The bitter sweet emotions of moving

I woke up quite early today and could not go back to sleep, that has been happening for a few days now. Mostly my brain is racing with all the things i need to pack up and stow away, give away, throw away interlaced with all the mixed emotions of leaving  the first home I bought with my better half and leaving behind friends who are more like my family now and than of course there is the excitement of starting a fresh in a new city which is always full of adventure and fun.
 I have moved alot all my life that I could give tips to a nomad. I have never stayed in the same house for more than 2 years. So This house was the longest I stayed in any one place, but more than the house it is the friendships I have made which pull at my heart strings right now.
 When I left Montreal I remember being a little nostalgic but a part of me was actually happy to be leaving all the cold and snow behind I could not have imagined in a million years how much i would come to miss that place.
After I got married I was still finishing up  my degree so I used to travel between Montreal and Vancouver a lot, every vacation I got I d fly out to Vancouver to see my husband. At that time he was the unofficial designated driver with a car so invariably our car would be full of his pals, that had irked me at times but very soon I started to make friends with all of them. There I would be sitting in the passenger seat giving them some lecture or the other on women psychology or on western living and in the process I got to learn a lot about computer programming, visa issues and the male camaraderie which is very different from the female friendships. While we ladies can pour our hearts out to our soul sisters, the gentlemen prefer the  time honored tradition of annoying the heck out of one another with jokes that usually target one poor soul at any given time.
 Very soon these gentlemen got wives of their own and slowly those ladies became closer to me than my own sisters.  We traversed the initial maze and emotional high and low of marriage together, I could never feel alone when I had so many wonderful young girls surrounding me and my life became a steady stream of organizing picnics, parties and potlucks especially the bacha kucha parties were the best.
 We used to go to so many places in our little car; Vancouver crowd as our 'group' came to be called  has so much bonding with each other, others would tell me.
  I am a pretty good communicator but at this time I am feeling so overwhelmed with emotion I do not really know how to verbalize how much each of my Vancouver crowd friend means to me all the beautiful memories we have had the privilege to make. I guess it was just everything the moving to a new place together and figuring out the in and out of a new city, the similar experiences of being far from home, being newly married, having our kids around the same time which had strengthened our bond.
I am very excited to go and live in a new place but I am also sad because no matter what things will change now because being in close proximity and being far always does change relationships and as life gets busier with kids and careers and other responsibilities our carefree roaming in our little green car will get further and further. I guess the difference is that when I had left Montreal i did not know how much I would miss my friends there but this time I know and yes we will visit and they will visit but we will not have the spur of the moment tea gupshups and the late night movie nights or the girl party as often.
 I know I am being aunty sentimental here but well that is just how I am and you know you love me for it right ;). You will miss me but I have a whole bunch of you whom I will miss so right now my heart is over flowing. Life is all about change and we should embrace it because growth is always at the end of our comfort zones. I just want to end with something a very dear friend of mine said to me when I moved from Montreal even if we dont meet as often, talk as often or even if we never meet again there is happiness in knowing that there will always be a person who has your best interest at heart and every time I will think of you I will send a prayer your way. May Allah shower his mercy upon you and give you his bestest and choicest blessings and may all your burdens be made light. I hope that if I ever pop into your mind you will send a blessing my way too.

hindsight is 20/20

 I am currently reading a book about post traumatic stress and man it is such a breadth of fresh air. It gives so much perspective on so many levels. Any one who has experienced a trauma, whatever sort it may be can relate that most of the time the biggest question we ask our selves and many a times others ask us, why did we let such and such happen. Understanding how our body responds under threat and stress, understanding our emotions and their manifestations, understanding the benefit and survival associated with our emotions and understanding the benefit and survival associated with our defense mechanism goes a long way in explaining to a person what had happened and why it had happened. It is only once one understand why something had happened and why we behaved a certain way that we can go on and let go of the event and change how our body responds every time it feel threatened or how we respond and perceive a situation if it reminds us of the traumatic event in some manner. IT IS A LIBERATING FEELING!!!! once such a thing has been achieved it is like a person is able to breadth again and is no longer a prisoner and at the mercy of their body and their emotions and its reactivity but more in control of how they choose to behave under certain condition.
I plan to write a blog about  PTSD/PTS as soon as I finish my book. One of the questions to consider is that usually a traumatic event is not just an isolated incident that comes and goes and one should just as easily forget about it, in fact the way our brains are wired the way we collect and store memories under stress are pretty much like brandishing the event into the brain so its almost impossible to forget the event, even if one manages to forget the details the body tends to keep score and it will keep manifesting its defenses every time it feels threatened through dissociation, panic attacks, anxiety, shaking, seizures and night mares etc. So it is important to associate the body's implicit memory with the brains explicit memory and make sense of the events.
It is a mistake to consider a traumatic event as a single solitary incident. Every traumatic event comprises of three distinct stages. 1) circumstances leading up to the event. 2) The trauma itself 3) the circumstances following the incident both short and long term and the time following the event is the most critical because the quality of contact and help the victim receives greatly influence the outcome of the incident onto the victim.
In most traumatic events the most potent emotions are of anger and fear but in terms of sexual abuse there is another component of shame. All these emotions have evolved for survival purposes but in order to find reconciliation from a traumatic incident it is important to let go and discharge these emotions. One can experience fear through crying, screaming etc. Anger through talking loudly, showing anger physically but there is really no outlet for shame unless one has a support system where a person feels safe and accepted. Most of the time the trauma for sexual abuse victims does not get resolution because they are ostracized and blamed for what has happened to them and never find the acceptance they need to resolve their issues.
 Any way, i ll write a more thought out post about this in a few weeks once i am done with my book. If any one is interested its called, "The body remembers, the psychophysiology of trauma and trauma treatment by Babette Rothschild."

Lets protect our children.

 A long time ago I had a discussion with a few friends about child abuse and rape and most of them were adamant that it did not happen and it did not happen in Pakistan. I wish that was true, I wish that we lived in an Utopian society where every one cared about each other and no one got hurt but unfortunately the reality is much more different. Abuse does take place and it is a lot more common than what we would like to admit.

Incidence of Child sexual abuse goes unreported to a very large extent but experts believe that 1 in 5 girls gets abused and 1 in 20 boys these are statistics I am quoting for the USA(1). Watching a program about child sexual abuse called Satyamay Jaytey, similar statistics were reported in India.
The statistics I was able to find for Pakistan are not that promising either (2) most of the time the abuse is done by people close to the child up-to 80 percent of the cases are by family member or servants.

  There is still cause for hope because at the end it is about empowering and education. If we are willing to educate our selves about these topics and help our children feel more confident we will be able to stop things like these from happening.  Following are some tips I came up with and a few articles which i feel are very beneficial on the topic.

   Sexual abuse does not only happen to girls, it happen to boys as well and the predators generally target children who are emotionally vulnerable. So the most important thing we can do for our kids is to ensure them that they are important, they matter and they are loved. To accept them and love them for who they are and the way to do that is to give them our attention, if your child comes to you to say something, look at him, turn towards him give him your 100% attention and listen to him and talk to him or her. When we make them believe that the little things are important they will come to us for the big things too.

   Lets deal with our own personal problems and give our kids solid marriages. I read a quote on time which said the best thing a father can do for his kids is to love their mother. Children are very intuitive they sense things and much more than we give them credit for if we have an unhappy relationship our kids sense that and it affects them a lot. Children automatically feel they are an extension of their parents and if they feel something a miss in the marriage and the parents unhappy most of the time they will conclude it is because of something they did and this can play havoc on their confidence and self esteem.

 Marriage is work and so is parenting and these things change over time from generation to generation so what worked for our parents may not work for us. Have the courage to get help if there are problems with the relationship or if you are struggling with your own issues, that is the mark of being mature and being an adult; taking responsibility for your self and getting help when needed, no one can do it all alone.

   Children who are in abusive homes are much more likely to be a target of abuse them selves.
"When traumatic incident is repeated as with physical abuse, domestic violence, incest or torture,mental, emotional and behavioral strategies for coping can become habituated, closing off the possibility of exercising other options, even in less stressful circumstances. Those who are molested or beaten as children or teenagers might late be vulnerable to sexual abuse or violence, because their natural impulses to protect themselves and protest (physical and verbal ) were extinguished. Expectation of hurtful treatment by others or one's own failed capabilities can stubbornly persist despite over whelming evidence that such is no longer the case. Behaviors and beliefs conditioned during traumatic events seem to have a greater enduring power than those conditioned under lesser degrees of stress " (3)

Here are some key tips for protecting our children there are more detailed articles at the end of this blog post if you are interested in educating your self about this topic. 
 1. Help children develop boundaries, teach them to ask permission before embracing a play mate and allow them to make up their own mind if they wish to embrace some one whether a playmate or an adult, do not force them.
2. Talk to your children, make eye contact with them don't just brush their questions aside. This goes for both mom and dads
3. Teach your children that No and Stop are important words and will be honored if he/ she speaks them and  to honor them if others say them also. Give them the opportunity to make choices for them selves in every day life in terms of clothes, shoes, books etc so they know their opinion is validated and it matters.
4. Teach them to wash their own genitals during wash times or ask permission when you touch them
5. Give your child the confidence to come talk to you if he feels uncomfortable with any one and if he tells you give his voice an importance.
6. Teach your children about their bodies, talk to them about it and use proper biology words, if we tell our child an elbow is an elbow a hand is a hand than tell them a breast is a breast dont use some other word for it. Use biological words for the genitals and talk about it all with confidence don't feel ashamed, if they know you will not ridicule them and give them proper information they will come to you for the information when they are older rather than scouring the internet or getting it from friends. You cannot control what they will get if it is coming from others.
7. Teach them to shout and scream and come to you if they are touched inappropriately by some one.
8. Enroll them in self defence classes if possible and definitely encourage girls to participate in sports. Sports help build confidence and self- reliance.
9. Help them build a good self image, especially  about their bodies don't focus on being thin but on being healthy and young girls look to their mothers for this, so please ladies get off the i need to be a super model unattainable model of thin and focus on being healthy.

This is my list I hope it helps and gives you a springing board to do more of your own research. 

1. (http://www.victimsofcrime.org/media/reporting-on-child-sexual-abuse/child-sexual-abuse-statistics).
2. (http://www.dawn.com/news/1115058/my-stolen-childhood).
3. The body remembers they psycho physiology of trauma and trauma treatment. By Babette Rothschild.


Here are links to some very good articles which talk about how to talk with our children about sex and to help them set good boundaries. 
1. http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/03/teaching-kids-consent-ages-1-21/
2. http://www.yowoto.com/posts/5-lessons-im-going-to-teach-my-indian-daughter
3. http://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=2006
4, http://goodmenproject.com/good-feed-blog/25-failsafe-rules-for-dads-raising-daughters/

Resources about sexual abuse and how to help victims/survivors. 
1. https://1in6.org/therapists-and-other-professionals/myths-facts/
2. This had a list of centers in Pakistan working for victims/survivors of sexual abuse. http://www.dawn.com/news/1115058/my-stolen-childhood
3. http://www.100conversations.org/
4.http://slutwalkseattle.com/allies  excellent resource with alot of websites.

But why did you not run?

She woke up to sounds of shouting and crying, this was not unusual she woke up to sounds like these most nights. She ran to the living room to find her mother hunched up in a ball crying while her father stood over her figure. Beta, go to sleep this does not concern you. She tip toed back scared, confused and feeling helpless.
 He used to come to their house a lot, he was her parents uncle very old and very nice. He always gave her sweets and would take her out to get her toys. Every time she got a scolding from mama she would go and sit with him. He was kind but one day he had told her a story and she has slept in his bed and she woke up to him touching her, she felt confused, scared but she pretended to keep sleeping. This started happening more and more often, sometimes he even let his son touch her. As she got older he would ask her to come to his room with talks about new stories and candies and she would go because he did care, he did not scold her and get frustrated with her. He did not say you are just like your dad when he was angry, she thought maybe her dad was a bad man that is why he made mama cry and she said she was like him when she was angry with her. The grand father would make her sleep next to him or make her close her eyes and touch her, one day she opened her eyes slowly so he wont notice and saw him doing very dirty things. She told her maid, but her maid made a disgusting face and told her to go play and not talk of such things. This was very confusing but she was too scared to tell mama, or baba. They will get angry with her but from that time on she never went to the grandfathers room again even when he called her. She told her aunt and some years later she told her mother but no one did anything. Every one told her to keep quiet and not talk of such matters. Why? was she a bad girl a bad person was what he did so bad that we cant ever speak of it. She was confused, she was scared but she was resilient and she decided to not think of such things and kept on being funny and goofy and keeping on.........
 Her brother had had an accident so mama had to take him to another country for medical help. They split them up and they lived with their grand mother and aunt. It was good, but baba hardly came to see them. Some nights he would come and she would be shuttled off from her aunts house to her grand mothers house and she would see him for a while. She felt like no one cared about her, she felt abandoned. Only mama had cared about her most of the time any way, baba was hardly ever around and when he was he preferred watching tv or reading his books. So she thought she ll try harder be a very good girl do as she is told he will like her and he will want to stay with them but no matter how hard she tried he always left to go some where else.
They moved to another city she started a new school. Some boy decided to start harassing her, he told lies about her and would call her house. All the girls said she was a bad girl so no one became her friend. She would sit in the library reading books in her lunch break, for two years no one really wanted to be her friend because she was a bad girl. Her baba said, who is this boy who calls you, she said she did not know and she did not know why he was calling. He said well, I am sure you must have given him your number why else would any one call. She felt very sad, why does no one believe her. She decided to try harder, she will dress up modestly and do things that good girls did
One day baba left, he did not come back for many years, mama had to be very strong, mama started working two jobs to support the family. She came home on the school van with her siblings and opened the door to the house, she would get rotis and give them lunch and clean the house, did her home work. She did wear her big chaddar when she went out but they still said bad things to her or touched her as they passed by on the cycle. She cried when she came home, what was the point of being a good girl she thought. Next time a guy touched her she hit him, hit him, hit him till her ran... She felt happy but when she came home and told mama. Mama got angry she said dont do that next time. The next day that man was standing at her gate she was afraid now he knew baba  was not living there......
 Baba did come back after many years, he started  a business he told her she can help him she liked that idea after all she had been helping out at mama's school. She started working for her baba, she felt proud, one day she said to her mama. Mama I want to be a boy, her mama laughed she said you are strong you dont need to be a boy. She said I want to make baba proud. Mama said you dont need to be a boy to do that....
 She made a good friend at the office, he was a boy and he was kind he told her she was smart and she could do anything, for the first time in her life she felt some one saw her, she mattered she was more than just a girl. He told her he wants to marry her, she was happy. She told her mama and baba. They got angry said she was a bad character girl and too young to think about marriage, she should tell her friend to go away. She told him to go away and he left. She was very sad, she cried for days......Her world emplowded the day baba left again. It was eid and she was so sad she cried for the whole time in the bathroom every one said stop crying, dont be so emotional. Baba had sold the car for his ticket, so she had to co ordinate all the trips through baba office van. She was taking care of her youngest sister at home, studying for her A levels helping take care of the house. She would go to baba's office in the evening to help, she felt very lonely and mama was so angry all the time, so frustrated, so stressed, so depressed.. She had to care for bhai too, bhai was getting so violent now, he would hit her a lot, he would break things. She felt so alone, so scared but she told her self she was strong and she had to help her mama.
 Baba's office man had all the authority he was baba's son as baba used to say;he was suppose to give them the money but he was difficult. He did not give them the money and her bhai did not get medicines, so he would have his seizures and blood would spew from his mouth. Mama got scared at those times, mama would cry and she felt so angry at the office man and she felt helpless.  She had to co ordinate everything through the office man, to pick up the siblings, to get the grocery, he would ask her why she was sad and she would tell him she got a scolding from mama and the office man  would be nice to her. She told him she thought he was a nice man, she liked him.
She thought if she was nice and respectful to him he will give them the money but he never did give them money on time, so she would get angry and said some mean things to him.One day he came to pick her up from her tuition center, he took her to another place he said he did not like her and she said that is fine why is he saying things like that to her. He tried to kiss her she pushed him away, but he still did very hard, her lips got swollen. She was very confused, very messed up.
 The next day he came to her house mama was gone to work, the siblings were in school only her youngest sister was home. She was scared and confused why had he come. He said he wanted breakfast she made it for him and went outside in the garden with her sister, she walked for very long with her sister in her lap but it was cold so she finally went in the house. He told her to sit next to him, she felt numb and scared but she sat down. He started to kiss her arms she tried to push him away he grabbed her and pushed her against the window bars.  She felt her legs were like jelly but she tried to run, he pushed her against the hutch cabinets and kept squeezing her body parts, trying to kiss her and she felt as if her soul had left her body and was looking at her from the roof, she felt little, she felt scared but she propelled her self to move and went to the kitchen he came there too she tried to speak but no words would come out she was frozen in fear. It took all her strength to go and get a knife and told him to leave or she will hurt him. He told her to calm down and went to the sitting room. She went to the bathroom she was so confused what was going on with her body. Why was she feeling all these feelings. She did not like this man, he was not her husband. What was going on, why did this always happen to her, she must be a very bad girl no wonder this had happened. She felt dizzy and weak, her legs barely carried her to the sitting room she fell on the sofa and asked him why did he do this, he must repent he must ask for forgiveness.
 He still came to the house, she had to serve him tea. mama was confused why she was so rude to him she asked mama who do you care about me or him, mama said yes yes i dont care about you. She wanted to die, she ate all her fathers heart medication she hoped she will die that night, but she got very sick and she felt she would die but she still did not die.... Even God did not want a girl like her.
  It was mamas birthday she wanted to make it upto mama, she made a beautiful vase and asked the office man to buy it from her. He said he will but she needs to come to the office so he could give her the money she said ok, she went to the office he said to come backside to his rooms. She said promise me you will not do anything he laughed and said ofcourse not my brother and my servant are there come on now i ll give you the money. She went he made her sit down got his servant to bring some drink and as his servant left he closed the door the office man did bad bad things, kept hitting her and she kept saying dont do it stop please stop. He said fix your clothes, go say hello to my brother than here is the money go. She felt dirty very disgusted and yet her body was going through things she did not understand. She called the office man begged him to marry her, told him she will be a dutiful wife and wont tell any one about what had happened. He said he would never marry a girl like her, she was of bad character and anyways he ll make sure to never get her pregnant. She said to herself he may have her body but she was the master of her brain, her heart and her soul. She was very respectful to the office man when he came to the house, she asked him again and again to marry her and one day he told her he will talk to her about it in detail. He took her to his room again and did bad things and after that she stopped trusting him she never let herself be alone with him again. He still came home and she had to serve him tea and biscuits.
 In the summer mama said they had to go to the office again, she said she did not want to go, mama got upset why was she being so difficult, so she thought it will be ok he cant do anything there she went. At first she and the other girls worked in the same room but soon he came and told her he needed her to do some work for him in the other office, so she had to go, she worked by her self for a few days than he started to come and sit in the office with her. He started to do bad things again, she would make her shalwar very tight but he still managed to get his hands in side she would feel aroused and her eyes would start to close and he would tell her to sit up straight not make any faces one day he pushed in too hard she got hurt and she started to bleed. Something inside her broke that day, no more being a nice girl every one took her for some stupid idiotic ass crap. She had to take care of her self no need being a good girl trying to be respectful. IF every one was going to think her a bad girl so fine. She slapped the office man hard and told him to never come near her again.
The office man still came to the house, he started calling mama and blackmailing her. She told mama but mama said it must have been something you did for this to happen. dont go telling any one about it now stay quiet. She did not understand why every one told her she was bad when she always tried to be good.  She could not sleep at night, she would get night mares, cold sweats. She would wake up in fear, she d go and take long cold showers and rub her self till her whole body was red and raw. She prayed, oh she prayed so hard to make this bad stuff stop, make her body stop feeling all these things she did not understand. She kept fighting with her body, she kept blaming her self but one day when she could not sleep she went online and her cousin was there, she told him the story and asked him if he thought she was worthless, she was bad and her cousin said no you are not a piece of membrane or just a body. You are a human being with worth which extends to much much more. You are wonderful and full of worth and your worth does not diminish in my eyes one bit for what has happened. It has only increased.... she felt strong after that, she felt empowered. She told her younger sister about the office man and they made a plan. They recruited one uncle who was the nicest uncle in the world because he had stood by them during some very difficult times they told him how the office man had touched her and how her sister had slapped the office man. She told her sister she was scared but her sister said dont worry i ll be there. They sat on the floor while the uncle got angry with the office man told him to never come near the girls again or he will break his legs. Finally the office man stopped coming home
She struggled with the night terrors, with the fear with her trust of people but she had to be strong for her siblings for her mother. She and her family came to the new country finally to be with baba but things were not easy for them. They lived in a place a little better than a ghetto and the fights between mama and baba still went on. She was smart so she studied hard got a scholarship was going to go to a real good university but than baba did something stupid and she had huge visa issues. Baba said to go back to the home country she said no she will not, they had arguments but she did not budge from her stance. IF she went back she had no future, here she had a shot. Baba had his own reasons and she did not blame him, she did not blame mama and she understood money was tight, bhai was in surgery again but this was her one chance at life. She made a friend;  baba's secretary she got her the ticket, mama got her some money from the uncles and she left to go to the new country. She did not have a coat or a hat when she landed in the -40 degrees celsius weather. She was delayed by two weeks, the semester had started but she hit the ground running. She made it through the semester some how. She vowed to herself she will work her bones raw, she ll eat one meal a day but by god she will make something of herself. She worked very hard, did all kinds of odd jobs. Suffered from home sickness because she could not go back to the other country and no one could come to see her. She had to change a lot really go outside her comfort zone, but that made her sit on the outside and look in to her belief systems and she found many loop holes and much flaws. She tried very hard to hold on and be the good girl but things were unraveling fast. Plus she had this brain which never quit thinking, she was inquisitive, she was brilliant and she was resilient but she was human so she floundered a lot too, she was stressed out of her mind. She was going on very little sleep and food and so when the dark thoughts did not stop for many days and she would not stop crying she went to see the doctor and he told her she had clinical depression. She started medication and started to see a therapist and did the 12 free sessions offered by her school but did not have money to keep going so she had to stop the therapy. However, she kept going, she did not give up made wonderful amazing friends, her sister came things started to look up. She got the degree and she got married, but she still never forgave her self for not making something out of her self a brilliant scientist or a doctor. She was suppose to save the world and here she was married and than the darkness started to seep through the thick wall she had constructed.
      All the memories she had tried to bury deep deep deep so she had even forgotten parts of her self in the process. All she wanted was to make baba proud but he was never happy with her, she felt like a failure she did not have the great job her husbands collegues had, she was fat and ugly and in her mind not that great of a deal for her husband. He told her she was great but she did not believe him and no matter how hard she tried she felt her life getting away from her. One day the dam just broke she cried for days and days she felt she was drowning in a sea of emotions. All the memories started to come back and no matter how hard she tried to push them back they still came. She prayed she cried but nothing made it better. She felt worthless but she had become stronger now much stronger than she was back than, she made a decision she was not going to keep the cycle of abuse going. She was going to get help and she was going to get better. She had a choice she was going to make this a positive thing in her life not let it define her.
   See we always have a choice, good and bad things happen to all of us we all suffer from shame, guilt, fear, anger and much much more. It is important to allow ourselves to feel those emotions also, to get help to put the past in perspective understand the defense mechanisms we build to cope with those times and have the ability to logically see which defenses work and which need to be discarded. WE all are strong and we are much much more than our past or the expectation and approval of others.
    In the end the most important lesson she learned from it all was that we all are human and we all are flawed and God is never in the event but in the after math of those events he is in the forgiveness and in the love and most importantly he is in the humanity and the compassion we give to one another.


 This is the story of a girl I once knew as she had told me. Her identity has been kept confidential for purposes of privacy I hope we can all learn some lessons from this story. Lessons of hope and lesson of resilience.  

my internal struggle.

I have struggled with the notion of identity for a long long time. I wish I was like most other people and had taken on what ever was handed to me without questioning it or going into too much detail but as it is i have always been an extremely curious sort of a person and I think about things in great depths.
 When I was young i used to wish i could stop my self from thinking but no sir no matter how hard i tried to conform to the right image i just could not go against what i felt was right in my own gut, so whilst growing up there were many phases, times when i became very religious and than i d go back to being very liberal in my dress and my speech etc. Living in Pakistan without my father for most of the time growing up was very hard as it was due to many reasons, one main one was that my mother had decided to live by her self without any handouts from any one. Women living without men is a break from the norm on so many levels, it seems to me it scares society for some reason, those women automatically become harlots, wanton etc before any one even tries to understand the reason why they are there in the first place. Growing up and being the eldest i had to go out and do; many of the traditionally men things, like going to the super market to get grocery, going to pay bills, there were many times during those trips that i got teased verbally or at worst slapped in various places by the passing by men.  One such incident i remember very clearly is when a guy on a bicycle hit me on my bottom as i was walking back from the shop and made a very rude comment. I came home and cried and vowed i wont let any one touch me ever again. The next time some one tried to pull the same thing i had grabbed him from his collar and gave him a good thrashing, using unholy language all the while. I was happy that i had defended my self but upon coming home when i told my mom she got very very angry with me and i understood why the next day when that man stood outside our gate with a smirk on his face. I knew than the ruse was over cause he could see we had no man in the house.
 It is said that the refinement and civilization of a society is seen by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens and when women are safe it means men are safe too. I always conformed to the social norms, wearing huge chaddars etc when i would go out, it did not stop people from doing what they wanted to do, saying what they wanted to say. So i would get very angry and decide to not take the chaddar any more and than i d get more judgmental comments and eyed like i have committed the biggest sin on the planet by those who were closest to me. I have just one question to ask, how is ones virtue defined by what is on their heads or what is on their bodies. Virtue should only be define by what is in ones heart and mind, how we treat those around us.
 I think it is hi time we stopped playing God and let people make their own decisions, their own choices without making them feel bad about those choices. Every one is struggling and every one is fighting a battle so instead of being judgmental try and understand the fear they must have been going through. Why are we so stuck on the rituals of religions and not on the Golden rules which are the same in all of them. Why is a women who is covered suddenly better and more virtuous than the one who decides not to be, why is covering up one self such a big part of being muslim anyways, Reading the Quran there is such a lot of variation in the explanation about covering up the hair and more and if there is some mention of it, it is in two parts of the whole book while the message to not judge, not have bad intentions for any one, to promote peace as in every chapter of the Quran pretty much.
 I had recently done the abaya here one of the major reasons for that was that when i moved here after my marriage i felt quite awkward in the community, ofcourse a lot of that is attributed to my own struggles with my identity etc but non the less women are very quick to be able to decipher how some one looks at them. So i too decided i wanted to cover up but the more i read and thought about things the more questions i had as to why the current rhetoric in the religion emphasizes the women to take a back seat and just crush her soul, On close inspection i did not find that in the older traditions and views plus in all honesty i do not feel i need to tell the whole world i am Muslim by putting a scarf on my head, neither do i feel that i have to keep the guys lust in check by being very demure in dress, their desire is their own problem not mine. After much internal struggle i decided to stop taking the abaya. The judgemental eyes were there like always but well one decision i have made through my personal growth through all this stuff is that i cannot control what other people think, it is their stuff not mine. I do not need every ones approval to feel good about my self. I have a right to my body and I have a right to dress it how I choose to. Allah cares more about what is in your heart and not what is on your head. 

Darkness

As a child I was always afraid of the dark. When I was old enough to write the first things i learnt to write was Allah and I would write it a hundred times and paste it all over my room to protect me from the darkness because darkness bought with it monsters and dreams things that went bump in the night.
 As I grew older I learnt that one had to be brave and not let the darkness scare you. As I got older still I learnt of a new kind of darkness, the one which lurks within all of us. What are we to do with that darkness let is dwell, not disturb it or rattle its cage. What does that darkness signify anyway, the shame, the guilt, the fear we all feel because we all are vulnerable human beings yet we pretend we are braver, stronger, faster than the other guy.
 The question that has been festering in my mind is why we are afraid of the darkness. The dark in the metamorphic sense within our souls or the darkness of the night. If we think about it all good things really come out of the dark. The seed is under layers of dark soil before it erupts and comes forth as a plant, a flower, or a tree. A baby is in the darkness of the womb before it comes into the light of the world. It is darkest before the dawn tears out of the night.
 I think our darkness completes us. It is only when we have allowed our selves to be comfortable with out own darkness, our own fears, our guilt, our shame, our vulnerability that we realize our true potential. We realize our own humanity and hence the humanity within others. The question than become how does one allow one self to be comfortable with the dark within. For that to happen one has to get thoroughly uncomfortable, to step outside of our comfort zone and think through the hard questions, face the fears we are never willing to face head on. The fears that lurk within us of our own inadequacy, It means letting down our own guard and the plastic masks we wear in public and examine our belief systems. Thinking is a painful process for many people we would rather be indulged, told how to live a life rather than take a path less traveled and find our own answers which may not be in agreement with the rhetoric of the time.
 However, looking back at history one finds many examples where geniuses have come forth when they were ready to embrace their darkness.Darkness than is not something to fear but to embrace to get comfortable with because it is only when we are ready to accept ourselves completely, that we are able to reach our true potentials. It is when we embrace the pain, the fear, the shame that we have experienced in our lives that we will feel adequate and will allow our selves to be vulnerable, to connect, to communicate with other living beings and it is only at that juncture that an ordinary un-examined life becomes an extra ordinary life.