The Return of Lavan

To all my friends who saw me through these tough six weeks.

My roomie is coming back from Ireland. It’s been six weeks since she left me dangling alone in my room. I have to look back and revel at the gloriously boring six weeks. So this is what I discovered about myself and what loneliness can do to me.

· The telephone is a better friend of mine than the TV. My bank balance would have liked it better the other way round. As no matter how much TV I watch , I pay the same amount to the cable guy. But hutch it seems demands for each call. Those wretched fools. Can’t they learn from Tata Indicom and at least cut down on the roaming. (Please Hutch for me. You know I love you)

· I can be a teeny weeny responsible if left alone. Like when I am positive that the unclean clothes are never going to get washed unless I move my pretty * behind and give to my servant. I tend to do it. [once in ten days]

· Those very few minutes of international calls my roomie and me make to each other are filled with bursts of laughter and giggle. Makes me realize there is light at the end of the tunnel. When she says “I will be there on Monday don’t do ANYTHING till then”. The anything includes the mind blowingly foolish stuff I can do when bored.

· I have skipped more meals in these six weeks than I would in an entire month of Ramadan. And yet haven’t reduced even an inch of flab.

· I have almost stopped blogging, which is extremely sad. Cause that’s one of the very few things I enjoy. And I reiterate it’s not that I have nothing to write about. Its cause I made the huge mistake of not making this anonymous. And my blog misses some of the creativity (a.k.a crap) my diary at home enjoys.

· My inside-the-country and inside-the-city friends started receiving wailing calls from me at unearthly hours. I ask them to drive through heat and rain just to accompany me for an hour of dinner. I realize that people might get fed up of this and I end up skipping more meals.

· I am not yet mature to be my own friend. I would rather bicker and wail over my loneliness than find glory in it and submit to its supremacy. Like all of the female species would agree bickering paves way to the ultimate freedom of our soul.

All these discoveries go wasted as she returns and I can go back to eating in time. And the contacts in my mobile can go back to sleeping in peace.

And something new that has been happening these days is I am forced to think/decide. So this means I put too much pressure on an unused rusting object that is my tiny brain. And it gets tired. So I request my well wishers to do the work for me. And here`s what has been eating me alive :

· People say that you have to be adaptive. That you shouldn’t throw tantrums.

· People say you should maintain your individuality. Never let go of the person you are.

· People say pride goes before a fall. That we should be humble.

· People say the highest form of respect is self respect. That nothing we do should counter that.

I find each of these contradictory.

And as if all this wasn’t enough. There is the much talked about “love”. Does love fit in all this? Or does love surpass all? Why am I talking about love, I never believed it existed in the first place.*

People please answer my queries; I have to rest my brain. It’s not used to working.

The holy month of Ramadan for us Muslims begins today. One month of fasting and religious dedication commemorating the revelation of the holy book of Quran. There is something novel about Ramadan. It’s not just refraining from food and drink. It’s refraining from anything sinful. The control of our mind over the urges of the body.

I was bought up in Al-Ain. An Oasis in the United Arab Emirates. That being a Muslim country I had a compulsory subject on Islamic studies in school. It had one of the best structured syllabuses. With true interpretations of my highly misinterpreted beautiful religion. I recommend this syllabus to all the madrassas that harbor jihads, to every Muslim kid who wants to learn their religion. And to every person for whom Islam is now synonymous to terrorism.

Lavan returns from Ireland on Monday the 17^th.

* Self boost. Everything that belongs to me is/are pretty.

* Love exists. I feel it for Hutch. I had to say this. I can’t lie to myself.