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''' HOME -[SAM]- HOUR '''
IT WAS A TRAGEDY -*Proud Pakistan just wasn't ready for*- : Catastrophic Inferno. Incomprehensive Horror!
Most
gruesome end to the Holy Month of Ramadan. Just so, so, so many lives
taken. Over 160 perished, as a very young crowd gathered to collect
fuel from a rolled over tanker before it ignited.
Over
69 of the charred cinder like ashes were those of young angelic
students. A harrowing tragedy as a pall of gloom descends over all of
us. No words suffice.
All I can reason is, that
Pakistanis have always rallied back, in every destruction, calamity,
and utter hopelessness, they have limped back to normality, seeking
mercy, seeking solace, seeking hope.
And so shall it be, before the tragedy is condemned back to normality.
Find a different way to fit into a society -or outside it.
A story implies the passage of time, from a point of origin to an endpoint and in best cases, very well beyond.
Character unfolds in discrete stages, a little bit here, a little bit there, until a bigger picture emerges.
We
feel a novel is successful if we know the character as well as the
character knows herself, or even better, We forgive the writer a a lot
of she develops a character to our entire satisfaction.
During the course of Shamsi's journeys we meet many characters, some fleetingly and others in great detail, especially the patriarchs of the family.
Her
narratives brings the characters to life as real persons of flesh and
blood. In striving to preserve her memories and pass them to the coming
generations to maintain some link with her past-
She narrates anecdotes and discusses matters such as grinding spices for cooking, qalai [getting utensils polished], the maashki and bahishti [water carriers]-
And razai [quilts] and dhunia [cotton carders] which this generation and the coming generation may never know of.
Choosing to take things in her stride, Shamsi does not waste time lamenting over what she has to give up upon moving to Canada, such as being served tea in bed.
She
recalls her father's assurances that she will always have a cook and
when she has to cook herself, says that the assurance has ''run out of
warranty''.
Soon she begins to enjoy being alone in her ''clean, well-ordered kitchen, free of meddlesome cooks.''
Migrating to Canada is a choice, but her heart aches for home.
Especially in the early years, while enjoying the glamour
and the summer fun of Toronto, she yearns ''to smell the warm earthy
smell arising from the first monsoon drops falling on the cracked and
parched brown dust of Rawalpindi.[...]-
The desi fresh motia bracelets peddled by young young boys at every street corner [...] the desi aam cooling in a bucket of ice.''
She
reminds herself that in Canada there are no electricity breakdowns, no
load-shedding, and spending sweaty nights slapping at mosquitoes, yet
her instinct -
''Is to fry pakoras at the first signs of summer rain and make panjeeri in the winter following Ammi's recipe.''
In the new country the first plants she buys are motia [Jasmine] and raat ki raani [cestrum nocturnmum] ''but they are neither as fragrant nor do they bloom as profusely as they do back in their native home,'' she writes.
What makes the book interesting is Shamsi's
style of narration: it seems as though she is talking to her audience,
and at some places she quotes from her past articles published in
Driven.
As she herself says : ''Memories and emotions were sharper and fresher then,''
In
deep mourning and with most respectful dedication to the memories of
all those who died and perished in causes and reasons that only
fate dictates.
With respectful dedication to
the great suffering nation of Pakistan. See`Ya all on !WOW! -the World
Students Society and Twitter-!E-WOW! -the Ecosystem 2011:
''' Lessons in Life '''
Good Night and God Bless
SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless
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