Hning's Asia

The year spent on an island

2012-04-08T23:25:00.000+07:00

I loved the year I spent on an island.

I was anonymous on that island. I was not going to be remembered for who I was, but for what I did. And that freedom of anonymity crushed and liberated me in ways I never could have imagined.

Sometimes, when anonymity got too hard to bear, I got on my bike. It was always a good day when I had the strength to fight the road’s indifference with destinations to distract me: somewhere to work, somewhere to eat, somewhere to break the sweat on my back, away from my moldy bed.

Sometimes, when it got late and I had reached the edge of the island on my bike, densely populated with catastrophic ghosts, I didn’t mind going to bed anymore. It was one of the good things about living there. That biking was enough to make comfy the bed at home.

I had a boyfriend then, but I was too numb or detached to realize that he was not meant to be. I might have felt it, but couldn’t understand why I ached for him even when he was attending me. And he attended me with indulgent kindness and, years later, that is how I remembered him.

On August 13, 17:14, I was home when I could not fight it anymore. Feelings, in every name and size, washed over me in spasmodic waves. I wept until my knees gave. I hiccupped through the text I sent him. I sobbed when I tried to tell him that I wasn't hurt and I was safe.

My clothes were soaked when he banged on my door, and his shirt and brow and eyes too were damp, and he pressed himself onto me, bearing with me the weight of everything that demanded its rightful name.

I loved the year I spent on that island. I was lonely and don’t want to remember anymore. But I do remember how his ashen face calmed me. I remember how he redressed and coaxed me out of the house for a drive. I remember that we stopped for food, and we broke bread and we talked and we tried to understand the things we couldn’t name.

And even when we couldn't understand, we had a bed that we slept in till morning.

And I had the strength to get on my bike again, that morning.

ITA VITA*

2012-04-06T20:05:00.000+07:00

On the road to my master's home, there is an old man who sits on his porch every afternoon. This old man has the most vacant look on his face. And every time, every afternoon we pass by his house, he's always there with that vacant look on his face, staring at a world that looks back at him with indifferent dismissal.

And I wondered out loud, "How could he do that every day?"

The Timekeeper, who is never idle and whose mind is never vacant even in his sleep, said, "With a lot of practice."

And the Timekeeper, through fractal images in Spartan but loaded sentences told me of the old man's life story. "His wife was the breadwinner. He was a creditor. He never really worked. He never did anything in his life."

If I ever had a TV show, I'd like to ~~s̶t̶r̶a̶n̶g̶l̶e̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶n̶e̶c̶k~~ interview him. "What has he done with himself? How could he?! How dare he?! When so many of our best and most passionate mates have fought and lost so hard a battle to Live and Express and Become."

I'm too ~~j̶u̶d̶g̶m̶e̶n̶t̶a̶l̶~~ shy to be on TV.

Though I refuse to let that vacant old man pass through my life unmarked, and demand to learn something from him, if only to soothe my own existential fears, in my defensive "I would have", in a story retold.**

* Latin: Thus (passes) Life

** Originally posted here.

The Bread We Break

2012-04-05T20:00:00.001+07:00

If you listen closely, you might hear why I’m comfortable living in the Republic of Hermitdom.

A capella in My head

Naturally, the first time I heard my own voice in That Bloggeratti Episode on Nessie’s Podcast, it filled me with narcissistic pleasure.

Then morning came, and it started ringing in my head. Not in the patient, soberly tone that Qusay's voice sounds.

It rang in my own unintelligible, repetitive, and snobby voice, “Who are you to claim expertise on blogging or writing? Who are you to think that you deserve sharing the same platform with the people you idolize? Who are you…”

It went on and on. And that was a whole week spent on recuperating before I mustered the courage to face the demons and write this.

Camouflaging Honesty

If everything I said was honest-to-God gushing, then why am I left with is this bitter taste of an overly-inflated-to-the-point-of-narcissistic-explosion toad?

This is probably why people put layers on their feelings. Why they sublimate love into flowers and chocolates and lace. Why emotional gushing, in polite societies, is tacky and cheapens the white heat of our personal revelations.

Who would have thought that there is so much self-reevaluation to take just from one podcast? I can’t imagine what it’s like for Nessie.

Labor Omnia Vincit

I can guarantee that none of us on that table was intentionally a presumptuous ass.

Saad had such a huge heart that it covered our need for gratitude. The Qusay who came was exactly the same Qusay who had been influencing the tone my writing voice. And Nessie and Souma, man, they’re the people I would go to if I ever killed anybody and needed someone to help me bury the evidence.

I can’t tell you all that without denting the truth with naiveté. I can show you, instead, how their work convinced me into trusting them. I can tell you that, someone who has the ability to pledge faith in anything as elusive as the satisfaction of posting, deserves a second evaluative look and respect.

For, it takes a colossal amount of courage and humility to do anything persistently for more than 30 months. And that courage and humility, if it was not fueled by something as colossally powerful and good, would have quickly lost footing and sunk in a cold sea of silent embarrassment.

A Posteriori

Hail to bloggers and podcasters and readers; for their solidarity and companionship to one another. Hail to the people who bothered to float their craft, even when it’s lonesome and scary. Like Ethar and Wafa and Dentographer. Like the voices I finally shared table with, on that Thursday afternoon in Jeddah, after so many years of living in each others’ heads.

Hail to everything that made it more painful to remain tight inside the bud than to risk ~~posting~~ blossoming.

Pentecost

2012-02-10T04:05:00.002+07:00

In all fairness, she didn't ask them to come and hold a cryfest with her.

Actually, Abu Bakr and Umar visited Umm Ayman to relieve their own grief and longing for the Prophet, following something that he used to do.

Repetition of habit is a way of remembrance, isn't it?

So when she started weeping, the companions reminded her that the prophet was in a better place.

She nodded between sobs, muttering "I know, I know. That knowledge brings me greater relief than anything else in my loss." Then shook her head, " It's the end of the revelations, the voice of God through the Prophet that made my grief linger."

It was that, the sense of irrevocable endings, that made the two companions weep with the Prophet’s old nurse.

***

Then they heard it.

Shy at first, barely nudging its presence between their sobs, but they heard it, nevertheless. Its clarity and calm decisiveness contrasted their emotional shambles, and brought them upright with urgent attention.

“You have work to do.”

Suddenly the room was crowded with generations of future and past ghosts. The ghosts of the people who have died to uphold their practice. The ghosts of fore-children who were going to miss out on the Prophet’s teachings had it not been grounded into the living. Today.

If most of the ummah remembered how it felt to have a prophet amongst them, how, then, would the unborn remember?

If it was bothering the woman who knew the Prophet the longest, it surely would have bothered the rest of the ummah.

And they each only had a life time to spend. And it was going to be one worth spending; because they knew how it felt to be at loss, to grieve. To swing between love and hate, darkness and light.

***

On taking leave from Umm Ayman, they wondered between them, “Did you hear it?”

“In the pause between sobs? Yes, indeed.”

“What do you think it was?”

“The same voice that guides the bees and mountains and stars. The same voice that our Prophet sought in his nights of solitude and devotion. The same voice that, we might as well hope, would guide us and our children through the darkness.”

Umar’s voice deepened, “The weak might confuse other voices with…”

“That’s what we need to work on, isn’t it? Straighten the lines and set the foundations. As long as the ummah sticks to those, we can hope for the best in the voices that they will hear, when they find themselves in moments of calm respite. That is all that any teacher can hope for from the unknown.”

Inspiration

2012-02-03T23:06:00.005+07:00

It was one of his better days. The house was turned inside out in preparation for festivity. Someone was getting married. The air was crisp and friendly. And the Master had actually allowed more than a crack of smile to pass his lips.

It was definitely a good day. The girls felt it. The servants too. The Master's delight touched everyone. He had been down under for too long, ever since the revelations went on hiatus. And for today at least, the veil of despair thinned and the household bustled with relief.

She took courage in these promising signs. Might that crack of smile widen into laughter? Or last a while after? Why can't it reach and reverberate to his heart? Albeit its thinness and brevity, might it not hold him with hope until the rest of him follows afloat?

When the domestic rush lulled and they found each other alone, she approached him. The hush was so sudden that he could have heard her thoughts. He felt it too, that slight lift of air in his surrounding. The kind that settles deliberately to let a woman ask her man what she had already known but needed to hear again.

"What are you thinking?"

And he held her in his gaze a while, feeling the weight of a fine-hammered woe hang between them with calm despair.

"How lucky, how happy we have been, Madam."

She tilted her head slightly, listening into what he was not saying. He dropped his gaze, blushing at her attentiveness.

"I mean, look at us, and at all that we have. The past messengers - their messages carried an air of urgency. There was a desperate necessity in their work. Moses had to save the Israelites. Jesus was the epitome of miracles. David, Solomon, Lot, Jonah, Job...they all had an important message to pass on. What business do I have with messages? A poor, illiterate orphan, who just got unbelievably lucky by marrying you."

He paused to indulge in a husband's pride, drinking in her feminine reaction to his words. The intimacy did not last; it quickly soaked with guilt. And despair clouded his eyes again.

"Do I really have anything to say to the people, Madam? What, the few nursery verses would do the job, you think? It has been so long since the last time I felt that Presence, I might not even recognize its arrival again.” His voice rose a pitch, “Maybe there isn't anything left to say or do and we should all just be happy!”

The mistress did not answer. Her gaze broke and drifted towards the house. The servants sweeping out the dust. The morning light breaking forenoon. And she heard him sigh.

“Why can't we just not care?”

"Because you knew how it felt like," she said. "Because you knew exactly how it felt to be poor and orphaned and lost. You would not let it pass under your watch as long as you can help it. You would have adopted every orphan, given every traveler a hint of direction, and fed every mouth from your own plate. Because you know how it feels to be forsaken."

He shook his head and shifted uneasily on his feet. He was about to go under again. She chased his despair.

“And if that is all that you can do,” she said, “then do it. Do it every day. Maybe that is your message and what you’re supposed to convey. If God and the angels and every man on earth forsook you, then you don't forsake your own calling.”

And that was how the long pause in the revelations ceased. How the Forenoon was inspired. How the work revealed itself over and over again. By being grateful about what is good in life, and helping where one can.

Every forenoon, ‘till Kingdom come.

Ecstasy

2012-02-01T10:22:00.002+07:00

"Cover me, Madam. Cover me. Cover me."

His wife spread her blanket and her arms around him. And held him. Tight into her bosom. No questions asked. Until his fever abated and his words flowed.

Then he told her that he might have seen a demon. But it was not a common demon, he would have known that by now. This Being had an uncommon, eternal grace. And that it held and spoke to him in words that jolted his sanity.

"You told him that?" She smiled, amused that her husband, despite his fears, managed to reply thrice that he could not read.

"It's the truth, isn't it? I can count, ride a camel and sell at profit. I can do a lot of things, but I can't read. Why should I admit otherwise?"

Her smile broadened, "What else?"

Then, he said, the being held and filled him with endlessness. Like something inside him, his very soul was torn and whitewashed with infinity. He thought that it was never going to end, or that it was only for a minute. And that he was losing his mind.

And she laughed. And he thought she was mocking him, but her laughter rang with kindness.

"Darling, if it's any news to you, then it is that you would be the last of all people to be cursed with insanity. Come, let's ask for counsel. I don't think that you would take my word for it, but I'd rather take this as good omen."

One the way back from the counselor, he asked her and his voice heavy with grief. "Do you still think it's a good omen?"

And she offered him her brightest smiles yet, "What, that you have got your life's purpose defined for you? You realize that men your age are usually struggling with middle-age crises, while you just got promoted. What's not good about that?"

He halted, and tightened his hold on her hand and searched her eyes. The longing crushed them both. "It will cost us everything we have ever had and known. Every. Thing."

"Then,” said the good wife, “It's a good thing that we do have that much to give."

The Queen's Mirror

2012-01-13T00:10:00.001+07:00

Day by day, the answer never changed.

When she asked, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest one of all?"

"You are, my love," said the magic mirror. "You are the fairest one of all that has ever reflected upon this ancient glass of thine."

That was all that the mirror said. Day by day, and through the years, it repeated the same assurance. As long as the queen asked, and she asked it often, it repeated the same old answer.

"You are. You are, my queen, my love and fairest one of all."

The mirror's answer did not change when she needed solace in her childhood. Or when the insecurities of adolescence washed her with shame. Or when she donned her wedding gown, when she mourned her husband's passing, or when they crowned her as queen regent, on behalf of the crown princess, Snowdrops.

Every time she asked, she meditated on its answers. There was a patch of silence in her days reserved to process what the mirror had to say about her behavior and outward appearance. She might have known the answer, but it made it all the better to hear it in the clarity of engulfing silence.

Besides, it was easier, she noticed, to correct fresh mistakes, than old scars. So the queen made it a point to look into the mirror often.

Ever the faithful and sincere and loving, the mirror said, "You are, my love, the fairest one of all."

But, lo, as ultimate ruler of the queendom, she allowed herself to be taken by the bustle of sovereignty. The affairs of the country are more demanding to her attention than mirror meditations, she argued.

And, for shame, the mirror went deeper into the realms of forgetfulness; right when its master needed its advice the most against the ultimate temptress. The queen forgot that power does not corrupt suddenly, with thunder and clamor. It gnaws its corrosive grip upon the soul gently, seductively; catching its targets unawares with countless unnoticeable small decisions.

"How many are invited to the banquet? What, only 1000? What will the noble kinsfolk say? Invite 10'000!"
"How much are you betting? Ha, I'll raise you twice that much."
"Who cares what the farmer thinks? Just bulldoze the damn house and build that summer palace."

Until one day, after years spent in the deepest part of the queen's wardrobe, on the event of clearing it to make more space for shoes, they found the magic mirror. Dusty and bitter with neglect, it spoke years of small bad decisions, far too many that it took a poisonous apple, a death, a long slumber and a forgiving kiss for all mistakes to be repaired.

Far too many that, when it was Snowdrop's turn to be queen, she made it a point to attend a daily audience with the reflective Silence, lest she be caught unawares of small mistakes that have would have gnawed too deep to be uprooted.

Subtlety

2012-01-10T22:20:00.004+07:00

I had guessed how long she practiced from where they had placed her (way at front!) in the meditation hall. Hence, as soon as the silent vows were lifted, I picked her ~~to annoy~~ for guidance: "You've done this so many times, hasn't something changed in you?"

She looked at me compassionately; not a strand of her platinum hair waved.

I blushed. "Of course it has. How silly of me to ask that. Allow me to rephrase my question: did it take you away from the original faith that you were raised in?"

She said, in classical Rogerian terms, "What matters is, what it has done to yours?"

A kaleidoscope of cultural upbringing, brief Atheism and ~~lewd~~ mortal tendencies flashed quietly between us, before I said, "Islam was taught to us in vulgar tongues; it was always either hell or heaven and magical beings being transported between the worlds. Meditation has helped me understand Islam's subtler meanings."

She smiled again. Understanding. Or maybe just detached from what train of thoughts I was going through.

I asked her again, "Don't you get bored of repeating the same stuff over and over?"

"You're a yoga practitioner. Don't you get bored?"

I grinned. "The true teacher is the practice itself, huh?"

***

At another table, I heard a first time student speak vehemently about her meditation experience. "I felt incredible itches all over. You know what that means don't you? Ask that lady over there, she is a psychic in the magical matters of the meditation. Bet she can even guess the age you'll die in! I saw a DEMON HOVER ALL OVER ME!!"

I felt my head hit the table in front of me.

Alas, it isn't the practice that is subtle or vulgar. It was never the method, place, texts, prophets, goddesses or any of that crude signs of awesome that raised man his dignity and honed his merits and honored him with heaven or hell.

It had always been something beyond all of that, hadn't it? Something that all of us, if we waited and practiced long enough, will eventually understand, believe and fail to explain in more than a compassionate smile.

Signs

2012-01-08T22:20:00.001+07:00

In the beginning, between 2500 BC - 1000 BC, God was presented in the flashiest forms: Global warming. Burning bushes. Absolute reign over man, demon and weather. Infinite wealth. Oceanic division. Etc.

It worked in convincing man for as long as they remembered. As soon as generations elapsed…the prophets had to start over again.

Then almost simultaneously, between 500BC and 30AD, Plato, Buddha, Confucius and Jesus agreed, "Okay, since flashy miracles don't seem to work in enlightening man, let us limit the scope of miracles to man himself."

So they taught that man is God's miracle. His birth, life, thoughts and death are all miracles.

But man was still miserable. The more they were taught how to be happy, how to think and believe, the more miserable they became. The deeper they held on to religion, the more miserable they became. The Middle Ages, the crusades, the Inferno.

Finally, the masters said, "You know, let's just take away all crystallized signs of miracles. Let man find the magic in brevity, in what flows."

And they left man with each other's actions: what they said and did to one another as the remaining sign of God's presence on Earth.

dezombification week

2012-01-04T20:37:00.002+07:00

This is an expression of belated well-wishes and BIG LOVE for everyone, and especially for Triesti and midget's shared sweetheart, good ol' Colson.

For midget's aunt, Myra, this had been her first time on a meditation retreat. Myra seems to have come out of it okay, but just in case, the Timekeeper was the one who endorsed her enrollment, so if anything broke in auntie, Mom, it's his fault.

As for Triesti and midget who have done this before, the ride had never been so smooth. It's a wonderful shock to find that it no longer hurt either body, mind or wallet to meditate intermittently for 11 hours, from 04:00 until 21:00, every day.

At home, though, the zombification side-effects from practicing monastic vows of silence and lifestyles started to show: Midget lost her house keys, forgot how to type and spent hours staring at the shower knob, trying to remember how to turn it on.

Catching up with Triesti, who reported similar experiences, they decided to postpone all high-level mental activities (including showering) until they recover more psychomotor coordination & psychosocial skills, and concentrate on ~~cursing~~ ~~fucking~~ EATING MEAT for a few more days.

Or not. (^_^) i miss blogging, brain! Dezombify already!!

The Majority in Hell

2011-12-14T00:27:00.002+07:00

The prophet once said that the majority of the population in hell are women.

If that were true, then there are more women than men on earth. And more women in heaven too.

I don't know my religion well enough to theorize, but my version of the bible (Introduction to Psychology) gave me these ideas why the Prophet said the above.

Part I: Genetically speaking

XX chromosomes has a better chance to survive the natural selection than other variations. Hence, if nature prefers the XX chromosome to develop, doesn't it mean that there are more baby girls born than boys? More females walking on earth than male?

Part II: Statistically speaking

In countries where the female is subject to social suppression and gendercide, there are always less women than men on the social maps.

On the other hand, in conditions nearest to ideal, where men and women are treated equally (at least in legal terms), there are always more women than men.

Hence, is it possible that the drop in female ratio in suppressive conditions suggest that those unhappy female fetuses, girls and women are already going through a hell of some sort compared to the male population?

Part III: Socially speaking

Every time that hadith is questioned, the muftis say that there are more women in hell because they lack religion and intellect.

That they are impure due to the menstrual cycles, and that the responsibilities of motherhood and housekeeping are more important than religion.

I don't even need to menstruate to lack in religion. And I would seriously question a female's intellect every time she splurges on these, these, or these. Hold on, let me just finish that shopping order I started.

But, let us assume in earnest that the muftis are correct. That women do practice less religion, are forgetful beings with sinful tendencies to seduce and slur.

Albeit, I still dare assume that the female population in heaven exceeds the male. Without even trying too hard for it. Because, even though it is very fun to try going to hell, it is just too much extra work!

Staying married to the same man, just being nice to him when he comes home, equals the reward of half a jihad.
Staying married to the same man, especially if he is an ass, is even better: everything she touches shall carry a burning witness for her jealousy: Lord, her heart breaks, spare hell from her wrath.
Everything that has to do with the childrearing, from menstruating, maintaining dignity, every time she performs her wifely duties, every day of pregnancy, every pang of labor, every drop of milk, to the nights spent in vigil after a sick child is counted in multitudes of bonus hasanats: 70 years of prayer, enters heaven 500 years, 70'000 angels and so and forth.
Even if she never married, she still has a better chance at than all the men, because a single pious woman equals 70 saints. Hah!

If you put all of that together, does it add up to you that the female population in heaven and hell exceeds the male?

Conclusion

Alas, there is a running meter for passive femininity to every social situation. Whether virgin, sinful, repentant, widow, in Iddah, divorced, pregnant, mother, childless, victim of gendercide, it is all working on her behalf to send her to heaven.

For, going to heaven is the easy part about being a woman. It is believing that she deserves it that is hard.

The Ark

2011-12-07T23:08:00.002+07:00

It is rarely known that after the ark was built, it spent decades sitting there in the desert, like a public declaration of its builder's insanity, before it did what it was meant to do for the forty days of the deluge.

In those decades, the ark was first a laughing stock, then a public latrine and finally a drug mine.

Since the prophesized deluge never came, and since the man who built the ark never quit rambling about it, it shifted swiftly from a being public joke to a public embarrassment.

To punish the man who had caused that embarrassment, the townsfolk used it as public latrine. They defecated all over it. From bow to poop, from stem to deck, was covered by their communal byproduct.

As legends go, when the ark was entirely pooped upon, came a plague. A rather strange one too, since none of the drugs they had could fix it. The disease was not as fatal as it was ugly and reeked of sin.

One day, one of the sick decided to meditate on his ill-fortune by spending his thoughts on the public's favorite toilet: the ark in the desert.

While he was minding his business, the man slipped and fell straight into a heap of his kinsmen's poop. Washing the damn thing off him, he saw that where the poop had touched him, the disease was healed.

The good news spread fast. Anyone (and that was everyone) who caught the plague, went to the ark to gather handfuls and cratefuls of poop.

Whatever was the method of treatment, as long that the disgusting material touched that area the disease was - miraculously - gone. Kind of like penicillin. It was lathered on, dropped in the eyes, swallowed, diluted, concentrated, injected, and even smoked.

But never replicated.

The only excrement powerful enough to fix symptoms of the plague was stuff brought from the ark. Hence, being so highly in demand, the ark turned into a mining field: Every part of it was covered by townsfolk meticulously searching between crooks and crannies, picking and scooping and tweezing, and finally wiping for the golden dust off the ark.

When the ark was spick and span, even cleaner than when Noah had left it, the plague ended.

That was the last installment of @G30HM, under the theme: “7 days to write fairy tale”.

Glass Shoes

2011-12-04T23:13:00.003+07:00

The carriage was not there.

This was not what she had bargained for with the fairy godmother, she cursed, especially with a smitten prince at her heels.

She ran outside the palace yard and whistled for a cab by the gate. Not a minute too soon either; her ball gown dissolved into the usual tattered dress as soon as she closed the carriage door behind her.

"To stepmother's house, please."

Entering from the back of her stepmother's house, she saw the pumpkin smashed on the side the gate. Mice and vermin circling it, merrily eating the pieces.

A horse's reins were tied tight to a tree nearby. It never left the house to pick her up from the ball.

Entering her cold room, she washed her face and tried to diffuse the smell of merriment off her. She did not want it to show even in her dreams. And especially not to him, the faithful drunkard sleeping there.

He stirred groggily as she removed his shoes and pushed him aside, making room for herself in their tiny cot. He reeked of cheap wine and whiskey, the smells of jealousy and grief.

When she felt his eyes on her, she said, "You forgot to pick me up."

"I thought you wanted to live there." He looked at her, the drunken glaze gone from his eyes. "Did he take bait?"

"For certain."

"Well. Then."

He scooted further away from her, as if there was any room left in their cot, his back turned to her, avoiding the sad thought of her leaving him for something better.

She sighed. Caressing his back, she saw that her hand was bare. Taking it out of her pocket, she slipped the ring back on her third finger.

They still had time until the prince found her, she thought. She refused to spend it in argument with him, the simple man she married out of loneliness in that big, cold house.

Royal Weaver

2011-12-02T22:45:00.002+07:00

After tea, the good King asked his son whom he would like to take as wife, for it was only proper that the Crown Prince of Cumbok celebrated his coming of age by choosing a wife.

The prince told the good King, that he had his heart set on marrying the woman of his dreams: a poor farmer's daughter in a nearby village.

As legends go, the king tried to dissuade the prince, the prince insisted on the same girl, the King relented, by and by, a royal convoy was dispatched to bring the girl back to the palace.

When the royal convoy finished reading aloud the royal declaration of intent in making her the second most powerful woman in the Kingdom, the farmer's girl said,

"What is the prince's job?"
"Madame?"
"What does he do for a living?"
"Why, he is the prince," said the ambassador. "All is provided for him. What does he need a job for?"
"You're telling me that - with all due royal respect - he's good for nothing and is foolishly squandering his life away. Tell him to learn a skill - any skill - and get a job. I have no need for a man who does not know how make his own living."

Enamored as he was, rather than taking offense, the prince took the advice to heart and tried his hand at a number of skills until he found that weaving carpets was something that his soft, princely hands were pretty good at.

The prince trained diligently in the art of weaving carpets, an art that was quite popular (even today) in his Kingdom. When the Royal Convoy arrived again at the farmer girl's house, they had a carpet worthy enough of princely credit as proof to what the man had done (so far) in the name of love.

A gesture that romantic was too difficult to refuse even for the most pragmatic girl in Cumbok. Hence, that part of the fairy tale earned its happily for that month: The crown prince got a job, and his girl agreed to marry and move in with him, albeit it is to his parents' house.

A few months after their marriage, the prince took a stroll alone in the city. When tired, he entered a decent and clean cafe to rest. Unbeknownst to him, the cafe was actually a burglar's watering hole.

The burglars, in return, seeing that an impeccably dressed tourist - for no sane local would - had entered their nest, decided to kidnap him. All the while not knowing that their victim was a prince.

The burglars, though, were soon disappointed to discover that their catch had no money on him and the best thing they might do with him was cut him up and sell his organs.

Not exactly thrilled by his captors' proposed business plan, the prince offered them a bargain.

"I'm a carpet weaver by training. In fact, I'm so good at it that I once won a girl's heart by weaving for her. Rather than making a one-time profit out of this delicate circumstance of kidnapping me, why not invest in getting me tools of my trade and win yourselves an even more sustainable resource for as long as I keep both of my kidneys?"

Long story short, the prince weaved a bunch of carpets, each was more beautiful than the other, filled with intricate details that pleased all who saw and touched it.

The burglars, having made a small fortune from few of the carpets they had sold in the public market, thought that they could make even more gold by selling it to the King of Cumbok.

When the carpets were spread at court, the prince's wife - a.k.a. the poor farmer's daughter who once refused a royal proposal lest the man had a job - recognized the carpet as her absent husband's work of hand.

Conveniently, she saw the secret messages weaved into the carpet's decorative details, disclosing information on the prince's whereabouts and location.

What happened afterwards, I will not insult my readers' intelligence by spelling it out. Though, I will freely assume that my readers can guess why, in the evening after his rescue, the Royal Crown Prince of Cumbok was seen kissing his wife's feet for the life she had saved him.

Footnotes:

Cumbok is in Pidie Regency, in Aceh Province, and it is still a carpet weaver's town.
The above legend was ripped from "Rangmanyang Menjadi Batu": A collection of Acehnese Folk Tales.
This post was a submission for another one(!) of my side projects: "Writing for 30 Days Movement on Social Media". This week's theme was Fairytales. Yesterday's story, in Indonesian, was posted on the other blog.

Bookish Excuse

2011-11-25T10:03:00.001+07:00

Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah by Richard Francis Burton

I'm currently recording and editing parts of the book's audio version. Coming from a third generation mutawwif family, this book touches the deepest vein in my Saudi heritage.

Yea, I really did put all three words in a single sentence, didn't I? Let's do it again and watch the fireworks go off.
My.
Saudi.
Heritage.

Did you feel that? Wow.

The reason why I'm blogging about this (other than apologizing for recent excessive blogging hiatus) is because we're short on Proof Listeners. I ~~want~~ am trying to finish all recordings - Insha Llah - before Christmas, and would love if you could lend an ear and inflate a girl's ego by helping send this project into the IMMORTAL embrace of the public domain -- while tinkering with the dishes/laundry/the long drive home.

Think about it. How little you have to suffer (for my English is as broken as my Arabic), in return for that many of ETERNALLY AWESOME KARMA.

Namaste.

PS. Add me on

Unhate Campaign – The film

2011-11-17T21:18:00.001+07:00

I don’t endorse Benetton or have converted to mainstream consumerism. Unfortunately, this blog is a sucker for anything that seeks comfort zones between conflicting ideas, even if it is clad in a boring clothing line.

The 1:08 minute film challenged even some of my conservatisms. The ideas are presented loudly and almost rude, but I could live with that. After all, it is an advertisement.

It does not mean, however, that these ideas are untrue. These image have taken place in our most intimate circles, possibly affecting our daily decisions. And it is nice to see controversy presented in that desperate tone between fear of repercussion and longing to reach out.

PS. There is no such thing as “unhate”. You either love and hate (angry form of love) or suffer the opposite of both: indifference.

iRebel

2011-11-15T23:13:00.001+07:00

Last year, at the end of the meditation retreat, my teachers summoned me to their private chamber.

I swallowed hard.

Even when voluntarily submitting under tutelage, I still struggled with authority. It's just a prophetic streak, you know. You grow up being called a rebel, you kind of get used to and believe it, follow it. I rebelled even in silence and between 11 hours a day of sitting still.

To be summoned by authority, shit, that only happened when rebellion loses its cool.

"The way you talked during one-to-one meetings got us concerned," my teachers said. "We weren't sure if you were straight enough in the head to follow through the course."

*CLUNK* went my life preserving rebellion. I swore I'll never rebel against the muses and teachers and diet regiments ever again if only I could get out of this one with shreds of my dignity intact.

"So we googled you," they grinned collectively in that eerie way that comfortably enlightened ones do. "And found out that you weren't really crazy. Actually, you're quite (compliment, compliment, and more blotted out compliments) but your grammar needs improving."

Wait, what?

Ya, okay. I stand by my last post. I don't give a grub and internet personas may go to hell. But when real life grabbed me choking for words, google helped make rebellion look sexy again.

Sometimes.

I feel scattered

2011-11-14T22:59:00.001+07:00

I'm all over this place.

I'm in blogs, twitter accounts, chat, audiobooks, translations. It's like I don't want to be seen completely in a single light, on a single page. Like I don't want to be known, but still need to say things here and there. Like I'm afraid that anyone might see me completely, as whole, and then realize I'm not that awesome and then I have to do an acrobatic yoga pose or flash a boob.

Fuck this existential dip.

Come on, what does it all matter? Who cares? And why would I want to be remembered in the first place?

Don't all things pass?

Those parts that have been scattered had to be vomited out because I didn't, and I still don't want to be stuck. I loathe being stuck in love, lust, labor, hate, anger, word counts. Dammit. I still think my internet selves and work are shit, because they don't make out the real me. These internet selves are not who I am, or what matters.

I write myself out. I expulse myself in words and bytes and bullshit, so that by the time we meet, by the time the things that matter do happen, we can quietly simmer in the afterglow of things well done and fucking well said.

See if it still matters then. See what will remain between us in that smooth, uninterrupted wholesomeness then.

"Does the Noise in my Head Bother You?"

2011-11-03T23:56:00.001+07:00

I keep revisiting this quote from Steven Tyler's musical biography to summarize why I think people - in the end - should go through paying hefty wedding expenses or complicated OFFLINE dating rituals and get laid more often anyway. Whatever suits their social orientation.

You know there's always a rock n roll icon somewhere who has written the perfect paragraph in describing one of the finer moments of life.

For Sweet Jesus' sake. Of course.

I will tell you that some of the finer moments in my life were making love to a woman and coming together. There's an ancient magic ritual to this: if right before both of you come, you make a pact or say a prayer and focus on that thought, "Sweet Jesus, I want you to send this light" to cure an illness, to achieve some deep purpose in your life, it will happen, because there is no power on earth stronger than that. There's electromagnetic theory behind it. If I hooked up that energy the instant you come to an electrode it would go mmmmmmmmmmbbrrrrgggnnnnnn. The little red needle would thrash like a rattlesnake's tail.

For what it's worth, I can believe in any Jesus every time that needle swung somewhere.

GLBT, BDSM etc. Thing

2011-11-02T00:11:00.001+07:00

When it comes to sexuality, whatever is our orientation, we are faced with the same complications:

One, mating hormones evolved for the survival of the species (that includes in securing the needs for acceptance, intimacy, love, etc.), and not just to complicate our lives with the expenses of a wedding.

Two, whatever is your orientation, labels do not improve or worsen your chances at getting laid. They're just labels. What we do beyond these labels is what matters.

Big Picture

Let's say that sex is the best item on life's menu. Let's also assume that people who eat this food, are happier than those who don't.

So what about the people who don't have it? The celibate, single, married for more than 30 months, impotent, fasting, etc. Are they all doomed with starvation of the soul, lack of intimacies and intellectual growth?

And how about heterosexual rapists, abusive partners, the pedophile and the rest of the kinks. I'm not judging, I'm just highlighting that they're straight too, but would you think that they are practicing heterosexuality in a healthy manner?

What I'm trying to say here is that, at some point, sex life and orientation wouldn't matter so much if you've got other ways to be happy. If you're practicing to hit the best of luck, and if you want to worthy of other people's time, money, love and friendship FOR MORE THAN WHAT YOU CAN DO IN BED.

Think big with me. A backstabbing, curmudgeonly, selfish and uneducated man would not make a better company even if he is straight. And that gay man, who served his God in wonderful and true art, will always be the celebrated Da Vinci.

Big Why Bother

Sticking to the rules is a daily practice.

There's always the easy way out. But you didn't read this far because you want to do the easy thing. You kept reading because you want to do the right thing, and it's hard. And we get it; because we have failed too and failure is a gift upon humanity, for how else do we learn?

And sometimes we forget why we bothered taking the hard unnatural way; to stay miserably abstinent, or monogamous, or be creative in releasing this goddamn gift of pent up energy in making money, serving ourselves, the country we love, or pleasing some unseen god.

Because it's a daily choice: Be the mere labels you carry, or be more.

Frozen

2011-11-01T23:56:00.004+07:00

FIRE

I meant every word I fired at him.

Every possible bullet in my verbal arsenal skirred in calculated intervals. "You're a whining, annoying, unproductive failure. Nobody can stand you because your words sink them with embarrassment."

It was so easy to crush him. I took pleasure in it. And the consequence was just as harsh.

I could have blamed exhaustion, KITAS renewal process, long travels. The underline was - feel free to call me superstitious - that I couldn't write for weeks after that exchange with David.

Everything I said fired immediately back at me. My words, the only crutch to my pride and excuse for existence, sunk me with embarrassment the moment I misused them.

Words and words, in this language and that, verbal and physical, nevertheless only words and more words, deserted me.

Had they been said in anger, if passion may ever be an excuse, they would have been staggered and clumsy. Grammatically incorrect. But I still have the logs, and the words I used were so impeccable in form and delivery, that I could almost see the parts where I gasped for breath to italicize my cruelty.

FORCE

If my words, after they had been said in variations, fall onto deaf ears and stiff extremities, I’d be the one to blame. It always felt like it's my fault, when I have had the opportunity to say the words, and none triggered a reaction.

I meant, "triggered the reaction I wanted". After all, I am a woman of words; if it’s not words that define me, then what good is there left of me?

Just words. My words. It's never about readers or listeners. Who cares about how they felt or thought? Whatever I say, no matter how I say it, I'm just trying to stay afloat with one more sentence. One more idea. One more quote to keep you interested. Lest I lose your attention and drown in my expanse of failures.

And the more I struggled to say the next eternally quotable phrase, the deeper the stink of fear soaked my letters.

FAILURE

Last night was climatic.

After three years of formal higher education in the most politicized region of the middle east, five years of blogging, all the eloquence and counting and, still, nothing prepared me for the humiliation that this writing assignment was going to deliver.

A former colleague asked me to be her referee. I have known her for years, professionally at first, then intimately. Yet there was nothing I could say about her that did not sound like a salesgirl high on immodesty and desperate to pay the rent by the end of the month.

Returning the blank referee form, I apologized for being worse than a failure. I apologized for being stupid.

FLOW

I was nobody.

On the pavement of that busy street, under the naked afternoon sun, near the rush of destinations, I walked in the annual solitude of not having an identity. I was nobody, neither Indonesian or Saudi: my passport and residential permit at the immigration for renewal.

But, the afternoon! It was so sweet and unpretentious and golden that I relished being able to walk the street by myself, ignored and desperate to be happy when any day I could lose it all.

I am nobody. If I died there, nobody was going to know where to place me, even in a sentence.

"Who was the deceased? We don't know. Not really old, not really young. Though certainly alone and unknown."

What a perfect eulogy, I thought.

And that’s when he texted me.

"I have failed at things, but I'm not a failure. I have a life and it's rough, but you know what it's like. Your words hurt me, but I understand why you're hurt. And it’s okay, it’s going to be okay."

That's when my words flowed again. When his words forgave mine.

Timekeeper

2011-10-22T01:00:00.005+07:00

Since 2008, these two questions have had the highest rate in making me stutter:

What do you do for a living?
Who's the Timekeeper?

I'm not going to indulge on the first one. There is so much that a professionally unemployed could say before starting to dodge rotten tomatoes.

Fortunately, the second question about the Timekeeper, I can still try to explain, if not verbally, then in a blog post.

Or eleven. Hundred. Ish.

Clergyman

In the simplest terms: The Timekeeper keeps the time.

There is a clock in every room in his house and there are two in his pockets: one tells normal hours, and the other tells equatorial hours (the sun dial). He keeps a close watch of the time because it is one of his duties as clergy to issue the prayer times in this village.

My brothers and I have known him since we were babies. The Timekeeper never married, hence he adopted us and filled in where our parents could not; the elder whose practical advice and detached love we trusted and obeyed and occasionally feared when we are naughty.

In a way, my family's relationship with the Timekeeper reflects at an atomic scale how the rest of the village interacts with him.

Fractions

I do not think it is possible to write about anyone or anything without slightly eschewing reality. We can, however, break down our experiences into fractions of simpler actions and words. Just so that our memories remain accurate, though in smaller doses. And just so that we don't start sounding like Timekeeper evangelists.

I can only hope that whatever Anggi showed in his video and whatever I said about him will reflect enough glimpses of our clergy and father, so that you may connect what you've gathered and make up your own version of a Timekeeper.

(Hover on the links to see the gist of the posts.)

Gupta

2011-10-18T23:39:00.000+07:00

When I knew that Sudhakar, barely 20 years old, was coming from Delhi, I shed all shame and groveled for food.

No woman stuck InNoDairyNesia could pass on a chance to import Indian food, man. You know what India has that Indonesia doesn't? Dairy products. And dairy-based sweetmeat. And Soan Papdi.

The Timekeeper always said that there are two hungers: Hunger in your stomach, and hunger below your stomach. And if you can't feed below the stomach, just eat twice.

Hence, everything there is to know about a place and the people who live there can be observed from the way food is prepared, presented and consumed. Life long relationships are forged or ended witnessed by food: Weddings, Super Bowl, Lebaran, funerals. Some of the most expensive shows on TV are based on food.

So you can imagine how easy it was for me to shower Sudhakar with respect and adoration based on a whole half a kilo of soan papdi, slowly installed in credits to my width.

People who work together tend to cluster around the same food and accommodations. And that's where things really happened between volunteers: When they ate together.

During one of these highly-recommended communal dinners, a pretty volunteer walks in and greets Sudhakar:

"Sweet Kutta, how are you?"

To my horror, Sudhakar smiled and returned her salutation in his obscenely sweeter manner.

Now, anywhere in this post, you can switch the "food" with "sex"; because they share the same forms of cultural expression. In places where food is abundant, sex too is abundant. In places where food is treated with meticulous preparation and ritualistic consumption, you can pretty much imagine how the people there behave in private.

But to respond nicely after being called a "sweet kutta" sent the big sister in me kicking. So what if she was pretty and he's vegetarian? Harassment is never okay ANYWHERE.

I held my mouth until the pretty one left, before commencing on bullying my adopted little brother and sole papdi stocker. "Did I just see you being polite to someone who called you kutta?"

There was a moment cross-cultural absorption on Sudhakar's face before he said, "Do you know what kutta means?"

"Of course I do!" I fumed. "Do you want me to hit that sweet kutti for you?"

A few more blinks. Then, "She said, Gupta. Sudhakar GUPTA! That's my name." And he laughed softly in that oh-so-polite voice. "No more papdis for you, Bhabi, I think your blood sugar level is messing up your hearing."

Laughing, I obeyed. I wasn't hungry anymore. The intimacy of a private joke in a crowded place marked the evening, marked him, with gentle companionship, whether or not there was food shared between us.

Unofficial Diary of a Liaison Woman

2011-10-17T21:20:00.001+07:00

Day 1

A writer's liaison is a pompous, lollygagging fool.

That's what I thought I did on the first day of UWRF. I haunted sessions that I couldn't concentrate on because there were half-a-dozen other writers to hunt down. And I needed to find my writers to show that, indeed, there is a living, human face attached to that Liaison card, slipped in their goodie bags prior to their arrival.

And that my face was going to be offered to the smartest people, who have been around the world and know how to holler for a ride either in NYC or Gang Pojok. People who have achieved immortality by making real dollars and yens out of their published not-as-ebooks-or-godforbid-blogs books.

Every time the moment of truth arrived, I said, "Hello, Ms. Genius-Who've-Sailed-the-Publishing-Seas, my name is Alia Makki. I'm your liaison officer. If there's anything you need..."

Of course, by the time I reach "Liaison" in my recitation, I would have ~~seen~~ imagined it running it in their minds what a pitiful hobbit was standing in front of them, and whether it was amusement or alarm that's stopping them from squishing me with their godly writerliness.

Maybe I ought to have played it cool. "Hey, man, I'm Alia Makki and here are my boobs, please sign on them. First name on the left boob, please. Yes, thank you. Oh and by the way, even though I've never read any of your books, I'M A HUGE FAN!!"

Day 2

By the second day, I had already met most of them. Yihaw! That meant I was free to attend sessions. If nobody from the volunteers base camp called for back up. If all of the writers showed up on time for their sessions. If no other liaison officer called to set her writer a meeting with one of my writers, and I didn't need to call the search team to find my writers and pass them that holy grail of message about a meeting that is supposed to ... whoops. Forget it. I just missed the meeting without finding my writers.

My landlady banged on my door during the night. She thought I was getting murdered. No, madam, I said, it was just a nightmare about a couple of writers I couldn't find, and an avalanche of failure burying me under a crumbling tower of inefficiency.

Day 3

Now. I get it. Track them down while they're still in their pajamas. Call their rooms. Paralytic shyness can shove it up the telephone's hungover microphone. My voice must be used in two-way conversations instead of the monologous audiobook recording.

There. That wasn't so hard, was it? And look, there's a lovely room below the main event lounge where we can step out of a window and jump a gorgeous Ubud ravine. I didn't just say "shut up the fuck up" to that girl, did I? DID I? Oh sweet muses...

Day 4

I know this game. I know where my writers are. I know they will obey me. Bring it, y'all. Oh not you, Ms. Soft-and-sweet lady writer, I meant Mr. Mal...MISTER MALEENA, WHY ARE YOU ILL, SIR?! HAVE YOU CALLED THE DOCTOR? THE WITCH DOCTOR? EVERY VOODOO MASTER IN UBUD?! I'LL CALL THE AUSTRALIAN, AMERICAN, ZIMBABWEAN OR WHATEVER EMBASSY OF GODKNOWSWHAT COUNTRY YOU CAME FROM TO SEND YOUR PREFERRED DRUG IN AN EMAIL ATTACHEMENT AND GET YOUR HEAD RIGHTED ENOUGH BEFORE YOUR SESSIONS AND CLOSING PARTY TONIGHT, Sir.

Hell, no, I ain't gonna be your date for a writer's party, are you crazy? I've got Mr. So-and-so to chase down and help him find a cheap enough souvenir worth the 16 hours trip he's made all the way here.

Day 5

There was no day 5. The festival, indeed, was just 4 days long, officially.

Unofficially, well, let's just say that I'm still recovering from Night 2, Night 3, and definitely (just don't tell my mom), Night 4.

No, don't give me that look. Even if none of us wrote more than half-minded tweets for days, I bet my ~~hobbit's~~ liaison's ass that all the writers and volunteers who were in Ubud for UWRF are still in the same place right now. That place where their ears are still ringing with music, life and Ubudsickness.

Bet next year's festival on it.

He remembers his name

2011-10-15T10:12:00.001+07:00

He remembers his name,

Not his age, claim or gods.

Poetry and family may be lost,

but his ancestral name

haunting and concrete,

flows in his breath,

with force and fright

against denial and doubt

.

He remembers his name to frame

How it felt to be a man, a father, a son,

How it felt to love and want and lose,

How he will recite his name again and again,

Until every ear bears the burden of his fame

.

He remembers his name

…to map country and duty.

…to find dinner and family

…to warm his bed and fancy

.

He remembers his name to forgive and embrace

What he cannot count,

What he cannot have,

What he cannot face

.

He remembers his name so that I,

his accountant and mistress,

Will know how to find him

under his final stony address

.

Remember his name,

Ruwaidan bin Ashraf bin Jawad al-Khalidi.