Valentines day!

I did not receive any gifts or roses from hubby dear on Valentines,not even a card!And it has been years since he has not gifted me anything on this particular day. Does it mean he doesn't love me? Certainly not! Does it mean he is not very expressive or romantic? Hmm...yes. He laughs when I give so much importance to Valentines day and calls it 'extortion day' . It used to bother me a lot initially. But over the years I have matured and started to appreciate  the subtle yet ever present expressions of love and caring from hubby. The initial euphoria of days bygone when sky seemed bluer and roses redder has evolved into something far deeper. I have accepted the fact that he is a man of few words (and even fewer surprises!) :)

When I was amidst green girl's fantasies , love to me meant roses and scented candles. If it was not expressed romantically  and poetically it was not love! And oh how I sulked and moped when I did not get my way. But today after 13 years of being married and staying under the same roof I have trained my eyes and mind to look at expressions of love in small everyday gestures. Today I know  that  it is an expression of love when he offers to do the laundry when I am too tired. When he makes me a cup of  hot tea when I am not feeling well. When he helps in household chores on the days I am too busy completing  my kids' project books. I know it is  his way of saying "I love you" when he ignores my widening waistline and accepts me the way I am!

I know it is love when he good naturedly praises my cooking even on the days when it has not turned out very well. When he ignores the mess in the room. When he refrains from retorting if I am in a bad mood.
When he respects my personal space. When he gives me the freedom to take my own decisions. When he asks for my opinion  in matters that really matter to him.

And I know that it is definitely love when he rushes back home every day after work , to me and kids! When in a room full of people his eyes search for me. When he feels uncomfortable in female company and looks at me for help. :) When he looks at me with silent admiration in his eyes. I know it is never going to be roses and candles for me but I am content with what I have! (which is actually a lot) . I dedicate this line by Robert Browning to my hubby;
                                    Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be!

Tears on the sudden demise of Shahzada Huzaifa Bhaisaheb Mohyuddin

Shahzada saheb smiling affectionately at my sons

Death is inevitable. Almost everyday we hear about someone's death. But then there are some deaths that are very hard to swallow. That shake us, shock us_ to say the least_ and leave us in a state of shocked denial. The sudden demise of His Eminence Shahzada Huzaifa Bhaisaheb Mohyuddin (the fourth son of His Holiness Dr. Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin tus)  is one such death. It has left mumineen  across the world in a state of deep mourning and shock. The ears refuse to let the words sink in, the heart refuses to believe the news! How can it be? He appeared so zealous, so alive, so fit and active. Always there in the khidmat of Moula and welfare of mumineen! We had seen him just two days ago in Ahmedabad on Chelum. My mother- in- law  spoke to him just the night before his demise and he appeared as fit and fresh as ever. No one even imagined in their wildest dreams that what the next morning would bring.

           

His smiling face appears before my eyes. Just twenty one days before his demise he had visited MSB Banswara during Moulana's Taherabad journey. He  visited each and every room of the institue, and took keen interest in all the updates. He affectionately spoke to the students and staff. He indulgently watched the students' performances. He graciously spent so much time in the premises inspite of his very hectic schedule and various appointments. I remember preparing snacks and black tea for him and serving him. He particularly liked the black tea. It was our good fortune to get the sharaf of serving him during his last visit here. He stayed in Banswara town till 3'o clock in night, visiting masjid, mazaar, mumineen's homes and listening to what they had to say. Such was his affection for mumineen and his zeal for khidmat!

He was a pillar of strength and righteousness. A very organized and punctual individual. A very good orator. His organizational skills were exceptional and thus departments of Al vazarat and MSB fluorished under his expert leadership. He started the Taa'bbudaat movement. And there are countless other khidmaat and achievements to his credit.

He lived a life of khidmat and died a death of saa'dat. We mourn him for ourselves, for our loss, not for him_because we know that he has reached the heavens and eternal bliss! We mourn him because he was such a strong arm for our beloved Moula (tus) . The sight of this 100 year old father at the burial of his son wrenched even the hardest of hearts and brought tears to even the driest of eyes.How he must have coped up with this huge loss! But His Sabr e jameel gave strength and solace to everyone.

Shahzada saheb's sudden departure, Aqa moula's shafaa't for him and Mufaddal moula's words for him reinforced the belief in every mumin's heart that this life is but a passage to the eternal life. The heart can cease to beat at any moment but the soul nourished with the love of Moula, Ilm (knowledge) , Amal (good deeds) , and khidmat (service) will continue to live forever and ever. And Moula will do shafaa't of every mumin. What awaits us after this life is much more rewarding! Death is but the beginning!!
I quote Edwin Leibfred here:
                  For death is but a pasing phase of Life
                  A change of dress, a disrobing;
                  A birth into the unborn again;
                  A commencing where we ended;
                  A starting where we stopped to rest
                  A crossroad of Eternity;
                  A giving up of something; to possess all things
                  The end of the unreal, the beginning of the real.

اب اداس پھرتے ہو سردیوں کی شاموں میں

      یہ جاڑوں  کا موسم ! دسمبر کی سرد ہوائیں ، جنوری کی اداس شامیں جن میں انجانا درد خواہ مخواہ ہی دل کو بے چین کرتا ہیں 
             
قدرت کا بنایا ہوا ہر موسم اپنے اندر بے پناہ خوبصورتی سموے ہوئے ہیں لیکن سردیو کی بات ہی کچھ الگ ہیں . ہمیشہ سے یہ میرا پسندیدہ موسم رہا ہیں اور کئی     خوبصورت یادیں اس سے وابستہ ہیں  .

  دھند میں لپٹی ہوئیں یہ  ٹھنڈی صبحیں ، یہ دانتوں کا بجنا ، ہاتھوں کا کپکپانا ، بجتی ہوئی  الارم بند کرکے سوچنا کہ کاش رات کبھی ختم نہ ہو! وہ بھانپ اڑاتا ہوا  کافی کا مگ ، وہ گرما گرم الوان ، وہ رنگ برنگی شالیں اور  مفلر ، وہ پوری    دوپہر لحاف  میں گھس کر موٹی موٹی کتابیں پڑھنا ، وہ گھنٹو بستر میں پڑے رہنا. وہ نرم دھوپ چہرے پہ محسوس کرنا

              جاڑوں کی سرسراتی  ہوائیں گویا سرگوشیاں کرتی ہوئی محسوس ہوتی  ہیں . اپنے اندر کئی ان کہی داستانیں سمیٹیں ہوۓ! خوبصورت شامیں جن میں ایک بےنام سی اداسی ، ایک خلش دل کو ستاتی ہے . جاڑوں کی لمبی راتیں ، برفیلی ہواؤں کا کھڑکی پہ دستک دینا ، وہ سنسان سڑکیں ، خاموش وادیاں

ہاے یہ افسانوی رومانوی موسم! یہ خوابوں خیالوں کا موسم ! یہ دل کو حسین اداسیاں بخشتا ہوا موسم ! آنکھوں کو انجان سپنے دکھاتا ہوا موسم ! یہ مایوسیوں اور امیدو کے حسین امتزاج کا موسم . یہ گزرے ہوۓ سال کو رخصت کرنے  اور نئے    سال کو خوش آمدید کہنے کا موسم ! کاش یہ خوبصورت موسم یوں ہی برقرار رہے .....

Expressing with colors!

"Painting is the amalgamation of elements that communicate an idea, a feeling, a mood – and this has to be done with passion!" (Alvaro Castagnet)  How true!! I like to paint, to express myself with colors. It gives me immense pleasure to see the colors gradually take a shape on paper. Painting elevates my mood, eliminates the tension, and soothes my otherwise restless self.

A painting is a 'joy forever', frozen in time. It is an expression of one's sensations and perceptions.

 Nature fascinates me to no end, and i like to express that fascination with colors. I paint not because I am very good at it, but because it makes me happy. Its as simple as that!

Recently i have been experimenting with oil pastels. I find them non messy, easy to handle and very convenient. Here are some of my doodles.

The make-believe world of advertisement

Welcome to the world of advertisement! Enter on your own risk as the things here are totally different from  what they appear.

Advertisers would do anything, play conveniently with consumer's weaknesses and emotions , to sell their products. As is truly said that; "Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need'!

The influence commercial advertisements have on psychology and choices of people , especially children is baffling! My boys' choice of toothpaste, soap, shampoo etc changes  according to the latest and most popular ad of the week! They persuade me to buy Complan for them , attracted by its claims to increase height in double speed. And a few weeks later when Horlicks comes up with this hard-to-beat tagline of 'taller, stronger, sharper' , their love for Complan vanishes in thin air. Now they want the three in one package deal of Horlicks!

My kids simply love Maggi noodles. But then which kid doesn't! They demand the Maggi by quoting the tagline "health bhi, khushiya bhi". I agree with the second half of this slogan "khushiya bhi" (happiness), as I can witness the joy and excitement on my boys' faces as they slurp the noodles. But health?? seriously?? How do the advertisers expect mothers to believe that the few barely-visible-dehydrated-pieces of vegetables in Maggi has the goodness of greens and health packed in them! Duh!!  But I do feed my kids Maggi noodles occasionally just to see their delighted faces. For their health, I feed them more nutritious things!

And then there are those embarrassing commercials that never fail to fetch curious questions from kids. Every time the Idea 3G latest ad of 'population control' is shown, my nine year old wants to know that what does a 3G connection have to do with babies? (any suggestions about how to explain it to a nine year old!)  :-)

Surf excel has made a mother's job doubly difficult.  Now children returning from school  wear stains on their uniforms as medals and justify themselves by quoting Surf excel's slogan 'daag acche hai'! (Dirt is good).

But why blame only the children? Adults are also influenced everyday in their choices by catchy advertisements. Fairness creams like 'Fair and Lovely' thrive in Indian markets due to Indians' fixation for fair skin. If one fairness cream claims to give a fairer skin in 20 days, another one claims to perform the miracle in just 7 days! Phew!    There are countless other products that claim to perform various kinds of unbelievable miracles, for example, defy age and make you ageless as Sleeping beauty, give you a skin as flawless and white as Snow white's , make you as slender as Cindrella , and make your hair as long and strong as Rapunzel's!!

Just imagine for a while that if all these products worked exactly as advertisements claim, what a world it would be and how our lives would be transformed! All the women in the world would turn into beauty queens with a figure to die for, flawless skin and long shiny hair. And all the men would be tall, dark..oops! correction- fair, and handsome! And rich,with money in various investment schemes! And they would always smell  just -out -of -shower inspite of sweating in gruelling month of May! And all the kids would be 'taller,stronger and sharper'! And before any examination, instead of studying, all they would need would be just a bowl of Kellog's cornflakes, or even just an ordinary Mentos would do the trick! Remember the Mentos tagline ; "Dimag ki batti jalade"!  And they need not worry about improving their handwriting as various kinds of pencils and pens would automatically take care of it. (I wonder what kind of pens do the doctors use?)

Many a times I have found myself buying some utterly useless product, or choosing one brand over the other just because of the clever advertising! I have tried to manage my dog phobia by gulping down Mountain Dew in the false hope of its promising slogan "Darr ke aage jeet hai"  (There is victory after fear)! But to no avail, I am as chicken as ever!

Though most of the advertisements are exxageration at its heights, there are some honest ads as well, like Sprite's famous slogan "Sprite bujhaye only pyaas, baki sab bakwaas"! Now that's what we call an honest ad! :)

But serioulsly, whether honest or blatant lies, one has to agree that Indian ad films are most original, creative, interesting and fun to watch.So while you all read this post ,I have to run because my favourite ad of the month is on air!!   :)

I am the google of my house!!

Yes! you read it right! I am the google of my house. I have to constantly search. Whether it is the misplaced wallet and keys of my husband, politically correct answers to the tricky questions of my kids, solution to a complex situation, reason of my kids' tantrums or the explanation of my husband's moodiness! I am always searching!!

In this male populated house, being the only female I am expected to be the search engine. My husband keeps forgetting the 'misplacing location' of his things. Be it his wallet, his keys, his documents, his ring, his mobile or his cheque book! you name it! And I am supposed to know the exact location of every misplaced thing and produce it magically. Though I do succeed most of the time , but it irritates me. I want to tell my hubby that, " please google your own things, I have a lot of my own googling to do!" But then I see my MIL searching every morning for my FIL's misplaced belongings, and I smile to myself and realize that "It runs in the male genes of the family!"

And then there is my elder one who actually thinks that his mother has got all the answers and she is the google!! (Ah! the naivety of childhood!) So to answer his endless questions ranging from extinct species to dwarf planets, I have to open my laptop and get google's help. Though now I have taught him how to google and get his own answers.

And then there is my younger one who wants me to search and produce chocolates for him all the time. Though I must say that he has inherited some of my googling abilities. He can sniff a chocolate from the corners of my purse and depths of my cupboard.

And then there's me! Constantly thinking and searching reasons for my complex emotions, my restlessness, my hard-to-crack-nuttiness! Finding meaning where none exists! searching answers to perplexing questions that are beyond human comprehension, beyond google search engine!! :)

Come back soon!!

Everyday I wake up in the morning and offer a silent prayer for your return. I  remember the peaceful days of not-so-long-ago! The days when you would come to my house every day. And I remember the comfort your daily visit offered me. When I could concentrate on the things I enjoy and leave all other worries to you. When I could look forward to lazy afternoons and soothing evenings with my laptop or a book_ because of you! I never realized what a blessing you were, till the day you stopped coming.
Your absence has created a void in my life, and it has drained out all the energy from me. Every morning I realize that this is going to be one more day without you. And then I start worrying about a hundred little things. Things and chores that you took care of!
It has been 25 days!! O' my dear maid! When are you going to cut short your unexpected leave and resume your responsibilities? My house and dozens of mundane chores are waiting for you! :)