Twinkle Twinkle little bat!

Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you're at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a teatray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle little bat!
How I wonder what you're at!

Mad Hatter

Abbu.

My phone rang this afternoon and it was Masooma on the line. She wanted me to bring a cake for Abbu so that we could celebrate father’s day together. It just dawned upon me right there, how dear our father is to us and how much we love him regardless of the fact that we don’t show it a lot to him!! I wanted to write something for him today. I wanted to share with the whole world what a great father he has been to us, for giving us that rare kind of self-confidence that I don’t come across quite a lot these days, for teaching us to be comfortable in our own skin, for having inculcated the deepest principles in us without being a totalitarian. Gosh! I want to write so much about him if only i knew where to start.

Well I would say that he has always been a very unusual parent. He would never stop us from doing anything but we always had this inherent idea of what our limits were. Perhaps that is why we knew our limits. Our morality standards were not set up through force but through love; exactly the way I would like to bring my daughters up someday. All of us made our choices, some good, some bad and some mighty disastrous. But the fact is that even though he didn’t approve of some, he let us make our mistakes and learn our lessons, ourselves. It is a difficult thing to do; being a parent I can understand that. It is so natural for a parent to try and stop a child from a mistake that could possibly ruin his life forever; except not to. We all are secure women, doing what we think is best; in my case even sitting at home, bringing up children! All just because of the tremendous self-assurance that our father has instilled in us. Damn the world, if you think you’re right and if it fulfills you, by all means go ahead, do it. Not that he never scolded us, I am particularly not very fond of parents who turn their children into extremely irritating, spoiled brats by taking their mindless crap all the time. Yes, he scolded us, at times, but the fact that he was always open to an argument and to listen to what we had to say about a matter is what made him superior to all the other people that I knew of at that time. He had the tendency to say, ‘what I’m saying is right”, but we all knew that he just said it without meaning even a word. Freedom of speech and opinion is what we had in our home. A heated discussion on almost anything was always welcome; it was never a one man show in our house. A thing that I’ve not seen in many a household in my life; and I have spent quite sometime on this planet.

I often say that I don’t derive my confidence from the people around me. I can’t care less of what people think about me. My world does not revolve around them. It revolves around what I think of myself and how it will affect me and my family. That is the sort of belief that Abbu has given to me and one of my greatest desires is to be able to bring up my daughters in the way that my parents, especially our father has brought us up.

I aspire to see my daughters grow up as dignified, powerful women, having complete faith in themselves. I want them to have the courage to stand up for what they believe in and never let anyone or anything, take charge of their life but themselves. Nothing will help me more in this regard, than the guidance that I myself have had all my life. Thank you Abbu, for being the extraordinary father and a friend that you have always been! And although we don’t say it a lot to you but you know, we love you!

Idle Mind.

I am not feeling well due to which I have decided to write. What a bakwaas excuse for something that should usually be done on an ordinary basis. My father says it needs to be practiced. I think otherwise. I think it arrives and when it does, by all means you should pay heed to the urgency. Something surely needs to be out of your system if you feel the need to write something. What am I writing? Perhaps nothing but maybe typing mindlessly is easing something inside of me. It’s taking some pressure off of me.

So this summer I am stuck with my girls, we were planning on a vacation but now have decided to spend the summers at home. Bummer! Oh well whatever. Khair, Aqsa is watching television, since we are confined to our home due to the increasing heat outside. And Batool is enjoying slumber, but will wake up anytime now. It makes me wonder as to why kids can’t freely roam around outside these days, as I particularly remember some hot summers myself, when we used to play outside without any “dar kkhauf”. No heat was hot enough to keep us away from playing “pakran pakrai” or “oonch neech”; having tremendous fun with our cousins; of course with our mums shouting in the background, begging us to come back inside. But where has it all gone now? I often wonder. Where are those kids playing in the lawns of their homes, where are the bloody lawns? Well, that is a completely different discussion altogether anyway.

But the sad part here is that unfortunately I myself would never want my girls to go play outside, no, not because of the heat, hell what are lemonades for! Although I pride myself on being a liberal parent; I don’t know what has changed in me but changed, I have. I am a friend to my kids, something I had always wanted, for if I am anything, I am totally against dictatorial relationships with your children. I am a firm believer of letting your kids make their own mistakes. But still I don’t know why I stop them from playing outside and having fun. Am I turning into a parent finally? Gosh it scares me to death. I would rather have them watch T.V instead of letting them go out and enjoy nature.

But anyway I don’t know, maybe I should not think about it too much and let the winters come. Maybe things will change then as they always do when the weather changes.

I found a way

I must confess that blogging has hit me very late. I was not in the favour of it; not in the least bit. I just didn’t realize what good it could do to anyone to be pouring out their everyday ramblings on a thing as public as the internet. But now I know better. I for one have never been very fond of writing when I know the exact audience that I might hit; a tendency which I am still trying to get over. I get confused, dazed and sometimes the finesse of language leaves me in despair. But the fact that someone that I have absolutely no knowledge of, might be reading this; someone who might relate to what I write, somehow excites me. My unfamiliar reader motivates me and mysteriously brings me back my passion for giving words to my thoughts. A blog is exclusive in the sense that you have the satisfaction of knowing that whatever you put into writing could be read by someone or no one at all for that matter of fact and it will not matter a tad. It is a diary in a more public fashion; an introverted exhibitionist’s dream. I can now write without the trepidation of anyone judging me; while still having the power to share my life and my thoughts about many a thing with the world out there.