They tore it into two

Batwara - separation, allotment, partition.

I still remember my first exposure to it. It was many years ago. I was still young and didn't understand politics well enough. One of my teachers marched into class and chastised us for being ungrateful spoilt brats who didn't appreciate the sacrifices of our ancestors in making this great nation for us. She had recently inherited a huge library of books that her late father had left her in his will. One day, browsing through the books, she came across one that contained true accounts from the partition.

She picked the tale of a girl named Satti. It was the heartwrenching tale of a young slavegirl who endured many tortures and escaped from her hindu master to flee to Pakistan. On the way, she was apprehended by a Sikh mob who took her child away from here and roasted him alive right before her eyes. She escaped and finally made it across the river into Pakistan where she stayed in a refugee camp, where, thinking she was finally safe, she was raped again by the Pakistani army.

This is what happened in 1947. An incision was made in the huge province of Punjab, splitting it into two. Towns were alloted to either side and a border was drawn. Hindus fled from Pakistan to India whereas muslims fled from India to Pakistan. Those who made the migration early when the rumours had started were lucky. Later, the carnage that ensued is mind-boggling. Trains arrived from Amritsar to Lahore and from Lahore to Amritsar with only burnt bodies and sacks full of womens' breasts that had been ripped from their bodies.

To save their honour, entire villages ordered their women to kill themselves, whether by drowning in the well or by hanging themselves. When men found women of another religion, they raped them. Some were allowed to go home but they were sent back because they had dishonoured themselves.

People stopped being people. Radha was no longer Radha, Ali was no longer Ali, Gurpreet was no longer Gurpreet. Everyone was Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Parsi.

It was the largest migration of people in history. 5 million people left their houses in Pakistan to migrate to India and 7 million people left India to come to Pakistan. What did it accomplish? Today, India has more muslims than Pakistan and Pakistan isn't truly a muslim country. I don't mean to disrespect the sacrifices of people but in the end, was it really worth it?

(I shouldn't've read Ice-Candy-Man... it's brought me down)

Ishwar Allah, tere jahaan main
Nafrat kyoon hai, jang hai kyoon
Kadam kadam par sarhad kyoon hai
Saaree zameen jo teri hai
Suraj kay gird pehre karti hai
Phir bhee itnee andheeri hai
Is duniya ke daaman par
Insaan kay lahoo ka rang hai kyoon

Disgusted

What the fuck is love anyway? Is it the lust that heats the loins of men or is it the obsession that awakens in a stalker? Is it the pleasure that he derives from fucking her or is it the animal look with which he eyes her bosom? Is it his need to marry a beautiful bride to show off to the rest of the world or her need to marry a rich husband so she can get gifts? Is it the divorce that happens a few years into marriage or many years later? Is it the respect children have for their parents when they grow up? Is it the reverence humans have for God when trouble comes their way? Is is the indifference with which we walk past the homeless? Little happinesses, little distractions, where do they lead us? We still live in a society where we have the blood of innocent people on our hands. We prey on the weak for our own benefit and if our supremacy is ever threatened, we will be ruthless - no matter how compassionate we pretend to be. How many of you will take a paycut so those who are starving can eat? How many will pay more for gas? How many will share what you have, sacrifice a few luxuries? Nobody? I'm not surprised.

There was construction

The Inner Struggle
Drinks tonight? Hmmm, I don't know... unwinding around people from work... well, it's alright. What makes me uneasy is that I might unwind a l'il too much. What if I say something I shouldn't? Oh fuck it! I'm going, even though it's only people I don't know too well who are going...

Exhiled by the Sneaker Police
No, sorry, no sneakers. No, sorry, no baggy jeans. No, sorry, nobody under 23. WHAT? I thought the legal drinking age in this frickin' province was 19. Mnagement reserves the right to refuse entry. Sorry Ryan, sorry BAs with the underage gfs...

Guilt
A table surrounded by developers. Sam arrives mit fiancée. Geek talk. Peter's girlfriend lives in North Bay. North Bay?!?! Isn't that like 6 hours away? No, just 3 hours. I like to go there to snowboard. Will she move down? She better! Darn, let's all go to the Duke of mumble-mumble, we feel bad that we had to split up from the BAs.

Rob arrives
And my rude mouth blabbers, "Did you pay the cover?"
"Yes of course."
"Oh too bad, we were just leaving."
My stupid mouth, always the bringer of bad news.
Rob disappears *poof*
Exit, my apartment.

In the Bar
Sorry but the tables are full. I'll buy a round of drinks, says the nicest guy. I thought you didn't drink...?

Metrosexuality
It's the unanimous opinion of all at work that Ernie is that biggest metrosexual at work. He offers to go shopping with the gals anytime.
I used to dress better. Waterloo made a slob out of me.
Drunk laughter.

Irish music, the two Todds & the two loud-mouths
Vio-ma-lin, saxo-ma-phone, fid-a-mid-a-diddle, the Newf song. Todd 1 und Todd 2 - ach, the uncomfort. Recycle: GO Train catfight joke. The ones who said Todd 1 und Todd 2 = jerks. And one of them doesn't even drink.

Jas is drunk
An old man tried to pick me up on the GO train. I like the guys sitting at the other table. Let's go do shots. I want another drink. I found out a lot... but buzzed as I was, my mouth was clamped shut. I have pretty good self-control.

High School?!?!
Rohini was there. A fleeting hello did pass between us and then out the door she flew and the flock followed her. Remained just a select few. It was time for shots.

No, the baby!
"Oh, you're leaving Rob?"
"Yes."
"Wait, come do shots with us."
"No, I should go."
"Oh, come on! It's a group effort."
"I really shouldn't because of the (hand pointing towards stomach) baby"
"Hahahaha"
"I'm going to go. Why didn't we talk tonight?"
"Well, you know, you were sitting at a different table at all..."
"Well, we should talk more often. Come talk to me sometime."
"Okay, I will."

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
What just happened? Is he? Isn't he? Did he just? No, it couldn't be! There were a thousand questions, a million speculations.

In the village
Delirium... true expression of my feelings. There was, as well, a scary sight. I'd rather not go into that though. The margarita rocked!

Construction
They'd dug a hole 15 feet deep in the ground. I walked in the direction of the blinding lights, the constant beeping of reversing vehicles. The wind had died, only a crisp chill remained. No cab tonight, it would be me under the serene moonlit skies. I gazed into the deep pit in horror. What if I were to fall in there and be devoured by maggots as my body slowly decomposed while cars whirred past above me? I trudged on, leaving the glaring lights, the consistent beeping, the bottomless pit. The moon smiled down upon me and the happenings of the night quickly faded into oblivion as I gazed up at the sky, mesmerized, Jorane persistently crooning in my ear:

Pour ton sourire, j'veux donner une belle bague, une belle bague pour ton sourire
Pour t'embrasser, j'veux donner une tasse d'amour, une tasse d'amour pour t'embrasser
Pour tes yeux et pour tes lèvres, pour ton sourire
Pour ton sourire, j'veux donner toutes mes nuits, mes jours et tous mes rêves

It was worth all the trouble I had getting there

Pretty people shaded by darkness, we gaze at the radiating presence on-stage. Pretty people, we drink drinks, we speak french, we listen to others speak french, the french french, the québecois french, the broken french, the pretentious french. There was the tale from India and a glass of wine. There was the tale from the UK and a gin & tonic. There was that disco ball that lit up and started sprinting the perimeter of the room. And there were pretty people. I was a pretty person too. I heard them croon, I heard some whisper, I heard some sigh. I saw some mouthing the words that were heard in the crooner's crooning. The cello was nice, so was the piano. And then that loud blaring noise. I covered my ears and I closed my eyes. Then I covered my eyes and I peeped through my fingers. Bad posture. The tire needed air, I needed to croon with the crooner and I did. I crooned all the way home, I crooned the lullaby titled "wake up," then I crooned another tune:

If this is the car that I must drive to the job
that I must have for the house
And the man I don’t love
Count me out, count me out

What is love anyway?

My grandmum(I'll call her dadi) got married when she was 13. I think I can safely assume that it wasn't by choice. I was aghast when I found out. I didn't get to see the beginning of her life, only the end. And this is what I saw...

My dadi and dada would wake up every morning. He'd go out into the backyard and exercise, then he'd go pluck out a few jasmine flowers - and on certain days, a rose - which he'd take indoors where he and my dadi would have the breakfast that she'd prepared. He'd present the flowers to my dadi who'd adorn her hair with them. Then they would go for a morning stroll around the neighbourhood. I joined them sometimes, tiring of their pace, running about like the crazy monster that I was. I don't remember many conversations; they were content in silence.

The entire day, they'd stay in touch. If he went out to work (and he did way past his retirement age), he called at least thrice to see how she was doing. They would pray together, side by side. They sat down together, they ate together, they watched TV together. In the later days of his life, my dada found out he had lung cancer. They tried treating it but they gave up. They gave him a few months to live, perhaps. But he lived for 8 years after. My dadi died before he did and he died soon after.

A few nights ago, I discovered some of the poetry he'd written after my dadi died (I can't believe my mum didn't show it to me earlier) ... and though I don't understand it fully, I can sense the pain in it. He was a broken man without her just like she felt incomplete without him.

What is love then? Is it dependence, is it compromise, is it devoting yourself fully to another by sacrificing your dreams? Or does it have fantastic beginnings and romantic candlelit dinners, signs aplenty telling you that you've found "the one"? I don't know...

I come from a civilization obsessed with love. Every film they make is about love, at least their version of it. Every book I read talks about it. I had a discussion with a friend about how languages have a tendency to reflect what is truly important to a society (my friend is Russian and he told me about a word that means "someone who invented something clever or thought of a brilliant way of doing something"). I can name at least 6 different levels of love, words varying in intensity all of which would translate to "love."

And I come from the land of the arranged marriage. Le plus grand amour que j'ai vu dans ma vie était celui de mes grandparents... and it was arranged. What, then, is love? Someone once told me that love is something that can only be truly identified in retrospect which means that in our lifetimes, we will never be able to identify true love... undying love.

"Abb to buss tasveer hai qalb-e-khazeen main jaagazeen
Asl kaa lekin badal tasweer ho sakti naheen."

Troubled...

I'm still in a state of shock. A friend confessed to me last night that he was a victim of child abuse. What appalled me further was that when he was 10, he tried to go for help to a clinic and he was turned away because they didn't have anyone trained to deal with this issue. It's so hard for a child in that situation to reach out and when he does, he's turned away because of legal concerns or incompetence or just plain stupidity? What are we coming to as a society?

I think the problem is that we don't talk about this issue enough and I'm guilty of it too. I remember once about how we all went out to a restaurant to eat and my friend started talking about how a guy went to a voodoo doctor in some part of Africa because he had AIDs and the doctor prescribed that he have sex with this 2-month old baby girl. And she was describing how that girl's face was still and void of expression, how she no longer feels any emotion, how he completely destroyed her. I felt hot tears forming in my eyes and I told her to stop - I couldn't take it anymore.

I'm guilty of it too. How can we expect kids to come forth to us if we ourselves are incapable of dealing with it? I know it is something so heinous that it makes me sick to my stomach... but we need to do something.

In North America, 1 in every 5 kids are abused and most by close family relatives. In developing countries like India and Pakistan, I won't be surprised if it's 1 out of 3 or even 1 out of 2. How bad does it have to get before we start talking about it?

Gaseous temperament

Madness... I'm bubbly again! Perhaps I shouldn't describe myself in so gaseous a manner - it's quite scandalous, really! Skippity-skip, I'm floatin' off into air. I was even good at foosball ce matin. C'était surprenant because usually, I suck. The stars, they sparkle and the cars, they parkle. I pitter-patter, twitter-twatter into oblivion.

I received my health insurance card last night and such was my joy that I've made an appointment with the dentist now. Free visits to the dentist - yippee! Oh, except for the $25 deductible per year. Insurance companies are such a scam!

Verheiratet... that's my favourite German word, verheiratet. It means married... so to use it, I usually say: ich bin nicht verheiratet; ich bin ledig.

While in Roma, bella Roma, I met a German couple who dragged me out for drinks. I dazzled them with my pronunciation of verheiratet. Then I had to say Friedrichstraße and all came crashing down to earth. For now though, ich bin nicht verheiratet und ich bin glücklich und ich möchte schöne Männer sehen. Donde estan? Non so. Tristemente, non so. Ach! What will become of this mouth, this multi-tongued yet sucky-at-todas-las-idiomas mouth?

Fuming...

And I don't even know why. I feel like I've lost the reins and I understand... I understand I cannot undo the past. I'm not trying to. But just because I was taught to think a certain way doesn't mean I must for eternity. What I am sick of is being preached to and of being manipulated by carefully crafted stories. And for once, I'm not going to take it. I will not be told what to do and what not to. I have a mind of my own and I have every intention of using it. Fuck heritage and culture and religion. If it doesn't make sense, I'm not going to blindly believe in it just because everyone else does. So stop trying to make me join the herd because I abandoned it a long time ago. I might seem docile but I might just come out biting at you if you go too far.

Red... all I see is monochromic, a shade of red. And I feel this rage, an animal rage. Every situation to which I reacted differently yesterday or last week or last month, I respond to with rage.

*Deep breath*

Okay, calming... red mutating into blue... senses dulling, fatigue overtaking me. The armour of rage I'd worn only a few minutes earlier has fallen down leaving me naked, vulnerable. I best be off before I get too contemplative on here.

Hallucinating

Once more the skies are lit. In the distance, a wolf howls but there's no reaction out of Miss Bumblebits who is sitting under the full moon smoking a cigarette. Puff in, puff out, puff in, puff out. It's quite monotonous really when all of a sudden, it is realized that the filter of the cigarette has disappeared. Little particles of tobacco rest motionless in mid-air. Then they start rotating, first slowly, then fast, in a circular manner. They gain speed and start racing forwards, away from the decaying lungs of Miss Bumblebits. The wolf who howled previously jumps through a hoop and the moon opens its eyes and mouth (it's missing a nose) and smiles, then winks. I gaze and scratch my head in confusion. Then, I hear a laughter.

The sonorous laughter heard in the wilderness where we were sojouring was that of Miss Salgus who is sitting on a patio gazing at the tall, queer buildings that she's surrounded with. Around her, all she can see is darkness and the yellow light glaring at her from the windows of the skyscrapers. The buildings begin to grow taller or the ground begins to sink or both. All Miss Salgus knows is that she can no longer see the summit of these buildings. The window lights are now merely halos.

A unicorn appears and it bows its head. It glimmers in the faint light. The moon that had vanished has returned once more and shines light on a silver lake. A circle of deer are dancing on their hindlegs doing a weird kind of ballet.

Mr President, hear me out, at least this once. I've had the gayest time at the bar of earthly dreams where crystal balls were floating in the air and little droplets of water pursued each other in the most orderly fashion giving the appearance of a wave. I was enchanted by this mystical place.

Excuse me? I'm sorry... I'm a little busy right now. You see, my throat is a little SORE from talking so I can't really talk to you right now.

The President has spoken. It's over.

Stars come crashing, the buildings collapse and the wolf feasts on the flesh of the unicorn, then chases after the deer. The water turns crimson with all the blood that is shed. A glimmering teardrop appears in my eye, then flows down the length of my cheek in a wave-like pattern.

It's over.

I'm too melodramatic...

Hell's been unleashed!

Seems like I never left work. I got home at 10:30 last night and I'm back at 8am again. And today promises to be a crazy day. Ominous crane's still there, the CN tower's hiding in the clouds and I've got piles of work on my desk which must be done by tonight.

I'll talk to you later, my lovelies!

Ominous crane

I'm afraid for my life. There's a 30-storey crane right outside the window. If one of the wires holding it up gives way... je mourrai.

Hmmm... morbid thoughts, morbid thoughts...

Ce qu'on va faire live ici
C'est changer de cap un petit peu
On change l'atmosphère

*Breaks into song and dance*

Aïeee... it's pretty hot up here, ominous crane's still there and it's still pretty damn ominous. There's also a baby crane across the street (10-storeys high) but it's too far to make impact with the building.

I'll just sit here in fear of my life, I suppose.

I spy a salacious sight...

I will whet your lecherous appetite with a naughty post. Readers mine, siphon this message into the ears of my love. Admirers mine, hold in your hand your most beloved possession and shake it hither und thither. Lovers mine, empty out your wallets for another lap-dance, I say.

Gather round, gather round. The object is round, the subject is long, a mating occurs between the two, one lascivious, the other scared scared. Entrez dedans! Si si, comme ça... avec le ç d'un caleçon.

Ah, desire! Wiggle your toes and jiggle your feet. It comes, from head to toe, a current... the night's still young. It'll recur. Yes, it will, my dame. Yes, it will, madame. Slowly, avec gentillesse, suavemente. Ouais, I think you've got the hang of it.