emptiness

Places I Have Travelled

2006-05-26T11:10:00.000-07:00

Mykroyan

2006-04-15T09:33:00.000-07:00

Before the wars started, Afghanistan was a chessboard of pocketbook power play between the East and West. The Soviets would build a dam in Afghanistan and the Americans a highway. The Germans power lines and Soviets high schools. This was before the Soviets ran out of money and decided to expand south towards warm waters and crude oil. Of course there was an excuse: the Afghans were in debt to the Russians too. When his bald nephew Doud Khan, nicknamed the Red Prince for his Russian connections, ousted Zahir Shah, the King, it all went down hill. The Red Prince borrowed a lot of money from the Soviets in his six-year reign and the Afghans would pay it back with blood in the next decade.

It was during this time of lavish expenditure by the world powers to try to court the Afghans that Mykroyan was built. Mykroyan was state of the art habitats donated by the Soviets during the seventies. State of the art by Soviet standards meant blocks of apartments complete with modern amenities such as toilets and cookers. These blocks could be found sprinkled all around the Iron Curtain from Berlin to Vladivostok. The West would have considered the standard of the apartments no better than the unimaginative concrete housing built in the ghettos of New York.

However, the emerging Afghan middle class loved Mykroyan. It was a piece of modernism that they had read about in schools or seen abroad. It was a progressive community based development. It was to change the way Afghans lived and therefore behaved.

Traditionally, Afghan homes are like the suburban homes we find in North America but instead of the white picket fence there is a thick mud wall separating the house from the rest of the world. You think the Americans are adamant about property rights well the Afghans almost stopped short of putting up their own flag within the confines of their walls. So, for Afghans to move into apartment buildings with large windows, common areas, gardens, balconies, and only one wall separating different families was something incredibly new and daring.

The only thing I remember about Mykroyan from my youth was the stairs. Five stories of stairs. I had never seen so many and would spend hours with my cousin, who lived there, throwing a ball down the stairs and fetching it once again.

These memories of my childhood were rekindled once I found out that I would be spending most of my stay in Afghanistan in Mykroyan. However, as we drove up to Mykroyan I realized that it had degenerated form a Soviet promise of progress to what the West had envisioned - a ghetto.

The common roads and parking lots had been completely decimated as if a tank turned over the earth with its tracks. The gardens had been uprooted and in its place there were vegetable gardens. Children still played in between the blocks but they no longer wore freshly ironed Western clothes. The children's clothes were tattered and they had dirty faces. Beggars lined the base of the concrete buildings, and the trash, which was just a pile of disordered junk in corner, was inhabited by the children of the beggars perusing the refuse for items of use.

It was a surprise that the Mykroyan archipelago had not sunk in a sea of mud and a trash. Cracks and watermarks invaded the façade, and the colour fled long ago. Aluminum sidings probably put up in the time of the Taliban concealed the balconies. Thick curtains covered the windows.

Inside my Uncles apartment I was surprised at how clean and it was. He had taken care to paint the walls and lay carpets on the floor. There was no municipal water system and so the residents dug a well. The water pump did not function at night and electricity, at least for the winter months, was only available every second night. One could hardly hear oneself think over the blare of the gas generators when the power was out in our block. Luckily, my uncle had invested in battery powered backup system that could be recharged on the days we had electricity. It produced enough power for a 12 hours of electricity but that was just the lights, if we put the television on took it up another notch or two, and after a couple of hours it cut out.

I was lucky that I was used to power cuts and cold-water showers from traveling in India the three months before I came to Afghanistan. People usually ask me how I can tolerate such living conditions. I usually respond that they haven't been outside their safe little Western country. Eighty percent of the world lives in these conditions. Life in Kabul is therefore normal when compared to the rest of the world.

However, the weather in early mid-April was terrible. The temperature dropped for the first two weeks to about three degrees Celsius at night. In the mountains such temperatures are intolerable. I had only traveled through warm countries without amenities but living in cold country without a solid infrastructure definitely takes some getting used too.

So, in the end, the dream that was Mykroyan had now turned into a nightmare. The Soviet promise of modernism had been shattered, with the help of the West and militant Islam of course. Now Mykroyan had become the ghetto that the Western powers envisioned it to be.

Side Blog: Answer to a question

2006-04-12T23:21:00.000-07:00

My friend Vanessa asked me this question: "Is Afghanistan as war torn and dangerous as the media make it out to be? Is there poverty on every corner like in India? I just finished reading the kite runner, and i am so curious to find out more."

So, I have decided to take a break from my narrative and answer her question. If anyone else needs questions answered please post a comment or email me and i will answer it the best I can.

Well Afghanistan is not all worn torn. Kabul is worn torn. Walking around the streets of Kabul definitely makes one realize that there was a conflict there. I am talking about bullet-riddled homes and bombed out streets. I just went to Herat and it was very nice. In Herat there was no sign that there had been war there. Impressive. I will post more on this later since I am running a little behind on my blog.

Otherwise, the country is very safe and the people love to have guests. I would be careful in certain areas but that is about it. You definitely need to know someone to come here, and, aside from some explosions that happen occasionally, there is nothing to worry about. Your chance of coming here and getting hurt maybe about the same as getting run over in a car in Canada. I mean your chances will go up if you run across the street everyday. So in Afghanistan you just have to stay away from certain places like Kandahar or the Pushtun areas, which tend to be infested by Taliban.

As for poverty: yes it is a huge problem. The biggest problem is that there is no infrastructure -- we are talking about sewage, energy, agriculture, roads, schools, taxation and so on. So, the country is sick from the inside.

For example, people abandoned farming practices during the war because they were paid better wages as soldiers. Now they need to get reeducated on agriculture. By the time that happens, the people are going to have to buy imported goods because the goods created here are just not good enough or too expensive when compared to imported items. Countries like Iran and Pakistan have more efficient methods of farming and therefore make things better and cheaper than we can. So all the money that is coming into the country to help it out is being used to by imported goods and simply flows outside the country. This is the biggest problem we face.

I know you are thinking that we should tax the imports. Well there is no infrastructure to impose such laws. We need to train border police but our border with Pakistan is porous and dangerous. Also, since there is a lot of poverty and the police are not paid well, I am sure you can pay them off to get goods inside the country. In the mean time, people have to eat so they by imported items.

I hope this example illustrates how the country is sick from the inside. The country needs to build its infrastructure and stand on its own feet once again. Only then well the poverty stop.

Afghan Film

2006-04-10T07:33:00.000-07:00

Afghan Film at first seemed like my uncles little fiefdom. The driver parked the car and we walked into building that was built by Americans in the seventies. Everyone with in walking distance came up to my uncle and said to him, “Ryees sybe, ” which means, president sir.

Soon I learned he didn't wield total power yet these salutations were a part of the respectful nature of the Afghan culture. My uncle was equally nice back to his underlings. However, that patriarchal nature of a tribal society with chiefs of villages, and heads of family could be seen in how Afghan Film functioned.

If we were to take away the retro-seventies building and replaced it with a tent having everyone sit on the floor below my uncle in traditional Afghan clothes then we would see the conduct of the staff in its natural habitat without the modernist façade. Anyone could walk into my uncle's tent and talk to him. He had secretary but she could barely read or write. In fact half the staff were taking Dari lessons after lunch everyday. My uncle not only had to write his own memos, conduct meeting, write letters, but also meet with anyone who waltzed into his office unannounced. So he works from eight to four, which was the regular work hours, but continue till seven or eight to get his paper work done after the staff had left.

In my eye, what at first seemed like a fiefdom quickly deteriorated over the days into a prison for him. Sure the job had its perks with drivers, decent salary, and endless connections. However, I now that my uncle was the one to set-up Afghan Film in the seventies because he loved film. He sacrificed most of his money into the company at time when most people in Afghanistan thought film was wizardry. Finally, now that Afghan Film was part of the state, a move that occurred during the centralization of industry during the Soviets time in the eighties, he was not making the kind of movies that he wanted. He is being buried in a big pile of bureaucratic paper work.

My goals in Afghanistan so far had been the following and I listed them to my uncle per his request:

1. To do the groundwork for a yearly workshop, taught by Western teachers, and at the end have a short film festival with work done in the workshops.
2. To see if I could teach what I know about the basic of storytelling to film students.
3. To see a game of the national sport - Buzkashi.
4. To see Bamyan, where the giant Buddha statues were; Band-e-Amir, the naturally formed lakes in the mountains; Mazir-e-Sharif, where the blue mosque is located; and Herat, which some say is the first Afghan city to rise from the ashes.
5. Visit the neighbourhood I spent the first six years of my life.
6. To visit local villages.
7. To find the shepherd that saved the seal. This may prove that hardest but I guess you will have to read on to find out what this is all about.

My uncle asked me what I know about story. I guess he was trying to gauge my knowledge before he let me loose on his film students. It was kind of like an impromptu job interview. As I talked about my passion for film he jumped up on his cushion and I could feel the heat from the burning of his soul. He wanted to make a film with me. I would write and he would shoot.

The very next day he taught a lesson to film students from Kabul University. He talked about lenses, cameras, and moved onto composition. In the last half-hour he asked me if I wanted to contribute. I don't know anything about production, but I did talk a little about composition, since I am an amateur photographer and used to draw too.

During the next week, as I talked to my uncle each night I could feel the fire in him burn hotter. Finally, when it was time for him to teach his three-hour class the next week, he handed the three hours to me. He would come in occasionally and peak in to see how I was doing but I could tell that I had won his confidence.

I thought about writing a story and having my uncle shoot it. I also thought that it is about time that I actually move on past the pencil to the camera and participate in other aspects of film so that I had a foundation in a more holistic approach to filmmaking. Here was a perfect opportunity for me to write and shoot my own film. I could learn everything form my uncle on the first film that we collaborate on.

So, now I can cross of the first of my goals in Afghanistan, teaching, and add a new one, making a film.

Fortress City

2006-04-10T06:10:00.000-07:00

We drove to my uncle's work - Afghan Film, the place that could make or break my grandiose plans in Afghanistan. My uncle kept on turning in the front seat of the car and staring at me, seated in the back. He was smiling ecstatically, and kept on asking me how I was doing.

The driver made his way through decrepit streets with fortified buildings on either side. There was no hiding the fact that this city was ready for war. Kabul itself was originally built here because of the area's natural fortification. It lies on a plateau about one thousand eight hundred meters above sea. There are only a few access points. With a river for water and farmland for food, the city in the olden days could withstand raids seemingly for an eternity.

Within this natural fortress there lies another fortress - this one is manmade. We passed this building, the most fortified building in Kabul and perhaps the world, the American Embassy. It was rumored that this building cost more then the US Military operations in eastern Afghanistan the year it was built in 2002. Now that I have seen it, I believe such reports. Giant Lego blocks of concrete are strategically placed around the compound.

As a child playing war games I used to fortify my side in a similar manner. The soldiers, like oversized GI Joes, patrol the compound in their armored suits with mechanical movements. The only thing that gives away the fact that they are real is their eyes.

It would be five days later when I was being driven to work that a glary-eyed soldier would stop us. It was my first chance to look into the eyes of one up-close to see if he was real. He was six-foot-five, about two hundred pounds of muscle, not including the 100 extra pounds of armor, guns, and bullets he carried. He yelled at the top of his lungs, “Stop!”

Pointing his machine gun at us. I stared into his black eyes and white face. He looked like he was about to overdose on adrenaline. The embassy car with tinted windows quickly drove by, and we were on our way.

I noticed the Afghan soldiers as we drove past the gates. It was as if each one was assigned his own official cigarette that should, according to Afghan Military Law, I guess, hang at an exact thirty degree angle from the soldiers mouth. Most had scruffy beards and over-sized fatigues on. The occasional soldier would actually be standing up. Nearly all were lounging around, tired of war. The only sign of happiness that I could see on them was their boots. You could see the pride reflect off the shine of their boots. These soldiers were glad not to be bare footed.

Somekind'o'Orientalism

2006-04-09T06:39:00.000-07:00

My uncle picked me up from the airport and we did a quick drive through the city to show me the sights. There really wasn't much to see. Nor did I remember all the places he pointed out like the place he used to take me to have ice cream when I was child. All I could do is stare out the windows of the car at all the Afghans going about their daily activities.

Girls chatting while walking home form schools with their books under their arms. Boys on bicycles riding beside each other holding hands. Men sitting on curbs, wearing traditional clothes, and Western coats. Boys waddling bundles of money and yelling out exchange rates. Traffic police holding up driver licenses up to the sun.

I focused in on their faces and it slowly dawned on me that we are a Central Asian country. Rarely did I see a dark featured Pushtuns like myself, but I saw many Hazaras, who look Tibetan, and Tajiks, who look European. I guess I had lived so far in the West that I had started stereotyping my own people. Since I hung out with Pushtuns or Iranians or had Punjabi friends in Vancouver, and since Vancouverites clumped me together in that group, I saw Afghans as part of that group also. I only thought I was what society thought me to be.

On the surface, Afghanistan seeems to be much more complex. I don't think our superficial makeup constitutes who we are as group. Our culture must be what makes us distinct as a country. I guess I will find out in the coming days if this is so.

Oh My Gosh (to quote a friend)

2006-04-09T05:29:00.000-07:00

The thing that made me feel like, “Oh my gosh, I am home,” is that fact that everyone spoke in Dari. It is so strange being in an airport – an international airport – of a big city where everyone speaks a language you understand other then English. As I stood in line waiting for my passport to be stamped I felt a little anxious. However, once I made it to the security guy with a big beard and stomach I was put at ease by his jokes.

The computer would not read my passport. He started bending my passport in different directions and said, “Your passport is a little croaked, let me straighten it out for you.”

He proceeded to try to scan it again but it would not work, so he said, “Oh well. You are just making my work difficult aren’t you.”

He smiled as punched in the numbers. He was bored doing his job and used the jokes to pass the time.

I knew then that I was in a different place – my place. The Afghans had not lost their sense of humor after thirty years of conflict. He stamped my passport without looking at my visa, since it is written that I was born in Afghanistan on the first page of my passport, and said, “Welcome home.”

Mountain Air Can Make You Mad

2006-04-09T04:23:00.000-07:00

The captain hollered, “flight attendants get ready for landing.”

I thought we were in trouble; from the eyeballs of the other passengers, which had sprung out of their sockets, I was not alone. Suddenly, our airplane shot out of the cloud into the unadulterated blue sky. With peaks all around, it was as if a god’s hand was about to crush the airplane. On the palm of the hand lay Kabul the city I was born in.

The flight attendants ran around like chickens with their heads cut off. I would have been alarmed if it weren’t for the fact that I was too busy looking down at Kabul. Just looking at my birth city made me feel satisfied. If I crashed into the city, which seemed likely at this point, then what a way to go. And if I crashed into the house I was born, well that would be highly dramatic -- too bad I would be dead and not be able to write about it.

The aircraft did land safely and thank goodness too because as soon as I had stepped out of the airplane that memories of my childhood flooded through my nasal passage and into my lungs. I know some of you might be thinking that it was Afghani hashish but it was not that. It was the crisp mountain air -- air that cuts up your nostril like a knife, drops into your lungs like lead. Air that is a shot of adrenaline when mixed with your blood, letting wings rip out of your backbones, and your mind soar with its purity into the realms known only to the imaginations that created the gods.

Or at least the mountain air seemed that way to me. That was when that stupid smile appeared on my face. It is still on my face. I am unnaturally ecstatic. Like the character Joker from Batman who fell into the vat of chemical ecstasy and had a permanent smile put on his face to hide the madness of his mind. Perhaps, I am going a crazy. I do not care. It feels damn great.

Flying and Dying

2006-04-08T02:43:00.000-07:00

I have lived two lives. My first life started in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1975. My second life started the day I left Afghanistan as a refuge at the age of six. I have spent the majority of my second life in Vancouver, Canada. Now after twenty-four years I am here in Delhi International Airport waiting for Air India Flight IC 843 - Delhi to Kabul. I am about to return to my first life.

The excitement that comes from traveling was something that I had forgotten before this moment. Airports, airplanes, attendants, passports, and pilots do not have the same mystery to them that they once had. The thrust of the engine during takeoff only makes me yawn as I turn the page in the newspaper. I do not bother to look at the people below, inching along like ants, in wonder.

I remember when I first flew. It was in 1982. Pakistan International airport with its greasy floors and cigarette puffing security guards was the first place that I caught a flight. There is only one word that could describe the experience - awe. Staring out of the giant windows of the airport at the planes, roaring back and forth both on the ground and in the sky with their metallic hulls glimmering in the sun, made my belly rumble like the engine of a jumbo jet. However, beside my wonderment their quickly manifested a fear also when the Pakistan police dragged my father away into detention room minutes before our flight. The blades of the engine in my belly, going too fast, were tearing at my insides.

Now as I sit in the airplane my eyes are as wide as the wings of the largest jumbo jet and deep within my heart I feel a certain acceleration long forgotten. I feel like the Afghan child that I left behind once I adopted my new country, Canada. My head, however, is spinning out of control in a deep dive overloaded with anxiety that only an adult mind might think about.

It is astonishing to me that all this times that I flew, I had never been afraid of flying until now as I sit in an airplane on my way to Kabul. When we left Pakistan as refugees with fake passports, I was not afraid of flying but getting caught by authorities. Now I feel a certain satisfaction in my own understanding of how an airplane works. This understanding keeps my fears at bay. I came across this knowledge of flight first when my uncle, a devout Muslim, asked me how airplanes fly when I was a teenager. I responded to him that there must be some kind of physical thing going on with the wings and engine. He responded, “No one. Not even the scientists know truly what is going on.”

We were flying to Germany. It was my first summer away from home and my first flight since we moved to Canada. I thought about airplanes as we gained speed and were flung into the rainy Vancouver sky. I could not stop thinking about the miracle of flying on silver wings so I came back home at the end of summer I did some research. After sifting through volumes at home and in the library I came across the Bernoulli Effect. This effect is simple to explain, if you have ever been annoyed at the curtains being sucked towards your body when taking shower then you have experienced this effect. If the curtain is the wing of an airplane and the stream of water is the engine accelerating the air passing over the wing, while outside the shower the air is not moving then the shower provides a lift to the curtain. Similarly, the air moving over a wing is moving at much faster speed then the air underneath it, this lifts the wings and hence the plane.

Armed with this knowledge I became smug about the experience of flying. It was no longer a miracle but simply mechanical. Then why is it that now I feel fear of crashing?

I have flown to Winnipeg, Toronto, Seattle, San Francisco, Dallas, Indianapolis, London, Düsseldorf, Amsterdam, Damascus, Bangkok, and Delhi. I have flown for thirty-minutes to seventeen hours. I have had from a one-hour layover to four hours, due to bad weather. I have missed a plane in Dallas, almost had a heart attack in Damascus International, and got in a fight with check-in person at Weeze Airport in Germany. Yet all this time I have not gone anywhere.

I am afraid now because Kabul is where I was born and it is where I will finally return. I am proud of my new home, Canada; yet, the blood that flows from my body has been Afghani for over one thousand years. When I left Afghanistan, it was as if I was born into another world, a simulated world of glass, concrete, planning, and positivism, my new home in Canada. Coming back to Afghanistan will be like waking from a dream to the dirt, poverty, guns, and simplicity of the mountains. I cannot die before I wake. Some say that if you die in your dream then you will never wake.

My Secret Family

2006-04-06T02:37:00.000-07:00

I am on my way to Afghanistan this Saturday. Up until three days ago I had no idea were I was staying. My father told me last night on the phone that he had tracked my closest relative in Kabul down. I will be staying with my Uncle Latif. I have not seen my uncle in the last twenty-four years but for three days in Seattle eight years ago. I will have to live with him for two months. Sounds strange but this is the way Afghan culture works. It is not even a requirement for me to have every seen my family to be accepted, but simply to have blood relations.

The depths of Afghan hospitality run deeper than what I have described here. Even if you who are reading this blog at this moment and have no relations to an Afghan and you were to come stay with a family then the same courtesy would be extended to you. However, you would not receive their affection and certain behaviours would not be exhibited since you, the guest, were present.

My Uncle Latif is my father's cousin. They are one year apart, best of friends, and were impossible to separate when children. My Uncle Latif's father had died at an early age and since his mother, known to me as Khala or aunt, was my grandmother's sister it was up to family to care for them. My grandfather loved Uncle Latif like his own child. When my father got a brand knew clothes from France, then my Uncle Latif would also receive gifts of clothes. If my grandfather hugged, kissed, and wrestled my father when he was a child (since he seldom did this when his children were older) he would do twice as much with Uncle Latif.

When I was born, Uncle Latif and I would spend hours with each other, since my father was not in Afghanistan but in Kiev, Ukraine studying. Shortly after I turned one year old my mother left Afghanistan to go to Kiev to get her education. It is acceptable in Afghanistan that the extended families, especially grandparents, take care of the child's welfare. However, the times that I spent at Uncle Latif and his mother's welcoming home was were some of my most loving memories come before the return of my parents.

Since I last was in Kabul, Uncle Latif has started his own family. Khala is grandmother to five kids. I wonder if they will remember all those years when it was just the three of us?

Four blogs missing

2006-02-18T01:45:00.000-08:00

- Desert Safari
- Desert Festival
- Martin from Udiapur to Goa
- Goa
- Tabla Kid: Chaz

sorry, will update... busy with afghanistan now...

The Great White Sadoo

2006-02-12T01:28:00.000-08:00

We quickly became a tight little unit in Pushkar with the four people who stayed with Micheal and I at the Viewpoint Guesthouse. There were the Swedes, a couple with fantastic dreads who were into reggae music. The Bearded Aussie, who had couple of days left before he went back to Uni in Australia. Finally, the Great White Sadoo, who was really a Swede who had taken on the life of a Sadoo in his own unique way.

Upon first meeting the Great White Sadoo I almost killed him. The meta-language he used to talk about ultimate reality was different than mine and his thoughts seemed deranged and fractured like a mad man. Yet I figured that I did not immediately exist for him; I was still part of the structure the he was denying himself; I participated in the hierarchy that drove him away from the West; I had bought into the institutionalization of thought; I epitomized the fabrication of our minds; I realize now that one first meeting me I was too much for him to swallow. The more we talked to the more I realized that he was not mad but sane.

The Great White Sadoo, like the Great White Hope, is perhaps Western Civilizations last living fakir and last hope for us who are entrenched in the modern era that there is a slim chance that one can stop participating in what may become the death of us. Yet like the Great White Hope, he maybe to little, too late, and too over-hyped by sensational writers like myself. Furthermore, like the Great White Hope, it may not be bad thing for us to be snuffed out and let new era be us

I waded through the dirty floors of Darghas, where people had pissed on what little spirit was left from the Sufi Masters, who lived and died their, drowning it in superstition and suffocating it with Rhpees, but I did not find what I was looking for. However, here in a small guesthouse near a lake in Pushkar, where fake fakirs push a flower into your hand and ask you to put into a river for small fee, I found a true Sufi.

He had stepped into the reality of the source. Some deny themselves the source and worship material gods, whether they be deities or iPods. Others, like me, only peer through a window, such as Rumi’s poetry, onto the other side, making sure that they are anchored by a laptop that they tell themselves they require for their sustenance in this world of shadows, but really it is a chain to keep them in the cave. The Sadoo had one foot in my fictitious world and the other in the source. He had seen the sun and it was too late for him, the chains were off. Yet he had not figured it all out or else he would probably be invisible to us. How far along was he to what society deems insanity or what I call enlightenment?

One day after breakfast we were all sitting around having some Masala Chai on the grass in front of our little homes. We had all moved our chairs towards the wall as the afternoon sun squished the shadow that we took refuge in. The White Sadoo was busy coming his dog after its daily bath. He had rescued the dog in Varanasi, I think. That black Lab was the turning point: the sole reason he would never go back to Sweden or the West. Taking care of that dog was as arbitrary as anything else we may be inspired to do in life. I asked him, “What are you doing now?”

“Cleaning my dog.”

“No. I mean in life. What is your purpose?”

He looked up to me, met my eyes, and we shared a lucid moment, where I was sure that he saw me being weighed down with my PowerBook on my lap and cowering in the disappearing afternoon shadow.

He said, “I don’t know what I am doing, but I know what I am not doing.”

The Tail of the Two Shrines in Ajmeer

2006-02-07T04:47:00.000-08:00

My friendship with Michael really began to take off while still in Pushkar. We decided that we should visit Ajmeer together because he wanted to hit a bank machine and I wanted to visit Chesti’s (a famous Sufi Saint) Dargha.

As we navigated our way through the streets of Ajmeer it became apparent quickly what our roles where going to be: I would be the negotiator and he the navigator. I have a terrible since of direction but excellent bargaining skills. He has an excellent sense of direction but terrible negotiating skills. In fact he could probably negotiate if it weren’t for that dial in this mind that was set to the Sterling Pounds, and to quote him, “At the end of the day, I couldn’t be bothered.”

The Dargha was a mad house. It was crazier then Nazimuddin in Delhi. People yelled, and pulled at you at ever inch of the Dargha trying to scrap a rupee off of you. I had really come to find out if the Qwwali singers would sing there. The answer I got was a “no”, since it was the month of Mahram. Although I was interested in seeing the Shite’s beat themselves bloody for what their ancestors had done to Ali’s, the Prophet Mohammed’s nephew, family one thousand years ago, I didn’t think that I could stomach all that blood so early in my trip.

Right after the Dargha we decided to visit another shrine. It was the pub down the street from the Dargha where we got some beers. We were starved for a good drink after having been in Pushkar for couple of days but didn’t want to over do it because we didn’t know if there was going to be a breathalyzer test when went back to Pushkar the holiest damn city in India.

Michael “Yorkshire Pudding” Clayton

2006-02-02T04:41:00.000-08:00

On my first night in Pushkar I walked around for about two hours. I was still reeling from my welcome experience in the afternoon and had to let off some steam. When I had tired myself a little bit I decided get a bite to eat at the most Western restaurant for a little taste of home. At the restaurant I sat down beside a man in blue smoking rolled up tobacco with elbows on the table.

I asked him, “What is your name?”

“Michael,” was his answer in between cigarette puffs. He added, “I’m f’rm Y’rksh’r.”

“Like the pudding,” I was fishing for some common ground between us.

“Aye,” He chuckled as he looked down to the table. Little did we both realize at the time that I would soon call him “Yorkshire Pudding,” and he would call me “Taz’r.”

“What do you do back home?” I asked.

“’M c’rp’nt’r,” he replied.

“Like Jesus?” I asked.

“L’k wh’t? J’s’s?” He laughed. We were off to a good start.

After finding some common ground about how we both got ripped off by the locals we began to talk about why we had taken on this project of traveling to India. His girlfriend had broken up with him a while back and he had gone on a binge. India was one way for him to get out his element back home. I soon began to realize that Michael really has Jesus like qualities. He is one of the most trusting people around. Dealing with con men in India can get to anyone but I doubt that Michael will come out of this experience jaded. I than pieced together the puzzle of how he got hurt by this girlfriend of his. He is really a trusting individual and put too much faith in her.

It was no brainer for me to move into where he was staying by the lake for about a dollar per day. The more I got to know him the more I realized that he was like volumes from an encyclopedia. In fact his knowledge where the exact volumes that were missing from my knowledge base, which was mainly the facts about natural phenomena. He was not the cussing and cursing kind of carpenter that I had worked with on construction sites but deeply sensitive individual with conscience.

We decided to travel together and would do so for about to weeks till love put us on different paths in Jaisalmer.

Pushkar, Pushkar, Pushkar

2006-02-01T04:23:00.000-08:00

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Originally uploaded by sunyuta.

In Jaipur I was sitting in a restaurant having dinner with two Australian girls who had just returned from Nepal. I was picking their brains about Nepal and if it was okay for me to go down there with the recent civil unrest. A curly-haired girl that came out of nowhere and grabbed my Lonely Planet diverted my attention from our conversation about bombings in Nepal.

“Can I see it? She said with her curls straightening and curling with each syllable uttered.

I tried to engage her in conversation; the regular backpacker banter. Where was she from? How long she had traveled for? How much longer she had to go? She answered with one answer: Pushkar, Pushkar, Pushkar. Pushkar intrigued me. As she walked away, tip-toeing as if on an invisible tightrope I wondered to myself what the hell is Pushkar. The Australian girls told me that it was town not far from Jaipur. I told myself that this ought to be my next destination.

My arrival to Pushkar was one of my worst India moments to date. As soon as the tourists had piled off the bus the horrendous beating of commercial drum began. It was a most horrific experience as we were pushed in pulled in either direction. Finally, we managed to pile our bags on to a cart readied ourselves to going into town. As the cart emptied I began to worry that mine would be the last one left. Sure enough everyone somehow managed to find a place but me. So I was pushed and pulled from hotel to hotel by the devious cart pullers till I lost all control and threw my water bottle into their cart. Upon hitting the cart it exploded sending water everywhere. That is when the devious cart men stopped their pushing and pulling. They realized that I had enough of their scheme and decided to take me to the place I originally asked them to.

Pushkar is supposed to be a little piece of heaven. The town is built around an oasis in the desert. There are more temples than inhabitants. Well this last statement is not true but it does illustrate the religiosity that abounds in the town. No meat, eggs, or alcohol is to be consumed in this town. Upon hearing the bit about the alcohol I seriously debated whether I would stay in this town for long.

An Indian Wedding

2006-01-29T05:37:00.000-08:00

The groom arrived first decked out in a white costume and turban anchored with silver and gold waving a saber in the air while trotting along on a white horse. Actually, the saber dangled by his side just barely held by his limp hand and he looked less like a triumphant general then he did a foot soldier admitting defeat. In front of the groom their where was the marching band in red and white costumes with cigarettes hanging from their lips; they looked like they were done with weddings although they were only at the start of the busy wedding season. In front of the marching band there were the male friends and relatives dancing with arms in the air as if they were trying to screw in a light bulb that never seemed to go in.
When the Hudson sisters arrived people started to form a circle around them. I felt bad for the groom on the horse because he was no longer the centre of attention. Hundreds of flashes burst as the sisters modeled their outfits and flaunted their new celebrity status with a fling of their hair and rapid blinking of their eyes.
The groom sat at the front of the room occupying one seat of the two-seated throne. Everyone waited as multitudes of cameramen crowded around an opening to the left of groom. About forty minutes had passed with several eager flashes going of inadvertently whenever a woman wearing a sari would come out of the opening. Finally the real bride came out in red and gold sari. She looked dazzling but her steps where short and quick since she was weighed down with gold. Flower girls sprinkled the floor in front of her with rose petals till she stepped on the throne area where he husband to be waited her. Once the two where together more flowers were thrown in front of them and more pictures were snapped away at an increasingly rapid rate.
Finally it was time for the foreigners or the guests of honour to present them with gifts and take pictures with them. The Hudson Sisters marched up on to the stage and posed for a while, then it was my turn. I got up and although I like to be the centre of attention it all seemed a little too much for my eyes as well as my ego. At least now I know what it feels like to be assailed by the paparazzi.
I asked the brother of the groom how long it would take for the picture-taking portion of the evening and when will the guests eat because my stomach was grumbling. His answer was that we should eat now because the cooks were preparing food all night in the hall adjacent to the one we were in. At eleven he said the pictures should be done with and after the family will eat. It turned out that it was 7 o'clock and the cameras would fire continuously for four hours.
We went to the back to eat but were mobbed by Indians. It seemed like the Indians, who would normally by only able to stare at you on the street, now had the chance to get close and personal with foreigners so they fought each other to get a word in with us in their broken English. At one point the brother of the bride came up to me and told me in a whisper, “Be careful who you talk to.”
I was surprised to hear this and said to him, “But I thought these people where friends and family.”
“I have never seen many of them, “he said squinting his eyes. He then added, “Never trust an Indian.”
I then put my guard up a bit and so did the rest of the foreigners as we stuck together from that point on. Sure enough much later I got my first offer of friendship and offer for one of the Hudson Sisters.
The offer occurred after Katherine decided that she would dance although dancing was not allowed at this wedding since it was being held in residential area and music was to be turned off after certain time. Katherine pumped up the volume during this hour of curfew and really shook her butt; about one hundred astonished Indians piled around her and glared as if perverts sitting at the front row of a strip club. Once she stopped dancing the circle of men never seemed to get any smaller. And when some of them discovered that I was somehow associated with them they became very friendly with me telling me the enormous amounts of money that they earned.
When all the wedding guests had left but the family and the photographers, at around one am, the brother informed me that the wedding will begin. First they had to eat and we being the guests of honour were invited to sit around the family table as they took in some much-needed calories for the long night ahead.
The fire ceremony started at around two o'clock. The Brahmin priest did his prayers and offered sacrifice of flowers, rice, seeds, and other goodies to the Yagni or the sacrificial fire (at least that is what I think it is called from my philosophy of ancient India class). The culmination of the ceremony was when the bride and groom where tied together and had to walk around the fire several times with groom in the lead. I thought to myself that the only thing that is keeping the young man from running away is the thought he will finally loose his virginity after twenty-five long years.
The ceremony seemed endless and close to four the sisters and I decided that we had to return to the hotel since we could hardly keep our eyes open.

Hudson Sisters Company

2006-01-28T04:49:00.000-08:00

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Originally uploaded by sunyuta.

On my first day in Delhi I met Katherine one of the Hudson sisters. Unlike the British Raj, who conquered India by force, the two sisters will undoubtedly bring down the Indian subcontinent down to its knees with charm and style. Although they are both stunning, the sisters lay on opposite ends of the spectrum according to features and personality; if they where drinks Katherine would be coffee, dark featured and intense persona, while Rosemary would be 7-UP, light and bubbly.
Katherine came to India for the first time last year. She said she loved it so much that she came back this year with her sister. When she speaks you can’t help but hang on to each word she says with her eyes digging into you as if anchors of the soul. I have been told that I have the same ability to way anchor in conversations too and sometimes it feels as though we may get our anchors tied, but that has yet to happen. Rosemary is fragile and was constantly getting sick as if a sparrow in an Indian mine. Rosemary has a way of putting things that calling her blunt wouldn’t cut it; however, if more people were as frank as she is we would now exactly where everyone stands.
You may be wondering how I ended up tagging along on the adventures of the Hudson sisters. Proximity brought us together. I lived in 201 and they lived in 202 at the Vivek Hotel and would run into each other often. Finally, we went out to dinner with Divinder, an Indian friend of Katherine’s and I got invited to Divinder’s sister’s wedding in Jaipur. Katherine knew a lot of people in Delhi because she was there for business. Katherine runs a tent creation company and Rosemary, fresh out art college, helps her with design. When I first heard this, I envisioned Katherine and Rosemary sitting around smoking a huge joint when one said, “Like dude let’s go to India and start a tent company.” However, the more I talked them, the more I realized that this was a serious business venture that Katherine had worked from the bottom up creating a niche market for herself in the burgeoning English summer festival and marriage market. She kept ahead of the competition, which is essentially herself at this point, by design unique tents each year; India for her was great place to get inspired as well as by low and sell high in England.
It became apparent that Katherine was more grounded then an Oak tree and knew exactly were she wanted to be in life. After all this was a women who came to India by herself last year, and forged ahead with her ideas without letting ogling, fondling, and masturbating Indian men derail her on long night trips on trains.
Spending time with the sisters gave me fresh insight into Indian culture that perhaps I wouldn’t get if I hadn’t traveled with women who weren’t afraid to embrace Indian culture. Well by embrace I mean Katherine, because Rosemary definitely didn’t embrace it with fully open arms and like anyone else on the planet clung to the superiority of her own culture when flung into heart of darkness that India manifests itself to some. However, she took it in stride and was remained remarkably vibrant although assaulted by rickshaw drivers, wedding guest, and intestinal bacteria. And no matter how many times she got sick she was very resilient and was still willing to experiment with her surroundings. If she was the proverbial bird and India the mine, then it felt okay being in India since she kept on bouncing back to life. Anyways back to the new perspective they helped me gain. This fresh perspective garnered from hanging out with the Hudson sisters was something, that at the end of the day I could have forgone but such is life – fortuitous.
The story unfolds at the wedding in Jaipur. I missed my train that morning since the night before I was out drinking with Chris, celebrating my acceptance to the Master’s program at UBC. To think that UBC considers me responsible enough to let me into the graduate program but I can’t even make it to an Indian train that is never on time anways was sad, but I do have a good excuse. The electricity at Vivek Hotel went out in the middle of the night and my laptop, which I use for an alarm clock as well, went to sleep; it was not simply the case that I was hung-over. Anyways, I was not worried since this is India and “Tarique Time,” a term used by many of friends to denote how I warp time, in India is equal to normal time. I was supposed to be there at 5pm but showed up at 7pm and I still had time to shave and wear some clean clothes for the wedding.
I got a phone call in my hotel room from the sisters. It was time to leave. I went downstairs knocked on their door to be greeted by sisters dressed up in the most English costumes that I had ever seen complete with white gloves and one hat. The wedding was walking distance so we trotted down the main street towards it. This is where things started to get interesting. You see if I were by myself walking down the street I would see Indian men – a lot of Indian men. There are men leaning on each other, men holding hands (although it simply denotes friendship and is not sexual), men lying on the streets, men peddling rickshaws, men driving auto-rickshaws, men humping a motorbike, naked men changing clothes, dirty men begging, clean men in McDonalds, men drinking tea, holy men in a trance, and most of all men shouting at you to hustle you for few dollars. Men in India out number women because of the practice of infanticide on girls. Furthermore, women stay at home presumably doing housework so one rarely sees them. Finally, women in India are so short that you could miss them as you walked down the street.
The Hudson sisters walked along the street hovering well above the Indian men. And on this day in particular they glowed in their white gloves and white faces. Yes the Indian’s love the white skin; all you have to do is look at all their movie posters, which have pictures of tall, lanky, big bosomed, and fair-skinned Indian women. The Indian stars might as well be aliens from a different planet because that is the difference between them and the short, and dark Indian girls I saw. It is not that I think that film stars are more beautiful since some of them are not beautiful at all but famous simply because of their Amazon stature. So if you guessed that the Indian men were falling over each other to try to get a better look at the two white English devils then you are right.
The Indians love to stare at you and if you stare back at them they just keep on staring as if in a trance. Walking down the street with the sisters with their eyes prickling us in their deep probe it felt as though the men were waiting for a miracle were they could fuck with just their eyes. You have to understand that some of the men probably never had sex in their life. Even if they did it was probably a ten second session with a hundred rupee or two-dollar prostitute from the lowest darkest class. Men out number women in India and besides their affinity towards having the more cost efficient boys, since they don’t have to pay large dowries, their society makes kissing on the streets illegal and one could wind up in jail for showing public affection.
I could feel eye lurking in the shadows in an attempt to follow us. I wanted for us to arrive at the wedding as fast as possible when we ran into bunch of street kids. The kids were at the time the best thug beggars that I had seen on my trip. Their ages ranged from eight to eleven and I they were all girls. We dodged the shouts of “rupee” as if they were bullets and their grabbing dagger-like hands till we had to make break for the wedding. We ran as fast we could. The sisters zipped ahead of me, I was surprised that they had more speed and agility in high heels and a skirt then I did in jeans and runners. However, much to my relief this little run in with tiny thugs provided us with speedy arrival to the wedding, which was just starting.

top ten movie list

2006-01-26T11:05:00.000-08:00

1. the afghan horsemen: best action sequence on film. rivals ben hur chariot race.
2. the beast: if you can sit through the first 5 minutes you will see the best war movie ever made.
3. the return: best fusion of strength of structured narrative and suggestive power of authorship with a dash of symbolism.
4. red, white, and blue: if anyone questions if film is high art tell'em to see these gems by Kieslowski
5. apocalypse now: "heart of darkness" adapted. i strive to write from an opposing POV on this theme.
6. m: Fritz Lang knew unity of action... all the parts work together with no single protagonist -- a true socialist film. And who can forget the whistle...
7. himalayas: you will believe that you can film anywhere after seeing this.
8. ran: adaptation of my favorite shakespearean play. an epic.
9. the good, the bad, and the ugly: the bad is the best.
10. 2001: space odyssey: the most perfect movie sequence ever. from bone to satellite. thousands of years of human history in less than 30 seconds. now that is compression.

Particulars of Writing

2006-01-24T22:03:00.000-08:00

I subdivide writing into two categories using the Platonic use of universals and particulars. Plato used universals and particulars as metaphysical definitions. According to Plato the particulars are the objects that occupy the world, however, these objects are mimesis of universals. So, we may see many particular chairs of different shapes and sizes that all play a part in the composition of “chairness”, which is a universal and only exists in the ideal world. In writing, I use the terms in a similar fashion. Universals are the structure, idea, and form of the piece, while particulars are the language and imagery used to actualize the universals on paper. Now the important question to ask is why would I go about using such definitions? The reason that prompted this allusion to Plato has to do with intentionality of the author and the reason for using metaphysical language is due to the parallels of the real world with the fictional worlds we writers create.

From my discussion with other writers it seems that we approach authorship in two general ways: ones that write from particular to universal, and, the other, that writes from universal to particular. So in creating a fictional world the first author, which we will call a realist, writes and writes without a particular plan or purpose in the most extreme cases and may edit afterwards to enhance an emerging theme. Such authors tend provide us with rich characters inhabiting complex fictional worlds all written in poetic language, however, the dangers are that authors may lose efficiency and their stories may lack coherence.

The idealist writes from the top down spending a great deal of time on planning. The idealist may start of with a theme then work his or her way down to the structure. Finally, the writing of the actual story maybe the last thing the author commits to. Such stories tend to be page-turners that readers cannot put down. So they have a coherent story line with a great payoff in the end, however, the drawbacks usually are that stories tend to be formulaic, the characters flat, and the language plain.

I must confess that I would classify myself as the second type of writer. The main reason being that efficiency, purposefulness, and control is very important to me. I cannot sit down and write unless I know the story is going somewhere, if I do not know this then I will get frustrated since giving the story purpose will require many revisions which is an inefficient way to work.

I think that a story must also have a purpose according to the themes in the real world and for the sake of the viewer or reader. First, the theme must have a purpose that somehow puts forward a thesis in the real world. My screenplay is about a suicide bomber and his selfishness that drives him to commit an atrocity. The theme, therefore, resonates with what is happening in the real world. Second, the story must drive towards a finale that is satisfying to the viewer since film or books are time-based narratives and the ending must be rewarding. In my screenplay the ending, which unfortunately was not included in the dissertation package since it occurred beyond the sixty-page limit, is when the protagonists internal desire of wanting everything to go his way surfaces when he is ordered to not continue with the bombings during New Years Eve in New York city because the Islamists have made a pact with the Americans; however, my character acts on his own to set-off the bombs because his selfishness goes beyond his adherence to any higher order.
Lastly, when authoring my fictional worlds I am a fatalistic god that predetermines the outcome of my characters fate. This control is what leads to turns in the script that provide the reader or viewer with incentives to keep reading or watching. Control also pertains to personal since of accomplishing of what I as an author intended to do. There is an existential sense of having absolute free will to shape or design a fictional world or characters to my exact specifications. I therefore make the most out of the choice I have in the writing of the piece. So interestingly enough although the fictional world is a fatalistic one my intention falls on the other end of the spectrum as libertarian.

While still in the planning stages of this script I looked back to the feedback I received on my other works. In the past, there seems to be a reoccurring critique of my characters being too flat although my ideas are good. At the time I didn’t know how to make my characters jump out of the page. However, I had this gut feeling that came from the experience of writing: the more I write the more the characters and fictional worlds become alive for me, and, consequently, if I feel that they are alive then so will my readers. This means that if I believe that they are alive in the fictional world then I must respect them as I would respect real individuals; so, I must not be as dictatorial in my approach and must let the characters lead their own lives to a certain degree.
When writing particulars of the story I must let the characters make certain choices that I may have not have intended for them at the planning stages. Before I wrote completely top down from universals to particulars but now I see that this is a two way street. Although I may never go as far as letting the characters redefine my theme, I am willing to let them make certain choices of their own other then what I had planned.

This is back and forth between universals and particulars are where accidents occur. Accidents are when in the actual writing of the piece one lets characters take the writing in a direction that hasn’t been planned for. The ending is still unchanged when accidents occur but the characters may take another route to the ending. If the ending is changed then it must be an improvement over the previous ending.

Accidents may mean that there is a loss of control and hence a loss of efficiency. One may spend more time experimenting with the storyline but the cost is low considering the benefits attained. First, since the theme is consistent from the beginning I am not starting the story over again each time I experiment. Second, the result may be a richer character since the character has input in his or her interaction with the fictional world. Third, the end result is a story that is more organic and less formulaic, which may mean greater time costs but an organic story line pushes writing as an art into a new direction. If this push into a new direction does occur it is ultimately priceless, and, furthermore, I think this push art into new directions should be one of the intentions of every writer even though it maybe lofty and seemingly unattainable undertaking.

Chrisuddin the Sufi Scholar

2006-01-13T22:03:00.000-08:00

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Originally uploaded by sunyuta.

I walked towards Nizamuddin’s Dargha or at least where I thought it would be. There was a Ferris wheel setup beside the Dargha that might have dated back from the time that Ferris invented such a wheel if it is indeed named after its founder. With the Sun behind the giant wheel, children’s feet dangling off the seats, and its ribbed cages wobbling round it seemed as if a black caterpillar was doing cartwheels. I wanted to take a picture but felt as if I didn’t know the culture of India enough to take such action (one good reason why I won’t make a good photographer – I don’t have that daring instinct.) I had only been there for a few days after all. The polite Canadian Tarique almost made me walk past the wheel but finally my more bold Afghani side began to grasp my reigns and pulled me towards the wheel.

I took out my camera and no sooner had I snapped a picture that someone yelled at me. I turned and it was a rather Western looking Indian in thick-framed glasses. He came and shook my hand, and I said to him Salaam, the traditional Islamic greeting to make sure that he new that I was of Muslim heritage, since a lot of people think I am Israeli here with my long hair and I don’t really know if that would go over well in that district. He proceeded to ask me where I was from and what I was doing in India, when suddenly two White guys wearing Islamic dresses walked up to me. Of these guys looked like that Californian boy, John Walker Lindh, they caught hanging out with the Taliban. He had a scraggly beard, a Muslim hat, and wobbled his head each time talked. I didn’t know what to make of him. So I thought better be careful of this one, which is a natural human reaction to the unknown. I new that I could get used to my Muslim Indian surroundings, that by a long stretch of imagination I would have something in common with but he was some sort of hybrid freak.

The American guy introduced himself as Chris. He claimed to be a Fulbright scholar from Georgia who was doing his masters in Qawwali music. Qawwali music is Sufi devotional singing. It is a form of mystical meditation where a group of singers will sing devotional songs about Allah and the Prophet. Qawwali music was developed by Indian muslims around the 10th century. The most famous Qawwali singer is Nasrat Fateh Ali Khan who died some years back and I had the pleasure of seeing in concert. I am great fan of Qawwali music and so was fascinated by Chris’s thesis. However, at first I found him to be a little standoffish; perhaps i too looked like a hybrid freak to him.

We went inside the Dargha and did the pilgrimage thing. There where two tombs there which we had to go inside and walk around and throw some flowers. The thick-glasses dude went to pray and asked me to join him but I never really learned how so I declined. Chris stroking his beard asked me why didn’t I know how to pray because even he knew how. My father was always suspicious of organized religion, so he home-schooled me in Sufism and to be an independent thinker. Chris cried, “You are a Sufi.”

I replied, “You can never say that you are a Sufi because then you wouldn’t be one.”

This holds true because to become a true Sufi one would have to give up all worldly things and die before dying. To say you are a Sufi while still present in this world wholly then you are giving yourself a name and differentiating yourself from others – getting organized in a hierarchy, which goes against essence of Sufism. The barrier to entry is pretty high, although in my late teens I had aspirations to become a full-fledged Sufi. However, the iPod music player came out and I found a girlfriend and that was the end of that. I am just joking about the iPod and girlfriend but there is a lot of truth behind it. And to quote from one of the greatest Sufi saints Homer Simpsoniddin, “It is funny because it is true.”

We were sitting down chilling on the cold floor in the courtyard of the Dargha. One could feel the magic in the air as the full moon lit up the night sky with its brilliance. The Indians broke out a Harmonia and Tabla and started to get down with some Qawwali music. I turned to Chris, astonished. He said that they sing Qawwali here almost nightly. Fantastic I thought. Fantastic.

The night air-cooled. Chris and I began to warm up in our conversation. I think we may have participated in a type of Sufi meditation called Sobet or talking meditation. It is kind of like Hegelian dialectics: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. We talked about Sufism, Qawwali, Fundamentalism, Bush, and many other topics. I will post my favorite conversations in future blogs.

Chris has proven to be a great spiritual and intellectual connection here in India. We met many more time in my stay in Delhi. It was on our subsequent meeting that I thought about his hybridism and mine as well. Just as it was strange for me to see him in Islamic light when I first met him it must be strange for others to see me an Afghan in Western clothes and long hair strolling into a Dargha. I must look freakish challenging peoples schemas of what an Afghan ought to be.

I will not change my appearance. This Afghan-Canadian fusion that I am took a long time to boil into the comfort level it is today, and I will not change it for anybody. However, one thing that I was not comfortable with, and that Chris enlightened me on was the fact that many Westerners come to India and are suddenly Indianified. They wear Indian clothes but there is no real connection with what is going on since for such a connection to occur it would take years of them living in this culture and even then it would be impossible to belong to a cast if one is not born into it.

However, I am not clumping all such Westerners into this group. There are many who are truly Indian inside. For example, Chris is really into an authentic Islamic experience and hangs out with Muslims almost everyday. He takes great care with minute details of his experience. Even though Chris in Eastern clothes and me in Western clothes may seem weird at least it is uniform. The small details that Chris brought to my attention is that people in West who wear Eastern clothes for fashion mix and match. He noted some other Westerners who happened to be at the Dargha one night. One guy’s headwear was Punjabi, his dress Pakistani, and pants Western. This may end up being more confusing to locals. The other thing that may happen is that one might wear clothing so authentic that one may look like an enlightened Mullah and perhaps have no knowledge of Islam.

Nonethless, I found the Muslims in Nizamuddin to be very accepting of anyone who ventured into their mosque. Perhaps the old Sufi teaching of what is internal is what really matters and not you clothes, skin, or religion. I think to prove this Shams took of his skin in one mythical tale about his life.

Happy Eid

2006-01-10T15:57:00.000-08:00

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Originally uploaded by sunyuta.

I came to the Nazimuddin district today to see Nazimuddin’s shrine. I am still trying to finish my screenplay that is due on the fifteenth and was not getting any work done so I decided that perhaps a little spiritual side trip would enable those sometimes elusive creative juices to flow.

A friend back home, a Sufi, by the name of Howard Isbin told me to visit the Sufi Centre here where the Sufi saint Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Dargah is. I walked through the crowded streets of Nazimuddin where, instead of being deemed holy and free to roam, the cows were tied, ready to be consumed, as were sheep and goats to mark the Eid-e-Khorban. This holiday marks Abraham’s sacrifice of his son to god. So an animal is usually slaughtered.

I sloshed through the blood filled streets and asked people for directions, however, not many people speak English here. This is probably the poorest district that I have seen in Delhi. An old man over heard me mention Sufi Centre and told me to follow him through a winding alley till we came to the a large building with high walls. Inside the centre it was clean and peaceful in contrast to the noise and dirt of the streets. Of course it is Eid and there is no activity here. However, after waiting some minutes a man came out. I asked him were I can find Sufis. He replied that there are no Sufi’s there but I should go to Ajmeer in Rajistan to find them. I took the name down and he directed me to the Hazrat Inayat Khan’s tomb.

I am now sitting in the tomb under a tree that the Dargah was built around. I guess I am the only pilgrim here today. Inside the walls of this dargah I can here the voice of children cry out in glee outside. There has been a fun park erected out front beside the river of the blood of sacrificed animals where there are many joyous people enjoying the celebrations.

I walked in here some moments ago and I saw that behind the tomb there are several plaques with inscriptions on them of what I guess are the poetry of Hazrat Inayat Khan. One particular one caught my eye so took out my laptop and copied it.

Salat

Most gracious lord
master and messiah and
saviour of humanity
we greet thee with all
humility
thou art the first cause
and the last effect
the divine light and
the spirit of guidance
alpha and omega
thy light is in all forms
thy love in all beings
in loving another
in kind father
in an innocent child
in helpful friend
in an inspiring teacher
allow us to recognize thee
in all thy holy names
and forms
as rama as krishna
as shiva as buddha
let us know thee as abraham as solomon
as zarathustra as moses
as jesus as mohammed
and many other names
and forms known and
unknown to the world
we adore they past
thy presence deeply
enlightens our being
and we look for they blessing in the future
o messenger christ nabi
the rasul of god
thou whose heart constantly
reacheth upward
thou comest on earth with a
message as a dove from
above when dharma decayeth
and speaketh the word
that is put into thy
mouth as the light
filleth the crescent moon
let the star of divine
light shining in thy
heart be reflect in
the hearts of thy
devotees
may the message of god
reach far and wide
illuminating and making
the whole humanity as
one single brotherhood
in the fatherhood
of god.

amen

I will now leave and brave the crowds towards Nazimuddin’s Dargah.

Addendum to the Hustle Post

2006-01-07T15:36:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking about the young man who hustled me on my arrival in Delhi. It is because of poverty that people hustle. When I relay this story to other travelers they seem to universally hate the hustler phenomenon. I don’t really mind it that much. I don’t think people have much choice when they hustle. I don’t think that travelers would like it if they, the poor, took a knife to their throats. it is amazing that they hustle you for few dollars instead of outright killing and robbing because some of the poor don’t really have much to lose.

They say that prostitution is the oldest and most ubiquitous of all types of work. However, I feel that hustling is what turns the world. Sure it is in your face when traveling to poor countries; however, that is just the way of life for many who live there. They have to deal with hustlers everyday. For us it seems foreign but most of us don’t work on Wall Street. I have worked a little bit in the business side in the West and I am afraid to say that based upon my short experience and perhaps hasty conclusion they are very much hustlers.

In fact when you watch an advertisement on television you are being hustled. Never thought that you would need an MP3 player before the iPod came along did you? I mean you were fine without it. Life went on. Don’t worry I am not preaching. I am proud owner of an iPod but I realize that there is certain amount of hustling that goes on. Hustling is when you are psychologically and not physically forced to want something that you don’t need. It happens everywhere to a different degrees. You may even find yourself hustling people on a daily basis. Don’t you find that you want your existence to be essential? Otherwise, you would be completely unnecessary and drop into nihilistic chasm.

Doing the Delhi Hustle

2006-01-06T15:27:00.000-08:00

P1090221.JPG
Originally uploaded by sunyuta.

We landed in India finally. It was three o’clock in the morning. I make it a rule never to arrive anywhere in the middle of the night. I had no choice in this case. I also thought that a city of sixteen million would never sleep. We caught separate cabs because Amit was staying with family and going in the opposite direction.

The cabby was a chatty young man. He asked me all kinds of questions about Canada and my student life. My paranoia about arriving to a destination at night subsided and I enjoyed the ride into town. The streets of Delhi are full of trucks at night because they are not allowed to deliver their goods during the day. When we got to our destination, I found out that the city is deserted except for the trucks at night. The disctrict he took me to was full of hotels. He asked me to help him try to figure out where we were since he had no clue. The more we drove through the streets the more I thought to myself that it could not be the case that he doesn’t know where the hotel is. After trying several hotels he asked me, “I take you to tourist information centre?”

Upon hearing about the tourist information centre, I knew that he was trying to con me so I replied, “No… do you have a phone? We can call the hotel.”

He said, “No cell phone at night. No work, sir.”

That is when my imagination went into overdrive. Sure he was going to take me to a friend of his who was going to over charge me for a hotel so he could make a big commission, but in the middle of the night the darker travel stories of people being beaten for their a few bucks also reared its ugly head. Even if his intentions were not as I made them seem in my mind, I am sure that they would have escalated once I had refused the offer at the “tourism centre.” Either way I saw it as a trap. I wanted to walk out but the streets were bare except for some down and out Indians lurking in the shadows. I didn’t know what to do; he had the upper hand.

Driving to the tourist office, a government office apparently open twenty-four hours in a city that sleeps at night, my heart felt that it was about to leap out of my chest. I kept on reminding myself that I had been through worse then this when I did Istanbul to Cairo in 2002. After all there were a lot of machine guns and bombs that could have possibly complicated my trip in the Middle East. However, this did not calm me one bit.

I saw out the corner of my eye an emergency sign -- it was for a private hospital. I told him to stop and he did. I ran out of the cab with my bag and asked the security guards, who could barely speak English, to call my hotel. The taxi driver was visibly shaken at my action. He grabbed the phone and talked to the hotel then told me, “Okay sir. I know. I take you.”

As we left the hospital I felt that I was almost in control of the situation. Before getting in the taxi, I told him, “I am not going with you.”

He replied, “Why, sir?”

I looked at him with disdain, “I don’t trust you.”

He stammered, “I take you. Please trust me, sir.”

I thought to myself that I must make sure that he talked to the hotel so I walked back the hospital. He begged and pleaded with my along the way. Back at the hospital I asked the guards to call the hotel again. This time I spoke with the front desk at Vivek Hotel. I asked them to send a car over to pick me up. The cabby once again grabbed the phone from me and started to talk to them in Hindi. I took the phone form the cabbie when he was done and the front desk at Vivek pleaded with me to take the taxi, and that it would be all right.

As we were walking out of the hospital my fear had turned into rage. I was really upset at all the time and energy wasted on this unnecessary fiasco. I felt that I was in control but didn’t know how to communicate to the driver my contempt for him unless I kicked him in his rear-end but that would not bode well with the my non-violent nature and probably hurt me more in the long run.

The young hustler seemed to be walking in a daze. He had been really affected by the grind I put him through. He thought that it was going to be a walk in the park I presume, but at this stage he was as scared as I was when he was about to take me to his tourist info centre. If I was him I would have just runaway but he didn’t want to lose his airport license I guess. He was walking down the stairs with wobbly legs when suddenly he slipped and fell twisting his ankle. He got up and darted to the cab trying to hide his limp.

I felt really bad for the poor fellow. If one believes in Karma one could say that he had it coming but I don’t -- it was just a coincidence that it happened the way it did. I asked him several time if he was okay. He only nodded and drove me straight to my hotel. At the hotel he followed me in and offered an explanation to the Vivek staff by they didn’t even look at him in the eye, neither did I.

frankfurt to delhi?

2006-01-06T05:41:00.000-08:00

I almost changed my mind about going to India on Thursday the fifth of January. Although I had left England behind, England had not left me. Well neither had Vancouver for that matter. When I booked my ticket in May of 2005 I had no idea that my dissertation class at the University of East Anglia would ask for my final assignment – a sixty page screenplay – to be handed in on January fifteenth. So, I was off to India without having completed my assignment but what if I got ill in India and did not complete my final class? You see how my mind works now? It is constant state of what I call extra-carefulness-of-things or what you might call paranoia. However, this I find is due to my over-the-top imaginative abilities that come in handy in being a writer or, in my case, trying to be a writer.

A more experienced writer told me once that i must practice writing in any environment because one never knows when the creative juices will flow. So, I decided to go to India on the date set. Besides, I found out days before my flight that Amit was also going to India. He lives three months in India and three months in Vancouver to take care of his family business. I asked him when he is going and he replied, “January fifth.”

I said, “Really me too.”

He said, “Are you going through Frankfurt?”

I said, “Holy shit. Yes I am.”

The stars where aligned (if you believe in the kind of stuff) and I was not going to mess with fate even though I don’t really believe in that kind of stuff. Just coincidences.

When Amit got off the Vancouver-Frankfurt flight I was right there to greet him. It was fun spending time with an old acquaintance from Vancouver who was also an expert on Indian tourism. Amit didn’t waste time and jumped right into outlining an itinerary for my trip. As he was listing the place I should go, I quickly realized that there is no way that I could cover all of India in two months and should be happy covering just the north.

Amit was tired and quickly passed out on the airplane. I was too excited to sleep so I stole his laptop battery and began to work on my screenplay. An excitable Italian man sitting beside me began to chat with me. I found that he was going to India for an information technology conference. When we compared the prices for the hotels we were staying at I almost fell over on the aisle. He said that his university was paying 200 USD per night. My budget was 10 bucks a day. Once I landed I would discover that the range of rich and poor in India was astonishing. One minute you see a dead homeless man on the street and the next minute a Lexus sandwiched by military vehicles speeding along with VIP’s hidden behind tinted glass.

the malaria scare in germany

2006-01-04T05:40:00.000-08:00

I left England on the second of January hung-over from New Years Eve partying or I should say from the living-in-England hangover. It seems that no matter how hard I tried I could not get away from the pub. The pub – it’s the away of life in England. One deals with it the only way one can: by binging like the rest of the English.

With England quickly fading into memory, I looked forward to enjoying some Afghan food with my family who reside in Wezel a small town near Düsseldorf.

The excitement for my trip to India was building before I got on the airplane. The big question on my mind was – malaria. Luckily my uncle Omar is a doctor and I could get his opinion on what kind of precautions I should take. My doctor had told me to take daily doses of medicine to counter the threat of malaria. However, the side effects of these medications can fill the length of a novella. Uncle Omar who has a safety first mindset had some surprisingly daring yet practical advise, “There are about one billion people in India, do they all take such medications?”

I thought about it, but I felt too scared to not have something with me as a safety blanket. My whole trip of two months through India and working for three months in Afghanistan could be ruined with such a sickness. I had been planning to do this trip for over an year now and would be greatly disappointed. I mean I had just finished my last semester of undergrad schooling after five long years of trudging through a endless number of courses to get my double major. I even went to school in the summer time. I need to just leave it all behind and revitalize my spirits on the road in the great university of life.

He also mentioned that, “Winter will mean that there are not that many mosquitoes.”

After mentioning that I was invited to go on safari with my friend Amit whose family owns a jungle tourism company, I changed my uncle’s mind. He graciously offered to by me the most expensive of the pills, Malarone, with least side effects.

big brother is alive and well in england

2005-12-26T10:54:00.000-08:00

england was a fantastic experience for my writing. i learned a great deal here. i guess it was just the change of environment and consequently experiencing a different approach in teaching. mainly, i found that they concentrate on theory here as much as we do back home on practical workshop skills. or the fact that people aren't afraid to tell you what is wrong with your work and how, exactly, you should improve it (this as i found out later has to do with positive sense of freedom that is adhered to in england.) regarding my screenwriting, i did a third year dissertation and worked with Val Taylor, the head of the screenwriting masters program, as my advisor. i found her to be absolutely fantastic. she really took on a psychological critique of my work and contributed a great deal to the depth i was trying achieve. i think that i will apply to the university of east anglia masters program next year, among other schools.

the thing that i did not like was the bureaucracy involved in getting things done. two things were at play here. first, at the creative writing program or just in general in vancouver, i find everyone to be supportive. in england it seems like the rules take precedence over everyones actions. second, at ubc we hardly talk to departmental secretaries or the schools -- all this is done online. while, i found that in england there where floors upon floors of secretaries and administration that i had to navigate through on a weekly basis to get things done. furthermore, there was also a belief in reward and punishment, leaving little room for forgiveness. as a student i find that at ubc i can be forgiven for many things. for example, library fines are not that much to start with, but you can always write them a letter explaining your situation and have such fines removed. it seems that in canada people are always working favorably for students. in england, fines are fines, and ever present in every situation from the library to trains. there is no way around not paying them. it is just accepted and people never seem to question them at all. finally, i felt that privacy was not seen in the same light in canada. i felt that i was being followed by cameras everywhere, which gives you a safe but unsettled feeling. so, it just seemed that the authorities had their hand in everything when it came to bureaucracy, fines, and privacy. i never realized that we adhered to freedom in negative sense in canada.

when it came to the people, i found them to be more communitarian than in vancouver. i tried to get the creative writing society off the ground at ubc but failed miserably. ubc seems to be a transit university, students come and go but not many contribute more. in england, the creative writing society was well established and attended, it seemed, by anyone who could pick up a pen and write. perhaps people have a sense of community because they are banding together against the big brother society england is becoming.

however, i must admit that i found there to be a general depression that permeated throughout english society. people are not happy and they voice this by criticizing everything. it can get to be a bit much sometimes, since no solution is offered or when something really is great it is hard for anyone to admit it. i find that people in vancouver are just more positive about things. perhaps, this has to do with vancouver being in the process of self-realization and england an used-to-be-empire in final stages of decline. however, after much diligence, i found that the real reason for their malaise must be the bureaucracy and fact that they are fined for everything.

i won't go into great details about the drinking culture, but will say that my liver does need a rest and this is one reason i am looking forward to travel in northern india and afghanistan. and as you can guess the reason for binge drinking doesn't have to do with bars closing early, but out of frustration with a big brother society, and the fact that the bar is the only place one doesn't have to put with bureaucracy (you just find another bar if not happy, there are lots of them), one is not watched by cameras, and one is not fined for living in england because you can get a drink for the same price as anywhere else in the western world.

2/3 of the way done

2005-12-26T10:47:00.000-08:00

yes... i am finally almost done my bachelors. well, 2/3 done. i have but one assigment to hand-in, a 60 page dissertation, which happens to be a screenplay, on january 15th and i am done.

i have moved out of east anglia and am living in england at jeff's place in russell square again. i was sad to say goodbye to all the friends i had made there but it also feels good that i am almost done school.

oh have mentioned that i am almost done school?

P8290044.JPG

2005-11-15T06:46:00.000-08:00

P8290044.JPG
Originally uploaded by sunyuta.

this is one of the first pictures i took with my new camera. (olympus 7070 wide-zoom in case your wondering) it is symbolic of my life at this point time. i passing through a tunnel or a door in my life. finishing my undergrad, and i will be in liimbo for a while till i hear from a masters program that has accepted me sometime in march. being in between places hasn't happened in while for me but i somehow find it comforting to now that i have been through this process before and there is light at the end of the cold dark tunnel.

robots to make wars safer...

2005-10-10T01:48:00.000-07:00

in response to this globe article:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051009.wroborace1009/CommentStory/specialScienceandHealth/

making war safer for humans? the only country that will be able to afford such vehicles will be the very rich ones. humans will still die on the other side even if one side does eventually manage to wage war with robot soldiers. i mean if they really wanted to make "all wars" safer for humans they already have great venue for that -- "robot wars" shows on television, where contestants build and then destroy each others robots for a prize.

well realistically that would never happend. could you imagine george bush trying to beat saddam at robot wars? hmmmm... i don't think so. there is childish notion of glory in war that supersedes rationality. there has to be some kind of death for ones country involved to get people to cut another's throat and even stick out their own necks. war is the same game we played as kids but in a much bigger arena, and with bigger consequences then being taken out of game for few seconds. perhaps if we get really big robots then things may change.

tarique qayumi

my first blog

2005-10-09T04:55:00.000-07:00

It's ten to five am in Norwich. A saturday night. My second Saturday here. Sick. My chest is congested, and I slip in and out of fever. Fresher's Flu is a cute nickname given to my disease by fellow students. Fresher is what they call they first year students. Kind of like the term "rookie" back home in Vancouver. I guess so many freshers get drunk the first week that they forget to take care of themselves and diseases spread much more rapidly among them. I, however, am not a fresher. I do feel that I was an innocent bystander in the ordeal as this is my last semester of my undergrad. More later. Must sleep.

the path to emptiness

2005-10-08T21:25:00.000-07:00

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tarique qayumi

hallo

2005-10-08T21:13:00.000-07:00

this is a test...
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tarique qayumi