I am Firangi, but an Indian at heart. I am an Indian, but an Italian at heart. I am International, totally phoren at heart!

Wrote this for my friend Muzayun a long time back as a guest author on her blog. Recently she decided to clean up her blog to make it more acceptable, and this was first amongst the many things that got dumped. I spent quite sometime writing this, so am publishing it again nevertheless.

"I am an Italian by soul". And I am not the only one who strongly believes in that. Silvi and Helena have reaffirmed my belief by subscribing to this fact, without any provocation. And Sid is a witness to it, check with him if anyone has any doubts. Now there are different theories about what part of Italy do I belong to. My favorite crush Michelangelo (Torino) believes I am from Napoli, and his wonderful curls convince me of that. However, others feel that I am more Milano. Sid is different, he thinks I am from a region called cold Bihar. I hate that.

Personally I also believe that I am Iranian, my family and close relatives tell me so. The fact that I look like one also convinces me of that.

The ghodawala also feels that I am not Indian. When I travel with Sid, people ask him for driving license as proof and me for my passport. But I like it. Though we make for an odd combination, a phoren mem back-packing with a desi bihari. My disastrous luck! Where are you Michelangelo?

When I visit Diu, people look at me and stare. The fools haven't seen many with Multinational personalities like mine. I bask in the glory of my Internationalhood!

But my passport is Indian. So I am making distinct efforts to learn the local lingo, starting with the desi gaalis. Though they sounded disgusting in the past, am getting used to them now. Local and low-level friends like Sid come handy!

My sisters are Indian and pro-India. This statement becomes highly relevant when it comes to my home, which is badly hit by violence and destruction, apart from the fast spreading anti-state sentiment.

My daughter, Snehal, is also very Indian. And her last name is Joshi. We all call it coincidence, rather a nice coincidence. She sings beautifully, and I like whatever she sings. Her songs are distinctly Indian. Now I am thoroughly confused!

Many of my REC friends are based in Europe, but they also hold Indian passport. God I am so so confused now!!! Oh, but Filipe, Helena, Silvi, Jan and many many more are not Indian. Thank god my International credentials are still intact.

And every time I try speaking in the local language (including Kashmiri), people look at me with open mouth and appreciate the efforts I have taken to learn an Indian language, after all not all phoren mems take the effort to mix so nicely with the locals. When I tell them that I was born here, and learned the language in school they are less than impressed.

I ignore all of this. I know who I am - 

"I am Firangi, but an Indian at heart. I am an Indian, but an Italian at heart. I am International, totally phoren at heart!"

To make a Kashmiri smile :)

I make some people smile, that’s already an achievement for me. Rarely people find me funny, unless they are very close to me.  My humour generally fails to take off in groups, or with people I do not know very well. They sneer at the end of my best joke, or at best politely look bewildered and excuse themselves; this is especially true for the members of the opposite sex. To overcome my less than successful social skills, of late 

I have started studying my more successful friends, and often copy their jokes, and stupid one liners and use those to dupe people. So far even this has not worked, but I believe with practice my odd sense of humour will be less notable, and people will flock to me to hear me repeat my copied and oft repeated jokes and smart comments!

In English: 'Kashmiri' strong soda center

But this post isn’t about me. This is about Kashmir, or rather about a Kashmiri. It’s a result of hours of hard work and research, and something that I intend to take forward into a full-fledged thesis. The following lines would bust a few myths about Kashmir and in the process reveal  a few hidden truths about the famed (claimed!) land.

1. Kashmiri women are coy (even TOI thinks so). My extensive experience says absolutely untrue. And in my opinion, it’s the lack of the wild beasts in the state is responsible for this.
2. Kashmiri pulao isn’t sweet! Of course it is sweet, just visit any restaurant or dhabha in the neighbourhood and you shall know the truth.
3. Kashmiri women wear colorful clothes, at times even adorning themselves with flowers. It’s a joke, they like only Black and flowers are an absolute no no (Sharmila Tagore in Kashmir ki Kali was super-fake!).
4. Kashmiri men are bearded gorilla like creatures. On the contrary they are clean shaven, and always have trimmed hair. While I was there I looked like a gorilla, and hence sadly never fitted in.
5. The most famous export from Kashmir is not Pashmina but Kashmiri Soda, at least in Gujarat. It pops into your glass and gives you the coolness, straight from the Himalayas.
6. Kashmiris live in cold climate and hence can live in extreme cold. The truth is sadly different, they can shiver even on the hottest day in June, when the monsoon is already delayed by a week and earth is crying with thirst.
7. They are simple people. They visualize themselves from weird angles, like perched on a fan and attempt sketching that I detail.
8. They are serious people from a serious land. Hahahahaha…I laugh the most in their company, sometimes with disastrous results; especially when there is no joke, but I imagine there to be one!

So what’s the point of writing all this? I am trying to be funny here; you still do not get it??? I told you, it’s an uphill task for me to bring about a smile J

I do not connect...

Source: www.topgadgetssearching.com

There was a time when I could connect with my loved ones online through emails, facebook, skype and so on. That was often the only means of communication and something that sufficed for too (it feels weird now that I think of it). It all changed rapidly, actually within days...

I still love the web, but cannot possibly make love through it (no pun intended). I can connect with people still, though not with the ones I love. Somehow at the end of the day, it might all just be fake, something which is there just because you believe it to be (this can, quite possibly, happen in the real life as well), and now while attempting to connect with people I am close to, it even becomes repulsive. I still write e-mails, still chat…but it seems I like I am going back in time when there were no online means of communication. I am much more free now, yet constrained by my own disconnect between the web and my personal life.

It’s makes perfect sense to connect with complete strangers through the blog etc; even if they say what they do not mean, you still come out of it unscathed. And there is no way of differentiating the real from the fake. Not that it even matters.

So I remain online and connected, though at the core am perhaps still disconnected. 

Iqbal again...

Ref: Wikimedia

Somehow these words never fail to inspire me, especially when life seems low and hopeless...

Tu shaheen hai, Tu shaheen hai, Tu shaheen hai,
Tu shaheen hai, Tu shaheen hai Parvaz hai kam tera kam tera,
Tere samne Aasman aur bhi hai...
Tu shaheen hai Basera kar Paharon ki chatano par.
Tu shaheen hai tu Shaheen hai, tu shaheen hai...

Ref: Junoon.

Shaheen: The roots are derived from Persian ancestry, a highly ancient name meaning "Falcon". Some would say Shaheen also means "God Of All Falcons" or just "God" at times, it really depends on the use.  

paranormal hallucinations

As I got up around midnight and looked at the wall opposite my bed, I saw a shadow intently staring into the room through the open window behind me. It didn't budge even as I opened my eyes and looked straight at it, and this was unusual. I closed my eyes, and as I opened them a moment later, the shadow was slowly moving away from the window.

I could feel its presence in the house, even before the little noise in the kitchen or the slow closing of the balcony door. In my mind I had already anticipated all of these, perhaps that's the reason they were happening in the first place. There was fear around, as if this was just the beginning. Or maybe I was just hallucinating from the effects of coffee.

I slept and woke up, over and over again. A sound here, a step here through the night, but nothing happened. Soon it was morning and I woke up with the sunlight filtering through the same window, sans any unusual shadow.