Ein Anderer Samstag

I woke up this morning and realised that I have a bunch of things to catch up on. Bills, bills and more bills. Recieving mail has lost its charm. When I was 6, I had a pen pal in Russia. Her name was Lyuba. I would recieve a letter from her every week and I'd come back from school every day, check my mailbox in anticipation of her letter. It would always be 4 pages, in pencil, and English that took a lot of work to understand. My mom always helped explain a lot of things Lyuba would write about. We stayed in touch until I was 8 and then it got sort of old, and the letters stopped coming, slowly. Now, the only mail I really look forward to is the birthday card that I get from Southwest Airlines every year, without fail. Ugh.

I wonder what happened to Lyuba. She wanted to become a vet and help animals. I hope she did.

I also recieved my first report from this credit protection agency that I'm paying to monitor my credit. This February someone managed to get a 20K credit card on my social and went crazy with it. It was a big mess. I had to call the credit card companies, put a fraud alert, file a police report. The police asked me if I suspected anyone. For a moment I felt like giving up this one gal that I went out on a date with and somehow I joked about her credit history being too sucky for her to use an Ultima card (equivalent to Amex Black/Centurion) that her Dad got her. Needless to say I never saw her again. Pretentious little arabian princess.

Here's something that happened lately. I added this gal on facebook as a friend. She runs this mentor organization that I've been trying to get involved with, but I've never been matched with a mentee. So she does add me, I notice it on my facebook feed and then, she puts me on a limited profile. Awkward.

On Monday I'll be in Oregon. I love Oregon. Time for me to take care of these bills, wash me clothes and catch up on my prayers. And watch Flyboys. Need to be a little risque right now. Ramadhan's made me boring.

Hate Me Today... Hate Me Tomorrow!

Blue October rules. Awesome-ness personified!

Check it out: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4220852541259479056&q=blue+october

Salang Pass

Last evening after work Aaron, Jayitha and I went to Salang Pass for dinner. For me it was iftar time and the opportunity to get some fine Afghani food before I got on a plane to Los Angeles. Salang Pass, like a lot of Muslim eateries during Ramadhan, had an iftar buffet going. And where there's a buffet, there's bound to be a lot of hungry people.

Aaron and Jayitha had reached the restaurant before me and found a place very close to this group of young Afghanans, 8 of them, who were busy eating and discussing plans for the evening and the week.

As we played catch-up on our table, I could simultaneously overhear what these gals were talking about. They were giggling away, discussing movies, places they wanted to go shopping and boys. The content of their conversation was banal, but from this group a warmth emanated that really seemed to make the place more welcoming and refreshing in a strange way.

I told Aaron about what my Dad was doing in Afghanistan with the United Nations. How I was so proud of the fact that he didnt flinch at leaving stately comforts in New Delhi to go help build the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan. How his compound had been attacked several times by terrorists. His account of a day spent in a bomb bunker. His report of the people and the country. (I'm so happy to be his son and if I was even an iota of what he is today, I'd be satisfied human being.)

I told Aaron about the twenty odd books I had read on Afghanistan since my Dad had been there. And how I wanted to visit the country sometime soon. I even told him how I had once contemplated quitting my job and becoming a UN Volunteer in Afghanistan, but decided against it. Afghanistan for me has became Coleridge's Xanadu. Someday..

Aaron told me that he got into swimming and Spanish classes, while I sipped away my Aush (Afghani noodle soup.) That Google's been treating him quite well. He'd been to London lately. That a erstwhile common friend who we both despised for his womanising habits had finally packed up his bags and left the US for good. And then he gesticulated with an oblique movement of the head towards the Afghanans. Or so I thought and looked over his shoulder.

Two of them were staring at me with their heads frequently turning only with brief intermissions of conversation, which I am presume referred to Aaron and I. I couldnt discern if they pitied me because my father was in Afghanistan, or if they were a little taken aback from the accounts that I had been yapping about for the past few minutes. I became keenly aware that sometimes I talk loud enough for the whole world to hear. I smiled politely and looked away. I was hungry, my food was before me and I had company. There was no need to be distracted.

We finished our meals, my flight was at 9 and the clock was ticking way to signal that it was nearly 8pm. I knew I'd have to go stand-by on the next one. So in a hurry, I took care of the check, walked both of them out and ran to my car.

As I buckled up, I reminded myself to make sure that I hadnt forgotten my credit card at the restaurant. I have a nasty habit of forgetting things in strange places. I actually had. So quickly, I walked back into the restaurant and asked the hostess if she had my card. There was a silence.

I looked at her and explained that I had just eaten here and pointed to my table and reiterated that I had left my card behind. More silence. Irritation began to set in, when suddenly she said in a mish-mashed accent that sounded Iranian to me; "Youre the guy talking about your father in Afghanistan?" News did travel fast in the subcontinent, but I was flustered that she knew. "Here's your c(o)rd. Sharjeel, that sounds like a Persian name." I really had no time for small talk, I took my card, told her that it was Hebrew, that the food was good, and said my goodbyes. She gave me a small plastic snack pack which had cookies and dates, complimentary, for folks to break their fasts. I bowed and rushed out.

Driving like a madman on the 880 to get to the airport on time, I tried to make sense of why I got a cookie pack, eventhough I had clearly fed myself enough to put Takeru Kobayashi to shame. I pulled into the rental car facility and quickly grabbed the bag of cookies. It had a note. An Afghan fortune cookie.

It read:

You ask me about that country whose details now escape me,

I don't remember its geography, nothing of its history.

And should I visit it in memory,

It would be as I would a past lover,

After years, for a night, no longer restless with passion,With no fear of regret.

I have reached that age when one visits the heart merely as a courtesy.

It was then I realised that , like that hostess, I dont have a place to call home anymore. India, the country of my birth, UK the country of my childhood, Singapore the country of my youth and the US the country of my future, but neither a country I could can home. And that I had become a glorified vagrant, an entity in the modern economy. Period.

Intimate Stranger

It happens to everyone, or so I’m told. And if I am to be of the persuasion that authors who have toiled to reassure themselves that their feelings of estrangement towards erstwhile loved ones aren’t unfounded I surely would be betraying originality, wouldn’t I?

I would be. But life has a strange way of making one realise that everything that transpires in one's lifetime, has already been experienced, analysed and brought bliss or sorrow to countless individuals before us. It is only once the novelty of any such incident has worn off that one begins to compare their feelings and emotions with those described by others. Perhaps, knowing that we arent alone in our happiness, sorrow or disappointment helps us pull ourselves together and move on.

Today, I am writing about one such instance. A couple of months ago, I met this wonderful gal; she is smart, driven, doing really well at work and sports an hourglass figure too. Perfect Situation. Over the past couple of months I hung out with her and we were an instant click. We'd hang out after work, several days a week. Spent a lot of time on the phone when I was travelling.

One day she told me that she loves surprises. That she's always hoped that someone would send her flowers and letters anonymously. And I thought gals thought such stalker-like activities were creepy and non-kosher. So what did I do next?

What is a simple thinking man like me to do? Like a complete dumb-ass I sent Gauhar flowers, anonymously. I followed up with letters, anonymously. With full knowledge of the compliments that she would respond to, I made those letters a tinderbox for the self concious, attention-seeking gal I knew G to be.

Within a few weeks of doing this, I saw a change in her. She was irritable, often mentioning how the two of us didn't have as much fun as we used to. Temper tantrums, mood swings - I was being domestically abused for no plausible reason. So one day, I took it upon myself to tell G like a man, that I wasnt having anymore of her whims. She'd better get back control of her emotions or we would call it quits.

When I delivered this ultimatum G was honest enough to admit that she was receiving communications from an anonymous person, and after much research she had narrowed it down to this one guy who lived in her building; Martin. And it was time for her to tell Martin that she had a crush on him too.

When I heard this, I was amused and annoyed at the same time. While I felt like laughing out loud at G and telling her how she'd had fooled herself, I was disappointed and felt that I was a victim of infidelity. This called for payback...

That night as I drove back from her apartment at Park La Brea, I told myself that I must never again talk to G again. Unfortunately, she had infiltrated my group of friends, and this was going to be hard. Its been six weeks since.

As coincidence would have it, I saw her last night at LAX when getting on my flight. The customary hug and exchange of pleasantries. There were 20 minutes on the clock, and I needed caffiene, so we went to Starbucks in Terminal 5 and got our drinks. A almond soy latte for her and a blackberry green tea frap for me.

She had finally figured it out. She felt violated, but thought it was cute at the same time. She wanted to give "us" another shot. Those were the highlights. I had 10 minutes to board and so off I went.

But, when I saw her at the airport, there was this strange feeling. Sitting before her, looking at her eyes and beautiful hair. Her shadow under the lighting. Here was this very familiar gal who seemed to have donned a stranger's face. Last night I had flashback of her from a time when we hung out, but she had no face, no head, just a torso. It was eerie, irksome and plain weird.

I have been thinking about what I my next move should be. I've consulted my inner circle of PUAs and girlfriends for an opinion. I've asked God to lend me a hand here. Afterall its Ramadhan, I'm doing the 5 daily prostrations and keeping myself hungry and thirsty.

Gauhar, we walk different paths. Sorry sweetheart!