Those who became complete

Today I thought I'd share a Turkish poem by Yunus Emre:

'Those who became complete,

didn't live this life in hypocrisy,

didn't learn the meaning of things,

by reading commentaries...

Reality is an Ocean, the Law is a Ship.

Many have never left the Ship,

never jumped into the sea.

They might have come to Worship,

but they stopped at rituals,

They never knew or entered the inside.

Those who think the Four Books

were meant to be talked about,

who have only read explanations,

and never entered meaning,

are really in sin.

Yunus means 'true friend',

for one whose journey has begun...

Until we transform our Names,

we haven't found the Way."

It made me think whether I was bold enough to jump from the Ship, and whether I had the courage to go beyond rituals, into something deeper and more real than this world will ever be. Worth thinking about. 

Baking Disasters

I didn’t know that I’d develop such an obsession with all things baked during my time in Toronto. Now since I’ve been back, I find myself being drawn to the baking needs aisle more frequently, lamenting the fact that I do not have access to a proper electric oven, and trying out as many bakeries as I can. I miss my pumpkin pies, cheesecakes and biscotti too much.

However, I’m sorely disappointed in the quality of baked goods/baking items available in the markets in Karachi. Maybe, I’d have been less disappointed, had there not been so many cooking channels airing special programs on delicious baking... Maybe, due to this, I had a lot of expectations with the “professional” bakers. Here’s a series of complaints about things that got me disappointed:

Brownies:

Bricks

Seriously? It’s the easiest thing there is out there to bake. Anything with sugar, eggs, flour and a dash of vanilla tastes delicious... and adding loads of chocolate into the batter makes it simply divine. How can one go wrong with fudgy, chocolatey brownies? When there are a million recipes out there in books/mags/newspapers, and for free on the internet? And if you’re totally lazy, you can simply pick up a box of brownie mix to bake a batch in under 20 minutes! Heck, you can bake it in less than 6 minutes if you’re like me (using a microwave oven)!!

The brownies these so-called “professional bakers” present us with are brick-hard blocks of flour (almost black due to the excessive artificial colour) that taste like cardboard. No fudgy, chewy chocolate in there- not even a decent amount of cocoa powder. You might come across the occasional white spots (evidence that the baker was in too much hurry to mix the batter properly) while you take your bite. You may also get an unpleasant surprise when you discover a hard little pebble between your teeth- don’t worry, it’s only a rather smallish bit of mouldy, rancid walnut that the baker thought was a great idea to add and perk up the flavour. It’s too small to cause any serious stomach troubles. Really...! Stick to your old Betty Crocker boxes (thankfully available at most supermarkets), a microwaveable dish, and your reliable old microwave... you do NOT need to spend Rs.500+ for a terrible disaster from a showy bakery.

Cakes:

You know, there was a time when your dad used to order your birthday cake from the bakery closest to your house, and you couldn’t wait to cut it and later lick the icing off your knife...remember? When the candles used to go smoothly into the decent amount of chocolate icing, and the sponge was soft and delicious... and the nice little line of icing in the middle made you so happy, it was like eating two pieces of cake instead of one...anyways. Those days are gone. Over.

The cake from the bakery closest to your house has some nasty obsession with pineapple pieces and canned juice nowadays...in fact, it’s all the rage I hear. The cute decorations are also gone- you only get blobs of white stuff all around with a ‘glazed’ cherry on top of them. Once you cut into the cake... the middle layer is completely full of all sizes and shapes of pineapple chunks you could imagine. The lower sponge is soaking through with pineapple canned juice... the “juice” you throw away when you eat out the chunks from the can. Yes, that juice. No matter what flavour the bakery claims the icing/sponge is... I can guarantee it will taste like pineapple. 100%- no doubt about that.

Then, if you are like me, you blame the neighbourhood bakery...and decide to go to that hip little cutesy place everyone’s been talking about. It’s the bakery that charges 50% more on every item, just because it’s a hip little cutesy place everyone’s been talking about... you know the one, don’t you? You pick out the loveliest, scrumptious cake you can see in their fridge, and pay a ridiculous amount for such a small cake...but (you tell yourself) this bakery actually uses some expensive stuff... that’s why.

Yup...that's the one.

Well guess what? Surprise!! You get a repeat of a brownie disaster! It’s a brick made out of flour, tasting mysteriously like that cardboard box it came in... and you even get some sticky icing that makes your teeth turn blue! (or green or red... depends) Ooh...the fondant decoration made you melt? Now it’ll make the bite hard to swallow by sticking to your throat...awesome! Just what you paid for.

Whatever you do, do NOT buy a cheesecake from said hip little cutesy place. It’s just a plain frightening mess of white cement, with a bit of cream or vanilla or something...that’s sitting on top of biscuits ka ‘choora’... that powder you find at the bottom of cookie packets. The point that’s frightening is: it’s not baked...it’s frozen. Using some kind of corn flour or gelatine mixture. It has raw eggs inside. Now that’s frightening.

Cupcakes:

Ah! Cupcakes... who doesn’t like them? First of all... those aluminum “cups” on display look completely empty. Upon inspection, you find- oh yeah...that’s dark chocolate icing on it... You buy a dozen of them to fill a box to take home (ridiculous amount of money for the almost empty aluminum cups, but it’s the hip little cutesy place after all). You use your nails to pry apart the aluminum from the thing inside, while the “icing” leaks onto your fingers. You take a dismally small bite of the cupcake...tastes like sugar and vanilla..not bad. Atleast not cardboard... but that’s what you get. If you are stupid enough to get those fondant-with-icing on top ones, be sure to brush your teeth properly later. You don’t want to scare people with purple teeth.

Pizza:

Yes, I went to the world’s most renowned pizza franchise after 5 years of being abroad. After 5 years of eating pizza from small unknown places that used to serve halal and charged no money for home delivery. I discovered that the basic sizes followed all over the world are unavailable at our place. We get to choose from “Large” (read normal/regular all over the world) and “pan-sized” (read so-small-it-fits-in-my-plate). The “Extra”-large option is unheard of. No dips on the side. You pay extra for salads and drinks. The garlic bread is likely to pull out your front teeth, so is the crust with barely-there toppings. No matter what flavour you order, you are only going to enjoy the flavour of the crust, and some hanging strips of mozzarella...yay! for your expensive pizza. They serve ice-cold drinks, so your mouth is thankfully too numb to bother about all other tastes. 

Oh well... Time to start baking by myself. 

Lessons Learnt- from 2011

Dear Readers,

I believe it's a good idea to do yearly lessons learnt series. Every moment that passes, although we may not realize it, teaches us something. The lesson may be so subtle, that in most cases, we never know what changed us. Here are some lessons I learnt in 2011:

(For last year's lessons, click here) <- trust me, they're awesome

-  Sometimes, all you have got is Hope.

- Others can speak from their experiences. It is up to you to see how closely their circumstances match with yours, before you accept what they say.

- Most people have ulterior motives. Sad, but true. 

- Priorities change. 

- Being an Honest person can lead people into believing you are an absolute simpleton. Keep fooling them.

- It’s Ok to be scared of consequences.

- Pets are important. Very important. Get a cat.

- Do not detach from Nature. There is a mysterious power that Nature possesses; it can heal the deepest of wounds. Include Nature every day in your life, even if it is simply looking up to observe the sky for a couple of minutes.

- When things give you too much emotional strain: either 1) do some baking, or 2) think about the big picture (the Universe, the grand scheme of things... and how your little heartache has negligible impact on anything out there).

- There is a time for everything, it happens on schedule. If you try to rush it, or avoid it- you lose.

- Things that you think are unnecessary, or too unimportant, may actually be useful for you. No harm in trying.

- Don’t ignore your creativity. If it has been silent too long, you will have trouble accessing it again.

- Avoid people who make you feel/think/believe in the negative. Actively avoid.

- Recognize quickly which people in your life will make you happier... they are often those you may be inclined to keep at a distance. Why? Think about it.

- Learn to let things lie. Anger does not help. Some things sort themselves out automatically.

- Do something you'd never do normally, just for the heck of it.

- Don’t stop yourself from expressing your positive emotions. Reserve self-censorship only for the negative.

-  A broken heart is a humble, sweet companion. An intact heart has not known magic.

- Inspiration is terribly unpredictable.

- What looks perfect, is not perfect.

-  Share a poem... if a person chooses the exact line that hit you most, you’ve found a good friend. If a person chooses a completely different one, you’ve found a good friend anyway. If a person has nothing to say, well... not your type.

- Forgive more. More than you are naturally willing to.

- Believe in second chances. They do come sometimes.

- ‘Be yourself’ is too limited. Be a hundred different versions of yourself. They make you whole.

- Abandoning an unreadable book is ok. Not your fault. It’s the book’s fault.

- And finally, do not close the door on Love... it has a million ways to come and go. It must always be a welcome guest. And someday, it may decide to stay. 

Happy New Year!!! 

Look at love

Look at love-
how it tangles,
with the one fallen in love

look at spirit,
how it fuses with earth
giving it new life
why are you so busy
with this or that or good or bad?
pay attention to how things blend

why talk about all
the known and the unknown
see how the unknown merges into the known

why think separately
of this life and the next
when one is born from the last

look at your heart and tongue
one feels but deaf and dumb
the other speaks in words and signs

look at water and fire
earth and wind
enemies and friends all at once

the wolf and the lamb
the lion and the deer
far away yet together

look at the unity of this
spring and winter
manifested in the equinox

you too must mingle my friends
since the earth and the sky
are mingled just for you and me

be like sugarcane
sweet yet silent
don't get mixed up with bitter words

my beloved grows right out of my own heart
how much more union can there be?

-Jelalludin Rumi
translated by: Nader Khalili
taken from the Poetry Chaikhana

rah-e- talab mein kaun kisi ka?

apne bhi begaaney hain,

chand se mukhrey, rashk-e-ghizalan,
sab jaane pehchaaney hain.

tanhai si tanhai hai, kaise kahein, kaisey samjhayein,

chashm-o-lab-o-rukhsar ki teh mein,

roohon ke veeraney hain,

uff, yeh talashey husn-o-haqeeqat,

kis jah theherein, jayein kahan?

sehan-e-chaman mein phool khilein hain,

sehra mein deewaney hain...

aur

hum ko sahaarey kya raas ayein,

apna sahara hain hum aap,

khud hi sehra, khud hi deewaney,

sham-e-nafas, parwaney hain,

bil-aakhir thak haar ke yaaro, hum ne bhi tasleem kiya,

apni zaat se ishq hai sacha, baaqi sab afsaaney hain...

- Ibn-Safi


English translation:
(on the path of desire,
even the dearest become distant,
and pretty faces, admirers of beauty,
all remain familiar.
who to tell, to speak of,- this loneliness?
beneath the layers of all eyes, all cheeks,
lie shadows of haunting souls.
oh! this desire for truth and beauty...
where do we go and where do we stop?
flowers blossom in gardens and terraces-
yet in deserts they wander madly, in vain...
and
for me, no support has worked,
except myself,
myself- the desert, myself- the crazy wanderer,
myself- the lamp, myself- the moth,
alas! my friends, I admit,
With oneself only, love is true-
the rest are but tales and fables...)

The Sinking Ship

My aunt says, the ship's sinking- and its our fate to stand by and watch it sink. This perfectly describes the way I feel, when I look around the state of my country, and even the world at large... the feeling I get reading the news each day. With every headline, my heart seems to sink a bit lower than it was a day before. There must be a deep limitless well, somewhere within me, where all this sorrow has found its place.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a chronically depressed individual. In fact, like most people, I want to enjoy life and be happy as much as I can. But these days, happiness is a bit hard to find. You can laugh at jokes that your friends forward you (but there is a tinge of sadness when you see the joke is about a recent tragedy- is this what we have come to?), you can visit places to amuse yourself (but you avoid certain areas/roads on the way- where there was a bomb blast or firing incidents), and you can watch TV (but you can't avoid that ticker at the bottom, telling you all the unfortunate news you'd rather not hear about).

It's not just about a certain city/country anymore. When I log on to the net each day, I'm greeted on my homepage by more global tragic incidents mixed with absurd celebrity news. When I log on to Facebook, I find one more tragedy per week to add to my sinking ship. When I read/watch the news... you get the drift. It's not surprising then, that my internal dialogue has this constant hum of "escape escape escape escape"...but where?

Why has the world today come to this? Is it because we are more connected that, we learn of more dreadful things happening around the globe? Is it because the media all over the world is consistently enamored by all things sensationally horrific? Was it this way before? I doubt it. Not in my parent's time. True, the world had its sad days, but I feel nowadays it's more frequent. 

I wish our generation wasn't stuck with the mistakes people made in the past. That we didn't have to live in this world full of anger, hate, crimes; with people after each other's throats, ripping bodies apart for their satisfaction. Others hell-bent on destruction of all that is good and human, or running after a mirage of commercialism. The race of life is too fast, too narrow, too single-tracked, too un-scenic, too plastic. Why?

Are humans today happier? Is this planet a happy place humming with life and creative energy? Or is it a sinking ship, dragged down with our misfortunes, greed and negativity?

No, I don't have an answer. Just escape escape escape....

One is All

Today, I want to share a small paragraph I read from Paulo Coelho's book (Like a Flowing River):

"A meeting in the house of Sao Paulo-born painter based in New York. We are talking about angels, and about alchemy. At one point, I try to explain to the other guests the alchemical idea that each of us contains the whole universe and that we are, therefore, responsible for its well-being. I struggle to find the right words, but cannot come up with a good image that will explain my point of view.
The painter, who has been listening in silence, asks everyone to look out of the window of his studio.
'What can you see?', he asks.
'A street in Greenwich Village,' someone replies.
The painter sticks a piece of paper over the window so that the street can no longer be seen; then, with a penknife, he cuts a small square in the paper.
'And if someone were to look through here, what will he see?'
'The same street,' comes the reply.
The painter cuts several squares in the paper.
'Just as each of these holes contains within it the whole view of the street, so each of us contains in our soul the same universe,' he says.
And all of us applaud the lovely image he has found."

Just beautiful.