Torn...

Today, I stand torn...

torn between happiness and sorrow,

between excitement and fear,

between joy and nervousness.

On the verge of a new beginning, a new life,

the thrill builds by day, 

my happiness knows no bounds.

I am ready to make the jump,

to leap to the other side,

but grief fills my soul

as I think of what I'm leaving behind.

***

This time, next month, I am going to be a married woman, inshaAllah. Not that this is news for me. I've known for months. I've been preparing. I've been on numerous shopping sprees with my mother, grandmother, and friends. I've shopped, planned, designed, ordered; done everything a bride-to-be does. Fussed over all that any girl in my place would. 

In February, this year, I got engaged to the love of my life, in August it was decided that we'll be married in December. This is the day I've waited for all my life. This is the day I've played and replayed in my head time and again. This is the day my friends and I have planned and re-planned a gazillion times during sleepovers and coffee dates.

I am happy, I am excited, I am thrilled. I am getting married to the man I love, the man I've waited for ever since Disney planted the idea of a Prince Charming in my head, the man I prayed for and who came to me as if custom-made for me. I couldn't be happier and more thankful to Allah. 

But amidst all the dreaming, all the excitement, all the hustle-bustle of wedding planning and preparations, and the enthusiasm of building a new life with someone, I seem to have missed a grave reality. 

I am leaving my home. 

Maybe not the house I grew up in, but the people who always made any house we lived in 'home'. As I stand at the threshold of a new beginning, I am leaving behind my parents and my brother. 

I am leaving behind my parents, my mother and my father, the two people that brought me into this world, fed me, clothed me, cared for me, nurtured me, brought me up, made me what I am today. 

I am leaving behind my mother, her gentle touch, her warm hugs, her room-brightening smiles, her sometimes childish humour. I am leaving behind my 'snuggle in bed and talk' moments with her, I am leaving behind the funny names she spontaneously makes up for me. I am leaving behind the woman I used to share a love-hate relationship with while in my teens, and the woman who became my closest friend a few years ago. 

I am leaving behind my father, his forceful demeanour, his not-so-funny jokes, his inability to be moved my emotional blackmail that isn't done by me. I am leaving behind the strongest man I've known, the one who I call out to no matter what needs to be fixed, unless its a broken heart. I am leaving behind the man who sits up in bed at night patiently, waiting for me to leave the room, half-sleeping, while I keep chattering about senseless things.

I am leaving behind my brother, his energy, his witty and sometimes cheap jokes, his breaking out into a dance at any time of the day. I am leaving behind the boy who grew up with me, who understands my parents just like I do. I am leaving behind the boy who would, in the first 6 years of his life, follow me everywhere, would tag along with me always. I am leaving behind the boy you would play with my hair, pull it at times, and once, considering that it would be fun, put chewing gum in my hair.  I am leaving behind the boy who used to tell on me a lot, but eventually turned out to be my secret keeper, my confidante. 

I am leaving behind my home. And no amount of happiness, excitement, and joy can erase the feeling of sudden emptiness inside me. 

Isn't it ironic that parents bring up their daughters with immense love, care and affection, they pamper them, spoil them, they teach them the know-hows of the world, they educate them in the best possible way they can, only to give them away one fine day.  

Ramadan Mubarak

My thoughts played havoc in my mind,

everything seemed haywire,

then they bumped and crashed against each other,

crashed and left me stunned,

and not a motion took on from there...

thus descended an air of quiet calm,

and in the calm, I found you my Lord.

***

Ramadan Mubarak to everyone, albeit this late. May Allah grant you the best of this world and the aakhirah, and may He accept your siyaam, qiyaam, ruku', sujood, and all other acts of ibadah.

May you all find your Lord in this Ramadan, in the calm, in the tranquility. 

On the choice I made

"Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition"

-Jacques Barzun

Last night, as I was busy reading some articles about education and educators and looking at my options for post-graduation, I suddenly remembered something someone said to me a few years ago. 

Before I get in to that, however, let me tell you that I have always wanted to be a teacher. Ever since I can remember. Ever since I was a kid, about 4 years old or so, I would take my grandmother's dupattas (since my mother refused to allow me to ruin hers), tie them around myself like a saree (a new one everyday), and my grandmother's shoes (again since my mom wouldn't let me mess with hers), and get dressed up as a teacher. I would imagine a bed-full of students, would write on a makeshift board, and talk to my imaginary students for hours, teaching them whatever I had myself learnt at school that day. I would be gentle, I would reprimand them for any mischief, I would ask them if they understood, I would explain again, almost re-enacting what my own teachers would do with us. If ever my mother, or anyone, would come into the room and sit on the bed, I would scream and say, "Aap mere bachon par baith rahi hain!" (You're sitting on my childen!) A fond memory that is. From the very few things I remember about my childhood, this is perhaps the most vivid memory I have. Also, my parents and grandparents, having taken immense joy in my antics back in those days, have often mentioned these things to me and everyone.

Over the years, as my learning syllabus grew, so did my teaching syllabus and thus my teaching methods. At 10, I was still teaching a bed-full of imaginary students, giving them tests, dismissing them for their break, and welcoming them back to class again. My "sarees" became better draped, my grandmother's shoes started fitting me a little better, I was in a position to now raid my mother's better-looking, high-heeled shoes, and had more books to teach from. I would teach Science, English, Hindi, Social Studies and Math (till I was 11, I was surprisingly good at Math! Haha!). I would make my cousins Sani and Ari (not their real names, of course) my students too whenever they were over, and I would test them and mark their tests in red pen. I remember reliving these fantasies in actuality when I did finally start teaching officially. 

While growing up, my career choices varied. Always. I wanted to be an air-hostess so I could fly around the world, I wanted to be a paediatrician because I loved kids and I loved Biology, I wanted to be an interior designer because I was creative and loved doing things to my room, I wanted to study business administration because I had the natural knack of a business-woman. I wanted to be so many things, and yet, I always wanted to keep teaching. I remember saying to my friends often, "no matter what I specialise in, I want to teach it". And that is what has always been the plan. If I had become a doctor, I would have wanted to teach after a few years of experience. If I had been a designer, I would have wanted to teach alongside. If I had been a business person, I would have wanted to teach instead of work in a typical office setting, or bother with running my own business. What did I eventually major in on an undergrad level? English Literature. And what do I want to pursue my post-grad in? Education. 

Now let's come back to what someone said to me a few years ago that I suddenly remembered last night. Mr. Somebody, let's call him, said to me, "You know, Miss S, you amaze me! When you were young, and used to live in Delhi, and would go to school, and do well, and even after you left and came back on vacations, you always impressed us. You knew so much, you were always well-acquainted with what was happening around the world. If we would talk about something academic, you always had something to say, and that something always made sense. You could talk about science, you could talk about geography, about history, you knew your psychology well, you knew everything but Math! We always thought you would eventually major in something of substance, maybe be a doctor, or a psychologist, or you would excel in a business school. But you've decided to study literature, and you want to teach? I know it's not because you had no other options. But why choose to be a teacher?"

Well, Mr. Somebody had me blushing quite a bit, especially since I was never a Grade A student, but just curious and a lover of knowledge. But not once did his statement make me question my decisions. I remember telling him this:

"Well, its easy, Mr. Somebody. I study literature because I love it. It's wholesome. From it I learn history, I learn geography, I learn medicine, I learn physics, I learn about plants, I learn about animals, I learn about politics, I learn how people think, I learn how they behave and why they do so, I learn how to sympathise, I learn how to empathise. Literature is wholesome. I take pleasure in a good book and a good piece of poetry, but I make sure I take from it a lot more than just its words. 

Why I want to teach, you ask? Yes, I want to teach, because all that knowledge of science, and psychology, and geography and history, I owe to my teachers, of school, of college. I want to teach because I want to give back and share what I have taken. I want to teach because only a teacher can make a student love a subject or hate it. I want to teach because only a teacher can eventually make doctors, or engineers, or psychologists, or geographers or historians. I want to teach because if you and I weren't taught, whether it be our ABC's or 123's, or the basics of sciences or anything that came after that, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. You wouldn't be studying the professional course that you are, either. Mr. Somebody, always remember that only a teacher who "chooses" to teach out of the love and passion they have for it, will be able to make a student really understand and love knowledge the way it should be loved. I have been lucky to be blessed with teachers who loved to teach and chose to do so when they had other options too because those who did so only out of a lack of other choices, have made my quest of doing well in Math a nightmare, always, and you know it because you've loathed some subjects for the same reason. Anyone can tell a passionate teacher apart from one who just landed into the profession out of an option deficit. 

Teachers work hard, they shepherd a flock. A new flock each year. A shepherd knows every single sheep of its flock from the other. He knows how to deal with each individual sheep. A shepherd knows how to treat its flock like a flock, make it work like a flock, and yet identify and treat every single sheep as individuals. And that's what teachers do. They hold their flock together, give it a direction, polish it, mend it, feed it, care for it, prepare it for what's coming. 

If people don't "choose" to teach today, Mr. Somebody, what would our kids learn tomorrow? If a shepherd doesn't choose to be a shepherd today, where will its flock go?"

On Education and Attitudes

"Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil."

-C.S. Lewis

Time and again, I am left appalled at the behaviour of some extremely educated and intellectual people. I find myself looking up to some people and admiring them for their achievements, and down goes my admiration the moment I find them looking down upon someone else or mistreating another individual.

I grew up learning from my parents that while education and knowledge were of extreme importance, they were incomplete without love, compassion and warmth towards others. My brother and I were always taught that people will, over a period of time, forget how much you knew, or what your credentials were, but they would never ever forget how you treated them and made them feel. 

What good are our degrees or our credentials if we can't bring a smile to someone's face? What good are your credentials if they can't mend a broken heart? What good is your education if you can't brighten up someone's day? What good is your degree if you can't bridge a gap between two estranged friends or brothers? What good are our achievements if we can't help someone in need? What good is our success if we can't appreciate the one who came second and helped us come first? 

On Hearts

"Duniya dil samajhti hai jise, woh dil nahin,

Pehlu-e-insaan mein ek hungama-e-khaamosh hai."

~Allama Muhammad Iqbal

The heart is a funny thing. It has highs and lows; it loves and it hates; it cries, it jumps with joy and it burns with anger. It goes through changes of seasons quicker than the Earth does. 

Equal to the size of a fist, yet so big, the heart seems to be a being in its own self, with a mind of its own.

The Arabic word for heart, 'Qalb (قلب)', originally means something that turns-around, about, upside down; something that switches and flips. That is probably why the heart isn't, never was, and never will be a static entity.