After I closed my music weblog on the 69th day of posting a song, something magical happened for the second time in my life. I was thinking about it since yesterday that it happened and when I decided to write it here, I realized that there are some experiences in life that unlike the title of this blog, repeat in one way or another, though that doesn't make them alike. I write it as a witness to remember, though I can't promise myself that I will learn from it and that's when the unrepeatability of the experience comes to the fore.
Has it ever happened that you found out that you were in a bubble for a while, protecting yourself from the existing realities? A bubble that floated in the air, carrying you over the clouds, leaving you with positive thoughts about things and people around you; a bubble that acted like a shield and helped you to avoid negative thoughts and to see people through rose-tinted glasses. Then suddenly that bubble bursts and you fall, you will most probably fall on a hard surface and will find it hard to get up. You will feel numb and it will take a while to understand you're no more in a bubble. Then you will feel pain in your body, a kind of withdrawal pain, in the most dramatic case, a kind of pain that a heroin addict might have while trying to quit. Then if you're strong enough, you gather yourself for a leap. Your vantage point when you stand up on your feet is different from the one inside the bubble. The rose-tinted glasses are smashed and you look at life with no filter in front of your eyes.
The best possible person to burst that bubble is the very same person for whom you put yourself in that bubble; the same person for whom you put those rose-tinted glasses on, for the sole reason of not destroying your good memories and positive thoughts about them. When that person bursts your bubble with a simple touch, you wake up into reality and see them the way they are, not the way you wanted them to be.
To go over the shock of the fall, the numbness and the pain, you have to overdose yourself with the very same thing that made you reminisce about the past and stabbed your heart. You have to overdose yourself with it and shatter your heart into pieces. Then you will feel like a patient who had just been recovered from a surgery; or a person who had just thrown up after feeling inebriated. The wounds heal and your mind clears, you're ready for a new view.
Through your fall, that person also falls and breaks like a glass and his pieces scatter away. Unlike your heart that is still alive with the blood that runs through it, and gathers all the torn pieces to heal your wounds, that person will never be the same person in your mind. No, you will not hate him, but you will become neutral as if he never stepped into your life; as if he never told you those rosy words; as if he never kissed you for half an hour; as if he never stayed in your arms the whole night twisting his legs around yours; as if you never felt feverish sitting on the couch, talking to each other, listening to music till four in the morning; as if he never touched his forehead saying "oh God" after seeing you on skype; as if he never gave you any of those compliments... Instead, you will remember how unnecessarily kind you were. You start remembering all those words and acts that hurt or disrespected you and you never thought about them until he burst that bubble around you and reminded you of what was going on.
After I recovered from overdosing myself for one day with THE song, my view was clear. There was no mystifying element about him and about what happened or didn't happen. There was no question mark. All was gone... It was time to sing.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Monday, April 29, 2013
Taken 2
I wrote this on April 22nd.
A friend once said that it's a sin to watch a decent film on the plane. So I decided to watch a Hollywood style movie (if you know what I mean) on my way back to Montreal from Edinburgh. I watched Taken 2. When I watched Taken a few years ago, the film did not have its Muslim vilification flavour. I guess a lot of things have changed since then. At the moment that I'm writing this, less than 10 days have passed from Boston marathon explosion and already a considerable number of Muslims have been the target of disdain by some ignorant people in the States.
Taken 2 is another cinematic attempt to vilify Muslims by taking advantage of the current political atmosphere against Muslim and as a consequence, it consolidates the existing Islamophobia.
For those of you who haven't watched it, in Taken the daughter of an x-CIA agent is kidnapped by a Albanian gang in Paris. Since Bryan's daughter is virgin, instead of being drugged and exploited as a prostitute, she is saved to be sold to an Arab Sheikh for a high price. Why an Arab Sheikh? Because some of them think that having sex with a virgin girl will prolong their lives. The gang functions in Paris since they have a connection with a corrupt former French agent.
In Taken 2, the story happens in Istanbul and we realize that the gang was Muslim when the father of the guy who kidnapped Bryan's daughter, announces that he wants to take revenge at the burial of his son, after saying some prayers in Arabic. Then we see Hagia Sophia's minarets, we hear azan in the background that all together prepare us for the theme of the movie and decide for us the hero and the villains. By the time the 3 members of the family are in Istanbul, we know that this innocent American family is going to be the target of kidnapping by some ignorant Muslims who are led by a father who is filled with feelings of revenge and hate. The daughter, Kim, has failed her driving test several times but she's a stunt driver in Istanbul's narrow alleys, drives like James Bond and passes in front of a train within a few milliseconds it crashes the car. Don't worry if you don't pass the driving test in America, you can still drive like James Bond in the Middle East! Your father keeps his cool even when your mother is hung upside down with a rope in a dungeon in front of him. He calls you, gives you the directions, tells you to detonate a few grenades here and there and guides you to his location with an accuracy more precise than a GPS. Heaven knows how he came up with that while he was blindfolded in a car. Oh no, I forgot, he's an American, a superhero, this is a piece of cake for him.
The movie ends with a happy ending where the family is reunited and everyone has a milkshake. How lovely! How innocent, how intelligent these Americans and how villain, revengeful and corrupt these Muslims are!
I wonder, I just wonder why we never see any movies about Rais Bhuiyan, a victim of hate crime after 9/11 who instead of hating Mark Stroman, the man who shot him and left him with severe injuries in his right eye, launched a campaign requesting Stroman's death penalty be commuted to life in prison with no parole (read more here.) Why there is no film on the outrageous Khandahar Massacre in which Robert Bales, the American soldier killed sixteen Afghan civilians, or similar events?
It's a sad reality. May we all be conscious of what's going on in this world and not be transfixed in front of the screens of leading film production companies.
A friend once said that it's a sin to watch a decent film on the plane. So I decided to watch a Hollywood style movie (if you know what I mean) on my way back to Montreal from Edinburgh. I watched Taken 2. When I watched Taken a few years ago, the film did not have its Muslim vilification flavour. I guess a lot of things have changed since then. At the moment that I'm writing this, less than 10 days have passed from Boston marathon explosion and already a considerable number of Muslims have been the target of disdain by some ignorant people in the States.
Taken 2 is another cinematic attempt to vilify Muslims by taking advantage of the current political atmosphere against Muslim and as a consequence, it consolidates the existing Islamophobia.
For those of you who haven't watched it, in Taken the daughter of an x-CIA agent is kidnapped by a Albanian gang in Paris. Since Bryan's daughter is virgin, instead of being drugged and exploited as a prostitute, she is saved to be sold to an Arab Sheikh for a high price. Why an Arab Sheikh? Because some of them think that having sex with a virgin girl will prolong their lives. The gang functions in Paris since they have a connection with a corrupt former French agent.
In Taken 2, the story happens in Istanbul and we realize that the gang was Muslim when the father of the guy who kidnapped Bryan's daughter, announces that he wants to take revenge at the burial of his son, after saying some prayers in Arabic. Then we see Hagia Sophia's minarets, we hear azan in the background that all together prepare us for the theme of the movie and decide for us the hero and the villains. By the time the 3 members of the family are in Istanbul, we know that this innocent American family is going to be the target of kidnapping by some ignorant Muslims who are led by a father who is filled with feelings of revenge and hate. The daughter, Kim, has failed her driving test several times but she's a stunt driver in Istanbul's narrow alleys, drives like James Bond and passes in front of a train within a few milliseconds it crashes the car. Don't worry if you don't pass the driving test in America, you can still drive like James Bond in the Middle East! Your father keeps his cool even when your mother is hung upside down with a rope in a dungeon in front of him. He calls you, gives you the directions, tells you to detonate a few grenades here and there and guides you to his location with an accuracy more precise than a GPS. Heaven knows how he came up with that while he was blindfolded in a car. Oh no, I forgot, he's an American, a superhero, this is a piece of cake for him.
The movie ends with a happy ending where the family is reunited and everyone has a milkshake. How lovely! How innocent, how intelligent these Americans and how villain, revengeful and corrupt these Muslims are!
I wonder, I just wonder why we never see any movies about Rais Bhuiyan, a victim of hate crime after 9/11 who instead of hating Mark Stroman, the man who shot him and left him with severe injuries in his right eye, launched a campaign requesting Stroman's death penalty be commuted to life in prison with no parole (read more here.) Why there is no film on the outrageous Khandahar Massacre in which Robert Bales, the American soldier killed sixteen Afghan civilians, or similar events?
It's a sad reality. May we all be conscious of what's going on in this world and not be transfixed in front of the screens of leading film production companies.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Granny, the house feels empty without you
Yesterday I called my dad while I was still in bed, before getting into town and discovering Edinburgh on foot. "I have a bad news for you" he said, making sure that my conference presentation was over and that I had already submitted my exams. My heart started beating fast. I was silent. "Your granny passed away two days ago," he said. I burst into tears. "We didn't want to tell you to distract you from what you were doing." For a moment, I thought how considerate of them but how distant I was from them.
Granny was my great grandmother, a selfless beautiful woman inside and out, who had stayed in home for almost twenty years, because she had problem walking, yet this imposed confinement did not make her grumpy nor did it create any sort of complex in her character. She lost her husband at a young age and never remarried. She was forever in love with him and because she was religious, she had one wish only, and that was to reunite with her husband "if I deserve to go to heaven" as she said.
When she talked about him, tears ran down her eyes. She lived with her only daughter and was the light and joy of the house. She thought about everyone and her arms was a refuge for all of us, her great grandchildren, her grandchildren and her daughter. I never heard her lie or give an unfair comment about anyone. She was an honest storyteller whom I always trusted without a shadow of a doubt . Whenever we were leaving the house, she said "I entrust you to the hands of God." I could never find an equivalent in my own words but I could feel the beauty of her words in the mind of a believer. It was the best kind of farewell. One could tell someone, "I entrust you to the powers of the good," or "I wish you safety on your journey," or "I wish you a safe journey" or… I don't know.
My granny was going to hospital back and forth in the past few months. Every time I called my uncle, I was hoping not to hear a bad news. She was suffering from heart, lung and kidney malaise. My aunt told me that when they were after the 13th day of the year (in Iran, the new year's holiday ends after the 13th day), she had told her: "now that the 13th is over, I can die; I won't ruin your new year's holiday." I sobbed when she said this. How thoughtful can one be to even think about the time of her death? My auntie also told me that the night before she died, she had dreamed of her husband telling her "you have suffered enough; it's time you come to me." She died peacefully the next day. Now that I'm writing these words on a train and watching the scenery passing the train by, I'm thinking about our journey in life, how life passes us by with all its good and bad memories, with the pains and laughters. We know about death, it's been there for zillions of years and yet we feel so weak and helpless when we face it, when one of our closest ones dies.
I was thinking about the first time I faced the death of a person whom I had seen in real, my father's uncle. It was weird and uncanny. I did not comprehend that he did not exist anymore, that he was simply not there and was not going to be there. I went around the house and came back and wanted to call him but kept silent when I realized that he was no longer sitting on his armchair.
It will still be the same when I visit my granny's house. I will still be searching for her in that house, on that chair near the stove where she cooked the most delicious foods for us, on the floor where she sat and knitted pullover and scarves, and on the leather chair she sat where I combed and plait her beautiful all white hair. I never wanted to think that I wouldn't see her when I said goodbye to her last year before leaving Iran. My granny, my sweet, kind granny, that house should feel empty without you. I don't know how I'm gonna enter it.
Granny was my great grandmother, a selfless beautiful woman inside and out, who had stayed in home for almost twenty years, because she had problem walking, yet this imposed confinement did not make her grumpy nor did it create any sort of complex in her character. She lost her husband at a young age and never remarried. She was forever in love with him and because she was religious, she had one wish only, and that was to reunite with her husband "if I deserve to go to heaven" as she said.
When she talked about him, tears ran down her eyes. She lived with her only daughter and was the light and joy of the house. She thought about everyone and her arms was a refuge for all of us, her great grandchildren, her grandchildren and her daughter. I never heard her lie or give an unfair comment about anyone. She was an honest storyteller whom I always trusted without a shadow of a doubt . Whenever we were leaving the house, she said "I entrust you to the hands of God." I could never find an equivalent in my own words but I could feel the beauty of her words in the mind of a believer. It was the best kind of farewell. One could tell someone, "I entrust you to the powers of the good," or "I wish you safety on your journey," or "I wish you a safe journey" or… I don't know.
My granny was going to hospital back and forth in the past few months. Every time I called my uncle, I was hoping not to hear a bad news. She was suffering from heart, lung and kidney malaise. My aunt told me that when they were after the 13th day of the year (in Iran, the new year's holiday ends after the 13th day), she had told her: "now that the 13th is over, I can die; I won't ruin your new year's holiday." I sobbed when she said this. How thoughtful can one be to even think about the time of her death? My auntie also told me that the night before she died, she had dreamed of her husband telling her "you have suffered enough; it's time you come to me." She died peacefully the next day. Now that I'm writing these words on a train and watching the scenery passing the train by, I'm thinking about our journey in life, how life passes us by with all its good and bad memories, with the pains and laughters. We know about death, it's been there for zillions of years and yet we feel so weak and helpless when we face it, when one of our closest ones dies.
I was thinking about the first time I faced the death of a person whom I had seen in real, my father's uncle. It was weird and uncanny. I did not comprehend that he did not exist anymore, that he was simply not there and was not going to be there. I went around the house and came back and wanted to call him but kept silent when I realized that he was no longer sitting on his armchair.
It will still be the same when I visit my granny's house. I will still be searching for her in that house, on that chair near the stove where she cooked the most delicious foods for us, on the floor where she sat and knitted pullover and scarves, and on the leather chair she sat where I combed and plait her beautiful all white hair. I never wanted to think that I wouldn't see her when I said goodbye to her last year before leaving Iran. My granny, my sweet, kind granny, that house should feel empty without you. I don't know how I'm gonna enter it.
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