when my son was visiting his friend in France, he sent a picture he had shot there. A woman was sitting on one end of a park bench, looking up at a very blue sky with wisps of white clouds floating around. There was another woman on the bench, but she was lying and her head was resting on the sitting woman’s lap. They were mother and a daughter enjoying the great outdoors in French countryside. A ninety something years old mother, resting in her sixty seven years old daughter’s lap. He had captioned the photograph:

HAVE YOU SMELLED THE ROSES LATELY?

Today, we all went to Turkey Lake Park to have a day out. It was a pleasantly warm day after a very long spell of very wet and cold week. I wanted to go somewhere near the sea. It has been almost a year now that we went fishing or just to look at the big waves and the surf. But my older son said that this being the Bikers Week plus Spring Break, Daytona Beach, New Smyrna Beach and Cocoa Beach were not the places for family oriented outings. So we went to Turkey Lake State Park. The Sun was out and in this bright haze, spun cotton like white clouds were skimming the edges of a blue sky.

Both my sons, my daughter in law and my granddaughters and of course my husband – love of my life – and myself were all there at one time and at one place which does not happen everyday.

After lunch they took the girls to the kiddy park. By this time the sun was getting hot and it was making the slides too hot for a little girl to enjoy the simple fun of a fast slide. She burnt her buns. When they came back her rosy cheeks were red and there were tears shining behind those beautiful black eyes. When she saw me, she ran and landed in my arms. What is wrong bibi? I asked. I went on the slide Daadi and it was hot. I got burnt. It was endearingly funny the way she said but how could I laugh at this tragedy? Not only was she deprived of sliding through tunnels, she burnt her cute little buns too. Soon she was comforted and pushing the slide shock back, she was her sunny self again.

I had brought my knitting bag, a book I was reading and my note book – my standard paraphernalia that goes with me wherever I go. I didn’t knit nor did I open the book. There was no time or need for that. The sky was blue and the sun was heady. It was the first Saturday of March and the air was fragrant with the smell of orange blossoms. I was savoring the precious moments. Once the children grow up and go their ways, empty nest syndrome sets in. I thank my stars that now our family has extended and there is not a dull moment in our lives.

when did the night fall and the pitch black darkness descended? no one had any idea. How could we notice? we were in Mingora Bazar after all. The tourist destination where one cannot measure time in any sense of the word. Where there are endless rows of shops lined on both sides of the road and they are overflowing with goodies from all over the world plus local handicrafts, antiques. pattu, pashmina and kashmiri shawls and jackets in all hues and colors.

Suddenly the shopkeeper raised his – so far silken – voice. “shut up shut up” waving both his hands over his head. Startled, we looked at him. He was looking at the entrance of the shop where a man was standing. “shut up, shut up” the shopkeeper shouted again and this time showing us the way out. I suddenly realized that there were only four of us in the shop with these two men we didn’t know anything about.

“kho, why do you say shut up shut up? say ‘time to shut the shop up’. Shut up means don’t talk and I don’t hear anyone talking. Don’t be rude to the girls.”
the shopkeeper turned red in the face and this time just waved his right hand to tell us to go. Like lambs, we put whatever we had picked up to buy, back on the shelf and turned to get down the steps. Still we didn’t realize that it was long past the time we were supposed to be in the Bazar. the whole street was bright with electrical lights, but shoppers had gone. A few people here and there, roaming around but none from our group. still no need for a panic attack.

“doesn’t matter. Its not very far. we can walk back to the hostel.” said BF (my best friend)
“if any of you remember, I told you to leave the rest of the shopping for tomorrow. CG (our colleague) said.
“don’t panic, we are not too far from where we are staying. I tried to be brave.
“isn’t this what someone said a while back?” my dear sis added.
we all fell quiet and concentrated on finding out how fast our feet could carry us to our safe haven.

Suddenly the mingora bazar and its bright lights were behind us and we were walking through pitch black darkness.
didn’t I tell you to….” it was CG
“oh just shut up” BF seethed.

We heard a smothered laughter not very far behind us. a cold wave ran down my spine and like a cat I felt my hair on my neck rising.
BF hiccuped.
“who was that?” sis whispered.”
“oh my God, oh my God I promise I would never go out with these reckless girls ever again, help me Allah, save me Allah.” CG started making pledges with God only for her own safety.
“stop whimpering, concentrate on walking” BF said.

an owl hooted over head. something stirred in the bushes. wild pears and almond trees so alluring in the daylight were like ghosts – silent and waiting to pounce on us. it was time for a panic attack.. I felt dizzy. ” BF, I am feeling sick, I whispered.”
“no you are not. keep walking. with a kid and a loony in the tow, you cant be sick. pull yourself up.” she pressed a cold and wet hand in my hand. ” all of us hold hands and feel strong. no one can harm us.” BF took charge.

“My shoe strap is broken.” CG said
“we don’t see any cobblers here. leave it on the road.” I whispered.
“my best sandals.” she wailed.
“oh just shut up”BF said it again and again there was that muffled sound of someone laughing.
” I am going back and ask why he is following us.”
“no you are not.” I tightened my grip on her hand.
“I am scared” my sis said. I put my hand on her shoulder. “I am here with you.”
I heard her crying.

Our mother didn’t want her to go on this trip. but my sis pleaded and pleaded with her and finally got the permission to go. She was happy and she had brought all her saved money to spend and have fun. she definitely was not prepared for this neither was anyone of us.

I don’t remember how and when or why our college decided to have a four day trip to the Swat Valley and the surrounding areas. we were going to make day trips to see and know this beautiful part of our country.

I was waiting for my Masters results – Masters in Urdu Language and Literature. I had just been home and relaxing that I got a call from a local college where I was a student before going for my masters degree. The principal wanted me to come and take urdu lit classes. I joined. It was a temporary assignment which became permanent. The teacher I was filling in came back but the principal didn’t want to let me go. So I was teaching the girls almost my age and having fun. Six months into the job and we were on the road to Swat, Mingora, Miandam Bahrain and Saidu Shrif.
we wanted to go to Kaghan too to see the Lake Saif al Muluk where – the legend is – fairies come at night to sing and dance and leave right before the first ray of sunlight comes down the mountains. This lake is right on top of a mountain surrounded by other higher mountains.

(((once traveling to Skardu, I saw this lake from the plane. It was just unbelievable what I saw – a big round , emerald bowl sitting atop a mountain.)))

” I think we are halfway now ” I just wanted to say something.
“oh goody good !” CG snorted. she had just one shoe on now and was walking like a camel.
“lets sing ” BF said.
no one said anything. We were almost running now. There appeared a bend in the road – a dangerous place to be on a dark night. mountains on one side and a bottomless dark pit on the other. we had to slow down but keep moving almost hugging the mountain. it felt endless. but soon as we came out, there was our hostel, with every window lit and some restless souls walking the grounds. I am sure we all felt like hugging the building the grounds and the ones walking the grounds. CG was about to sprint forward.
“stop” I said. ”
“he is not following us anymore”
“oh misery – go back, bring him, Ms urdu department is sad” CG said and started laughing. You all are unmarried, free like larks – as they say but I have a husband and some children to think about. I was scared for them that what would they do without me.
“oh just shut up” BF said and we all laughed.
“so , if someone finds out we are coming back so late, what are we going to say?”
“they left us there. the bus left without us, without making sure that everybody was on the bus – not our fault – what are you talking about.”
“I was supposed to be with my class. CG said. “and so were you ms zoology”
BF didn’t say anything.
we started moving towards the building. no one noticed. we went to our room and flopped on the beds, exhausted.

A girl knocked on the open door. “dinner time, miss.” she said and went to the next door and then the next …
dinner hall was packed. almost every one was there. we sat down with the students, though there was a separate table for the teachers. they were serving rice, spinach with big chunks of meat in
it and fruit after the meal.

I like rice and spinach and always enjoy it heartily. I had hardly eaten a little bit that my fork touched something different than a chunk of meat. I fished it out. it was a bug – a big, bug with huge wings green with spinach all over. horrified, I looked around. No one was looking at me. I put my napkin over it and pushed the plate a little away. “why?” BF asked. “not hungry” ” why?”
“don’t panic but look whats on my plate.” I lifted a corner of my napkin. “o ma !” she almost choked. CG and sis also emptied their mouths on their napkins. Just then our principal came to our table. “We haven’t seen all of you all day. Come to my room after you have finished.” ” oh sure, we’d love to” I said. “would you like to see something” BF said sweetly. “yes, sure, what is it?” She bent over our heads to see. BF lifted the napkin up a little.
“delicious. want to have a taste?” our dear principal took a step back and almost ran to her table.
“she knows. question is, who told her”
“some ‘khudai foujdar” (some one from God’s army)
“you have no idea …” CG was nervous
“of what?”
“all three of us were responsible for our girls – our classes”
“yes, but did anyone look for us before they left.
” teachers are responsible for their students, not the other way around.”
“we made a mistake. you are right.”

we took some fruit and left the dining hall.

The next morning right before we mounted the bus for our trip to Bahrain, our principal received a message from the Wali of Swat (the ruler of Swat)

“last night your bus left the Bazar without four of your beautiful girls. My people are honorable and you are our guest. we don’t harm our guests. but you must know that human nature is not hundred percent predictable. if our man was not accompanying them, there was a chance some one said, “finders, keepers”.

“now tell your cooks to have a day off and give us the pleasure of taking care of your dinner for tonight.”

Wali’s messenger was standing behind the principal. it was the same man who we saw standing in the doorway of the shop and telling the shopkeeper ‘shut up’ was a bad word.

Note: CG got her missing shoe back, With the strap mended, it was left on veranda, near one of the pillars.
Lucky for her that no one noticed before she saw it.

She entered my world when I was six years old. But I am certain that there is a place in my memory bank where she resides from earlier times but I can’t see her face or give any vivid details of that time. Its just a feeling – just a whiff of a delicate perfume you once smelled and could not let go.

I am not one of those who take part in chain letter activity.

Simply put, chain letters business is not for me. I do not understand why they are circulated. There used to be a time when the receiver was asked to send letters to 40/50 people. I got such letter in mail, in Pakistan some thirty years ago. How can a college student send 40/50 letters to ….who? class mates? and where to get the ….cost of mailing? My monthly college fee was 20 rupees and even that was considered high for crying out loud!

Again – I do not understand why they are circulated , and why people fall for the good fortune promised in the last lines of the letter? Surely the originator is making a fool of his victims and having a good laugh? This is all I can think of.

But yesterday I broke my promise … ignored my resolution and forwarded seven chain letters to my friends. Why? after holding on to my promise for some thirty + years? Let me explain.

It was a picture of a bursting star … a phenomenal picture … something really ‘out of this world’ the sender had named the picture “the eye of GOD.” It truly looked like an eye and the first glance definitely sent a shiver down my spine. I wanted to share it with my friends. The letter wanted the receiver to send out to seven people. Not bad; seven is not too many. I carefully selected seven friends who I knew have a soft and polite demeanor and would not get upset on this intrusion. Then there was a promise of reward too. Very good! The wouldn’t mind!

So I forwarded the message seven times. And now that I had finally taken a plunge, I decided to wait for the “definite Reward” “Send seven copies and by the end of the day something good will happen to you. The chain must not be broken”

Ok, so lets wait for “something good.” I saved the link, didn’t let the chain to break. I must get my reward. I shall not go into details but I will say that I was inconvenienced. Can I call this “reward?” definitely not.

I am back to my resolution.

Blogging is good. it gives you a chance to unload. Its a kind of catharsis.

Let me regroup my thought process:

My son sent me a ninety years young person’s blog page. I call him young because he is mentally alert and thinking his own thoughts. Not only thinking but sitting down to write them for the whole world to read. I think about ninety years of experiences,… places he went, people he met, friends he made and friends he lost. Heartaches and happy moments, …. ninety years worth blogging ! Isn’t blogging wonderful?

I am one of those fortunate people who people trust with their secrets. They open up their inner souls to me. I have never breached this unspoken, non written contract titled ‘your secret is safe with me’ Actually the word secret is never mentioned; neither by me nor by the other person. They just feel comfortable talking to this good listener who never judges or starts advising, giving examples of
other people.

When you are hurting inside you just want to talk, express your grief out loud, like talking to yourself … you don’t want any advise. I say that because I know that.

In my school days I got pushed by two girls behind me who were fighting over something. I fell on the marble floor. My forehead hit the floor hard and there was blood on my face, my clothes, on the floor.
The house nurse took care of the cut and the word was sent home for some one to come pick me up. My brother was sent to get me. He looked at me sternly. Once we were out of the school he jerked my hand and said, “hasn’t anybody told you to look where you are going? Always a mischief maker”. I was hurting and the pain was not making me happy either. I wanted someone to hold and hug this nine years old; not admonish. I didn’t say anything but I really wanted to sock his jaw… about ten years my senior!

That was Pakistan … many, many moons ago.

Sorry, got carried away. Back to blogging.
sometimes someone asks, “how do you write? where do you get your ideas from? what makes you pick up your pen and start writing? Do you make things up or they are real stories of real people …. Do you think I can also write?” all kinds of questions.

I don’t know how many people I might have told to test the waters. “Everyone has a writer hiding inside… or waiting to be discovered. ”

“how can I do that?” next question.

Its so easy. Start with keeping a journal. Every night before you go to bed, open your journal and start writing. Just about anything that comes to your mind. How did the day pass, for example. Soon you would lose yourself in the maze of your mind.”

Did I say mind? hmmmm. mind.

We will talk about mind some other day.

riffat murtaza.

A man feared his wife wasn’t hearing as well as she used to and he thought she might need a hearing aid. Not quite sure how to approach her, he called a family doctor to discuss the problem. The doctor told him there was a simple informal test the husband could perform to give the doctor a better idea about her hearing loss.

Here is what you do, said the doctor, stand about 40 feet away from her, and in a normal conversational speaking tone see if she hears you. If not, go to 30 feet, then 20 feet, and so on until you get a response.

That evening, when the wife is in the kitchen cooking dinner and he was in the den. He says to himself , ” I am about 40 feet away, lets see what happens.”. Then in a normal tone he asks, “Honey whats for dinner? ” No response. So the husband moves closer to the kitchen, about 30 feet from his wife and repeats, “Honey, whats for dinner? Still no response. Next he moves into the dining room where he is about 20 feet feet from his wife and asks, “Honey whats for dinner?” Again he gets no response. Now he walks up to the kitchen door ; about 10 feet away. ” Honey whats for dinner?” Again there is no response. So he walks up right behind her.

“Honey whats for dinner?”
” James, his wife says, for the FIFTH time I’ve said CHICKEN!

Cary Grant is said to have been reluctant to reveal his age to the public, having played the youthful lover for more years than would have been appropriate. One day, while he was sorting out some business with his agent, a telegram arrived from a journalist who was desperate to learn how old the actor was. It read: HOW OLD CARY GRANT? Grant, who happened to open it himself, immediately cabled back: OLD CARY GRANT FINE. HOW YOU?