it's the end of the world as we know it

i have had some rough moments in my life, and i have often (secretly) mocked people who have been upset at the death of a celebrity, but when i received a call from one of my best friends telling me to turn on the tv at 4am the morning of 26th june (that was the time in pakistan), my heart ached. michael jackson was my idol; he could do no wrong. this month i had tickets to seem him live, a dream i never thought would come true - and i was right, sadly enough.

michael, may you rest in peace. you will not be forgotten. you are missed and loved. music is not the same without you, performances are not the same without you.
it's the end of the world as we know it.



August 29th 1958 - 25th June 2009

paid for my first (and hopefully not last) publication

flower power

and you can quote me on that

Adam Tobias Jensen, 25th June 2009, 2:15 AM



"good lord
aside from the time i threatened to cut your finger off with pliers ive been nothing but supportive of you."

the beach

for the first time in years i went to the beach, a place most other karachites will flock to. i was instantly reminded of why i had not been in a while, but that is a whole other story...

my best friends' engagement

tangled up

today, i was supposed to be out with my friends. i was, for a while anyway. then something came over me. it could have been that i hadn't eaten the entire day, it could have been that i am still suffering from that quarterlife crisis, it could be that my heart still yearns for you, but in any case, it was the reason i left abruptly, no doubt upsetting my friends. the truth was i missed you, uncontrollably. most days i wake up knowing you are no longer mine, and it hurts, but i manage to deal with it. sometimes though, i miss you and i ache for you, and those days, well those days, i don't think getting out of bed is a wise idea. instead, i wish the bed would swallow me whole. today, i called you, because i have not heard your voice since 20th jan 2009. and that's all i wanted. because despite all we've been through, despite the fact that we no longer talk, or communicate with each other in any way, despite that fact that you shattered my heart in a way no has and can, i feel no one knows me like you. and no one loves me the way you do...

or did...


you will not read this. you rarely miss me. and you probably don't long for me the way i continue to long for you. because i was always far more in love than you, far more vulnerable than you.

i was, and still am, tangled up in you.

current reading

the woman with no face

a week ago i saw a woman with no face.
today, i saw her again.


she sits outside Abdullah Shah Ghazi's mazar (or the shrine of Abdullah Shah Ghazi), leaning aginst a wall, she sits with a small plastic bucket (for want of a better word), begging for money. she can not do much else, considering as i said, she has no face.


let me explain: she is more than likely the victim or should i say (unfortunate? fortunate?) survivor of an acid attack. acid attacks are fairly common in pakistan, and most often the victim (who does not always survive) is a woman. these attacks are common when a woman has been termed loose, is believed to be an adulterer, or crosses her in-laws in some way. the perpetrators can be the woman (or girl's) father, brother, husband, even the husband's family. despite the prevalence of these incidences, acid continues to be sold cheaply and can be bought from almost anywhere (as it is also used to remove stains from floors etc).


when i usually learn about the survivors (whom i would call unfortunate survivors, for the world is not kind to people who are a mess physically, nor are their own families) i am upset because i can not imagine the 'life' that exists thereafter. this woman was different. sure she had a socket where her left eye should have been, and a bulging blind right eye. sure she had a nose that disappeared at the tip, to be met with a mouth that lacked lips. sure the skin on her face was decaying and diseased, but this is not what made my stomach churn.


what made me uneasy is that she sits there, with no idea of her surroundings. it makes me uneasy that she may be attacked (again); it makes me extremely uneasy that i do not understand how she eats, that she can not see what she eats. how does she bathe? where does she bathe? does someone pick her up in the evenings, only to drop her off at this same wretched place, each morn? does she belong to one of pakistan's notorious beggar camps? and if she doesn't, would that be worse?


somehow yes... the idea of never knowing where you're going, scares me. and yes metaphorically i have been there (and i am still there). but i still have my sight, even if occaisionally i lose sight. this woman, without the sense of sight, can she have metaphorical sight? do the two co-exist?


and is it horrible of me to think surviving some incidents and experiences, aren't moments that one should be grateful for?

thoughts on 'the outsider'

i don't want to say i loved the book, because ideas of love have no room in Camus's ' The Outsider.' intead i'll say this: there were moments when i felt i was peering into a mirror and catching glimpses of myself, and then there were other moments when i felt the protagonist, 'the outsider' himself, was the insider to me. for we connected.


for the past year or so, i have found myself as someone who is quickly able to detach from people, places and things. this was not always so. in fact, connections were very important to me once. and while they are still important to me now, i don't seek a connection everywhere, with everyone. i'm perfectly alright knowing that i have few friends, and even fewer close friends, because these connections are not easy to form, and can not be forged. once i needed many friends, now i create filters that screen out people who i think do not, and can not, understand me. and even when after all those filters someone gets through, i have barricaded myself using my experiences and my woe, my heartache and my heartbreak.

you can only get in so far.

but i digress. the book was eye-opening in that you have a protagonist who refuses to lie. Camus writes that lying is not only not telling the truth, but sometimes also telling more than the truth. how true. how truthful.

each day, i am finding it increasingly difficult to lie to myself, to pretend i want to be certain places with certain people (read the previous blog entry for more on that). i was taught lying was sometimes necessary to prevent people's feelings from being hurt, but what about what it does to me? it ensures i have to walk around being someone else. and i am no actress. really, i am not. moreover, it baffles me and boggles my mind. when i am invited out, i must conjure up some fantastic story as to why i can not attend, when the truth is, i don't want to be there. and since when did what we want, and what we need, no longer matter?

since when did the truth behind who we are and where we want to be, no longer suffice?
since when?
and since when have i been a reluctant follower?

what i hate about brown

there's a lot of things actually. and i don't know if it has to do with south asian culture, or purely pakistani culture, so for all intensive purposes, brown here refers to pakistani(s).

in no particular order:


i am irked when i am told to respect elders. when they enter a room, you must stand up with respect and offer your seat. i have no problem with this. my problem lies in the fact that you are not allowed to question the ways of elders, or the thoughts they may have. you are definitely not supposed to question when they ask you to do something. the idea is, with years under their belt, they should be revered. the belief is that age presupposes knowledge and authority. this is absolutely ludicrous. there are plenty of old people out there who do not know what they're talking about. moreover, if gender presupposed authority (and i'm sure that would mean being male presupposed authority), then women would be screaming and shounting and demanding their freedom(s). so why is age any different? should we add race to the mix too? what do you teach your children when you teach them to quietly listen to adults? how many children are exploited daily because they do not question what they are hearing, witnessing, and going through?


another popular lesson brown people learn early on in their lives is that things must be done out of a sense of obligation. more and more each day, my problem with this belief grows and grows. as someone who had many individuals show up to her mother's funeral (many of whom i had never met, and perhaps many of whom had never met my mother), i understood obligation at 16. it means showing your faces places, and making appearances, when you would much rather not. it means saving face and preventing people from thinking badly of you. you showed up to the funeral of a stranger, so you can not be an evil person... that is the line of thinking. it makes me seethe with rage when i think of people showing up to dinners, parties, funerals, anywhere near me, because they feel obligated to do so. this has affected me so drastically that i can not bring myself to go places unless i really, truly, want to. just this past december, one of my closest friends lost her father, and i was at her place everyday, helping her heal, because i wanted to be. when you ask me to do something, and i say yes without any hesitation, it's because i want to help, not because i feel compelled to since i was asked by a friend. when i go places it's because i know the company will be good for me, and i will do good for/to them. i don't care that it's a significant day- that is not reason enough for me to be present. why be fake? why pretend? why the farce? this however, does not sit well with my browner counterparts.


there's more where that came from, but i'll save it for another day. i had to get those two issues out, because they are every minute, pressing concerns. and well, no one here seems to get it.

shocking.

the outsider

eilis's recommendation: