Happy Mother's Day

We looked up, synchronized and discreet. The family that had walked over to the grave in the far corner looked Arab, the women with hair covered and long flowing robes. The two women were crying. The younger one looked about Mom's age, in her mid-5os. Her cries were deep, full of grief and on the border of hysteria. The older woman was in her late 60s maybe. She knealed down, pressed her forehead to the spot where the foot of the grave is. The younger woman followed suit, wailing, touching her head to the dirt, and afterwards, she broke down, one hand on the soil.

It was the grave that was buried directly after our mother's, soon after June 2nd. This Muslim burial plot sequentially buried people, one right after another. There grave would have sequentially been the one right after. And it was after all Mother's Day.

My two sisters stood stoic, one on either side of me, as we stood alongside our mother's grave. I was the crier of the three of us, and as soon as I heard the grief in the other woman's tears, mine flowed silently down my face. Is that what I looked like? Is that what I was feeling inside? Does it never get easier, this loss of a mother, even when at an older age?

I looked back down at the dirt covering the grave. Grass hadn't grown, and the dirt was piled on in a row. It was less severe than before, weathered and lower than the fresh grave that was right next to it. And I noticed it, right there. A red ladybug was crawling in the dirt, bright and quick. It knew not of the grave situation it was in. I was momentarily distracted, eyes following the path of the ladybug.

Maybe that was it. Maybe that was today's takeaway life moment - that where there is death and dirt, if you look closely enough, if you move on enough, there will be life and beauty. Maybe the ladybug was there for a reason. 

Everyday I'm Tumbling

Since the closing of Sepia Mutiny, I found that I needed a Desi music outlet. There was so much good music I had discovered and I had no platform to share anymore. So after much hemming and hawing, I started a new tumblr site w/ a couple of my all time favorite-ist people in the world - JugalBundi and TacoTruckasaurus. Mishthi Music will be a place where the three of us will be posting short and relevant (or irrelevant) music posts of the South Asian diaspora.  (“Mishthi”, for those not in the Bangla know, means “sweet”.)

We’ll post just about any kind of a music related post, as long as it is remotely Desi-related. We may post videos, we may post music, we may interview people and we may do album reviews. Who knows, but you better follow to keep up. If you have music we should link to, please drop us a line. If you wanna join our ragtag crew and write with us, drop us a line.

Also, in case you are not up to speed - I have another tumblr site too: Mutinous Mind State. On this site I curate political images of the Desi American diaspora. To check out all the images over posted, be sure to click on "archives" on the site.

Please be sure to follow me over to Misthi Music and to Mutinous Mind State. Just be sure to click "follow" link up on the top right hand corner.
 

And don’t worry - I’ll keep posting here too. This site isn't going anywhere. 

 

Last Touch

I slipped the cover over the metal rods. I had owned this butterfly chair since I was in college, and it had gone through just about every apt of my twenties I could remember. I stopped being able to sit in it, one of the corners having ripped. But I loved it, and used it to throw my clothes on top of. For the past few years I had safety pinned the rip together but it still wasn't enough to keep it together to safely sit on. I needed a chair for my new place, so I decided to drag it out of my parents' garage yesterday and drag it to the new apartment. Too old for butterfly chair furniture, too broke to afford much more.

I looked again for the safety pins that held my rip together, just to see how bad of a shape it was in. The safety pins were gone and replacing it were tight stitches holding the cream cotton cloth together. I frantically looked at the stitching trying to understand what had happened. It was blue and cream, tightly bound. Who stitched it together and why didn't anyone tell me? I touched the blue thread gingerly, trying to see if I could tell by the stitches alone if this was the work of Mom or Dad. I looked close, at the back stitch that Mom had taught me herself, back when I was little. It was the same simple stitch I'd use to make clothes for my dolls or sew pillow toys with.

It had to have been Mom.

Love, Loss, and Love Again

It's been a wild emotional roller coaster doing the publicity around Love, Inshallah:The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women - a book that is 4% me. I wrote up about it over at LoveInshallah.com. Take a look.

“Have your parents been supportive of your participation in this book?” It’s a question that comes up at every book reading. Based on the tone, I can tell if they’ve read my chapter or not. If they have, their tone is hushed and secretive, like they know my dirty little secret.

I choke every time I’m asked this question, tears welling in my eyes instantaneously. One of my last memories of my mother is of her telling me that I needed to overcome my writer’s block. My mother was often a character in the stories I’d tell – I frequently shaped my narrative through her eyes. But I couldn’t share this secret, non-fiction love story with her and I was genuinely scared about how she would react if she read it.

Read the rest of the post by clicking through here. 

Last Words @ Sepia Mutiny

Cross posted in entirety from Sepia Mutiny. 

How do I say good-bye to a site that gave me space to explore my identity with words, gave me the training grounds to build community virtually, and allowed me the opportunity to influence political and advocacy issues affecting the South Asian community? How do I say good-bye to a site that allowed me to build so many real friendships with so many of you? I never would have imagined that when my mother passed away so suddenly nine months ago, that a large percentage of people that reached out were people who found me through this blog and remembered stories I had written referencing her. I never really  understood the power of words this community held until those dark moments.

These past few weeks I’ve been grappling with exactly what Sepia Mutiny has meant to me in the past six years I’ve written for the site and have been playing musical montages in my head of my favorite moments. Six years – longer than any job or relationship I’ve ever had. This site provided a much needed space to dialogue and develop the South Asian American identity and, in many ways, set the benchmark with how the community voiced ourselves. I always approached blogging on this site with three things in mind – 1) write about the Desi-American experience, the narrative I was yearning for, 2) a 1:1 ratio of pop to politics posts, and 3) find the marginalized Desis and give them space. And of course – the self pep talk before every remotely Muslim post - “Fuck all the trolling Islamophobic haters – as long as they’re commenting, there’s an important reason to keep blogging.” There was always that.

To commemorate – let’s list, shall we? So here we go. My top ten most influential moments here in the Sepia Mutiny bunkers…

Honored. Let's Pay It Forward

2011 was the toughest year of my life. There is nothing scarier than losing your mother, hands down. After this year, bring on the Zombie Apocalypse. I'm ready. But surprisingly and unexpectedly, this past year also taught me how beautiful life is if you take the chance on it. Have faith in the journey, love, values and your passions - and the universe will surprise you with opportunities. You just have to take it.

This month, the Asian Pacific Americans for Progress (APAP) has honored me as one of their top 11 APAP Unsung Heroes of 2011. I am incredibly humbled for this recognition, particularly since my activism this past year was almost completely done outside the traditional structures of "professional mainstream activism."

Thank you to Zahra Billoo for the nomination and you can read Olivia's beautiful blog post here: http://www.apaforprogress.org/apap-2011-unsung-hero-tanzila-taz-ahmed

So, I'm not really sharing to brag. I'm sharing because a) I have a competitive personality b) there is a fundraising component to the award. The organization I have chosen to receive donations on my behalf is Bay Area Solidarity Summer. In 2011, myself and a handful of dynamic Desi radicals organized a 4-day political camp to educate, engage, empower and politicize a new generation of Desi teens, We created the kind of camp we would wanted at their age, tying in personal narrative to Desi activism history; hiking to environmental justice; islamophobia, gender identity and racism to direct action. AND GUESS WHAT? We are doing it again for 2012 - we are in the planning stages to get BASS 2012 for this summer off the ground!!

Your donation on my behalf will allow for BASS 2012 to happen. 20% of the funds will go to APAP (a great national player and voice in AAPI politics) and 80% will go to BASS 2012. Please click below to go directly to the donation site BEFORE APRIL 1. Want to donate MORE than $20.11? Feel free to adjust the amount. 

Spread the word! We'll have other opportunities for you to volunteer, donate and interface with BASS - this is just the first of many ways to participate.

Thank you all for getting me here! This award is more yours than it is mine.

It's Published!

It's a bit of a whirlwind as Love, Inshallah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women was published today. My story makes up only a small 4% of the the 25 stories within the pages - but goodness, are those stories amazing as a collection. I just finished reading the book this week and I'm in awe. The book was featured in the New York Times today and the book is #213 of all books at Amazon!

Also today - I was profiled.

 Why were you drawn to this project?

As a South Asian girl in America, I was inundated with images of white people beauty and white people love stories on the big screen. At home, I was raised in a strict Bangladeshi Muslim household where the message was no dating, and when I got married it would be arranged to a Bangladeshi Muslim man. At school, while my friends went to school dances with dates, I was the perpetual wallflower who was never asked out. My perspectives on lust and love were in turn shaped by racialized concepts of beauty and orthodox familial pressures. I didn’t see examples of passionate love stories with Muslim, brown-skinned women nor did I think it was even possible. The best example I had was Jasmine from the movie Aladdin, and that princess was hardly an example to live up to.

It wasn’t until I was well into my twenties that I fell in love (multiple times) and found faith in my own way.  I was drawn to sharing my story in Love Inshallah because I wanted girls to realize that Muslim women are strong, beautiful, and passionate. That Muslim women can love, lust, wreak beautiful havoc and struggle to find their deen all in the same breath. I hope that this book can be that beacon of inspiration and dreams for some other girl out there.

 You can read the rest of the interview at the book's website right here! And be sure to pick up the Love, Inshallah at a book store near you today!

Hijabi's on Ella's Voice

Dan Ancona talking with Lowes manager.

Much love to Oakland's Ella Baker Center for Human Rights for letting me share with them my #HijabiFlashMob experience on their blog Ellla's Voice:

A #HijabiFlashMob – at least that’s what we were calling it even though there was no actual dancing involved. In its literal interpretation, it’s a sudden mob of women in hijabs.


A “hijab” is the head covering worn by some Muslim women as a sign of faith, humility, devotion, and sometimes even a political statement. The premise behind having a flash mob of women in hijab being that the hijab in the “West” has turned into such an icon of fear and righteousness for islamophobes in this nation that the mere presence of many women in hijab standing all together would scare the bejeezies out of them.

Read the rest of my post at Ella's Voice through this link! 

When I Needed You Most

I want to start this year off right. This isn't a fundraising pitch. This isn't an effort to get you to sign my petition or register to vote. This is simply the first of many love letters I hope to write this year (one of my 2012 New Year's resolutions) - this is a letter to let you know that I love you, I appreciate you, and I'm grateful for you. I'm going big, broad, sending this to everyone that touched my 2011 life - apologies for the impersonal nature. 

2011 was not an easy year for me and my family (you can read about my year here). June 2nd changed our lives drastically when my mother was suddenly taken away from us. I struggled with the grief and chose to wear it on my social media sleeve, tweeting and facebooking throughout. I don't know why I chose to be so public with grieving- maybe because I found comfort in hearing stories from other people who had experienced the same set of circumstances. Or maybe it's because my mother has always been an inspiration for my writing and activism and so many people had already built a relationship with her through my words about her. It just seemed natural.

There's something amazing about community. It's a built family, created with people who have crossed your path and for some reason they chose to stick around. As a community organizer, I work to build community. But I never in my wildest dreams expected that my community (that's you) would be there to catch me when the ground under me was pulled out and I was free falling - in the way I was caught by my community (you).

So this is my thank you. To every one of you that sent a card, or flowers, or books or food. I cannot tell you how alone it felt and how each one of those cards helped my family feel just a little less alone. To every one that called or tweeted or facebooked or texted. To the people that flew and drove for miles to attend my mother's funeral, especially to that person on twitter that I never even met who came. To every one that made sure that I was fed, that I left the house, that I was sleeping. To every one that helped me travel between Oakland and Los Angeles visit my family. To every one that sent me and my sisters job openings. To every one that humored me with uncomfortable questions about signs from beyond and seeing loved ones in dreams. To every single one of you that sent us a contribution - I can't tell you how scared I was about the family finances, how many bills were in the red the day Mom died - you literally helped keep the electricity on and a roof over my family's head at a time where we didn't know how we would economically survive. To every one that gave me a shoulder to cry on, an extra long hug or a squeeze of my hand - it just helped so much to know that I wasn't there experiencing this alone. Thank you for taking care of me and more importantly, thank you for helping me take care of my family.

Lastly, thank you for reminding me to have faith in my community. That our work as leaders, storytellers and advocates are tied directly to our personal lives - politics is personal and the personal is political - they are intertwined and rightly so. We must remember that the reason why we advocate is for humanity - these are real lives, real beings that we are fighting for on the daily. We are the 99%. My mother was Teamster who worked in the airport parking lot just so that she could have health insurance for her family. She was an immigrant Muslim from Bangladesh who came to the US for a better life yet always felt like a second class citizen. My mother will be a constant inspiration for how I write and advocate and I hope to continue to live her legacy well.

I appreciate you, friends and strangers alike. And somewhere Mom is looking down also appreciating you too, and grateful that I have a community with you.

Love,
Me

P.S.
Do me favor - if you genuinely felt loved from this - pay it forward. Write someone an e-mail to tell the you appreciate them too.

2011/2012

2011 Year in Review:

My mother died.

I can't really remember what happened before June 2nd, or what happened after June 2nd. Sure, I was invited to the White House and shook hands with the President. I instigated two hijabi flashmobs, one in a room of right wing reporters where our back up was Lt. Dan Choi, and another again at Lowe's in San Francisco. I worked on editing an essay which will be published in an anthology with other dope Muslim women next month. I helped to empower 17 amazing South Asian American youth to be radical leaders. I worked on repealing affirmative action, promoting civil rights, replacing the death penalty, and assessing South Asian American community issues. I hosted a webinar to assist people to be educating in moving their money out of big banks. I PR-ed pies, and cookies, and a play hearting Hamas, and a play empowering Janaki, and a gypsy Sikh hip hop album, and a dreadlocked Sri Lankan rasta, and an animal  haired singer songwriter. I was tear gassed at Occupy Oakland while taking back the streets, the ports. I prayed Eid in East Oakland behind a student of Elijah Mohammad. I collaborated with Muslim, queer and fabulous activists to put together an amazing Islamophobia Zine out next year. I interviewed amazing people and wrote about a bunch of issues on Sepia Mutiny and Taqwacore Webzine. Inspired by political poster culture in Oakland, I started collecting political art of the South Asian American, leading my new Tumblr site Mutinous Mind State. I saw Harold and Kumar inside the White House and had DJ Rekha over at my art party. I danced with second line ghosts in the 9th Ward of New Orleans, and ate cheese curds in the Mall of America in Minneapolis.

I wrote poems. I painted.  I painted a whole lot. I did not write as much as I wanted to, as much as I needed to. But I did paint.

I sorted saris. I counted prayer beads. I shredded more envelopes of unopened bills than I ever want to see again. I drove to the thrift store countless number of times getting rid of her clothes. I sifted through stamps upon stamps. I flipped through pictures upon pictures. Boxed up jewelery. Wrote thank you cards. Vased flowers, and threw out flowers. Ironed my sisters clothes. Held my sisters as they cried. I cried. Boy, have I cried in 2011. I didn't think it was possible to cry so much. I prayed. I prayed so hard it scared me. And I sat. I stared out aimless and just sat.

Stunningly enough, this year I survived. 

2012 Resolutions:

1. Write
2. Love
3. Occupy My Life
4. Write Love Letters
5. Look people in the eyes.
6. Believe/ Faith/Pray

#OccupyLowes with a #HijabiFlashMob

A #HijabiFlashMob - at least that's what we were calling it even though there was no actual dancing involved. In it's literal interpretation, it's a sudden mob of women in hijabs. The idea started this summer in response to street harassment that a group of hijabi women experienced by right-wing bloggers in Minneapolis. So in response, two days later we gathered Muslimas and allies, handed out scarves, wore them as hijabs and stood ground where the right-wing bloggers were meeting. The idea being that the hijab is such an icon of fear for the right that the mere presence of many women in hijab all together would scare the bejeezies out of them.

For this weekend's #HiajbiFlashMob, we held our action at the Lowe's in San Francisco, to support Lowe's boycott and send a message to corporate that we were upset that over the pulling of ads from the reality show "All-American Muslims." Though many companies had pulled out their ads from the show, Lowe's was the only one who admitted to pulling out because - "We based our decision to pull the advertising on this research  after hearing the concerns we received through emails, calls, through social media and in news reports." The right wing fringe Christian group that Lowe's was responding to? Why that was a Florida based group that didn't like All-American Muslims because it portrayed Muslims as normal people and not as terrorists. It went against their beliefs of what the facts on Muslim Americans were. So we boycott.

It was a rapidly planned action - it was decided Thursday night at a local South Asians for Justice meeting and was planned for Saturday morning. We gathered Muslims and allies alike, sending - women dressed in hijab and men in kurtas and the allies dressed like the average American shopper. The plan was, instead of dancing, we would send in the allies first. They would fill up their shopping carts and kick it near the registers. Ten minutes later, a mob in "Muslim garb "would show up. We'd have a spokesperson speak loudly about the ills of Lowe's and the mob would split up, to hand out flyers to the customers. Our "plants" would react shocked, engaging the manager and other customers in conversations. It was more guerilla theatre than anything else.

We gathered a block away from Lowe's Saturday morning. There were about 20 of us and about half of us were "brown". We hung out for about an hour, getting on message and waiting for people. At 11:50 we sent in our group of shoppers. It was then that I had a moment...

Up until that moment we were a multi-culti group of civil disobedient activists on the sidewalk. But when the allies left, all that was left on the sidewalk was the group of South Asian, Muslim clothes wearing "mob".  My heart started to beat faster. I felt the cars that were driving by were glaring at us. Our allies provided a sense of safety and when they left, I was left with a feeling of vulnerability. In my head I knew that they didn't abandon us, they were doing part one of the action. But I still was shaken up by how it felt like a target was on our backs as soon as they left.

The "Muslim Mob" followed in 10 minutes later, our allies disguised as shoppers waiting by the registers. The action went off without a hitch - almost too easily. We handed out our fliers. Conversations with normal customers were had. The manager on camera said that Lowe's wasn't racist and that they hire people of all race (which is my favorite worst argument for being not racist). Cops were not called. It was in some ways too easy to occupy the space in Loewe's. It made me think we could have pushed a lot more and done a wilder action.  It made me also think if it was this simple to OccupyLowes then maybe, we should Occupying other places too.

It is clear to me now more than ever how important it is to have allies support Muslim and racial justice action oriented spaces. They don't just provide a legitimacy to the campaign, the solidarity felt is important for everyone's minds and hearts too. As Muslim/South Asian Americans, we are often other-ized by the mainstream press and community and in identity driven organizing we often seek solidarity in identity based empowerment. But it's important to reach out and build with our allies to, because they'll have our backs when we most need them to.

It is also clear to me now more than ever that we need to act. Whether it's on a frivolous issue like a reality television show or whether something more serious like the stabbing of a Sikh man at the Fresno airport, it is clear that islamophobic and xenophobic hate speeches are having an effect on the average American's behavior. This needs to stop. . And if it means occupying space with a fun hashtag or if it means consciously buying your goods from a locally sourced store, so be it. Be vigilant, build community around love and act with solidarity. 

Your Hair is Haram

I think I may have misinterpreted the whole Muslim thing – I didn’t realize that I had to be baptized by being thrown into a lake and have my girlish long locks hacked into a bob chop fashioned by a police chief to prove my Muslim-ness. 59 guys and 5 girls have been sent to a ten day morality camp in Bandeh Aceh, Indonesia – their crime, they went to a punk show. They shaved their heads and threw them into a lake…for a bath. This is their start to morality brainwashing.

Indonesian sharia police are “morally rehabilitating” more than 60 young punk rock fans in Aceh province on Sumatra island, saying the youths are tarnishing the province’s image.Hundreds of Indonesian punk fans came from around the country to attend the concert, organised to raise money for orphans. Police stormed the venue and arrested fans sporting mohawks, tattoos, tight jeans and chains, who were on Tuesday taken to a nearby town to undergo a 10-day “moral rehabilitation” camp run by police. [link]

My baptism wasn’t by lake water but by fire, avoiding the glares of the Christian fundamentalists with their barking dogs on the street corner protesting outside my American mosque, or getting pulled out by TSA in airport security lines. My Islamic baptism happens when I watch my back for hate-crimes when walking down the street defiantly brown in a white America or when I get told by drunk bigots at parties to go back to where I came from.  My boycott these days is of a hardware supply store for not supporting a reality show. That is the American Muslim punk baptism right there.

In America, being Muslim is an act of defiance. That’s punk. But what does it mean in a Muslim province with partial shahria law? If punk is relative to your environment, and the establishment is staunchly Islamic, does that act of being an anti-establishment punk push you further away from faith?

Read the rest of the post at the Taqwacore Webzine! 

Love For All the World to See

I didn't write it to make a political statement. I didn't make it to educate the masses. I didn't write it to provide a counternarrative to the mainstream.

I wrote it because it was a whirlwind of a romance, a once in a life culmination of everything I had passion for all rolled into the most amazing love. I was on a journey to incorporate it as a value into everything I did, and somehow I had achieved it. And I wrote it for myself because I wanted to remember it for myself. A year later, I was asked to contribute to an anthology which would have a collection of stories that were "the secret love lives of Muslim women." So I decided to share it for the anthology. Published by Soft Skull Press, the book titled "Love, Inshallah" is an anthology of 25 non-fiction narratives about love written by Muslim women. These are the secret stories, the ones that are real, magical, and humanizing. The book hits the shelves on January 24, 2012 - but you can pre-order your copy from Amazon right now. I am proud to be sharing the pages with 24 other women on such a lovingly demystifying project. I am also scared shitless.
 
Love is a scary thing to write about publically for a political activist and community organizer. Our words are our tools to create change, to advocate on issues and to create a community counter-narrative. Our words are coyly messaged to pull an audience into signing a petition, win sympathy on an issue or to reframe a dialogue. Writing about love - well that's a woman at her most vulnerable. People who play  in politics, and especially women who are fighting for a place at the table, are not allowed to be vulnerable, right?

Eye Contact Compact

I hold the hand held broken compact mirror up to my eye, so close that only one eye fits to reflect back. The whites of my eyes looked aged, brown spots and red veins creeping. I turn my head, move my eyes, to see other discolorations on my eye ball I may have missed, the softness outlining brown iris. Soft small wrinkles frame the corners, long black eye lashes shade from above. The bags below my eyes are now permanent, soft, tendered, discolored, just like my Nani's and Ammu's were.

I stare hard at my one eye. Did her eyes look like mine? I remember they were lighter, mocha colored eyes and mine were deeper, espresso-like. But did they look like mine, otherwise? When did the brown spots and creeping veins appear in her eyes? When did the softness outlining her brown iris blur? When did her eyes get lighter? When did the soft lines turn hard? When did she stop seeing herself? I blink hard, hoping that when open, it'll be her eye that stared back. It was just mine, squinting back.

The mirror was unhinged and the gold colored metal on the back was rubbed off till it was silver. It was the compact mirror Mom had carried in her purse for years. I had bought it for her the summer I went to Paris from a streetside vendor when I was 18 yrs old. I was going through an impressionist phase - the front of the mirror compact had a Degas field of blurry flowers. I couldn't afford much at 18 yrs old, but this I could afford. She carried it in her purse ever since that summer. On her breaks at work, she used it to pluck her eye brows or to apply her Avon eyeliner. For fourteen years her eyes looked into this mirror.

I salvaged it on my last trip home. I found it under my parents' bathroom sink, on a pile of cosmetic jewelery that was intended of the thrift store. I had picked it up, remembering vaguely that this had passed through my hands first. I pocketed it immediately, without giving a second thought, keeping it close, the way I kept all her "special things" close.


What did she see when she looked into this mirror? What reflected back at her? There's a certain magic in reflection and a certain power in knowing that this compact is what Mom looked into for fourteen years of her life. Looking at a mirror is vulnerable, stark, revealing. It's making eye contact with yourself when no one else will. She once told me that she stopped seeing herself when she looked in the mirror - she said it was like she was looking at someone else. So what did she then, when she looked in this mirror? Who did she see? Was her essence captured in the reflection? Did she leave a piece of herself behind in this mirror?

When did we stop making eye contact? Can I save it, is it to late? I'm looking for her, I'm looking and seeking. But when I look at the reflection, I just see my sad eye looking back at me. Can she see me? Wherever she is, can she see?

Six.

Six months.
If I was in a relationship, this is the moment where we'd have "the talk."
If I was pregnant, this is the moment I'd be showing and people would rub my belly.
If I had a job, this is the moment when I'd finally feel like I was getting the groove at work.
If I was in school, this is the moment I'd stop feeling like the new kid.

Six months.
This is supposedly when the grieving period is over.
This is supposedly when people have moved on with their lives.
This is supposedly when the tears are not supposed to brim instantaneously, spontaneously.
This is supposedly when she's supposed to fade away from appearing.
This is supposedly when all life insurance money should have been received.
This is supposedly when the guilt should have receded.

Six months.
I can't remember anything that happened before six months ago.
It's as if my memory slate was wiped clean.
But strangely enough, the past six months have been a blur.
How I got here to this day completely confounds me.
These months have moved like maple syrup and a shutter click.
It moved so slow, but here I am.
Six months.
But it feels like it was just yesterday.

Mom's Cooking

Ever since she died, I am drawn to the kitchen. I was never one to cook really. I’d have my signature dish of Paula Dean’s couscous salad, or the chicken pakoras (which is just fried chicken that was dipped in chick pea powder instead of flour), but I never really explored beyond that. If I wanted that kind of cooking, the big Bengali dinner, I could just go home for Mom’s home cooked meal.
But I can’t anymore.

I can’t see her. I can’t hear her. And even in my dreams, when she appears it is fleeting and not strong enough to stay remembered. I can’t even write about her. The words choke in my throat before they can make it to fingertips. So the kitchen draws me. I think maybe, if I can make that dish of hers, then somehow it’ll be like she never left.

I went to India with my Mom and Khala when my Nani died. I bought my Mom’s plane ticket. We spent the three weeks after the funeral hanging out in the house, cleaning through her things, watching Bengali soap operas. Mom spent a lot of the time sleeping. My grandparents had a “khagar lohk,” a guy that stayed at the house and cooked all the food. Rahul was only a couple of years younger than me, a guy that came from Asam to Delhi to work in the “embassy” household. My Nani would always scold him, in that way that cantankerous old people do. But he watched diligently and learned how to cook all of my Nani’s dishes. As far as I can remember, Nani was always in the kitchen with Rahul, not really ever trusting him to prepare the dish alone in there. After she died, for those three weeks we were there, Rahul cooked every one of my Nani’s signature dishes. Each meal - breakfast, lunch, tea time and dinner – was an elaborate showcase of the skills he had learned under my Nani’s tutelage. Rahul would take his bike across Delhi searching for the perfect maghur mach, data shag and the most colorful vegetables.

With each bite, my Mom would get so excited. “This is just the way Nani used to make it! I can’t believe it,” she’d exclaim. I know now that it wasn’t just a form of grieving that Rahul was sharing, he was giving my Mom a gift, what little he could, by sharing what Nani had shared with him. Sharing a legacy.

I sit here in my living room, the smell of beef curry pouring out of my kitchen. I’m skeptical that it won’t tastes like Mom’s and I know it won’t. Every ten minutes I go to the kitchen and lift up the pot lid to give it a skeptical look. I find that I spend hours where I should be working but instead I’m scouring the internet for Bengali recipes, hoping to find anything that resembles something that she would have made in her kitchen. Near the end of her life, she was tired and sad. She stopped cooking with joy and relied on the yellow boxes of pre-mixed spices from the Indian store’s shelves. But the Mom that I remember, the one that was vibrant and alive, she loved to cook. And she refused to use “garam masala” and “curry powder” and coriander powder. She rarely toasted her spices, and definitely never ground them. And she put fresh dohnia – coriander leaves – in everything. She’d make shaag which was just another term for “greens”. But her greens always came out right, even though she just sautéed in oil, garlic and onions. Whenever I try to do it, it never tastes the same.

Tears welled up as I chopped the onions, ginger and garlic. Why did I not ever learn how to cook the basic beef thokeri from her? I had watched her countless of times chopping meat in the kitchen – but never learned because I was so insistent on cooking simple and healthy meals. I could make a great salad. Traditional Bengali food was drowned in oil. But, here I was, with two pounds of halal beef defrosting and a recipe off the internet to guide me. It didn’t even sound Bengali – it sounded Indian. It wanted me to grind the spices in a spice grinder. I’d never seen Mom cook with a spice grinder and had no clue where to even look for one.

When Mom was alive, I used to call her for recipes as I was in the kitchen. “I want to make your salmon stew! What should I do?” I’d ask. She’d walk me through the process in a very casual manner. “It’s very simple! You get some onions, fry them in a pot. Throw in some fish, and some turmeric and that’s it!” she’d say. “But how much?” “You know, some. Measure it with your eyes. Andagi khorah,” she’d say to my frustration. Andagi is just another way of saying intuition, but having never cooked this dish, I had no trained intuition for the dish. So now I have a cupboard full of Desi spices and no andagi to go with it.

It has been 2.5 years since Nani died and .5 years since Mom died. And all I could think about as I chopped was how jealous I was that Mom had Rahul to cook for her. Jealous because here I was all by myself in my Oakland apartment trying to piece together some resemblance of what Mom used to cook for me. I wished so desperately that I could call her, to ask her what I was supposed to do next in the recipe because I was certain, so certain that I was doing it wrong.

So I called my Khala instead, who’s personality was more precise than Mom's. She walked me through step by step, ¼ teaspoon of this, ½ teaspoon of that. Yet still, I looked skeptically on as I watched the spices get thrown on the spattering oil.

The beef is done now, having simmered over the writing of this entry. I almost don’t even want to eat it, sadness having engulfed my appetite. It’s almost as if I wanted to cook just to fill the house with aromas that reminded me of Mom and that’s it. But I know I will, poured over the rice made in a bag. And it won’t taste like Mom’s. But maybe, it’ll be close. Maybe she’s watching me and maybe she’ll be guiding me. And maybe, just maybe it will be close. Maybe she’ll be close.

21. Let Time Stand Still

Pause.
Stop.
Wait.
This can't be my truth, can it?

.......... "Take it back!" I sob into the phone. "Take it back!"

Wandering lost and aimless
In the home I grew up in.
Mind like a seive
Unable to latch onto much of anything.

.......... "Take it back! You didn't mean it! She's fine!"

In this time pass
Time stands still in perpetuity
Denial of time from doing what it does best -
ticking forward.

.......... "She was just sick! The doctors are going to fix her! TAKE IT BACK!" I screamed.

Life spins around me
But I can't seem to catch onto it
Lost in myself.
I pause, not knowing what I started
I start, not remembering why.

........... "Please, take it back. This can't be real. Pleasepleaseplease take it back...."

My truth has changed.
The ulitmate universal paradigm shift.
An explosion so big,
My world's axis tilted,
Just a bit.

........... "Take it back...." I cry into the phone, even after I hear her hang up.

Minutes pass. Hours pass. Days pass.
Months pass. MONTHS.
Time stands still.

Pause.
Stop.
Wait.
Let it be still for only a moment
Before my world exploded.

........... I sob into dial tone, screaming at an empty phone.

20. Come Back

Portishead snakes through morning mist
Dreams disappear into the sunlit cracks in the blinds
And into the beyond
Before memory grasps.

How then will I know if she was here?

19. Where Are You Now?

Does that make her a ghost?
Or is she just gone?

18. Can't Box Me

Just try and see.
Next time you ask,
"What are you working on?"
I'll respond, "Sanity."

"What do you do?"
I'll respond, "Be."

"Where do you work"
I'll respond, "For me."


I cannot be defined
By the confines of such
Normative simplicity.
It's  not a choice,
This unconventionality.

So please,
Quit trying to fit me
In your boxed categories.

17. Love Me Dreams

It was but a mere fling,
A silly summer romance thing
Yet three years later it's suddenly him,
Who persistently enters my dreams.

I ask nightly for my mother to appear,
She's the only one I want to see and hear,
But it's been three months,
And nothing but empty dreams shrouded in tears.

But he. He vividly materializes behind closed eyes,
Comforting and loving like in our old times,
Feeling solid, absolute and genuine,
Dreams disintegrating the distance of real life.

Daily I fall asleep with anticipation,
To only be seduced by false seduction,
I wake in shocked gasps.
Alone, missing both, and lost in confusion.

16. Trust In The Story

This narrative driven life
Drives me to tears
As mercury retrograde falls constant
And is constantly suppressing
My liver yang qi rising,
Inducing spinning vertigo
But where this story goes
Only Allah knows.

I need a juju remix.
A karmic restart.
A chakra realignment.
A chi redo.

This
Perpetual glitch
In my matrix
Of unexpected risks
Where the road less taken
Is not a choice and
Takes me for a ride
Is exhausting and
With no sight of the storybook ending.

They say the Ultimate storyteller
Only tells tales
That the heroine can handle
But what if she can't?
Did Ammu's death come
Because she could handle her tale no more?

Is this life cycle on recycle,
Cycling a legacy,
A repeat of legendary?
How much more can I handle
Of this fated tale?
What if survival to normal,
Is just a story of survival?
What there's no happy ending,
Just a struggle for perpetual?

15. Un/Break/Able

Fragile
As if a simple touch
Could disintegrate this hollowed
Shell of bravado
Into lackluster dust.

Everything is scary
When impossible becomes reality
Shaking to the core
a  gut-wrenching impervious fear
Into a lifeless mess.

Tears
On the brink of gushing
Ready for the unready
Unable to brace
For the unexpected
Any more.

I question my strength/my bravado
Because a strong woman, a brave woman,
Would never feel this breakable.

Risk averse in life.
Life averse with risk.
So what does that make me
But a scared shell of
Fragile...

14. Words Escape

acrylic on canvass; Bhalou Thako

painting. 

sinking. 

painting. 

swimming. 

painting. 

drowning. 

finger painting. 

strokes. 

sweeps. 

colors. 

acrylics. 

canvas. 

brush. 

painting.

surviving.

13. Haiku: On The Margins

Laptop azaan sings...
Muslim outcasts pause silent.
Tears well. Iftar time.

12. Haiku: This Year

If every action
Has opposite reaction
This better be good.

11. Gasp

That feeling where I get an urge
to pick up the phone to call her
Because it just feels like I should
Call her to talk to her...

It's not that feeling but the
Feeling immediately after
When I remember that she's
Not there to call anymore.

Like a punch to the gut
Every. Time.
Every. Day.

10. Forgotten

Sometimes I forget the tragedy of 'what is'
Is overshadowed by the tragedy of what was.

Sometimes I forget that she's freer now, happier now,
Is better than the weight of sadness she had been trapped in.

Sometimes I forget that I loved her,
Doesn't have an end date and that I will always love her.

Sometimes I forget.
But it hurts to remember.

9. Haiku: Losing Time

Where does my time go,
Spending all my time alone?
Muse in vertigo.

8. Fevered Missing

When I was sick as a toddler,
You'd rub Vicks on my chest,
And run a brush through my hair.

When I was sick as a child,
You'd put ice in a bag wrapped in a towel,
And put it on my forehead till the fever broke.

When I was 18 yrs old with a lump in my breast,
You held my hand through the examination,
And were there when I woke up up groggy from surgery.

And when I was sick as an adult,
I'd call you with my symptoms,
And you'd give over the phone anxious ridden medicine suggestions.

And when you got sick,
Which you never did,
But this time you did.
I wasn't there to take care of you.
And you left.
I never got the chance to try to save you,
To take care of you the way you took care of me.

And now I'm feverish and sick.
And all I want to do is to call you and tell me it will all be okay.
But I can't.
And I don't know how I will ever be well again,
Without you by my side.