On Eid, Diwali, Halloween and Thanksgiving

Letter to a friend . . .

Salam, Namasate, and moshi moshi. Happy Eid and Diwali for you. Here is my long lost letter, hope it finds you in best of health. Many of my friends send me one-liners once a year. When I ask them, why is it that you are so stingy with words they say

‘Jab dillo mein fasala na ho tu lafzon kee zaroorat nahi part’

Khair that is an excuse. . I myself can't write unless I put in my two pages worth. Life has been hectic and I have given up on some things while embracing others. My current regret is that I could not help my father airline tickets to travel to Ahmedabad for the Lions International conference. He grew up in Agra and I was thinking it would have been great to visit where he grew up and see again the place of his upbringing. It would have been even better to accompany him. Some day in the near future, I would like to do that and at that time will seek your help in making my visa situation possible.

All this occurred to me at the free Diwali concert on Shoreline theater in Mountain View California. The performer Sukhvinder Singh is a mega star and a complete chichorai, he switched three leather pants in three songs. However the funniest part in the concert was the relentless pursuit of the organizers to introduce the sponsor as 5000 Indian teeny boppers booed. The honored guests were so ashamed they refused to come out. That night I was out celebrating a friends bachelor party. My friend SR is currently a bachelor at large but is getting hitched on Dec 31st, 2004. Unfortunately, he could not really enjoy the demise of his bachelordom since he was fasting for ramzan. Before he complained, I reminded him that as a practicing Muslim, he is already immune to the temptations of vices like churse, sharab and nautch girls, so even if it was Eid, what difference would it have made?

Never the less, it was a rare productive day as both SR and I are involved in making a short documentary on a cricket club from Gujrat in India. The working title is called Hansot By the Bay. Hansot is a small town near Surat, and the community splintered at the partition, but have regrouped in the Bay area and among many things, started a cricket club. Most players work for the San Mateo County for the water dept, parking control, bus system, taxation and even law enforcement (yes a desi CHiPs). The first person to land in SF came in the sixties is referred as Uncle Columbus, as the discoverer of Bay Area. Incidentally, he owns a Hotel in North beach on Sutton & Columbus. He remains a grand old gentleman and describes his life from colonial India to communal Bay Area.. Our Video editor is an kid who has traveled all over Africa documenting Mali drummers. His father is from Delhi and mother from Yugoslavia and he has not been to India since he was 5. The music is from a group called Folk Fusion in Karachi, it is made up of eclectic Karachi musicians who are blend techno-pop riffs with traditional instruments.

So anyway, after that we had the FOSA (Friends of South Asia) Divali/Iftari get together. That was fun, some really eminent people showed up and it was a blessing to be in the presence of so many who could be mentors and be inspirational. We played games where we had the name of an eminent personality stuck on our back and we had to guess it. At first I was Hema Malini, but some one commented on it and my machismo could not handle it and I complained bitterly and twirled my moustache and they took pity on me. The next one by some fate of powers beyond my control fell down and I nonchalantly saw the name. So when my turn came up, I asked with serious intent – Is it man? The crowd said yes. Hindu or Muslim? Some of them guessed that I was on the right path, as the choice was KABIR. I guess tales of how both Hindus and Muslims claim this medieval weaver/poet as their own have always inspired me. He remains to me the most appealing of all mystic poets and that lists includes Rumi, Bhitai, Bullah Shah, Shah Inayat. Here is one instance of his brilliance

I said to the wanting-creature inside me:
What is this river you want to cross?
There are no travelers on the river-road, and no road.
Do you see anyone moving about on that bank, or nesting?
There is no river at all, and no boat, and no boatman.
There is no tow rope either, and no one to pull it.
There is no ground, no sky, no time, no bank, no ford!

And there is no body, and no mind!
Do you believe there is some place that will make the

soul less thirsty?
In that great absence you will find nothing.

Be strong then, and enter into your own body;
there you have a sold place for your feet.
Think about it carefully!
Don't go off somewhere else!

Kabir says this: just throw away all thoughts of

imaginary things,
and stand firm in that which you are

Your co-star in the CD was Indira Gandhi and guessed it without any dushwari. It was delightful to hear the two of you together. I would like my parents to hear it as well. They will enjoy the poetic fusion. My own artistic endeavors are limited to some writing and theater. You might know that we did the play Rebel Courtesan. It was a highly stylized depiction of the lady of Sirdhana, and the writer to took high poetic license with regards to her relationship with character Ghulam Qadir, but the work was extremely enjoyable. I got to do things on stage I would never do in real life, I guess that is acting. However, some interesting thoughts did come into my mind for seven nights in a row Agra was awarded by Emperor Shah Alam to Walter Reinhardt and then I was subsequently castrated. As my father is an Akbarabadi from Agra it did effect my soul (although the medieval vasectomy was also a painful thought). However, I did get my revenge and had the pleasure of gauging the weakling emperors eyes out in ACT II. This was done in the Red Fort in Dehli which is my mother’s home town.

In the second weekend of November we had the Third I South Asian film festival. I saw second generation, the Parminder Nagra movie. She was in Bend it like Beckham. This one was another curry flick, full of stereotypes, overly emotional and frankly a bit too long (it was a BBC mini series glued together). I describe a curry flick as the South Asian London scene and has very little to do with either UK or India. I just think that the hoopla over inter racial marriages (brown girl-white guy) is pretty tired out. Its been 20 years since Hanif Kureshi sort of started that as a backlash to Merchant Ivory romanticizing of the British Raj. If I were to reminisce of the British Raj it would be focused on traitors being blown off cannons, a 77 year old emperor blinded and exiled to Rangoon and sign boards outside Gymkhanas proclaiming ' DOGS and INDIANS not allowed (but then I remain a Maula Jatt wanna be). Second Generation was entertaining but missed an opportunity as it played into my expectations. That’s why Bend it like Beckham was a classic, the central plot was universal and somehow avoided the mean father, conniving sisters, an upright English boyfriend, slutty Gujrati girls, pious Muslims and an Indian girl who is independent and likes to fuck. But Parminder Nagra was a delight, very down to earth and accessible. before the groupies showed up I had the pleasure to bum a cigarette from her and stand on the rooftop of Castro theater in San Francisco and listen to her precise English accent while her English beau stood around in fashionable black clothes and huge playboy belt buckle. Yes, that made my day . . . as they chooti chooti khushiyan make the world go round. (it is tiny happiness that makes the world goes round)

Next day was Eid, and after Namaz and a healthy brunch in Haight area with some friends where we discussed the seven unforgivable sins in Islam. I always thought there were three (Not believing in Fatwa (heresy), qatl (murder) and zana bin jabar (rape), but then I am a minimalist when it come to religion. Back at the film festival we introduced a Pakistani movie name ‘Latoo’. This movie was on the state of classical dance in Pakistan. The response from the film was tremendous. people asked is there a Q&A session, and were disappointed when I said no. Some people found it very moving. It was a unique perspective on dance. Everyone loved the Dhamal at the Shah Jamal shrine and Indu Mehta, Sheema Kirmani, Fasi-ur-Rehman and Naheed Siddiqi all accomplished Kathak dancers from Pakistan. The only negative comment I got (and ended up with a heated discussion over EID dinner) was on the central premise of the movie was that dance is spiritual and a classic form and should not be vulgarized and made into a grotesque display as it has become in Pakistan. So the classic performances are discouraged because they come from Hinduism, while Lollywood and drag queens are free to perform raunchy numbers. While the film is very brave and shows some great footage of dance and dancers. Some people took the opinion that the film was being snobbish about high art and should not call the Lollywood dancers, mujras girls and drag queen(Khusras) dance grotesque and vulgar (remember this is San Francisco and drag queens are sort of a norm in certain areas). I don't completely agree with the assumption, but I can see the viewpoint that the film did not make a strong enough point in clarifying that it is grotesque only because it has been pushed underground as a lack of infrastructure in forms of academies to promote classical forms and preserve all folk traditions

The next movie was STARKISS circus girls in India. Most of these girls are Nepalese between the age of 7-14. They are ‘kept’ within the circus world where food, shelter and $2 a month is provided to their parents so that they can entertain the Indian public and give frustrated men the opportunity to look up there skirts. It was a very well made Dutch documentary that was sad, incredible, funny, surreal and now words fail me now. If you get a chance you have to see it, I am sure your emotions will find a way out in your wonderful poetry.

For some odd reason, STARKISS made me angry at my helplessness to change things and in some way and these days it all come back to Fallujah and Eid. Is it not amazing that the latte sipping liberal press in America has written more expose articles on the DARFUR rebels displacing people, our man in Tora Bora, the Talibans of WANA and Yassir Arafat (Yes our President has proclaimed that peace is possible now since the villainous Arafat is dead, what hypocrisy when the founding fathers of both America and Israel were proclaimed terrorists by the British), but where is this press when FALLUJAH is bombed and destroyed on EID. Where are the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people? Are they supposed to be won on Eid day by cluster bombs? Uncle Sam's EIDI knows no bounds. It is shameful for me as a Muslim and an American to equate GROZNY to FALLUJAH. never in my tender years did I ever think that the American people would allow American soldiers to do what the Russians did in GROZY.

But then WAR is HELL, if they can fire bomb DRESDEN to cinders on Valentine Day and drop an Atomic bomb on NAGASAKI, a city with largest Christian population in Japan, using a roman catholic cathedral as zero point, and of course the horrors of Hiroshima. All this comes to light recently as I recently visited the Tokyo EDO museum and saw the results of bombing of by B-29 Super Fortress when fire bombs were dropped from 5000 feet and 51% of Tokyo was destroyed. Acutely aware of the atrocities committed by their own forces in WW II, the plaque reminded people of the effects of bombing on wooden cities had been exemplified by the Japanese bombing of Manchurian cities. What morals can we expect from war mongers, be they Americans or Talibans? I recently saw the Fog of War, a brilliant documentary on Robert McNamara the architect of the Tokyo fire bombing and the infamous Vietnam Rolling thunder operations as well as the approver of Agent Orange (a chemical for stripping of leaves from trees) for use on the Vietnam population. It is an eye opener on the way men think when they are in war, but how can one respect a mass murderer who does it the name of God, and another who does it save the life of his people? If one is fundamentalist and the other surely must be a Neanderthal?

In times like this an ESCAPE TO CANADA is very appealing

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/11/15/canadian.welcome.ap/index.html

All in all, I have an exciting life for now. I remain a highly favored individual of all Gods. As they say,

‘Aur tum apnai Malik ki kiss kiss naimat ka shukriay karo gai’