Um

My blog has had no aim or apparent…um…theme till now. Now, I’ve decided to make it into an anti-anti-muslim blog.

No, its not sudden, its just been a process.

#1 I suppose it began with my darling grandmother, aka Dadi, coming over. She stayed for a couple of days, and well, I suddenly noticed the complete absence of spiritualism or any kind of feeling of religious duty etc. etc. I also noticed the lack of…I dunno how to put it.
Well, when we were kids, we were always preached about being good and not lying, god watching us, our duties, to be nice to everyone, being polite and helpful and all the good things which make me want to puke. I sort of lost touch of all that, forgot about it. Probably because I’m not constantly reminded to be like that anymore. Whatever, she told me stories of Prophet Mohammad, reminded me to help my mother when I could, reading the Koran after the exams (I’m getting an English version, Dadi approves) etc.
My mother used to tell me all that too, but being the rebel I was (/am) I ran away from all of it, without any reason. I refused to pray, to read the Koran or listen to her. What a brat. Point is,I realize the importance of it all now.

Ok maybe not, but now I’ve started to think, Why not? I’ve been disrespecting an awesome chance I’ve been getting. I rejected it all without trying it. Its cool you know, to learn to read Arabic, know verses, to…dunno. I’m frankly curious about my own religion which I have blatantly ignored till now.


#2 Then, HT started an article series about the Godhra riots that happened years back. It plain freaks me out. Being hunted down, being killed, even worse, being raped, even worse, watching your family being killed or raped. Just because you belong to some other community. It’s usual for us all to read about killings in the papers without batting an eyelid, as it is for me. But I sort of am more terrified about this because…well, I sort of know how it feels. I used to have a few dreams about being chased by someone. I was in this block of apartments, which was completely empty. I’d keep running, then try to hide, try to bunch myself in the tiniest possible space, hold my breath. But I knew in the end he’d find me. And that wouldn’t be good.
Ok, maybe you don’t understand, but there is this horrible dread of being caught…its terrifying…
Whatever. Point is, I understand. And its unfair that some innocent people were pinpointed and killed just because they were muslim…they had to run for their lives…they lost everything they had…their own childhood friends came raiding their houses… aargh
Its plain freaky, ok? The worst thing is, it could happen one day to me too…the way things have been going downhill for us. The image of muslims is getting worse.
Also, I hate the fact that there is an image…its like we’re an object…or a certain bloc that can be categorized as something, as the Terrorists, or the Totally-Covered-Up’s, or the Oppressed-Women-One’s. No one seems to be categorizing any other community. They don’t go “oh! You’re a hindu!” with surprise if you don’t hang ganeshas around your neck, put tilaks and yell out your religion.
And fuck, is it irritating when people are surprised when they realize I’m a muslim, they all go “oh, you don’t look like one!”
What the hell is that supposed to mean? I’ve heard the comment hundreds of times now and have managed to come up with a few retorts that lets ppl know I’m pissed.
Eg: “Why? Because I don’t have horns growing on my head?” or “What am I supposed to look like?” or “Do the rest of them wear badges or what?”
Ok, that’s plain rude.

#3 Then, it was reading Randa Abdel-Hakim’s novel. It makes me admire the heroines bravery and be ashamed of my own lack of religious practice. I mean, Amal is supposed to be a girl in Australia, who prays, knows all her verses, and even wears the hijab. What kind of moron am I?
Being the brat I am, I condemned wearing the salwar-kameez, used studying as an excuse to not pray and escape from reading the Koran.
I was so,so wrong. So stupid.
No, it doesn’t mean I’ll become a fanatic. I just want to belong a bit more to my community, learn a bit more about my religion. I want to have a bit more right to defend my community against crappy stupid people who think we all are terrorists. Just a little right.
I just want to do it…for me.
What if the Final Judgment will happen? What will I do then?
I might sound like a stupid person to atheists, but…I don’t see anything wrong in learning. I want the English version of the Koran, to understand what it means, to learn Arabic again. I mean, I’d read parts of the Koran earlier, prayed, fasted…but I did that because I was told to, I did it half-heartedly.
This time… I’ll do it because I want to. And I feel happy knowing that.

P.S. Congratulations. You just witnessed a change-of-heart thing. I feel a sense of responsibility now, about being muslim, towards my community, and Allah. I don’t want to be a muslim just because I was born into my family, I want to earn it a bit. I want to be a bit more religious just because some assholes condemn people because they’re muslim, and being the snobbish brat I am, I’ll do whatever they don’t like.

P.P.S. If you hate Muslims may Allah drop a tree on your stupid head.

Perception changes everything

Perception: 1 a:result of perceiving: observation b:a mental image: concept 2:a capacity for comprehension
(courtesy webster)
Perception is a very amazing thing. Its basically how you see things. Everyone sees the same thing but their mind perceives it differently. I dont only mean the glass-half-full-half-empty thing, it also plays an important part in more complex things. You must have noticed it yourself, how people can see one piece of art as different things etc. etc.
Perception is damn important in things like classification of things (no,this is NOT chem). For eg, my french paper had an article that talked about how scientists are not counting pluto as a planet anymore. This got of thinking, who said what a planet should be like? We didn't get stones from god with rules for calling something a planet, did we? Its all how we think a planet should be, how we observed all the planets an supposed all of them should be.
In the same way, scientists suppose that a planet should be like earth to have life. Thats what they perceive after seeing earth, their only example. But, i dont agree. Maybe there are other conditions for life to exist. Maybe organisms on other planets live on a different gas, have different type of sense organs and can live only in high temperatures.
Ok. I am getting carried away.
But perception does change everything, even personalities. Inferiority complex is when a person perceives himself inferior, thinks lowly of himself (a person can have one even he doesn't know/accept it). Some people think of themselves as being fat, no matter what you say(yes, sam, refering to you). The psychological ink-blot test is based on perception and reveals a lot about how a person thinks.

Its basically about how the same thing looks different to different people. Not how our eyes view it, but how our mind does. This is all shaped by how we are brought up, how we are made to think and what things influence us. Like, a person brought up in a conservative family will be all giggly when talking about sex as compared to a person who is used to talking about it freely.
Its also depends on how receptive we are, how open we are to new things. The more we see, the more ideas we have, the more angles we can see something from. But, it doesn't help he you look at something with a fixed mindset.
All this is what I think and That's perception for you.