in ministries, while western colleagues would make a dash straight from the airport to the rural areas and spend most of their time roughing it out and chatting with the ``allah dittas`` - and they would then come to the capital much more knowledgeable of ``allah dittas`` issues than the desi babus sitting in air-conditioned offices wearing suits and angling to get their kid admission at harvard.

now on chowk, i see desi babus at it again - indian and pakistani babus seeking their identity at level 1 (i.e. the superficial level) as ``muslims`` or ``hindus`` or so forth. Mocking poverty in the other country. talking about ``islam`` (like urstruly and echoboom) when islam has nothing to do with their superficial mindset.

No sir. Warren Buffet sees Allah Ditta as a fellow human. While desi babus (including those on chowk) see him as a non-entity. And yet, we will all one day find ``two paces of vilest earth`` to be the common denominator for all of us.

Re: # 53


tahmed,

....... you are mistaken if you think that warren buffet and allah ditta could ever find common ground on anything ..... here is how the conversation would go:

warren: al, what do you think about the reinsurance business ?

allah ditta: both my cow and my wife are pregnant - i hope she gives birth to a kati this time

warren: you want a daughter ?

al: no, no ... god forbid .... i want a female calf so that i will have another milk cow.... but i want another son so that he can take care of my cows .... daughters are just a burden

warren: al, what do you think about me giving all that money to bill ?

al: i need money .... maybe 5000 rupees, so that i can buy some chara for my cows and wife and six kids

warren: bill is going to find a cure for malaria

al: i had malaria last year and almost died and now i think my youngest son has malaria - i think he is going to die

warren: what is malaria ?

al: they say mosquitoes carry this disease, but i think it is being spread by the jews and hindoos

warren: what is a hindoo ? i don`t think we have have mosquitoes in omaha, but i saw them in alaska - big as birds

al: i don`t know what a hindoo looks like either but they tell me he looks real scary and drinks the blood of little children .....


warren: really ? ..... does he spread malaria ?

.................. at last they find common ground ...........................

thanks swarrier. i`ll see, if i could find the book you mentioned.

soysauce: There are many layers to one`s identity. What you refer to is our outermost identity, which I agree is dynamic in the sense of shifting between various dimensions like cultural, professional, gender, and so on. And only sometimes does the ``religious`` or ``nationality`` dimension come to the fore: at international airports, voting booths, tax time in case of the latter. The richer the life an individual leads, the more dynamic his identity becomes.

But peel away this outer layer, and go to the second layer : here you get a more stable identity - as human being (the level at which Shakespeare`s lines on ``two paces of vilest earth is room enough`` operate). Here is where I beg to differ with you. I think this is a vastly more interesting layer than the outer layer. Because it is at this layer that females finally achieve parity with males; Warren Buffet of Omaha, USA and Allah Ditta of Okara, Pakistan become the same (as Buffet to his great credit obviously realizes...). Most interestingly, the internet gives us the ability to operate at this second level - and yet most of us are unable to let go of the single-dimension identity we cling to.

Things become even more interesting at the third layer which takes us a step below our common humanity. This is where we start to see ourselves as just one of many forms of conscious beings. This third layer has always fascinated thinking people. This is the level at which Bulleh Shah in the 17th century was operating when he wrote ``bulley shah ki jaanaaN maiN kon``. This is the level where mystics operated, as do hindus seeking union with the Supreme Consciousness. And this is where we are going to undergo changes as progress in genetics and medical science allow us to grasp what mystics over the past few thousand years could only dream of. And these advancements are now on the threshhold of altering our long held notions of mortality.

So, to restrict one`s identity to one aspect of the outermost layer only (which is basically what calls for a ``muslim identity`` or a ``pakistani identity`` or an ``indian identity`` impy and which is what we end up doing most of the time on chowk) is to be virtually oblivious to our real indentity.

Long post. But you know what happens when tahmed starts blabbing..... :-)

Warriorji
I found Lahiri uninteresting but the fact that she has struck a chord with a great number of people means (a) they don`t find her narrow and limited, or (b) the limitedness is the charm - it probably lends an exotic flavor to her writing. I find Dostoyevski`s locale and characters strange and mysterious but then on those instances where I can relate to them the experience is simply exhilarating. The feeling is similar to my wanting to do a surya namaskar when I see the sun bursing thru dark clouds.

Re: # 50
Hamdim
She`s done a lot of things, she was an architecture student , and then made ./or scripted some films. She made a hilarious film about her stay in the Delhi School of Architecture ``How Annie gives it those ones``. She took to writing much later. She may never bring out another novel. Seems to be better known as an global activist nowadays.

I have not read the Namesake. Only Lahiri`s first book and all the stories in the New Yorker and I began to feel that she was doing the same thing over and over again. But I guess one should not read too many short stories together. There is this feeling of the same thing over and over again.

Everybody has one good book in him/her . So Tahmed may surprise you.

Re: # 49

..... `god of small things` was simply wonderful, with great imagery and choice of words - as far as i am concerned arundhati can make up all the words she wants ......... but is she a one book wonder ? ....... lahiri is a great story teller and `namesake` struck a chord with me and, to tell you the truth, scared the crap out of me - i have always been petrified at the thought of dying on the road ............ these women have done a great job in drawing on their `identity` as desi women to tell tales of universal `human` experience like love, betryal, bigotry, the pain of growing up, parenthood and so on - i don`t imagine tahmed can write anything like it even though sometimes he acts like a big woman !

All this talk of identity ought to drive Nasah sa`ab up the wall. It was just on the other topic that he was complaining and moaning about Sybil Syndrome. I wonder what he`s thinking now. -)

I will be interesting to read this collection of essays, especially since it is not limited to the immigrant experience. It deals with stories around the world.

Sometimes I get the feeling that this writing about the immigrant experience can get very limiting. I find for example that Jhumpa Lahiri`s stories have the same setting and foundations with slightly different shade. I did not even think that all the stories in ``The interpreter of maladies`` were terrific.

Re: # 39
Raw_Dust.
I used to think that one of the reasons the book was lapped up by so many people was that it spoke of a different land. Those of us used to writers from Kerala did not see the landscape as novel, though the language itself was . Then again there was the marketing .
If you are interested try reading O.V.Vijayan`s ``The legends of Khasak``. The English translation is available. Keep in mind while reading it was written long before Marquez was translated into English and became fashionable.
I`ve not read Rushdie`s ``The Moors last sigh``. I`d like to see how he handled stuff there.

Arundhati Roy made a couple of good movies before the writing days.

#45 tahmed32
The key is does one go around life thinking of oneself as one thing or another all the time? The answer would have to be no. The identies are dynamic. If I met you in person, I`d probably see you not as (just) a fellow human (that would be banal) but as someone from the same geographic location as mine, sharing certain cultural and other interests. That is one identity that we both share. If the two of us were stuck in a crowd of women I might see you as another man, and so on and so forth.
There`s absolutely nothing wrong with this and it is the dynamism of identities and the accompanying crises that is the basis of some great writing.

Since there is no brouhaha in the press about this book yet, so I am assuming that you failed to insult Islam enough. I am palnning to read it anyway, when I see it in the bookstore.

#41 soysauce. I had mentioned in my earlier post what I mean by the ``human experience`` , and I quote: What`s more, even in between birth and death our everyday concerns as humans (economic concerns, health, personal relations and so forth) are vastly more significant than our concerns as ``muslims``

If we existed purely as nicks on chowk (!!), then perhaps it would be true that our being ``hindu`` or ``muslim`` takes on significance. But (by the Grace of Lord Allah Q. Bhagwan), we are more than mere nicks. Its just that on chowk the range of issues that attracts the most discussion is extremely narrow - basically india-pakistan politics.

But thin about it - do you really go around in real life thinking of yourself as hindu or muslim all the time. Surely we have richer lives than that.

Re#34:hamidm:
``to look at them and hear them talk, you begin to wonder if evolution really works ...... ``

well, in that case evolution theory does fail spectacularly. infact, this could be a testimony of Allah`s existence afterall and Her sordid workings (arranged, forced marriages and all that)... `tis a very important aspect of Dubya`s WOT imo, by taking in on Allah sanctioned mating practices... :-)

#41 get mad? Not at all. The question remains tho, what`s the ``human`` experience here? It cannot simply be death for all living things die, eventually. Or look at your own posts where you label someone a hindu this or a muslim that. Clearly you`re stereotyping which gives that person a certain identity.

Re: # 34 hamidm
[...you don`t really need a headband, four clips and six rubber bands (aka ponies) to hold your hair in place ...]

How do you know that?.... and what the heck is a white pump?.... Man - you are getting a little too metro-sexual .... be careful - brokeback mountain may not be far away from there... :)))

soysauce #36 I guess you are right. For hindus a small ashtray is enough. :-)

(Just kidding. Please dont get mad).

Ms. Saidullah: I realize now that you have already written the book, and it is published. Since I had merely glimpsed at your article before writing my original post on the subject - I had assumed that you were in the process of starting to write a book. And thus gave what seemed like good ``advice`` at the time, but I now realize is now actually quite gratuitous since the book has been written.

I did go back an read your article above carefully now - and if you wrote the book with as much feeling as you wrote the article above, then I am sure you have done a superb job at it. I wont promise I will read it (I mostly read non-fiction nowadays, and am already way behind in my reading of books), but I will read rahulmal`s review which he has promised to do.

Anyway, congratulations on finishing the book. And I enjoyed reading your article above (when I finally got around to it).

swarrier:
i liked it and was lucky to get my hands on it in karachi when it came out in `97. Although, i think book is massively over-rated like the way people specially young crowd back in karachi tend to latch on it - the other big craze is paulo coelho.

roy`s book although fairly decent produced a whole line of wannabe mostly young female desi writers. I consider awful kamila shamsie as roy`s progeny, lit-wise.

Re: # 21
Raw_Dust , do you like Arundhati Roy`s `God of small things``? I thought it was a good book, not a great book.

sorry, i was rushing earlier. i forgot to say congratulations on your book-coming.

Best wishes.

#18 tahmed32
Hindus (& zorastrians) don`t need two paces of earth and therefore there is no shared ``human`` experience here.

Jawahara,

Many congrats on the publication! Looking forward to the novel. I`ll review that for Chowk :-)

the company of women ...

........... according to mrs hamidm and the girls, desi men are rude and crude, loud and obnoxious, uninteresting and opinionated, unkempt and slovenly (icky!), and generally quite undesirable ......... of course there are a few remarkable exceptions which include me, mrs hamidm`s brother and sharukh khan ......... and even though it hurts me to admit it, the girls are right on the money - even i prefer the company of desi women to that of pot-bellied men in various stages of baldness, with spindly arms and hairy ears, who sit around grunting and scratching as they discuss pakistani politics and religion ......... to look at them and hear them talk, you begin to wonder if evolution really works ......

.......... generally speaking, desi women look cleaner, better groomed and seem to have a better sense of fashion - even female code coolies from down south soon figure out that skirts are not supposed to be attached to their bras and that white pumps do not go with every thing in their wardrobe .......... within a couple of years of landing in the civilized world, they even come to the realization that you don`t really need a headband, four clips and six rubber bands (aka ponies) to hold your hair in place ! ....... on the other hand, their menfolk continue to .......... well, we all know what we are talking about here, so there is no need to go into all the lurid and disgusting details ........

....... but what is more important is the difference in the mindset and attitudes of desi women and their men (baggage) ......... more later .....

#32 thanks for that - I do realise that, and I sure many would also realise that, and see the wisdom of your words. OTOH I also sure that there would be some who would not.

OTOH I take umbrage, since your words are the most unkindest of all to that great statesman, Jinnah. Thanks you for this ;-()

I now have to wait for satisfaction - since the HLS is not taken as yet!

#31: Ironmask, we are not living in the 1930`s any more, unfortunately. What might have been groundbreaking then is sadly regressive now.

Re: # 29 you are wrong here Ms Jawahara. In Pakistan, the founding father Jinnah, had a clear vision of what he wanted from women, and where he wanted them. He put this into practise and this is still present in modern pakistan. Yes even after all the propaganda about the extremists and the presence of the jihadis. This is a result of clear cut vision, andthe educational institutions such as AMU.

No less an expert on Jinnah and the nationalism behind pakistan - our very own Mantolives , has this to say

It was the exponential rise of progressive Muslim nationalism of the Aligarh variety in 1930s, based on the twin planks of modernity and reform brought the common Muslim woman out of seclusion and into mainstream. It was around this time that Shaista Ikramullah became the first Muslim woman to earn a PhD and Abida Sultan became the third woman pilot in the entire Islamic world. Both were ardent Muslim Leaguers and later served Pakistan in several official and unofficial capacities. But more than this it was the Muslim League and its leadership that for the first time asked the common Muslim women to shun “chador” and “char dewari” to become part and parcel of the political struggle. It had all begun with the Muslim League resolution in 1932 promising complete and total political equality to women. Later the League became more active in supporting Muslim women’s liberation. For one thing Mahomed Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League, had been an activist for the Suffrage movement in his student days in London. He was genuinely distressed to see the state of women in the Muslim community something which he alluded to on several occasions. He famously said:

``No nation can rise to the height of glory unless your women are side by side with you; we are victims of evil customs. It is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within the four walls of the houses as prisoners. There is no sanction anywhere for the deplorable condition in which our women have to live.`` (taken from the US Library of Congress report ``Pakistan - A Country Study``)

taken from < a href=http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=115710>Feminist dimension

Re: # 17

tahmed32 on June 28, 2006 3:45pm PT
>>>#16 That (i.e. this ``not liking`` someone on account of his skin color or nationality, white south African in this case) merely indicates that Black Africans are no saints either when it comes to racism.<<<

T Sahib… I think you misunderstood the example of David Lipschitz I cited. Your notion that Blacks are not saints goes without saying. No one is. This real life example was not about racism, it was about ‘mistrust’ of white South Africans that was (very understandably) a result of the apartheid South Africa. And being a “White” South African (of the Afrikaner) was really not a very pleasant thing in the 80s London (if someone has witnessed it firsthand as I did). Just as you wouldn’t find a Hasidic Jew at Palestinian parties at the dorms at Columbia or NYU. It has nothing whatsoever to do with racism. Peoples’ guards generally go up for fairly ordinary things that collectively make extraordinary.

I think despite our differences, there are some common grounds everyone can find to write something about, as our own Jawahara did, and as what Soysauce was alluding to. Hell, I have more in common with our own Masad Sahib than I do with the US Elite. We both wear cotton.

bjk #24: I have no idea who`s getting paid what and it really is not important. Plus, this book is not my novel which is coming out in a couple of months. This was an anthology published by an American publisher. Two different projects. Alas! No free copies but I am sure Amazon is offering discounts...at least free shipping.

About Identity: This is a thorny one. Like everyone else I have many disparate identities and I write at different levels and from different places. While this piece was about my own life and, was therefore, personal, I guess I did write it from the narrow Indian Muslim woman living in US persona because that is what the anthology demanded. My novel was written with no such conscious persona but I am sure it is no less informed by all my identities. As others have already said here, writing is infused with the identity (identities) of the writer. And when it is read, the reader`s identity and persona infuses his/her understanding of the content.

Dr. Sohail, as a not so religious person (ok, not at all religious) I would trade women leading prayers at Kaaba (and no I don`t see that happening any time soon) with them not being treated as chattel, getting equal rights in Muslim countries and not being killed because of misguided notions of honor. I don`t think that`s happening any time soon either.

Thanks for the good wishes everyone. I wish I had free copies to send around but I can`t :-(.

Will respond to more interacts later. Thanks for reading and thanks for (at least now) for not letting this devolve to a Pak/India bashing session.

hamidm #20 So, you refuse to accept my allegation that Shakespeare rings true while ...Urstruly (for example) does not!!

I would accept this premise if Shakespeare had migrated from UK to India and spent his life bad mouthing India (which of course would put him at least at par with Urstruly who performed his hijrat in the opposite direction).

PS: Apologies to Urstruly for dragging him into the discussion - but you were too useful in illustrating what I meant to hamidm.

And you say you re-read the lines a few times and still didnt appreciate them. Reciting something 20 times is not equivalent to appreciating it - if you dont believe me, check out the maulvi is has memorized lines from the Quran but ignores everything it says.

I myself have found the wisdom of great writers (not just Shakespeare, although he alone has enough wisdom to last a lifetime) to be very useful -As a young man, Othello (which was the only play other than Henry IV that I was forced to read in Government College Lahore) taught me the wisdom of not getting too excited over those cuties in MA English or MA Fine Arts (although I did end up getting married to one of them). Later on, when I felt let down by my own colleague at work, I just smiled and repeated these lines from King Lear
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man`s ingratitude

I challenge you to find lines from Urstruly that you would find useful in similar situations.

bjk #24 Ignoring your posts is not equivalent to being foul-mouthed. And referring to hindu nuts like arjun who think that they are ``paki bashing`` when all they are doing is writing gibberish like a monkey as monkey-men is not being foul mouthed.

Now shake your head in agreement, and run up the cocunut tree!! :-)

hamid #20
some of shakespears`s work can be real pain, apart from romeo & juliet i really used to look forward to my drama class and one of the most beautiful girls in my class janet winterton used read those memorable lines `romeo, romeo where art thou`.

Re: # 21

``i think, this identity/diasporic blah is a special boon to displaced wannnabe writers.``

Raw -- Jawahara is no wannabe writer -- she is an established Indo-American writer -- who helps wannabees to become writers....

Her book Shakti has sold all its copies on Amazon.com with the readers reveiw of 4 stars out of 5......bravo!

Jawahara,

While all these clowns beat around the bush – pretending to sound intelligent and – oh so “intellectual” – let me ask the question that is on everyone of these jokers’ mind – but they are too timid to ask.

The real question is – are they paying you more dough than Shandana?

Oops, wrong question!

Let me try again!

Are you going to give away any free copies?

Scratch that, too! Are you going to at least give a hefty discount to the first one hundred buyers? First ten buyers? First one buyer? Me?

DARN!

PS: The only thing more disgusting than TAhmed being foul-mouthed is TAhmed reciting poetry!

Darn! Darn! Double Darn!!!

``We are all born human and we all die human(tahmed)

tahmed -- profound -- want to be more profound -- then you may say we are born 99.8% Chimpanzee and die 100% Chimpanzee`

-- want to be exceptionaly profound -- then you surely can say --``We are all born fungus and we all die fungus`` -- (``The yeast genome is closer to the human genome than anything completely sequenced so far,`` said Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Center for Human Genome Research (NCHGR))

.....Sheik pir sahib or no Sheik pir sahib.....

oh how i forgot: continure to #21...Beckett or Kafka OR Virginia Woolf.

i think, this identity/diasporic blah is a special boon to displaced wannnabe writers. Shakespeare, Goethe, Tagore etc. werent writing about identities cos they werent displaced. Joyce did move away but his stuff was never about a place or a culture. Those things were just secondary. He was going for finer, abstract things than details of a culture. Same is the case for american writers, Carson McClures or Flannery O` Connor or Pynchon - they didnt write identity BS.

So, there is a difference. Writing about identities of displaced, isolated and lonely individuals surrounded by alien cultures, That is what this diasporic lit. supposeldy go after. And frankly the whole topic is limited, tedious, stale and stupid if a writer isnot talented.
Displacement and alienation are themes when explored with some pizzaz tend to produce Beckett or Kafka - otherwise we get wannabe arundhati roys.

Re: # 18

tahmed,

......... i read this over and over again .......

When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound;
But now two paces of the vilest earth
Is room enough

............. so what ?..... what is so profound about it and why is it written in such a unnecessarily convoluted manner - trying to impress someone ? ....... reminds me of poser khalid !...... didn`t bahadur shah zafar say something similar ?......... and would it make any sense to a beggar who has no idea what a kingdom is, or a heathen who has no idea that you are supposed to bury dead people ?........and what if you think spirit is something you drink to get happy ?!............. utter nonsense and gibberish !

......... i have always maintained that shakespeare is a hoax that has been perpetuated on mankind long enough - it is time to dump the huckster ! ........ in any case, my point is that it is impossible to write anything meaningful without refernce to your `trite and superficial` identity .......... shakespeare, the knave, wrote his garbage about kings and princes because that`s all he knew ... and no, he is not the greatest genius mankind ever produced just because your english teacher said so !

and one more thing on #18: compare the lines of Shakespeare (which deal with the ``human issues`` of life and death) with lines from....say Urstruly (which deal with the ``muslim issues`` of Palestine and Kashmir). Which one rings true?


I rest my case.

hamidm/soysauce: Was either of you born with your ethnicity, linguistic group, nationality and so forth stamped on your respective (and respected) foreheads? I dont think so.

We are all born human and we all die human - and separate forms of burial for muslims and hindus doesnt mean a thing to the worms that come with forks and knives to feast on our precious bodies (the only difference being whether the body is deemed by the worm to be rare vs roasted and well done in case of muslims vs hindus). What`s more, even in between birth and death our everyday concerns as humans (economic concerns, health, personal relations and so forth) are vastly more significant than our concerns as ``muslims`` or ``men`` or ``women`` or even ``desi immigrants to the west`` let alone as ``muslim immigrant women in the west`` (which is basically what this whole genre of books Ms. Saadullah is constraining herself within refers to).

That is why I call such issues trite and superficial. While one may legitimately use one`s immediate experience (which of course is that of a muslim woman living in the west) to provide authenticity to a novel, the issues being dealt with must be more fundamental.

To illustrate what I mean, check out the following lines:

When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound;
But now two paces of the vilest earth
Is room enough

The above has to do with a basic fact of humanity: that ultimately we all need ``two paces of the vilest earth``. The fact that the man who wrote these lines lived 500 years ago in UK of a different ethnicity and religious background than you or I and on a subject - about an english prince in Henry IV makes no difference - this rings true to us. This is what makes this great literature.

That is all I am saying.

#16 That (i.e. this ``not liking`` someone on account of his skin color or nationality, white south african in this case) merely indicates that Black Africans are no saints either when it comes to racism.

In fact, the the term ``Black African`` covers a vast diversity of human beings, and the current day ``Black South Africans`` are themselves descendant from bantu Africans from the north who wiped the area clean of the original inhabitants (the hottentots and their ``click`` language, which is as distinct from bantu languages as urdu is from chinese, being the last remnants). So, no one has a monopoly on victimhood in history. (I know you didnt need this lecture, but I thought I would toss it in in any case for the benefit of anyone rushing to condemn my first para. above which goes counter to the ``desi intellectuals``).

Re: # 15

Soysauce Ji, I am aware of that.. but being a White South African didn’t sit very well loads of international college students in England, particularly Black Africans.

#14 Kulhareeji
South African jews were in the forefront of anti-apartheid movement just as american jews were a significant presence in the US civil rights movement.

It’s very interesting.. in college in the 80s in England, I knew a guy (David Lipschitz). He was White Gay Jewish South African. At that time London was a hot bed of political apartheid protests, stuff… so you can imagine how this guy must have felt being there… I later learned that he changed his name to David Lifton. Good move.

Congratulations to you Jawahara, and I want an autographed copy.

If I have read about another desi female talking about the hardships of being female, desi or one religion or another...I am going to throw up. ....ewww...I just hurled. :(

#11 Ah shucks, there, not their, etc..

#6 Hello, how about paki identity or hindu identity? Are their other identities besides our common humanity? Then why not a muslim identity or a muslim women`s identity? It`s like a Venn diagram where each circle touches and overlaps many other circles. The author`s collective experiences, in her own estimation, apparently overlaps those of other muslim women. What`s wrong with that?
Great writing happens when you write unencumbered by ideologies. Sounds like that`s what the author has done. What you`re recommending on the other hand is so inauthentic.

Re: # 6



.......... i think you are totally wrong about the ``shibboleth`` of identity - it is not ``trite and superficial`` and most ``great`` writers including student-torturers like shakespeare, dickens and joyce restricted themselves (almost entirely) to their experiences as part of some ``artificial grouping`` of one kind or another ........... groupings are not artificial - just as you and i, inspite of our best efforts, cannot help acting like pakis (and making a fool out of ourselves), most writers are what they are and cannot, and should not, write about things and people that they do not know or understand ........... a crow walking like a stork looks ludicrous ........

............. do you think coetzee could have written ``disgrace`` if he hadn`t been a south african and had first hand experience with apartheid ?....... do you think anyone other than vs naipaul could have written ``a house for mr biswas`` ? .... what about ``a bend in the river``, which is perhaps one of the finese books i have ever read - i doubt a writer born in stratford and who never went further than london could have written it ! .............. and i just finished reading ``a god of small things`` for the second time - what a great book - now, do you think it could have been written by somone who did not have a distinct identity as an indian woman ? ......... without their unique experiences as part of some distinct group ``generic`` humans are as capable of writing as chimpanzees .....

yes, shakespeare`s universal appeal is contrived, manipulated by anglophone imperialists and highly exagerrated ! - i think he is insufferable and should not be inflicted on innocent children !

..... and when you try to write with an adopted and cultivated half-baked identity you come up with crap like: ``you`re a better man than i am, gunga din!`` ..... of course, he is a better man .... you idiot !

Congratulations and all the best. I look forward to reading the book.

Dear Jawahara,

Congratulations on being part of an anthology that helped you overcome the existential

isolation of a creative writer. It seems you have multiple identities. Which one do you

feel as your primary one...being a muslim? being a woman? being a human being?

I find it interesting that there was a time communities were matriarchal and we had words

like mother tongue and mother land and only those children were considered jewish

whose mothers were jewish but then men took over and like their property tried to own

women and not only asked them to take their names but also transformed their gods

from female goddesses of the east to the male gods of the west...now in christianity

christians consider their god as FATHER rather than MOTHER. In my opinion middle eastern

culture had become patriarchal that is why Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all

patriarchal religions. Do you believe a time will come when Pope will be a woman and a

Muslim woman will be able to lead prayers in Kaaba?

I liked the passion in your article. Congratulations....sohail

#1 Nasah: I think you are lumping all Muslim women into one monolithic whole. Like any other group there are many, many different types of women. I don`t think you will find apologists or women unaware of the realities of what it is to be Muslim...and a Muslim woman in particular, in this book. Yes, there are problems as you describe in your email. It does not mean we do not live other lives and have other realities than just being brutally oppressed. It`s like someone bringing up the salt pan workers of Gujarat every time we talk of India, Inc. Both are realities (and there are many in between), both exist.

Ms Saidullah: I question this shibboleth about the ``muslim identity`` or the ``muslim women`s identity``. I question it because I think that like any other distinction based on religion or ethnicity or nationality or language, it is trite and superficial. The greatest writers in the world, the one`s whose words resonate in our hearts despite centuries of elapsed time between the time they wrote and the time we read them, have been those who have not been content with restricting themselves to any such artificial grouping. Shakespeare comes to mind when I say this.

Perhaps if you tried writing with your identity as a human being as the starting point as well as the ending point of your book, and used your first hand experience as a muslim woman as being only incidental to it - you will end up writing a great novel as well.

A few islands of hope in the Ocean of Gloom.... All the best

good luck, writer!

i will reserve my comments until i have read your essay ......... but i am sure that by that time this board will have degenerated into the usual indo-pak dungfest (since bj has already shown up, i can read the chai pati and fortell the coming cyclone in the tea cup) - but at least you have managed to sell one book ...........

......... good luck

I am no writer – but the way I see it, writing is highly personal. As human beings – with all the limitations which accompany being one – writers can be a bit like trees – their roots digging in one area of earth and it being virtually impossible for them to be seen moving too far from where they grow. I suppose the trick is to tap into the right current underneath – like you seem to have done here with the women – and the “Muslim” part seems quite incidental. The trick seems to be not getting stuck in the rocks!

That would make the writing VERY tedious!

There are alternative scenarios, of course – that writers could be just plain lazy!

Now that is a-muse-ing!

``For those who think of Muslim women as black-swaddled, faceless, silent and repressed, this book will shatter myths. It is a snapshot in time and history of women who refuse to be defined by the larger world around them and who refuse to give in to pressures. They are the voices of resistance, more so because most live normal, every day lives even as they struggle on a daily, ongoing basis. And, because of that......(Jawahara)

.....if they don`t get brutally killed for resisting....as this story would describe one of ``Muslim women as black-swaddled, faceless, silent and repressed`` in Denmark.

COPENHAGEN: Nine Pakistanis living in Denmark were on Tuesday found guilty of taking part in the so-called honour killing of an 18-year-old woman who married without the consent of her parents, the media reports said..

Ghazala Khan was shot dead by her brother with two bullets in the heart in September 2005 just outside the train station of Slagelse, west of Copenhagen.

The prosecution qualified the murder as an honour killing, the ninth in Denmark in the past decade, but the brother insisted the death was accidental.

Khan`s husband, whom she had wed secretly, was seriously injured in the attack, thought to have been carried out in the belief that her marriage had tarnished the family`s honour.

Seven members of the dead 18-year-old`s family, including her father who ordered the killing, and two family friends were convicted of murder and attempted murder.

Their sentences are expected to be announced on Wednesday.

Strict security measures had been taken for the trial. The case had prompted an intense debate in Denmark on arranged marriages and so-called honour killings.(Reuters)

In my view -- for the `` Muslim women as black-swaddled, faceless, silent and repressed`` from India to Denmark to Canada to USA -- there is absolutely no need for the pluralism shit -- as an excuse for ‘multiculturism’ to tolerate decadent practices of Muslim Sharia –

India should ban and abolish the goddam decadent Muslim Personal Law -- without ifs and buts -- as a dastardly weapon of gender cruelty employed against the Muslim female by the Muslim male -- and must force the Muslim family to abide by the same secular laws that the whole country abides by.....

The same should be done by the Western countries for Muslim women – that is to liberate them from the backward tyranny of fathers, brothers and uncles – keeping the female in virtual ‘family’ slavery -- in the West.....period.