Good Reads

Its been a streak of lovely warm days here in Munich (Edit: Well no more) ..and day light saving has added a bonus, a little more space to slow down late in the afternoon, sip on some tea and soak in some sun on my little balcony. 

While my son takes a nap I am usually found with the ipad.

What had previously been a daily ritual to go through my bloglovin feed has recently been partly replaced by this great aap called Goodreads.

 Do check it out if you love reading.

I am a slow reader. I take my time. I find that kind of peace in bed at night with my book light on. Oh what an invention! 

My recent reads are two very different genres. 

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafaq is a deeply written book with Sufism at its core.

 My first interaction with sufism was my early teenage favorite band Junoon. But that was then. 

This book was a contemporary take on sufism.

 Although the book is full of quotes from Rumi..the forty rules themselves are quotable but here are some of the casually written lines that I highlighted.

It was the laughter of a woman who had never learned not to pay too much attention to the judgments of others. “Just go with the flow,” he said. “Let go!”

“The universe is one being. Everything and everyone is interconnected through an invisible web of stories. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all in a silent conversation. Do no harm. Practice compassion. And do not gossip behind anyone’s back—not even a seemingly innocent remark! The words that come out of our mouths do not vanish but are perpetually stored in infinite space, and they will come back to us in due time. One man’s pain will hurt us all. One man’s joy will make everyone smile,” he murmured. “This is what one of the forty rules reminds us.”

“If you want to strengthen your faith, you will need to soften inside. For your faith to be rock solid, your heart needs to be as soft as a feather. Through an illness, accident, loss, or fright, one way or another, we all are faced with incidents that teach us how to become less selfish and judgmental, and more compassionate and generous. Yet some of us learn the lesson and manage to become milder, while some others end up becoming even harsher than before. The only way to get closer to Truth is to expand your heart so that it will encompass all humanity and still have room for more Love.”

Some people feed on the miseries of others.

One should keep the intellect satisfied and yet be careful not to spoil it.

"...never loosng time with pleasantries"

"That which can not be put into words can only be grasped through silence"

"The more she remained calm and composed, the more her children shared with her. Once she had stopped running after them, they had stopped running away from her. Somehow things were working more smoothly and closer to her liking than in the times when she had tirelessly tried to help and repair. 

And to think she was doing nothing to achieve this result! 

Instead of seeing her role in the house as some sort of glue, the invisible yet central bond that held everyone together, she had become a silent spectator. She watched events unfold and days waft by, not necessarily coldly or indifferently but with visible detachment. She had discovered that once she accepted that she didn’t have to stress herself about things she had no control over, another self emerged from inside—one who was wiser, calmer, and far more sensible. “The fifth element,” she muttered to herself several times during the day. “Just accept the void!” "

Next up, Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie. The attention to detail is superb. The text rides you to Nagasaki, Tokyo, Delhi, Mussorrie, Karachi, Islamabad, Abbotabad, Peshawar, Istanbul, Kandahar, Iran, Canada, New York, Seattle, Miami...Being a Masters in International Relations..no wonder I enjoyed it !

I could relate to it on another level too. The multilingual air of the book. Charecters communicate in English, Urdu and German..all three languages that I can understand! The Burtons, The Weisses, The Ashrafs, The Tanakas cross each others paths in one book.

From the Nagasaki bombings to 9/11. With so many ingrediants the book lost its plot sometimes but as a whole it was a good read. 

Here's a funny thing..when I read a novel I try to give faces to the charecters. 

So for Raza I had chosen the face of Riz Ahmed ( The Reluctant Fundamentalist, The Road To Guantanamo, Britz) Although the author ascribes japenese features to him.

For Harry I had the face of George Fulton.( George Ka Pakistan)

 Courtesy: google images

For Elizabeth..Nicole Kidman as Lady Sarah Ashley in Australia;)

Oh and can I say something crazy?

This is James ;)

Summertide

Summer routine is sapping out all of the pent up activities we were waiting to do for so long. Somedays seem too short for everything to fit in..the clock seems to move faster than the sun. Here's whats been happening lately:

Made cake pops for my son's favorite girl's birthday.My son is 2 and she turned 7 bytheway!

This month I had my birthday too and was treated well by the kin and folk of my clan. Went out for a grill party that day.our first official grill of the season.

We've been frequenting our local gelato ice cream shop late in the evenings..this past weekend we went to a little theme park near munich based on the grimm brother's fairly tales...I packed some homemade pretzels and frischkaese for the trip. Recipe seemed ok but the pretzels were not terribly soft the next day..but platable.

After a long eventful day..Making Pretzels for the first time. Past mid night. Pretending to be nigella :p

 They came out really soft and chewy but went a bit hard later.

I get some off toddler time two days a week when I commute to the city on the train. Perfect time to read and reflect :)

Been reading this great book by Paulo Coelho. I picked it up thinking it to be a novel but this falls more into the category of a self-help maybe motivational book. I was reminded of Coelho's The Warrior of Light quiet a lot of times while reading. Here are some of the best lines.

And those who are alone at this moment, need never be frightened by the words of the devil: ‘You’re wasting your time.’

Or by the chief demon’s even more potent words: ‘No one cares about you.’

The Divine Energy is listening to us when we speak to other people, but also when we are still and silent and able to accept solitude as a blessing.

And when we achieve that harmony, we receive more than we asked for.

I am here to tell you that there are people who have never been defeated.

They are the ones who never fought.

Allowing someone else to make us happy will make them happy too.

When it Rains, it Pours

You might have noticed in the news about the recent shower bursts in Gemany, Austria and Czech. It literally was raining cats and dogs and cows and sheep!

image

The Danube river has flooded and Bavaria has witnessed its highest flood levels in 70 years they say. We are in the south too, but fortunately only the balcony flooded a bit..no issues other than that. BUT we were forced to spend a mega long weekend at home. Thursday being a bank holiday, Friday Mr. took off and then the weekend. OK..News bulletin ends here.

All snuggled up under the quilt..I've been reading the translated works of Manto.. Got my hands on a second hand book, delivered just in time before the mini holiday. I found a handwritten note by the previous owner inside it.

It reads: Manto plays few notes but makes a grand symphony.....quietly.

Nothing much happened on the craft tab lately, just two tiny projects..which I will be sharing soon.

Sunday Read: The Patience Stone by Atiq Rahimi

Going through my flipboard updates, Newsweek had a story on a debut film ' The Patience Stone'. I thought it would be interesting to read something written by an author who belongs to a known territory. Atiq Rahimi fled to Pakistan in 1984, and at the French Embassy in Islamabad requested asylum.

“Exile, despite everything, gives us a certain liberty, a certain distance with regard to our culture. And a critical eye,” he says. “It’s very creative.”

I had my book delivered this last friday while I was leaving for a " too bored, lets go Shopping in the other end of the City  trip" The bus was late. I opened the book package from amazon.

Forword:

From the body by the body with the body

Since the body and until the body

Antonin Artaud

Took the bus to the train station..the escalator was faulty..had to wait for someone to carry the push chair down for me..missed the train..continued with the book while waiting.

Introduction written by Khaled Hosseini ( author of The Kite Runner )

It reads....

"It is a vexing fact that women are the most beleaguered members of Afghan society......"

"..Atiq Rahimi gives face and voice to one unforgettable woman- and, one could argue, offers her as a proxy for the grievances of millions."

I read it on the train too, it is a slim book. This post is turning into a novel on its own:p..I just wanted to share the experience and not to write a book Review

The book was written in French originally..Rahimi says that writing it in his aquired language rather than Persian or Dari liberated him from the social taboos that involuntarily obstruct him to express freely when writing in Persian.

Leaving the unfiltered content aside, the message was clearly conveyed. An indestructible soldier  lies on the floor in coma, nursed by his wife of ten years.

'The man is not laughing, and yet it seems as if he is holding back a laugh. This gives him a strange expression, that of a man inwardly mocking those who look at him.'

Rahimi brilliantly uses the metaphor of a Sang e Sabur for this corpse of a man; the black Stone which absorbs all confessions, secrets and formerly unspoken thoughts of a person till the day of judgement when it finally explodes. The book ends with an explosion..with a dead man in the room and a dead but free soul of a woman who finally spoke infront of the stone, after a lifetime of being, in Hosseini's words

'objectified, marginalised, scorned, beaten, ridiculed, silenced.'

My last thoughts on the book are that its not just in  Afghanistan where women 'suffer the most, and cry out the least'. The heroine of the book is not the nobelest of beings..and her turning towards the demon,( however unjustifiable ) to fill the blanks of her childhood, her marriage and her life experiances are the reality of  not just a war torn Afghanistan. Its a human reality in Aghanistan or elsewhere.

The book has been filmed too..directed by the author himself..not so keen on watching it because I killed my appetite to see a book turned into  a film when I watched the Harry Potter movie for the first time. That was it:p

Sunday Post: No Easy Day

No Easy Day: The First Hand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden

Autobiography of the Navy SEAL Mark Owen

I picked up this book for two reasons, one it describes an event that took place inside my country. Two, I was doubtful and curious. Putting aside all the 'negativity' I will only scribble down my thoughts as a reader. This blog is not the right place for a heavy weight analysis smeared with dark thoughts. Its a happy place so I will be careful. Here's what I retained as an after-taste:

• This could be just any other book celebrating the American triumph in a mission.
• As the author repeatedly mentioned, he has a poor sense of humor. He does, and thus for me he lacked story telling skills. I was bored. He should have chosen J.K Rowling instead of Kevin Maurer to do the HeWhoMustNotBeNamed thing.
• Saying right at the beginning of the book that if you are looking for secrets this book is not for you..kind of turned me off.
• Questions kept bothering me..like why was Geronimo as they called him not tried in the court? Law is equal for all isn't it? Why is it ok to violate the sovereignty of a nation at midnight?..is the doctrine of necessity only a privilege for those who wear night vision goggles worth thousands of dollars? Whats the difference between a rouge mindless pilot who flies into buildings and a sophisticated, hand picked team, equipped with the most sooooper dooooper tech that exists to date...when both are trying to take the law in their own hands. 
• The amount of human loss that has taken place during this entire period described in the book..of various missions undertaken after 9/11 makes me pray. I know idealism is never a winner in the art of war.
• I wonder if in a decade or more from now..someone will write an antithesis to the book. I just wonder.
• I lack trust in the current leadership of my country. This book helped in further increasing that mistrust.
• Hey, this book said OBL dyed his beard black...something tells me they got the wrong man!
• If Mr.Obama thinks he bagged a second term...sorry Mr.President the author tells us that you were only a mouth piece on prime time tv after the mission and not much help otherwise.
• I should have rather completed my many unfinished DIY projects instead of curling up on the sofa and trying to get excited about a story I already knew about. Period.