Dinner at the Akers'

So, we had dinner at Ram’s place last night and it is great to see him in Cairo again. I was talking to Eugene on the net just before I went and no doubt he must’ve been nostalgic, too, and passed his regards. I love Ram’s family, they’re all such genuine people, a quality that Ram visibly identifies and values in others, as I found myself telling Luciane, his girlfriend. It was very comfortable atmosphere, throughout, and I had my fair share of some great wine. And so no wonder, Luciane is one of those wonderful people, too. I spent a large part of the evening talking to her, and (since no one that will spill this to either party will read this) even ventured to ask her would she consider being a fiancé if say, she were asked tomorrow and she was all smiles, ‘Yeah. I really like his family’. Aw! Imagine!



I also did get a chance to have decent, if brief, conversations with all the rest of the guests. I’ve never felt so at home and so welcome. There was another older couple there, Mr. Ghassis Farid & his Belgian wife who had come down from Uruguay. Ram’s bro – Ishan – kept saying how much he loved the guy :) – and he was one of those adorable quirky old men that pretend to be a Casanova. Reminded me of Marigt (?) at the hospital and her hubby; people that grow old together, and end up knowing and loving each other for their eccentricities. Mr. Farid kept asking all the girls if they were married and how old they were – hehe, certainly not the delicate subtlety of Prince Charming. There was another pair, a very mixed and cosmopolitan couple. As was the party, where everyone spoke more than one language. It was GREAT. Did I mention the food?? Mmm, is all I’ll say.

Au revoir!!

See you again is so much better than 'God be with ye' (good bye presumably)



Reality arrives upon me slowly. Myriam is leaving for college, and I feel like an old mother who is saying good-bye to her child. Shady is already gone, but Myriam and I’ve been so much closer – this goodbye is going to hurt. Can’t think of what to buy for her… hm, what did I need the most? What will she need the most? Money, I guess, but I don’t really have USD. And nowhere near a good enough sum to say ‘here ya go!’ I think I might make her a board of pictures. That seems like a good idea – for her to remember me and Kailash. And some stuff to hang on the wall, perhaps. Dali replicas.



I am sad. I wonder if I’m sad that she’s leaving, or that I’m not leaving, too. I think I’d be less sad if I knew she were coming back to Cairo eventually. It seems like I’ll always be here… but I wonder if that will prove to be the case. Life is long and ever-changing.



I wish I could collect all my friends into one place right here, right now, and then there would be an extended awkward silence of mixed chemistries, of untold stories that lie buried but that won’t arrive until the time is right or the memory is stirred like a drink that hits you just right, or that wee hour of the night that makes confessions seem like small-talk.



I wish for ordinary small-talk on a daily basis with a friend.



“Hi! How was class today?” I would ask



“It sucked, but I love Dr… blabla” [Meryam, you know you’d be talking about, and Myriam, too, hehe]



“When you complain about the heat and dust in Palestine, that’s when you know you own it”, or something to that effect is what Mourad Barghouti wrote in his book I Saw Ramallah. I want to complain about something…and the only thing I can complain of is boredom and having nothing to complain about. Surely I don’t watch enough world news, not even the Olympics, dearie me. I save my TV hours for soaps that make me smile, and à la Dido “it’s not so bad, not so bad at all.”

Procrastination..

I am lazy, and Cairo is very warm. The air from the fan that hits me is like a warm draft, that does nothing for the weather or my laziness. I’m reading Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, also for my M.A. I’d rather be writing, and so I am. I will have to delay the exam, I don’t think I’ll be making it by mid-September.



To find your calling

is to find the intersection

Between your deepest gladness

And the world’s deepest hunger



Dr. Stewart Winger wrote something to that effect on the board while we were taking our final exam. His history lessons were the only ones I ever enjoyed – and he always posed interesting questions. I even enjoyed his examinations. Nerd! He had studied American History, and the African-American history in particular. We studied chapters from a book entitled Lies My Teacher Told Me. Unfortunately, I never got to meet its author, even though he was in Urbana-Champaign, and with some initiative, I could’ve.



Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda.



“If only one had worlds enough and time..”

This laziness Chitra would’ve been no crime.



Back to reading…

Dinner-and-dessert in the desert

Came back from dinner with Myriam. She is going to California now. Wiam will be leaving for Winchester, UK. And all my friends slip away like sand, while I stand in this desert. I will stick to rowing in the Nile perhaps. I will hopefully be going to the States in Sept/October and then I will pass by and see Myriam and others hopefully if possible.



So Myriam and I went to our hangout the Aubergine’s, and after some Mexican burritos and rice that we shared for dinner, we walked around in Zamalek heading towards Harris Café hoping for better dessert than Aubergine had to offer. On the way, we passed by this antique shop and decided to take a look. And as expected, found lots of wooden, glass, paper paraphernalia and an old man with lots of stories. We heard Indian tunes rise up from an antique radio that Myriam lost her heart to, while the old man told me stories about which Indians he knew, especially shop-owners in Suez, whom I think I might know. An Egyptian and his French wife came along and ended up buying the chairs that Myriam really liked, which worked to the bargaining power of the salesman. The Egyptian man asked Myriam (who spoke better French, of course) if we were sisters – which is so completely flattering. And she said what I would’ve said, we’ve known each other long enough. Well, we took our leave and arrived to find Harris desolate. We entered Arabica and decided on sharing fiteer with sugar and eshta (cream)… funny thing as Myriam pointed out was that while I was trying to figure out this bilingually-named dish I knew what eshta was, but seemed to forget what ‘sugar’ meant. We ended up having a great time writing silly, raunchy, and seriously R-17 stuff (not mature enough to be for 18 year olds even), à la Beavis-and-Butthead on the paper they have for that express purpose. Well, Myriam says she’ll take it to Cali and hang it on her wall.



Towards the end of the dessert, we ended up talking about the same old topic of our love-lives and past relationships. Its okay, as long as I have a friend like Myriam to listen to me with the “Aw” sound-effects at appropriate times, in appropriate inflexions (and Meryam, and Wiam, and Kailash..and…and..), life and love are bearable. As she dropped me off I told Myriam, if we both got friends as good as us for life-partners, that would truly be something good. Like she said, we weren’t great friends the first year, it took time and it worked. Then, as it can happen only in Cairo, we saw one of those tiny yet very shiny ‘Smart’ cars, with only a frame on one side and drivers inside going on its normal course in Cairo traffic. All its glitz was perhaps stolen, Myriam and I tried to take a pic but didn’t work!



Came home and Kailash has come back with gifts from Shady, The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran – a favourite, and a pendant of a ‘wise owl’ because said Shady to Kailash, he’s always thought of me as a ‘wise owl’.. hm, how flattering! :) And Shady, too, is going to California… I’ll miss you all! You made this gift of Nile a whole lot greener!

Diaries of an Insomniac

*Listening to Etta James: Only Have Eyes For You*

I remembered the song, and wondered if I still had it on my computer, and thank gawd I did, amongst other Etta songs. And I’m all moon-eyed to this song, all drunk on its music. She has such a great voice, this woman, makes me want to get addicted to music. I wish I was in the jazz age (when was that?), in one of those jazz bars, with a printed dress that swirls when you turn and a flower-named-drink in my hand. :)



But here I am, an insomniac in my pajamas. I slept really late last night, too, and got up at 2pm, read, t.v.ed, chatted and surfed and did the normal daily stuff all day and showered into another pair of pajamas at 9pm. And now I’m chilling by myself relaxing and typing up my sleeplessness. Its not all that bad, not with the music, it ain’t that bad at all. I miss Meryam, more often than she perhaps knows, hehe. Every now and then I look around for a friend to whom I can call upon and that friend will be there… and more often than not, its Meryam I think of. Hehe, I would even write up some of the crazy conversations we’ve had about ‘purchasing pigs’, and whatnot... One day I’ll come by Hong Kong just to see ya! :)



Another lazy-voiced song by Etta.. one that I can identify with even more…. Fool That I am.

‘Foooooool thaaaaat I aaaaaaaaaam / For falling in love with you

Foooooool thaaaaat I aaaaaaaaaam / For thinking you love me too…..

You stole my heart and played your part of little coquette..



Fool that I am for hoping you’ll understand

And thinking you, would listen to, all the things

The things I had planned



But we couldn’t see eye to eye.. soo.. darling, darling, darling, this is good-bye,

But I still care, but Istillcare and ooooooooooh, fooool that I am

And ooooo but I still care, fooool that I ammm.



Yumm.

Bang, bang, that awful sound...

...that’s the song from the introduction to Kill Bill vol.1 which reminded me of the sentiment in the following line:



« Il en a même qui parle de trahison et de mort, mais sur une musique inoffensive qui rend ces choses-là presque aimables ».



Some speak of even betrayal and death, but to so gentle a tune as to render such things pleasurable/enjoyable.



André Langevin. Poussière sur la Ville.



To make a sweeping generalisation, isn’t that where all art comes from? I remember my best art-pieces in high school coming from a time and place when I was going through the most horrid, inexpressible (okay, high-school-growing-up) pains. Its too bad I gave my paintings away here and there.



Dolores: such a pretty Spanish word for ‘pain’. I remember this metaphor I’ve always cherished, of a bamboo stalk that needs to be hollowed out and pierced before - and so that – it can produce music. Think of jazz. Songs of betrayal and death – the loss of love and life, the concerns that Langevin talks about are everyone’s concerns, songs that made Elvis famous :).



So yeah, we all do partake in the relishing of one’s miseries. But why? My philosophy professor, Dr. Switzer, recounted an episode where his friend who had just broken up with his girlfriend, while undergoing all the expected pain, expressed that at the same time he felt grateful and perhaps even glad, that he could sense, that he could feel such emotions. And so it is with everything...

Dust to Dust

Am reading a French novel - its great to be able to read in French - André Langevin’s Poussière sur la Ville which is quite introspective. I can identify with both the narrator and lead character, who is constantly worried about what the others might say, and his wife, who doesn’t care a whit what others say and is constantly described by her husband as ‘puerile’. Its funny how one word seems to capture and repeat itself in the novel, not the thematic ‘poussiere’ (dust) but ‘las’ meaning ‘weary’, and a certain ‘lassitude’ does seem to come over the narrator who seems too weary of life. Here is a passage from a part where the narrator is stranded and overwhelmed:

« Mais la boule dans l’estomac ne se dénoue pas, elle se resserre sur elle même. Rien à craindre, elle ne perfora rien. Il en émane de grande ondes chaudes quie me remuent en entrailles, comme lorsqu’on pense à la mort, la nôtre ».



Roughly translated,

But the ball in the stomach does not unwind, its rolls upon itself. Nothing to worry about, it will not perforate anything. It rises in large, warm, waves that stir one’s entrails, like when one thinks of death, one’s own.



The last line about death really got to me. Death is that frightening abysmal thought. I remember in philosophy, we came across the Nietzsche quote about ‘staring into the abyss so long that the abyss stares back at you’. Myriam explained it further. Its like staring into the void of our existence till one is overcome by it. This nausea that Langevin talks about, or perhaps vertigo seem likely reactions. In the same book, Langevin calls it the most selfish act (“le plus égoïste de nos actions. Il ne saurait être question d’épargner les survivants”). No thought is given to sparing the survivors.

Serendipity

And so by chance at Cairo Jazz Club (CJC) last night I met someone who worked at Mask-Off previously and I got a lot of inside information that will give me some extra perspective I didn’t have before. CJC was a lot of fun and dancing – started off slow but man we had a ball dancing till the wee hours, landed home at 3 a.m.



I watched the series “Ed” yesterday, and “Smallville” today. I think I do prefer the romantic comedy (Ed) genre a lot. I wonder if I can write in that field. It is worth a try, anyhow.

Gattaca and Mask-Off

I finally saw Gattaca. Thank God for Cable TV! One more Ethan Hawke movie I got to see! Hehe, couldn’t help thinking through parts in the movie, so this is where Uma and Ethan were falling in love. Remember Myriam telling about a recent interview with Ethan where he talked about all the publicity hype around his divorce as a tax he has to pay for being famous. He’s also a writer, and I remember browsing some book at the store which he had dedicated to Karuna, Uma’s middle name.



Last night, I got interviewed by – more like had a chat with – the owner/publisher of an new magazine called “Mask-Off”. I went in all casual in my jeans to Diwan (bookstore/café) and we ended up in nearby café, Cilantro, already chatting about ideas and what the magazine should be about. My interviewer, Tamer, had a very subtle style of questioning. Besides, I’m very stupid and uninformed about interviews anyhow. He just basically pointed out pages, concepts, title and asked me “What do you think about it?” And I blabbed… Apparently, that seemed to work out well, didn't have to lie about how (dis)organised I can be. I seem to have bagged it. Best part is that he is willing till I have finished my masters to ease up a little about working at the office twice a week in Nasr City, which is about 40 mins. drive from where I live. I’m already bursting with ideas for the mag, and excitement at the idea of having that much responsibility/free-rein. Or at least that is what I hope to have. Lets pray for the best!

Shrek 2, Rowing 2

Shrek 2 was nice and fun. Watched it with my brother. I liked the way all fairy tales were enmeshed and repeated in this one, and yet somewhat perverted to challenge the archetype, like the Pinocchio that wears ladies’ underwear or the not-so-well-wishing fairy godmother that orders a medieval meal for her pansy son, Charming. Then again, the central characters that the audience identifies with are themselves green ogres. So although the characters’ personality are clearly NOT defined through their gender interests or looks, the basic plot is the same: boy and girl fight against the clutches of evil powers, and love prevails. All in all, a good fun watch. I loved Bandera’s Puss-in-Boots act, too, what with this pitiful eyes ruse :).



Rowing today was fun. Sara and I rowed while Captain Ezz steered. I’m undecided which I like better, rowing alone or in a duo, still haven’t done a triple or quadruple act. Its hell getting up in the morning to row, but I always feel great after I’ve finished the run, row, exercise routine. Great way to start the day. Pity they’re going to take a break starting Aug 15, but I might use the time to catch up on my studying, or just catch some extra zzz’s, more likely the latter. :)

Row, row, row your boat...

Just came back from rowing a while ago. To think that I was so freaked out by the prospect of being on a wobbly in water before, and now I can row on the Nile. I'm happy with myself, except my coach is practically killing me with corrections. "Chin up. Straight back. Lean back more. Relax (hahaha)". Its all fair enough, since he's only trying to better me. But since I only slept 3.5 hours last night... and what a boast, i woke up to row. I better get better at this sport! :)



Already its done me a lot of good, flatter belly, stronger arms, more stamina... plus, I can say something I couldn't before, "I row". And I remember when I told Karim and Meryam about rowing, they started, "Oh yeah, I remember when I went rowing..." :s. Not so original of me, hehe. Its sad, though, that while you're rowing enjoying the scenery some bored guard starts whistling or hooting and you wonder what they'd do if you crashed or tipped over.. if they'd really jump into the coke-can, kushari-plastic-box, beer-bottle-filled Nile. Not that that would happen... the crash... hehe.

Jazz & me

I thought I should write when I saw that *even* Hani had a blog ;)

Silvia said “Share what you want to share” when I said I was too shy to share everything.

And Zahra has been an inspiration for quite a while, I must say.

Plus, there’s Mr. Grugeh.



Now that I’ve described myself through these chaps.. I only want to ‘share’ a few words on jazz. I love that lazy ass bluesy jazz and I love the one that make your toes tingle, tom-and-jerry run-around jazz. I’m all for it. Gimme gimme. I’m highly uneducated musically (and come to think of it, many other ways, but hey – more for me to learn! ;)).



We’ll keep it short and sweet for today. You guys keep posting.