MOving.... I am moving....if you come still manage to come here to read my crap, you can move on to www.tanzilla.wordpress.com Now let's see when word press would get banned! See you on the edge of the brave new world!

Life’s Threads held Together by a Scotch Tape! He apologized and said that what happened won’t happen again. I forgave him, why? There is no alternative. Was this the reason I accepted him? No? Yes! Frankly I don’t know! Its just that I have realized that the further you go, thicker the water gets, the weirder the people get, higher the expectations go and lower the standards get. Someone told me not long ago: Life z a bitch. We make compromises; we settle up for the 2nd best after our disappointments and then realize that even that 2nd best is not workable.” But the doubts are there, as it’s not about the incident but the psyche that goes with it. Someone who doubts too often, some one who said he didn’t care for looks but does. My life and sanity seem frayed at ends, held together by a scotch tape, a band aid.

An Untitled Life Thank you, how simple words of familiar strangers become your lifeline. Couldn’t sleep, pray, pee even yesterday bcz of seeing how hard my mother was taking it, of how the parents keep rattling every pre-engagement detail, in order to find out some sign of deception. And I am tried too, still try to recall the person’s words and actions, But the best part is that my parents agree that it can’t go on. These people are trying to get away with so many things (or maybe it’s their idea of a normal relationship), just under the engaged banner. They would want to get away with murder if they would find make the legal claimants upon me. The initial outrage gradually turned into the dread and compulsion of telling people that it’s off, when you have just stopped sending of the methi. Yet we have to face it. But bfr that, it would be about letting the cat out of the bag, allowing the in laws to reveal their true intentions and not just send smoke signals. But in my heart of heart, I know it’s over. For a moment, I fooled myself into thinking that it was easier the second time around. No it isn’t. Today I had a really important session to conduct in front of a full class of nosy adult learners. Couldn’t do it, but couldn’t escape and then it was useless trying to do that. So, I did it feigning flu, whenever that helpless feeling and misery ebbed over me. It was damn hard. By the time, I ended I was shaking uncontrollably. Was in a mood to break down back in my room, but then there were people sitting in the room that I share. Resisted! That’s the way it is – at the moment. I know whatever is happening is happening for the better, yet I feel tired, yet I feel outraged for being doped, for being taken along for a free ride. When would it end? Where is the point when it starts getting any better? There is far more heart ache out there, then I have endured. Yet the part about counting the blessing still doesn’t lessen the pain.

Drowning in a Cesspool of Lies This is the place, where I unwind, unleash…. Reveal the deepest thoughts, feelings, emotions --- emote, enact the randomness of this insignificant life from behind the mask. The mask isn’t effective enough, as sometimes, I write an entry and decide that it’s too raw to be put forth, to be shared. As saady said…some things are too weird, too personal to be written down, shared. Om once stopped me from sharing an eve teasing encounter of mine. I am glad that he did. I am still perfecting the art of hiding things from my parents (as if my mother can’t read the pain, fear and desperation, the dullness that my very soul, every pore of my body exudes – her face reflects the same, yet she dares not ask). Sometimes, there are things; one has to hide from oneself – lest the significant other reads your thoughts, one that would fuel his insecurities and rage. You want to escape from the pain, the futility of reflecting upon a thing that’s beyond one’s control. I even I am touched with everyone who responded to my last post. Thank you for the prayers…..for the good wishes…. Yet my need is such that it isn’t going away. Resisting since one week, today I succumbed to the power of sedatives, and yet sleep and peace still seem miles away...my mind and body are still numb…The last week has been pretty intense emotionally. My in laws and fiancé have dragged me thru hell and they are still doing that. Society has given them that power. I would have accepted this behavior, had they been hailing from a village. Never in my life have I felt this much humiliated by anyone - my in laws' demands. They claim to believe in god, but they have even reduced istakhara to a sick and cruel joke. They have blackmailed me, and I have gotten blackmailed, just bcz I know that my parents cannot handle any more stress now. They want to be happy, although they don’t know that this happiness is short lived. Screw the hisbah bill, the kind of blackmailing and emotional tortures that go around in the lives of middle class women, who is chronicling those??? Life has come to full circle, I am standing where I was standing 4 years back, in a ditch, maybe this time it’s even deeper. Were those people worst, or are these? Only god is my protector now…..i have just performed the ubulation and now I am going to recite surrah yaseen, and then would try to sleep. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Update: have told my parents on saturday as to what is going on, they agree that this cannot go on and is a sorry shape of things to come. Nevertheless, things are to be settled. How? I dunnow. Shock and disbelief is there, bcz the change in attitude became apparent within a span of 24 hours after engagment. The idea that is often being given is: "if soemthing came so smoothly in our hands, then there has to be something wrong with the thing. That's why it was left around that long." And the outrage is that the "thing" is "me". I dunnow anymore to how to go on. I know taht i would. But i dont know how to carry my parents thru this, yet again! i just dont know!

Engaged … to One’s Fate! Women - when they enter new relationships, make a commitments, widen their circle, bind new ties, do they really embrace new people, give them access into their lives, or do they abandon themselves further to their fates? Do we get engaged to guys? Or do we get engaged to our fates? Life’s burden is already heavy enough. Responsibilities to carry forth, people to take care of. Where the “I” would only be allowed to be important in the silence of your bedroom, upon the 25th hour. There are lighter moments here and there, but then the quintessential loneliness rules. It rules even now! They, those around you, those so-called ‘well-wishers” tell you always that if you are alone, single, then it’s heavier - they think that u r an idealist, either that or you are plainely a lesbian. You finally take the plunge - another one. Yet it still is lonely, it still is dark. Darkness that u can't cut through - heavy, heavier, thick, thicker... So why does it still feel heavier, when you acquire the ‘twain part’, the significant other? It does because then as your dowry, you get a truckload of expectations, duties, rules, and insecurities. His insecurity, the inlaws’ expectations, your parents’ expectations, your relatives’ expectations. There are whether's: Whether this is proper or that? Would this look or that? Would they like this or not? Then comes the should’s: You should do this and not that. You shouldn’t say this, wear this, go there, talk to so and so; basically, you shouldn’t feel. And if you do, don’t say it. Don’t show it! Then comes the What if’s: What if this happens, what if that happens, what if all this is an elaborate lie, a mini dream in a siesta or a prolonged nightmare? Forever…? Why do my shoulders feel even more heavier now? Why do my independence, tastes, indulgences, quirkiness and the “so-called” emotional intelligence seem like a threat? Why the mentioning of the mere word trousseau give me a panic attack? Why does the lil piece of fairy tale seem to be a cacophony, the third act of a freakish play? Why is it not about you and me, and us, and why is it about your relatives and the whole damn world! But then who are you? A voice at the other end of the world, an image? Just a voice, just an image, a feeling…the feeling or a mere feeling - ironically getting hazier now! Where is the 'happily lived ever after in my fairy tale?' It would be there na? Someone assure me plz! Or would I be cheated, would I be let down again? Who ever said that it would get better or easier the second time around? I have taken a plunge into the dark…pray that I swim and not sink!

Insecurity Knocks from Time to Time Let it in For a Cup of Coffee. Talk With It. Understand It. Then take a Sugar Spoon and Poke It into the EYE.

Hiding in Another Dimension I know! I have been away; I was hiding in another dimension. I still am. One foot here and the other - in oblivion. Ramzan has made me every bit a procrastinator and sluggard. The combination of perpetually low blood sugar and low blood pressure makes me really really wozzy; hence, I end up dragging myself from home to work and back to home, into the kitchen, out back on to the prayer rug. This is how, life’s rut takes over the pretty and the extraordinary and turns it into the mundane; and vice versa. And it is in this ramzan, I really learnt and practiced the meaning of patience in every sense of the word. The very first week was the toughest, I couldn’t feel the month’s blessing in anyway, I felt really miserable. I renounced the friends, who were trying to feed me philosophical theories. I hung by those, who offered me practical solutions. Sometimes we should spare each other all the philosophy and say instead….. “what’s wrong, need a helping hand?” By and by, things got better. But since my life always had a surreal and unreal quality, hence, things even if are on the verge of working out – they still would carry that a trait that’s almost filmy. Still, allah has blessed me in so many ways. I still get caught in between feeling to much, feeling too little; wanting everything, renouncing it all; the belief and disbelief. I know have got issues, not as many as others [self-praise – wink wink] but I nevertheless have em. People rightly say, once bitten, twice shy! But it doesn’t matter if it works out or not – the only way – is to go forward.

8th Oct came and went away. The same time, the last year around, was devastating. We were shaken out of our stupors and drunk slumbers – as a nation and as individuals. Remember the 600 girls buried under the collapse roof of a school/ college in Garhi Dupatta? Help came too late for them and too many! We cried! Remember the displaced Kashmiri girls discover in a police raid from Lahore’s hira mandi a month back? We look away! Really how long does it take to stay that way – in where you allow yourself to feel; feel and not judge! We all slip back into our routines. I did that! Maybe it’s humanely not possible to go on feeling sympathy for that long? Or may be it is that life has to go on! I don’t know what it is! There are weird justifications we give for such disasters. It’s the result of people’s sin etc, but what sin those young children that got buried in the debris committed? Who are we to decide on who’s sinful or not? This is what we have been feeding to our children. I was amazed to analyze this piece of data, from a child’s impression about why earthquake struck where it did:

Everyone says that Allah loves us more than 70 mothers and if He took the children, he would directly put the children to the Heaven It’s not the child or women or men, He only sees our sins. I think mostly the children died because a generation of children went to school and they didn’t know that a disaster will strike and nobody knew who will die, who will survive. When they went there, under the debris were bodies and pieces [sic] of small children and elders all dead. Allah loves children but the children who were not following the rules of Allah that, they were not listening to elders, not to their teachers, they were stealing things from their friends etc. They were not praying five times a day and not covering themselves. They were not respecting their elders. They did marriage among themselves. Allah loves everyone but when people do very bad things like stealing and robbing, hurting someone then Allah gets angry.

Why are we using religion to invoke fear in our children then mercy and bounty? Specially us who are watching things from a distance?