Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 2 Comments
Three hundred and sixty five days are over. Unbelievable. Time goes by so fast. I really wanted to savor every minute and make each day count but time just flies. 2011 has been a year of extreme emotions for me and in some way I think it achieved a balance. 
I started the year with my final semester of college. It was the most unforgettable semester ever. I met some wonderful people, made great friends, realized how much I actually liked my college, a person I met only for a few hours gave me a lot of confidence and I met Shashi Tharoor at a MUN confernce (he is SO cute!). In typical Zarine fashion I also did make a complete fool of myself. I cried (in public!) for a reason that now seems so stupid, swore at someone (again, in public), embarrassed myself on stage, almost embarrassed myself multiple times in project reviews but managed to save my face, which I am actually proud of.
After semesters it was exam time and I spent an awful amount of time waiting for my awful Anna University marks. Anna University, if you are reading this, you suck. Thank you for giving me a tough time, it just made me stronger. But to be fair, I do respect you. I know it must have been no fun going through my answer sheets, or a lot of fun depeding on how you look at it.
The latter part of the year took a far turn from all this awesomeness. I got disappointed a lot. So I bawled my eyes out and went on a strike but it was a no go. Sometimes no matter how much we plan and yearn for things it just doesn’t work out – another lesson from 2011. But these disappointements literally ate through by brain and I just went on analyzing one situation after the other and almost threw myself into a deep and endless pit (metaphorically, of course). But I also found the resilience in me. I learnt to pick myself up and forced myself to look ahead.
After this it was vacation time. Dad always promised me that we could go anywhere we wanted once I completed my degree. We started with Egypt and then the revolution happened. So I suggested Turkey, my first love, but then the earthquake happened. His timing is impeccable, I tell you. 
Eventually we settled on Dubai for reasons I cannot comprehend. Initially I was totally uninterested but then the food and shopping cheered me up. I ate so many differnt types of food. I would have loved to take pictures of them but I live with a brother who is too impatient to let the food pose and a father who is embarrassed when I take pictures of food. 
2011 was a year of paradoxes for me. I had so many, many dreams for this year. I think the fault lies in the fact that I expected all of them to come true. So in 2012 I expect to dream less (like that’s even possible).
When it comes to resolutions I have always made the really cheesy ones like “Oh I will lose weight this year” and the classic – “I will study well this year”. Histroy shows that these resolutions never saw the break of day. So this year my resolutions are simple. It follows the concept of more.
Read more.
Write more.
Live more.
For the past few years I’ve spent New Year’s eve at home eating take out and watching old Grey’s Anatomy reruns. This year however, I will be at a friends wedding, ringing in the new year in a pattu saree and five inch heels. This gives me confidence for the new year because nothing bad can happen when you are in a pattu saree and five inch heels.
2012 is going to be a supremely awesome year and I intend to make full use of it. No Mayan prophecy is going to ruin my year.
I wish the handful of people reading my blog have a fabulous new year!
See you in 2012.
Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 3 Comments

Nostalgia.

A friend of mine just came over to invite me for her wedding. It’s been a good six months since college finished and I can’t believe how far we’ve all come. Some are getting married, some are doing exceptionally in their jobs and some, like me, are waiting for a lucky break. College feels like it happened in a different life. It feels like it happened eons ago and what I can remember is surrounded by a haze. I talk like its been years since I passed out but, eerily enough not even a year has passed since. College is generally a place where people “find themselves”. But for me it was about finding just a “part” of me. 
At times I’m filled with regret because I spent too much time hating what I did. I regret that I didn’t give myself a chance to like what I did. I spent a lot of time and energy in vehemently disliking anything and everything that came with my course. At this point in my life I feel like I could have done better. I could have studied harder but even I know that its a lost cause. I tried really hard to be better, academically. I failed. And Anna University gave me many more tries. Then, I passed. It was probably the single most happiest moment in my life, passing in something I never liked to begin with. But if that had never happened I would have a very different life right now. 
When we were in college my partner in crime and I, we used to imagine a bright, new exciting life waiting for us as soon as we were done with these four years of formal education. But the first few weeks after college ended I experienced severe withdrawal symptoms. My body wanted to wake up at 7 ‘o’ clock and run behind a bus. I had to have some college tea in my system. I even missed the doughy bread bajjis that reeked with oil. I missed texting from the last bench. I missed the constant bitching with the aforementioned partner in crime. I missed writing “apology” and “permission” letters. I missed the afternoon meals that tasted terrible in first year but awesome in final year. I missed doing fake demos for projects and fighting over which font to use for ppts. I wanted to relive the terrible presentations that we did. But most of all I missed my friends. 
I know that I can never go back to those wonderful times and all I have are memories and pictures. I entered college as a much skinnier 17 year old and I left as a wiser, more well rounded 21 year old. I may not have “found myself” in college. I know that will take me a few more years but I definitely feel much smarter in the “life” department. Every time I talk about being wiser or much sensibler than I was in the past, this song by U2 always comes to mind – “City of Blinding Lights” (which is incidentally the song that inspired the name for this blog) where Bono says, “The more you see, the less you know. The less you find out as you go. I knew much more than I do now. “
College may not have given me the experiences I wished for but it did give me the life lessons that I needed. And in the bargain also gives me a degree in Engineering which, if you ask me, is a pretty good deal!
Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 5 Comments

Happiness.

I was reading The Museum Of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk when I came across a chapter called ‘The Most Important Thing in Life Is to Be Happy‘. For a long time I was always in search of Happiness. Not Earth shattering revelations or amazing achievements, just Happiness. Reading that chapter made me realize that ultimately, Happiness is what we aim for. It is what we expect our life to ultimately give us.

Another chapter was named ‘Happiness Means Being Close to the One You Love , That’s All‘ and I strongly disagreed. I always though of Happiness as a selfish thing. Something that you need and is present within you. Happiness can be found in other ways, I thought, not just in the company of those we love. Happiness meant getting something you wanted, reaching your goals. It was meant to be personal. Something that you could give to another person but personal, nonetheless. The whole of yesterday I had an internal conflict in my head, trying to disprove what Pamuk said. By the time I went to bed I was so sure of myself, so sure of what I thought was right.

Today was an entirely different story. I learnt that Happiness IS actually being close to the ones you love, that’s all. 

Happiness is seeing someone after months or even years and realizing that no matter how much time passes, some things never change. Happiness is opposing teams being shot down by paint pellets. Happiness is listening to the same song on loop. It is food that satisfies a hungry stomach, the breeze in my hair that tugs my scarf away. Happiness is looking at the endless sea and knowing that everything is going to be okay. It is the knowledge that no matter how bad things may seem, they always  have a way of working themselves out. 

It is knowing that no matter where life may take us or where we may end up ten years from now, we will still  have the memory of today, the sea and the sand.
“In fact no one rec­og­nizes the hap­pi­est mo­ment of their lives as they are liv­ing it. It may well be that, in a mo­ment of joy, one might sin­cere­ly be­lieve that they are liv­ing that gold­en in­stant “now,” even hav­ing lived such a mo­ment be­fore, but what­ev­er they say, in one part of their hearts they still be­lieve in the cer­tain­ty of a hap­pi­er moment to come.”

— Kemal Basmacı, The Museum of Innocence
Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 4 Comments

"B-uty" Contest

In 1994, when Aishwarya Rai and Sushmita Sen won the Miss.World and Miss.Universe titles respectively, I was but a gullible 5 year old. The day Aishwarya won the crown I was glued to the TV. She looked so pretty all decked up and wearing that gorgeous gown and tiara! Unfortunately, wearing a tiara was one of my life’s ambitions! I was of an impressionable age!

Ever since that day, for quite a long period of time I must confess, I draped my mother’s dupattas and wore headbands as tiaras and believed that one day I would be Miss.Universe too.
Sad, I know!
But such was my life.

I remember the contests being beautiful, ethereal and almost fairy tale like. Recently I read an article stating that the Miss.Universe Organization headed by Donald Trump has decided to have a lingerie photo shoot of all the contestants. The prominent display of skin show topless-ness besmirches the name of such a competition. I’d just like to make clear that I, in no way support beauty pageants such as these, but the introduction of skin show and the flaunting of bikini clad bodies take away what remains at the very essence of these competitions.

Why is it necessary to have a ‘best body’ competition for a Miss.Universe/World pageant when the actual duties of the winner is not in the least related to it? Instead of promoting a good body image and self confidence inducing theme for young girls, they show a bunch of giggly model types wearing barely nothings and the all important country sash jumping up and down and behaving bimbo-tic.

The ‘beauty with brains’ is such a pathetic excuse. Most contestants answer the questions in such an incomprehensible way as seen in this video.

While going through my regular news website I saw that Miss.Universe 2010 had started and the National Costume competition was taking place. Here is a select few costumes that are absolutely horrendous!

KOSOVO:

I never knew there was a country called Kosovo and who would want to wear a gold cow/goat on their head!??

MAURITIUS:

The most colorful shower curtain…. err.. dress.

THAILAND:

I like the traditional dress but is she wearing boots, is she wearing socks or both? It plays with your mind!

TURKEY:

We regret to inform you that Miss.Turkey has been replaced by Cousin It from the Addams Family.

VENEZUELA:

Miss.Venezuela, Lady Gaga called. She wants her clothes back.

ALBANIA:

Miss.Albania is proud to channels a Las Vegas show girl.

INDIA:

The originality baffles me. Note how the costume looks uncannily like Blair’s dress in Season 2 :

COLOMBIA:

This is the national dress of my country too. Except we call it komanam.

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 6 Comments

Cynophobia Or Why I Hate Dogs

I was eight years old when the “incident” occurred. Up until then, I was a normal eight year old doing whatever it is that eight year olds do. One evening (which will remain fresh in my memory forever) I was walking down the street along with my brother and my mother to drop my cousins off at an auto stand.

There I was, happily skipping with not a care in the world wearing my fire engine red tights and t-shirt. Quite the ensemble, I must say.

And that’s when IT happened.

Out of nowhere two enormous black dogs come running towards me. In a flash of a second they both pounced on me. One at the front and the other at the back. The dog in the front had its filthy disgusting paws on my shoulders and it stood almost half a foot taller than me. The dog at the back, I can only assume fancied my fire engine red tights because the stupid mongrel started pulling them down!

I screamed for dear life. God bless those laborers who came running to my rescue.

I never managed to get that incident out of my head. Who could?! That day I was scarred for life and since then I have never been able to look a dog in the eye.

If there is a dog in the vicinity I get jittery, my heart starts pounding, I start screaming, my hands automatically claw whatever it is that I’m holding and if I’m standing next to you I will push you in front of me for protection. If a dog starts barking I feel it’s barking at me. If I happen to cross a dog by some miracle, I turn around a million times just to make sure the dog isn’t following me or sniffing my ankle. This is what is called cynophobia, the fear of dogs

With the kind of past I’ve had when it comes to dogs it isn’t surprising that I feel all these things. Any normal person (I hope) will understand this. But not my friends or my family. They find it extremely funny. They’re always saying “Oh bring the dog near Zarine. Let’s see what she does!”. Like they don’t know what I’ll do. And my brother’s all time favorite – “Zarine look! Dog!”, which is almost always followed by pushing me near it.

Unfortunately for me this fear also lead me to ailurophobia which is the fear of cats. I pretty much react the same way to them as I do to dogs. It isn’t easy dealing with these phobias when my best friend loves dogs and the other owns two cats. I have been known for my ‘running out of the room when I see a cat’ and ‘jumping on the sofa when the cat brushes its tail against my toe’ performances.

One day my wonderful cat loving friend who has a heart of gold decided that she wanted to get rid of my phobia. So she picked up her cat and thrust it into my face. I did what I always do. But this time there were consequences. In order to save myself from the wrath of the cat I pushed the wheeled chair against the wall so badly that I tumbled off it, broke the chair and managed to bang my head on the wall all in a span of a few seconds.

My friends find this alarmingly funny.
I don’t. And frankly its quite understandable why. People think its madness to be afraid of cats. It isn’t mad. Everyone is afraid of something! Some are even afraid of the dark and I find that stupid but I’m not judging. Maybe the dark is to them what cats and dogs are to me.

Contrary to popular belief I’m not afraid of ALL animals, Nik. Its just that dogs and cats make me neurotic and insane. I have this incessant fear that they want to maul off my face. And that is a picture I cannot get out of my head.

So I’m going to say this as publicly as I possibly can:
I HATE CATS AND I FRIGGIN HATE DOGS.

I acknowledge them because they are all God’s creatures and I respect them for that. But that’s where I draw the line.

PS:

Just a small clarification, I like them on TV like in Planet’s Funniest Animals (The dog chasing its own tail is classic!). But not in real life.

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen

Exams are round the corner and here I am yet to start studying! Study holidays are when my creative juices flow over time and I spend all my time in thinking and planning on things to do during the holidays.

Summer holidays as a kid used to be so much fun. Almost two months of uninterrupted merry-making. When school ended for summer I used to come home running, excitement literally bouncing off me. We used to have a loft in my old house, which was probably my mother’s favorite place. It contained all the junk we collected over the years and my suitcase of random toys and crap that I picked up. I’m now ashamed to admit that I was a big time Barbie addict.

Yes, I had Barbie, Skipper and Kelly too!

I used to spend the entire summer dressing and redressing my dolls and being my brother’s guinea pig. Evenings were spent playing ‘lock and key’ and ‘chain’ with the kids in my apartment. Late, late breakfasts and special lunches everyday. The tv would be on 24 hours and no one complained. And when my brother joined the football team in school he used to practice on me. We used to play one on one football.

No points for guessing who won.

As I grew up I started to play quite a few games. I spent almost three summers playing tennis at a local school. Most of my memories from summer are from there. Then it was time for swimming. I spent the next three to four summers swimming. Summers were so blissful and so carefree. Everything was relaxed. The weather was never this terrible. All through summer we just had fun and ate ice creams and lived without a care.

Ever since I entered college, semester exams take place during peak summer, exactly when schools close. And the one month holiday is just enough to sleep and get up and watch movies. And worrying about the results, of course.

I would give anything to rewind my life back to the days when everything was perfect. Now its all about the future. Everyone is busy with their lives. Everyone wants to get ahead. Which is good. Yes, we have to look towards the future and work for it. But does this mean we can forget our past and our friends just because we found something that’s remotely better?

At this point in life everyone is saving their own ass. We have this one year to make or break and its all about the future. Careers, families and self. No time to think. No time to stop and stare. Everything is accelerated. When everything is moving super fast I don’t want to be the one left back and watching all this happen in front of me. I want to be focused and pumped up to. But its hard to when your heart longs for the past, longs for the childish smiles and the atmosphere of security and radiance.

Its hard to hope when I’ve lost friends who promised to be there.
It’s hard when I’ve given up so much of myself without realizing.
It’s hard when I cannot be the person I want to be.
It’s hard living a monotonous life when I know and feel in my veins that I’m made for greater things.

It’s hard when I wake up every day regretting the decisions that I made.

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen

2010

This is my 60th post. Its been a year since I started my blog and I haven’t come even close to a hundred posts. So if I ever have a new year resolution one of them will be to be sincere and devoted to my blog regularly updating it.

This is also my first post for the new year.
Yay.
I survived to see 2010. It sounds so eerie just saying 2010.

I never have resolutions for the new year. And i don’t intend to have either. But this time around there are a few things I really want to accomplish in life and hopefully I will. I have 365 days to do what I want. Or is this year a leap year? Anyways, I have 365/366 days to do what I want and by God I will do it.

This is a great start to a new year. With two of my close friends away this entire month and one who lives in the other end of Chennai, I am reduced to eating Chinese take out from Mainland China drooling over Patrick Dempsey’s hotness on Grey’s Anatomy.

Ya.
This is what I want in life.
Exactly this.

I guess I’m sounding too morose. A sad way to begin a new year, yes, but gathering my thoughts at the end of the year and planning ahead for a new one is blissful too.

I would like to wish everyone a happy new year and be all yay about it but with whats happening around the world and with injustice being the theme of the year, happy is not exactly what people want to be.

I remember simpler times when year was never this dull for me. Those times were around ten years back when we used to go out as a family for dinner. My father was in his highest spirits. We would drive at midnight and wish everyone on the road happy new year. I know that it sounds like the most dumb-ass thing to do. And it was. But at least it was something to do. Few years later my brother joined college and had his set of “college” buddies with whom he used to spend the new year and I would sit at home with mom and dad eating pizza and watching whatever “puttham pudhu tiray padam” there was on tv.

And thats where the routine that started is yet to end. But deep down I don’t think I would have it anyother way either. I am such a bundle of contradiction, wanting both sides of the coin.

Now I’m just blabbering.
I’m on a roll.
Somebody stop me.

Happy 2010 all…

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 6 Comments

Umrah

I just got back from seeing my cousin and his wife off at the airport. I couldn’t help but feel jealous when he told me he was going to perform umrah. My thoughts went back to the time when I performed umrah for the first time in 2002.

****

I was 13 years old and was sincerely studying for my board exams when my dad comes to me and says “Oh we are going for umrah”.

“What????”, I say having heard that word for the first time.

“umrah, its like a small a haj..”

And the only thought that goes through my then tiny brain was, “Yaaaay!!! I’m going in a plane!!!”.

My father had planned the travel for my family exactly during my Half Yearly exams and I had to bunk my last exam with not so much regret although my principal, Mrs.Williams was all, “I’m not going to give you permission but if you want to go then go”.

And I was so happy that I got to bunk an exam. English exam. But still, exam is exam no?

My mother went into a shopping frenzy and she got me the loosest, most tassel induced abaya you can ever find. The day we were leaving I was forced into a red, synthetic salwar kameez high on silver jigna and made to wear that oddly shaped abaya when all I really wanted to do was to snuggle into my jeans and read my Meg Cabot books.
Yes. I was extremely addicted to Meg Cabot. Don’t ask me why.

Although my father had coached me on Makkah and what to do when I got there I was in seventh heaven just because I got to go in a plane. I was super excited to taste ‘plane’ food but what they gave us in Saudia was a tasteless dish of mac and chesse.

We reached Jeddah and took a car to Makkah. When we got there the driver went, “Look to your left thats the Haram Sheriff”. And I was all, “Why is he calling this place HARAAM?? Isn’t it supposed to be holy?!!”

I remember thinking “wow this looks so real”, when I first saw the haram.

We were made to enter through this particular gate, I don’t remember which one, such that we could see the Kaba with maximium effect. One look at the Kaba standing there looking so majestic in black, forming a beautiful contrast with the white marble I felt an instant connection. It felt like someone had tied a rope from my heart to the kaba and the rope was pulling me towards it.It is said that the Kaba is situated right under the heavens and I found that to be true.

Although my emaan was not up to standard at that time I felt something that I knew would stay with me.

Those 2 weeks in Saudi was when I got interested in the hijaab and realized that it was not just a cultural thing. Alhamdulillah ever since my return from unrah I started wearing the hijaab with the understanding of what it reallly is.

Alhamdulillah we finished our umrah peacefully by Allaah’s grace. The proof of Allah’s barakha was evident when we came back. It showed on our emaan which had increased by leaps and bounds, on our wealth which multiplied itself. After my umrah I have travelled every year. I have visited Singapore, Malaysia, Dubai, Bangkok. Never in a million years did my family ever think that we would have an international vacation. Ever.
But Allaah proved us wrong.

What I am today is all because of the wise decision my father made that day. This level of faith that I now have, the strength to believe, no matter what, I owe it all to Allaah who put that niyath in my fathers heart. I cannot thank my father enough for what he has done.

While I performed umrah I never realized the significance of what I was doing. But the impact of it I see even today.

Frankly I believe it is upto tje parents to introduce that small quotient of Islam into their children. Because after all your children and your wealth are a test from Allaah.

Don’t you want to ace that test?