About Me
I am not lost. To be lost, one must know where one intended to be. I don’t, so I’m not – lost that is. I am adrift, in perpetual transition – breathing, wondering, doubting, crying, pining, relenting (stole those words from a charming little poem expressing familiar sentiments) – but ultimately believing that there is a purpose and, because of it, things will turn out as planned. Eventually, I will know with certainty that I am not lost, that I was meant to be here, that in the cosmos, I matter.
I wait patiently.
I am a mother, lately a grandmother, a wife (at least I feel I still am, I certainly was once – its complicated, as my FB status declares), a corporate resource (no, they don’t call us people although one could elevate oneself to corporate talent – but never just people, it’s too humane and simple!), a wannabe political leader (in fact a wannabe-but-unlikely-to-be many things), and – the toughest avatar in today’s divided world – a Simple Pakistani Citizen.
I have read fewer books than I have not, watched more movies than most, travelled extensively only to contemplate hotel lobbies, offices and airport terminals, and sampled gourmet cuisine while craving roti. My favorite activity is sleeping, albeit I do so fitfully due to subliminal guilt-trips about lethargy and non-productivity. I believe in a Divine Being although my jury remains out on Allah vs. Bhagwan vs. Jehovah. Yet, I am a practicing Muslim seeking spiritual revelation through ritualistic conformity. I am a fierce nationalist but find daily life in Pakistan exhausting and am often in a hurry to find my way back to the comfort of Dubai, my adopted home.
In short, I am a web of conflicts, a collection of conundrums, an oxymoron that is simultaneously sublime and ridiculous.
Nevertheless, there are some beliefs that I hold irrefutably; that truth liberates, that doubt is not the opposite of faith but an element of it, that a martyred soldier’s blood blesses a nation, that Harry Potter was indeed saved by his mother’s love because selfless love has divine powers, that Edhism should be a way of life because selfless service too has formidable powers, that some of us might as well become friends with our weight, that Oprah knows things, and that the meek shall indeed inherit the earth.
One of these days I shall find myself fully transitioned, either to a place which is home or to a discovery which is me, or perhaps to a truth which is undeniable but not melancholy as truth often is.
I seek the kingdom of heaven; I just don’t know how to get there.
0 comments: