Faraway Land

As I walked down to the Pacific Coffee today to meet my new friends and grab a glass of hazelnut flavored milk, I came across a sign that read "We came on different ships but we are in the same boat now" and I thought, "how apt". Sometimes, we do come across quotes that stop us on our tracks and we think how nicely it fits the mood of the day. So, here I am, living in Hong Kong, a new place, a new town, a new life and a new group of friends and I am happy and content just as I was in most of the places I had lived in and adapted to. And the poem written by the Shenadoh surely applies to different nationalities living in the same foreign land, sharing different views on the same situation we are all living in.

THEY SET THEIR SAIL ON A SHIMMERING SEA

IN SEARCH OF A DREAM AND A DESTINY

EVERY RACE AND CREED WITH A DESPERATE PLAN

FOUND HOPE AWAITING IN A BRAND NEW LAND.

WE CAME ON DIFFERENT SHIPS

BUT WE’RE ALL IN THE SAME BOAT NOW.

WELL YOU CAN LIVE IN A CITY OR A COUNTRY TOWN

YEAH, BUT WE ALL STAND ON COMMON GROUND

YOU CAN SPEAK YOUR MIND CAUSE WE’RE ALL FREE

YOU CAN STILL FIT IN IF YOU DISAGREE

TAKES A LOT OF ROOTS TO GROW A FAMILY TREE..YEAH

BUT IT DON’T TAKE BLOOD TO UNITE US ALL NOW...YEAH

WHITE COLLAR WALL-STREET OR WORKING-CLASS PROUD

WE CAME ON DIFFERENT SHIPS

BUT WE’RE ALL IN THE SAME BOAT NOW - Shenandoh

Superstitions in Hong Kong

Yup, being a bit superstitious is "perfectly normal" according to British scholar Professor Bruce Hood - Dean of Experimental Psychology at the University of Bristol. According to Hood, "…Superstition is practically a part of our DNA…dating back to man's origin. Man has a natural predisposition to believe in the irrational…"

Do you ever knock on wood or cross your fingers of even trying to spell out a chant to make sure something good will happen? My husband does. This is an old Celtic tradition related to belief of wood spirits. A superstition is an irrational belief that a certain object, sign, or a set of behaviors that are related to somewhat magical thinking, whereby the practitioner believes that the future, or the outcome of certain events can be influenced by certain specified behaviors, by ritualistic signs or by potent objects.

In some areas of the world, people still still believe in the 'evil eye' - a belief that the look by certain people with the so-called third eye can harm others by simply looking at them with a 'dragon stare' . They had the belief that the eye was a 'trickster' that causes certain pranks to affect others. The eye can be one of violence, the island of fire, or the watchful eye. I believe in the itchy left palm, meaning money's coming and itchy feet, means you're on your way somewhere and the biting tongue, meaning someone is cursing you. Choking on food, meaning someone is remembering you right at that moment and of course, the black cat crossing my path would only mean trouble. My mom believes that if a spoon falls you are sure to expect guests for dinner. She freaks out when we try clipping toenails and fingernails at night saying it brings bad luck.However, recently I found out that its also a part of chinese superstition meaning that it calls to ghosts at that location. With tomorrow being halloween, I think this is apt. As it is, I am scared to turn on the Tv here because any movie being shown is on ghosts and ghouls and part scary.

To get back on the topic of superstition, imagine my surprise when I found out that no buildings in Hong Kong has the 13th floor. Hotel lifts skip from floor 12 to floor 14 due to the superstition of bad luck. The number 'eight' is very lucky in Hong Kong since the word pronunciation sounds very close to the Chinese pronunciation of the word 'prosperity'. Therefore, to have an 'eight' in a house address or on a personal car license plate can be very lucky. Today, people will pay millions of dollars just to get the number 'eight' in the address or license plate. Today, it is also a sign of ones social status if they obtain this number. Therefore, when my husband's friend Samina said she waited 18 months to buy a specific apartment on the 8th floor I totally believed her.

In Hong Kong and China,"Four' is an unlucky number though since the Chinese pronunciation sounds like the word 'death'. Therefore, Chinese people will argue and complain if they get the number 'four' in an address or license plate.In hotels, the managers have issues because Chinese people prefer to have room numbers to be 8, 18, 13, or 168. These numbers are said to be lucky, therefore it is beneficial (especially if on a gambling or business trip) to get these room numbers.Of course, superstition here is not only about numbers. Its heard that sweeping during the New Years is not to be done since a person will sweep away all the good fortune. Therefore, it is important not to sweep in the beginning of the year or scuff ones feet. A noodle in a soup should never be cut since it resembles longevity.

Now I know why the chinese noodles are so long that you can choke on them, of course that would mean someone is remembering you according to my superstitious belief!

Musings

It has been said that no man is an island. We are all bound together by shared beliefs and shared experiences. As we go through life we find that we are not as unique as we once thought. We have much in common with the person who lives down the street, as well as the ones who live across the globe.

Lives are not lived in vacuums but rather in interactive communities. This world of "binding" is what gives life its richness.

- Jackie K. Cooper

The Morning Light

"What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail."-Robert Schuller

An MBA Degree

I have done it! All those hours, days and months of slaving away at the desk, burning lamps, waking nights, having exam related nightmares for days on end when I was supposed to be dreaming of things a new bride dreamt of, all those days of hard rigorous work has finally paid off. I have passed my exams! I am a certified MBA graduate now. How happy my dad would have been to hear of this news! There was a different sort of satisfaction and joy that came from making my dad happy over the tiniest form of achievement in my life.

Perhaps because my dad was one person who had always made such noise over every trivial achievement. If he was still around, the first thing he would have done was to call all or most of our relatives and his friends telling them of the news with a deep brusque tenor. When I was younger, this particular trait of his had never failed to embarrass me. Now, I realise how much it had meant to me nevertheless. There was a happiness that stemed from knowing how I would have made him gleam with enough pleasure to be willing to proudly blow the horn to others about the smallest success of any of us kids in the family. Two days ago, Asha in her mail to me wrote "Nothing is accidental - the smiling picture is perhaps the way your dad wants to be remembered.... Though dad is no longer physically with you , but his love and wisdom will always be felt. He's just like one of those bright stars in the sky, watching over you all the time..."

I thought of her letter for a while, than I walked to my mom to tell her, after which, I promptly picked up the phone and dialled Emon to tell him the good news.

Privacy- An Issue

Privacy is a fundamental human right and a cornerstone of a democratic society. It lies at the foundation of the rule of law, the secret ballot, doctor-patient confidentiality, lawyer-client privilege, the notion of private property, and the value our society places on the autonomy of the individual. But, if we see it in a more basic form, privacy is required in an individual's life at much more minute issues than the ones given above. Bangladesh is one country where an individual's privacy is invaded as an aspect of general curiosity and it is expected to be exploited at all times as another's basic right of action, or thats the way they see it.

After my dad's demise more than a month ago, we have been asked a lot of questions. What are going to do, what are our next five year plans, what should my mother do, will my brother leave the country soon? What are we planning to do with my dad's business? And so on and so forth it went. Suddenly we felt very surrounded. We were surrounded by concerned friends and relatives providing us with moral support, ideas are flooding in, thoughts shared and discussed, as if suddenly our lives are all up for public discussion and debate.

A few ideas are good, most are general, some are infuriating. All in all, everyone comes in to keep tabs on which direction our lives are leading now. Its interesting because thats the answer I would like to find out too.

Friendship Day - My Father My Friend

Another incident rocked my conscious mind today as I opened another book to read. It was the Dan Brown's famous book "Da Vinci's Code" which I hadn't finished the last time I had started reading it more than a year ago. As I was flipping the pages, a picture fell out, I picked it up and stared at my dad smiling back at me in print.

In the beginning of the previous year, I had gifted my parents a holiday voucher for their marriage anniversary to the beach. This particular picture was taken with a young boy from the hotel, who had helped him and mom get beach chairs and ran small errands. The photograph was taken on the beach with my dad smiling and the boy smiling beside him. Somehow I had ended up using this picture as a bookmark for this particular book.

Now, all I could do was gape in surprise at the picture and wondered if he was trying tell me something. I looked at the picture for a long while and than carefully tucked the picture in my purse.

For now, I am adding a poem in memory of my dad on this friendship day. A day to be with friends and celebrate love, friendship and happiness. For me, I lost a great friend a month back, a friendship that is totally irreplaceble. This poem was sent to me today by Asha, a friend I had recently made in Hong Kong. I read the poem once, read it twice and reread it again thinking how true.

Those who have a father, love him while you may. For we wish with all our hearts, that ours were here today. A heart of gold stopped beating. Two laughing eyes at rest. God broke our hearts to prove, he only takes the best. For what it meant to lose him, no one will ever know. Love in death should let us see what love in life should always be !

Live your life over again!

I have finished reading the Anne Frank's Diary and got wholly inspired to search for my own journals. They are faded now, the pages are yellow and the ink in them are fading away. I wont like to publish mine though, the way Anne Frank did, (Note: I realised at the end of the story that she wasnt that much like me though except for a few traits). But I would definitely store my diaries though if I can, for myself instead to read and laugh out loud later.

Today, as I was talking to my old colleague and friend Farhana, through our conversation, I also realised that "If we write our life down, every time we read it, we can relieve our life again and again, so that we dont live just once but many times over and over again"

In our lives there will be incidents we would forget, incidents we had forgotten and incidents we dont want to forget. So, if we do write down every moment through, indeed if we have time. I know most of us do write journals or have written one at one point of time or the other. Once we read them, it has the ability to transport us back in time and we can almost feel that moment again, for a second we can feel exactly what we felt when we wrote it, most times, its a great feeling.

I came across my dad's diary too. In it he had been very concise, just events were written and dates and venues visited. But, in the midst of all those entries was one, a two and a half page entry, about his visit to Bangalore when I was a student living there. The entry was not as brief as the others and it made me realise that he must have wanted to really relieve those moments. He had even noted down what we did each day. It made me feel really strange, as if he was alive and talking to me through his entry in the diary. I wish he was still here with us. I miss his presence more and more each day. May Allah rest his soul in peace.

What's In A Name?

Today, as I was reading the "Anne Frank's Diary - The diary of a young girl" I came across a lot of similarities between the character in the book and myself. Is there something behind possesing the same personalities by having similar names?

Selecting a name for a baby is a huge deal in the new millenium. Trends come and go, the fastest rising or falling baby names mirror cultural trends, changing fashions or world events. Today's baby names are influenced by celebrities, tv shows and even by popular brands. Both me and my sister were named after a notable queen and a princess. Whether we share the qualities and personalities of these famous people is yet another story. Names can have lifetime consequences and thats a fact. A name can set up a child for social acceptance, school yard teasing or ridicule. This effectively giving a child the ability to choose which name they're known by in future years as they grow older. My real first name is Marufa, but in school I was called Maruf in short, which later turned into 'MyRoof'. This resulted in a reluctance to use my first name unless for official purposes and instead, I reverted to using my nickname, which was much simpler and easier.

With celebrity being the new royalty, celebrity baby names are increasingly finding their way into 'normal' society. Using family names in this way is a wonderful way to keep ancestors alive down through the generations. I was named "Begum" which was retained for maidens and handed down over generations. But, the dictionary meaning of "Begum" meaning wife had given rise to a lot of ridicule too in growing years. So I suppose its important to realise and make sure that the names would be something the child will be happy with.

Recently, the internet has given rise to a huge dictionary of names to select from including the meanings of these names. Some not only allows you to search by name, but also by all sorts of fantastic categories including 'celebrity', 'pop culture', 'the classics' and 'imaginative'. Once you've narrowed your selection down to an individual name, the site, for example "parenting.com" gives you the meaning and origin of the name as well as the popularity rank over time.

Another thing you can add on to the list, if you believe in numerology is what kind of personality the baby could have once given such a name. One similar site I came across long ago was http://www.kabalarians.com/index.cfm where you can find out what kind of personality you have depending on your first name. According to the site it says that "The Kabalarian Philosophy teaches that mind and language are intimately linked. When language is used to attach a name to someone, certain specific forces of conscious intelligence are combined".

You can try out the site and check whether it works for you. I have found a few similarities in character as stated. But whether I truly believe that Anne Frank and Anne (me) have similar personalities due to the similar names is still a debatable issue.

Remembering My Dear Dad

About two weeks ago, on 2nd july 08, Wednesday, I received a sms from my dad where he wished me and my husband happiness. I looked at it and thought, “Gee, since when did dad become so formal?” I even mentioned it to my husband when he came back home that day. After receiving the sms, I thought of replying immediately but found out my mobile phone had run out of credit. As it was too late to get it recharged I waited for my husband to get back home so that I could use his phone to call home. But, when he did arrive, I forgot until it was too late to call that night. To justify my forgetfulness, I thought it would be just alright to talk for an extra lenght of time durimg the weekend, on Friday, as we usually do call our parents every weekend.

I felt guilty about not replying that sms on the fated Wednesday night but did nothing to remedy it, even thought about it all night and tossed and turned knowing I should have replied, late as it was, and wondering why I hadn't. Little did I know that the same thought would ring through my mind for far more than just one night after that day. I even remember how my guilt prompted me to ask my husband much later whether he thought my dad would worry that I hadn’t replied. He smiled and told me that it was about time my dad stop worrying about me. I laughed and replied with utmost certainty “but abbu will never stop worrying about me!”.

On Thursday night, abbu passed away suddenly following a massive heart attack and I flew back home on Friday. The same day I was meaning to call and talk to him.

Abbu’s face beams at me everywhere ever since I last saw him lying peacefully asleep forever. He was always smiling, a serene calm person who raised the three of us siblings in a very strict, but not too strict manner. He was always there, encouraging us, allowing us to realize our fullest potentials, never once berating us for stumbling in our ways. He was hard working, mom used to say that dad lived his life on roller skates, never pausing to enjoy life. His favorite word was “Later”, “shob hobe..pore”, (Everything will happen later). If we wanted to all take a family trip, he would say “later”. We grew up, had our own circle of friends…we never did have that family trip. Neither did I get to buy him the leather rocking chair I promised him either. “Later”, I had thought, it would be a surprise birthday present…”Later” thus became “Never”.

What can I do now to unwind time? How can I call those moments back? Why do we all live for tomorrow planning things in the future, when it’s a future we have no control over? After all, tomorrow is what abbu lived for all his life but never lived to see. He never took that world tour he wanted to go on with my mom, he never took that long holiday to relax in the countryside like he always thought he would. He worked dutifully and dilligently without rest all his life without leisure or pleasure when all along he could have lived like a king!

Every time I think of my dad, I can feel the pain he must have felt when he had had the attack, the pain that he would have felt when they were rushing him to the hospital, the thoughts that would have chased his mind. If only I could have shared a little of that pain that day, I might have felt better today. If only he would have allowed us to share a little of his worries, perhaps allowed us to carry his burdens maybe. There he was, totally giving up his entire life, his time and his strenght, focussing all his energy and living his life...just for us!

Gone is a person who knew me inside out, who was my best friend ever, who was the only person I could spend 30 pages of handwritten letters on, the one person who called people to read out my sms to him. He still has a glass shelf with all my gifts to him stored in them which he never used. He stored every scrap of thing I gave him including a file full of cards and letters I used to write to him from college, years ago. And while I am still trying to figure out what I gave in return to him all these years for all that he has done, I feel totally bereft for being so ungrateful as not to have a few seconds to even reply to an sms, and for all the things I could have done to make him smile all these years but didnt.

He was my light, he gave me strength. In me, he shall live forever.

HE HAD SO MUCH TO DO, HAD SO LITTLE TIME

"To God we belong and to Him we shall return." (Qur'an 2:156)