Stereotype - Reality or Myth

Recently I had a change in my life as I received my PhD and was offered a good job. The usual congratulations were often followed by questions and comments from my friends. Initially, I thought it was just me, but later, in order to prove myself wrong (or right) I decided to compile and then average out the responses from my friends, colleagues and acquintances grouped by their ethnicity. The results were strangely consistent. I thought of compiling and presenting my findings here. Worth mentioning is the fact that when I mention an ethnicity or culture, I mean a friend who is 'fresh off the boat' and thus his frame of mind represents his upbringing in that culture. Thus an Indian friend is one who was born and brought up in India, I grouped anybody raised in the USA as American irrespective of his ethnicity. Following are the responses:

American - Awesome, congratulations. So you moving to Philadelphia, eh? Nice city, good job, getting out of Buffalo, what else would you want? I am really happy for you.

Arab - MashaAllah, congrashulashuns. This is great news brazaar. So did u get married yet or not? C'mon man, now you have a job, u should get married, get a family inshaAllah.

Desi (Indo-Pak) - Wow Man! Congrats! So now you make big bucks haan? New car, big house no?

Kashmiri - Mubarak! So, what is your salary?

This one was a classic. From a friend from bangalore, was not the usual desi response.

Friend: Great man, congrats! So can I ask you what your salary is going to be?

Me: umm.... no you cannot.

Friend: OK. So how much is it?

Me: !!!!!

To Learn and Unlearn

To question is human and none knows this better than the One that created us. I could question newtonian - either because i am a relativist or actually I did not understand an iota of physics. Where as in the first case I am intellectually inquisitive , in the second I am equally naive. So, the fallacy is not in questioning which but is idiosyncratic to human being, rather is in the underlying comprehension. Whereas we know for a fact that more dimensions exist, our mind yields beyond just three. So, its not what seems strange to us, it is how much we can fathom. And when in the conclusion of the very second chapter, it is mentioned, in retrospective, Lord! lay not on us a burden greater than we have strength to bear - is it announcement of fragility, a meek surrender or a desolate plea? Rather it is an advise to all those that find it hard. Pity that person who blew himself to smithereens thinking he did an act of great courage, on the contrary he was a coward, for he did something that was easy and cruel and saved on the hard part - struggling with himself, fighting his own devil. The turbulent waters may seem perilous and oh so strange, but only when one dives can it be experienced. There is no end to learning, get close to learning, gain more knowledge, yearn for understanding, the same questioning might make the faith more firm than shaking it all up.

What goes around comes around

It is a chilly winter evening, the hour is still in single digits but it is so dark out. The evenings seem longer than ever. Destiny has bought my friend in search of bread to this remote corner of the planet. The same situation that i was in about 6 years ago. Recollecting old days is definitely one of the cherished past times. We started talking about the 12th class examinations. He used to go to Tyndale Biscoe and i used to attend Jawahar Nagar Higher Secondary(JNHS). Even the name in the former case is fancier than the latter. Incidentally, we were in the same examination center (Amar Singh College) for our 12th boards. We were musing on the fact that when students of Biscoe broke all records of violating academic integrity during the additional mathematics examination. When this mass copying was reported in the center, ironically, our (JNHS) physics paper got cancelled instead of their Maths paper. My friend mentioned, ridiculous as it was, the only reason he had spent a fortune to get enrolled in Biscoe was the fact that their papers never got cancelled no matter what they did. He mentioned that his investment yielded immediate fruit when in this case our paper was cancelled instead of theirs.

This was year 1996 and the joint secretary of the Board of Secondary Education was in cahoots with Tyndale Biscoe for some vested interests unknown to us. Mass copying in the additional maths paper by Biscoe students was reported in Amar Singh College center. Jawahar Nagar Higher Secondary shared the center with them. Anyway, to cut the long story short, JNHS physics paper was cancelled but nothing happened to the students from Biscoe. The students of JNHS alongwith their parents went to the Board of Secondary Education where they were met with a horrendous response from the Joint Secretary. 'You guys dont know how to raise your children. They copy and now you come to support them. Students of Biscoe are from good families of the society.You guys are nothing compared to them'. These were the words used by a person who was sitting in a position of the Joint Secretary of the 'Education' system of Kashmir. Given that we were the underdogs and stakes were high, we asked him now what should we do. He asked every student to pay a fee of Rs. 400/- so that we would be able to take the exam again with the summer zone Jammu students. All of us immediately did that and were waiting for the announcements of exam dates. One fine day a notice in the local Urdu newspaper asked all students whose papers were cancelled to pay Rs. 200/- and they will have to reappear in new center locations within Kashmir. Things were such that even this was a good news. On reaching the State Board office, we were baffled when we asked about the 400 that we had already paid. 'What 400?' was the answer that we got from the Joint Secretary. 'If you want to take the exam pay the 200, its your choice'. Well, so much for a choice! We paid this money again and took the exams. A few months later, we took the Engineering Entrance Examination. The results were announced and 5 out of top 10 students were from JNHS - the same students who were accused of copying.

Destiny had it so, we joined the Regional Engineering College, we came to know that the daughter of the same Joint Secretary was studying there. It was a widely known fact that this girl had an affair with a faculty member from the Mechanical Engineering department and she used to copy in the exams on his behest.

Funny as it was, 'how to raise your children' and 'good families' were the words used by the father of the same girl. Allah could not have given this guy a better punishment. I have put this behind me, as i sit in a remote town in the planet, thousands of miles away from the place where all this is still in practice, the thought comes to me. The system in Kashmir might be so corrupt that he got away with all this, but justice was partially delivered by the Supreme Authority - the Authority that is Incorruptible, Just and True. What goes around has to come around!

Lets definitely talk about food

ahh yeah food. What could be a better topic? Only 'lots of food', i guess. Before i go ahead and mention anything, i would like to clarify something for those that might be a little rusty on their geography.
South Asian food is not just Indo-Pak or Bengladeshi food (in short Desi). It also includes top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art, best-of-class, best-in-breed Kashmiri cuisine, and no, it tastes nothing like desi food, somewhat persian-o-arab yes, but definitely not desi. Whereas the marchewangan-korme, meeth and the rogan-josh would surely titillate your palette, the kabab, riste and degi-kokur are there to fill you up. While you would drool over the tabak-maaz and the aabe-gosh, the yakhen and the haakh are there to pep it up. Then there is the omnipresent batte and the logical period goshtaabe. With everything so calculated, kashmiri cuisine is grammatically, scientifically and mathematically sound and perfect - and yea did i mention how great it tastes? Our cuisine is very elaborate, with everything logically placed and each spice and condiment added with perfection. Add to it the Kashmiri hospitality and you are in a food heaven. I have often asked elders about the origin of Wazwan and all seem to point vaguely towards Persian and Mughal history. With abundant use of saffron and yoghurt, Persian seems logical. Marinated, grilled and not 'spicy hot' would make it somewhat Arab. Well, this reminds me of Newton, only that it being the Wazwan i would be more interested in eating the apple than thinking why it fell down.

The only thing that has turned me off always about the wazwan is the extravagance and the amount of food being wasted. It is a pity, rather a shame. But wazwan is one of the few things from our heritage that still exists and fortunately i dont see it dying off so soon, at least not before the kashmiri language itself - so eat up guys. wosta yath trawakh na demni racha ti...

You know you're Kashmiri when ...

you call a bank 'bunk' and a bunker 'banker'

for you ootre could mean eons ago

you know only 3 types of people - musalmaan (meaning kashmiri), angrez (tourists) and punjaeb (everybody else)

you will prepare 20 different dishes for your guest and then say 'asi chhune kiheen ronmut'

your guest will not help himself with the food

you will force a guest to eat till he cannot breathe

and then you will say 'tohi logwe ne athe kuni'

masjids are full a day before Eid-ul-fitr and empty a day after

thaph (grab) for you means getting engaged

you tie 'dashi' at tombs and graves inspite of being a muslim

you wear 'taweez' that look like suicide capsules

you call for hartaal over cartoons published at a place you cannot even pronounce

you burn down your own schools during protest against Indian occupation

you get married by caste and not by characteristics

one day you are a mujahid, second day a militant, third day a renegade and fourth day running for election

Note:- I posted this recently on the group 'You know you're Kashmiri when' on facebook and i am reproducing it here.

Kashur Islam

Islam may be on the tongues of kashmiris, it is not in their hearts,
it may be associated to the kashmiris, it is not characteristic to them,
it may be in their names, but not in their lives,
it may be on their streets, but not in their homes,
it may be on their faces, but not in their limbs,
it may be on their outsides, but not their insides,
it may be in their past, but not the present,
it may be in their books, but not their deeds,

they may die for it, but not live it...

Hajj on Sale

Visiting my beloved moj kasheer is always a kaleidoscope of mixed feelings. On one hand, the beautiful vale, a cradle for all its children, the sense of belongingness, the family that is mine and the family that is kasheer, the faces that started growing wrinkles as I grew, the same neighborhood, the small streets often serving as our cricket fields, the mosque standing tall as always and the same shop around the corner. On the other hand, the broken roads that never got fixed, the overflowing sewer, the stinking garbage and the hapless child’s first breath in the filthy maternity hospital which smells of corruption and gross negligence. Well, whatever it is, it is home and i was visiting home this summer. With passion in my heart, love in my eyes and nervousness in my limbs I went out of the aircraft to feel, breathe and see Kashmir. Besides other things, top priority on my to-do list was to convince my maternal aunt and her husband to make the intention of the journey that every Muslim must undertake at least once in his lifetime. Perhaps waiting at the carousel for my baggage never was a more monstrous task as it seemed this time. Anyway, I stepped out of the airport and into the daily life of a Kashmiri visiting Kashmir.

The first step – meeting my aunt itself proved to be quite an uphill task. “We can’t take the car, the main roads are closed for public, the inner roads are jammed with traffic and the buses are taking an hour to reach where it should take them five minutes. It is the assembly”, jeered my dad. “Isn’t the government supposed to be ‘for’ the convenience of the people and ‘main’ road is off-limits for the common man?”, I mused. Anyhow, where nothing goes, the bus no. 11 is what you can always trust. I was greeted by one of the most emotional welcomes and without much-ado I jumped onto my mission. “You guys have to go to your first Hajj this year. I ain’t listening”. “Definitely!”, came what was music to my ears. In no time the papers, pictures and money was ready and in the hands of my dad and there goes the application. “inshaAllah”, I could hear it from the hearts of my aunt and uncle.

Due to a large number of people applying, there will be a lottery draw for the people making it to Hajj this year – I overheard somewhere, but it was time for me to head back to US – adieu. Days passed by and every now and then, I would pick up the invention of Alexander Graham Bell and enquire from my parents. ‘Na gobrya, weni draw ne kiheen’ (No, son, the decisions are not made yet). Anyway, the inevitable had to come and they were the unlucky ones to be dropped out of the list. ‘But there is still hope. The people have requested for more quota and there may be some additions’, was what I heard my dad saying. Indeed, the greaterkashmir.com did give new life to my hopes one day as I read the news that the number of Hujjaj has been increased. “An old couple, its their first time, people who are going for the third and fourth time are getting it. Now, they are definitely going to get it.”, I convinced myself. Anyway, the office of the DC, the nemesis as it proved to be, did not bring any great news. They were dropped the second time also. “Our pleas fell on deaf ears. Hopes were shattered and the hearts were broken”, was what my dad conveyed to me. “Now there is only one way. There are people who paid bribes of five to ten thousand per head to get in. I have already talked to one such person and he has assured us two spots for ten thousand rupees”. “Never”, came my reply, ”you can bribe people, but you cannot bribe Allah. Softly, almost choking at her tears, hardly able to speak out, “teli inshaAllah nawi waryi”, said my aunt.