Skip to main content

So Today I Threw Away the Channa (Beans)

Today is the second day of Ramadan, a time for atonement, reflection, and a healthy dosage of 16-hour hunger pangs. Ramadan is a lot like Christmas, except the gifts are from God. The lightness of being, the clarity of thought, the cleansing of the palette and the physical and emotional systems. The body and soul fasts. The body abstains from food and drink; the soul fasts from evils of the heart. The spirit is renewed because there is greater meaning than sitting in front of a computer taking CAT exams. There is more to life than the self. There is more to a house than cleaning rituals. There is more to life than this daily existence.

The first few days of fasting, or abstaining from food and drink, during the summer is particularly difficult. In my daze, I actually threw out my family's iftaar, thinking somehow that the beans my mother cooked were meant to go in the garbage. To my dismay, they were freshly prepared for our evening meal, and I had, in some stupor, thrown the food away. I learned from this experience that I should not be so quick to throw food away.

I am happy that I had an opportunity to write today. I feel the writing is the best part of my day. I am thinking about graduate schools that will not afford me the opportunity to write.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mourning loss as a philanthropy worker and mom

As a new mother, I see my daughter growing up in a world in which there is no Mohammad Ali.  I am writing as a mourning mom. By the time my daughter goes to a healthy school , and learns about Dr. King, will she also learn about Muhammad Ali? Who will she look up to as the ethical leaders of her generation? Who will she look up to, to show her how to laugh in the face of xenophobia? How to joke in the face of racism? Sure, we will watch the videos, read the books, and do our best to teach our kids what is truly important. That social emotional skills matter. That people matter. That culture matters. That faith matters. That what matters most is that we are all in this together.   Our interdependence requires us to step outside of our comfort zones and engage people who are different from us who don’t think the same way we do. Philanthropy seems more akin to academia, removed from the actual needs of people, producing and disseminating research to the people who are our...
Post a Comment
Read more

Revolution II: The Electoral Process

I spent my entire fall semester organizing, mobilizing, surveying, educating and empowering young South Asian Americans for the 2004 election. As a Fellow with South Asian American Voting Youth ( www.SAAVY.org ), I was part of a national campaign that registered over 1500 people, and mobilized twice that number to the polling booths on November 2nd. I did this organizing work for many reasons--personal, political, social reasons why I believe this sort of work is crucial in the SA community. The basic premise, of course, is that full democratic participation is good. Given my new found classic conservatism, I cannot wholly accept this premise. Moreover, I do not think people can vote for revolutions through the ballot. Candidates that are extreme in any way, or markedly different, are rarely successful in American political history. In times of war, people have relinquished freedoms for the illusive notion of security. We are socialized to fear the Other, the scary Arab or Muslim man w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ode to Parents

I love my parents. I believe my parents are the two greatest people I will ever meet in my life. Everything about them fills me with wonder: my mother for her love, sacrifice, beauty, devotion to her children and husband, her culinary skills, her character; my father, for his life stories, his courage, determination, smartness, dimples, and generosity. I feel that they are both individuals of faith that are sent by God as a Mercy to me, and my brother. I spent Wednesday through Friday morning at my best friend Moumita's house in Astoria. Strangely, however, I spent more time talking with Moumita's Mom, who I adore as Auntie, than I did with my friend. Auntie and I have much in common, almost as much as Moumita and I have in common. We love people. We love to laugh and are often direct with our questions and criticisms. We are both friendly and easy-going. The threads of our conversations are circular. She'll ask me what I want in a husband and I'll ignore the question a...
Post a Comment
Read more