Seeking the Spiritual During Ramadan

Eid Mubarak, all!

This year has been a time of seeking intentional spirituality in my life. Ramadan has been really varied for me; there was no consistency that I could find in it, other than a renewed sense of wanting to move towards spiritual wellness. I fasted; I didn't fast. I felt grounded; I snapped. I was with family; I was alone with the roaches (my new struggle on the home front). Overall, I am proud to say I was more conscious of my personal health and needs throughout the whole month.

Just about the only thing that has been consistent is that I've been writing -- more importantly, writing dangerously. I wrote a poem every single day with an amazing group on Facebook, and I felt an intimate connection with several of them by the end. Sharing writing -- especially in a form you don't use often for show -- is one of the most vulnerable things I have done recently. That space existed as a way for me to start the process of leaning on others' support, even if we did not directly talk about our hurts.

It made up, at least in part, for all the ways in which I've felt unsupported these past months. Going back to Seattle and San Diego was a healing wake up call. I got to spend the last few days of my cat's life with her. I got to read more full books than I have in the rest of this year. My family and friends cocooned me and made me feel less alone. Coming back to NYC, conversely, felt like I was the only person on the planet. The water closed over my head again.

There are things that have kept me sane -- a new job, an amazing conference -- but ultimately I have had to return to the principals of faith this Ramadan in a very concrete way. Fasting kept my mind clear, and when I chose not to fast, I chose it with the intention of healing my spirit from other sufferings. Fasting in hardship can also be a weapon used against yourself; when I found myself being too perfectionist about the practice of my faith, I decided enough was enough.

I have been thinking about what it really means to be nourished. As a healer, I need to trust my own instincts in that -- it is so incredibly hard for me to feel like I have given myself as much care as I do other people. This Ramadan, for a number of reasons, has given me the chance to reflect on that.

I don't have the answers of where things will take me next, but I am working to pare down my commitments and just be with me more often. Me and my writing. Me and my art. Me and my healing, before trying to reach out that hand to others. Until then, I'll share with y'all a poem written during this holy month:

#23
When I sleep,
The visions,
Hum.
The divine lodges,
In my throat.
And when I dream,
I see,
I am just one part of you --
The part,
That sings your praises.

Posts from Memory Lane: Pursuing the Spiritual

These posts were written during the summer while I was in Bangladesh, in preparation for the upcoming academic year. Long story short: when I looked back at the archive, I didn't have the desire or the time to put them up. But now, since I'm coming back to the blog, I decided that some of them aren't half bad. Read on!

I was never told to be Muslim.

I grew up in a particularly secular household with a smattering of Christmas and Easter, though until only very recently, I didn't know their religious significance. During my teenage years, I fashioned myself to be an existentialist - though I still held onto agnostic beliefs at that time, so I guess I wasn't a straightforward one. When I finally chose to participate more in my ethnic heritage and culture, I found myself gravitating towards Islam in a way that made me feel calm and correct. It knit some of my spiritual beliefs together and also felt appropriate given my Bengali background.

My 5 Major Ramadan Activities

Homemade burfi! It's a sweet milk cake.

Since I talked about fasting earlier, I thought I should talk about what I've actually been doing during this month - often, people assume that I'm not doing anything but feeling hungry/thirsty all the time! Instead, here are the most common things I'm doing each day.

1. Sleeping. Of course, this is because I have the privilege of being on vacation during Ramadan, but since we are getting up and eating pretty early in the morning, I take it as my cue to sleep in a little bit each day rather than staying awake from 3:30am onward.

2. Plunging into work. In some ways, I think I get the most done when I'm fasting - no necessary breaks for food/drink! But seriously, investing yourself in a project or reflection really does make the time positive and strengthening.

3. Reading Quran and learning more about religion. This one is a pretty obvious choice during the holy month, but since it is my first time being immersed in an Islamic culture outside of my own private learning, I thought I'd reiterate how big of a learning experience this is.

4. Cooking! Or, more accurately, watching and sometimes assisting people who are cooking. I mentioned before that I found it pretty interesting that we continue to cook and prepare a lot of foods when we ourselves cannot eat, but it is a regular part of the day to fry foods, make curries, and be in the presence of both food and water. Normal life doesn't stop when we are fasting, it just becomes markedly different.

5. Remarking at the complete normalcy of day-to-day life. Ok, not really an 'activity,' but coming from a Western country where only a few people are fasting to seeing everyone do it (regardless of what work they're performing or their living situation) is pretty astounding. It intrigues me to think of the unified group of people fasting and how their lives are affected in similar and different ways by observance of this ritual.

A Day of Ramadan in Our Household

Ramadan is upon us! During this holy month, for those who don't know, Muslims everywhere observe the fast - meaning that they do not eat or drink between the hours of sunrise and sunset (unless they have been restricted from fasting due to illness, traveling, or other prohibitory factors). The fast is a really unifying part of Muslim identity, though before this time I had only experienced it on my own in the US (and, consequently, had to explain what I was doing to many people). Here in Bangladesh, however, where I have the benefit of being immersed in Islamic culture, we have some very ritualized ways of participating in Ramadan. I thought it'd be interesting to detail a typical day in our house, so read on!

The Almighty Force: Personal Faith and Perspective

In light of the recent death of one of my family members, I have been musing on personal faith and its context in my brief life. This faith has sustained me through both tragedies and triumphs in the past and continues to support me each day. I know that many of my readers are not religious, so please do not take this story as an attempt at conversion - it is exactly the opposite. Personal faith must be approached on one's own path, and this is my story of arriving at it.

I first learned about my religion through the media. Growing up in a secular household, with one parent Christian and the other Muslim, I had never really thought about Allah from the perspective of organized religion. He was a being in the abstract sense when I was younger - I have no memories of faith beyond the paper-thin symbolism of winter holidays. I didn't know about Ramadan then.

I've written previously about 9/11 and its role in making me a reactionary activist to the Islamophobia that followed. But seeing Islam as a personal religion is different than seeing it in the activist light. No, it came to me in another package: The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I read this book at an age that was much too young for its subject matter, though I appreciate that it came into my life at that point (and am intensely curious to see what different impressions I get when I finally read it again). Malcolm X was a convert to the Muslim faith, someone who did not take the teachings for granted and approached them with careful eyes. Though he did not bring Islam to me, the words of his book displayed to me that the religion is loving as it is powerful, and as familiar.

At that time in my life, I needed a force like that. I had been bullied in school and was suffering from depression, though at the time the only names I had for it were apathy and loneliness. I chose personal faith over personal destruction, though the idea was still abstract. To this day, it comforts me to know that this choice was the one that kept me stable and allowed me to fully experience the life that I lead now - faith has passed with me through the shocking times and the beautiful ones, and it resides within me to return to lest I forget.

I suppose that's why I am returning to it now. The reassurances that my faith provides keep the sadness at bay. There is an end to suffering and there is a better place that we pass into once we are in the care of Allah once more. But more than that, the strength and dignity of our religion keep me working to improve my own circumstances and take stock of the life I am leading: what can I do better to take care of myself and those close to me? What can I do to better the world that we live in, so that we are not waiting in vain to pass into death? Even as I am alone, I gather strength and perspective. We are only given the burdens we can carry, and I will carry on with the number of days, months, and years I have left.

9/11: Growing Up a Reactionary Youth

I went back and forth about whether to write a post about 9/11. In some ways, it is an insignificant day to me - at the time, I was 9 years old and believed that the next target was going to be the Space Needle, which was the only important tall building I could conceptualize in my West Coast upbringing. But it also marked an important turn for the relationship I and my family have to this country. In my work, in my daily life, the specter of that date 10 years ago hangs over me.

I am a Muslim woman, but at that point in time I wasn't cognizant of it. We were not a religious family, and that was a fine thing in my youth. But the label was still on me. Though I could have theoretically passed as a Hindu (because of the common stereotype that all South Asian people are of that religion), I never wanted to hide the fact of my religious affiliation. The conception of Islam that I have now was formed out of a defense for it.

Caught My Eye: Muslimah Media Watch

Muslimah Media Watch gives a great perspective on voices that are not often allowed to speak in either Western or global media: Muslim women. They bring together broad opinions about representation with very focused stories on the impact of decisions by governing bodies on Muslim women (such as FIFA's treatment of the Iranian womens' soccer team). They represent voices from American patriots and Bangladeshi students alike. This blog gives a broad and informative look at Muslim women, and it is created both by and for them.

Here are three of my favorite posts:
Why Did Tom MacMaster Choose to be “A Gay Girl” Blogging from Damascus?

The Ghettoization of Begumpura Neighborhoods

The Sensational Story That Wasn’t: Reports Of ‘Stoning’ Death Of Ukrainian Girl Turn Out To Be False

Want some more media to digest? Check out more of the Caught My Eye series.

Denim and Black Cloth: Feminism and Female Expression

Last week, I talked about my position on skin-lightening creams. Even as I wrote that post, I was bursting with contradictions. Some include:

Is it a woman's right to do that to her body?*
Are people using these products uninformed about the consequences and the societal expectations informing their choices? If not, what makes them choose to use it?
And, most importantly: Are fashion choices sanctioned by feminism, even when they are considered destructive?

Thinking of fashion from a feminist perspective is a tricky feat. There are feminists on both sides of the burqa debate; there are those that find mini-skirts and booty shorts just as offensive or progressive. In many senses, fashion can be liberating or constricting.

As we go into a season where people come out of their thick layers and begin using their clothing to express all different messages, I want to explore this single question:

How does feminism intersect with fashion and what are the consequences?

More after the jump.

*I know that men also use skin-lightening creams, but for the purposes of this post I would like to restrict it to women.

Discrimination and Mixed Metaphors

In light of some intellectual talk over this weekend, I have been thinking a lot about how discrimination works in our society. I believe that it comes from mixed metaphors.

Have you ever thought about how stereotypes form? Typically, they come about because of a categorization projected from the majority group to the minority, regardless of how large that minority might actually be (i.e. these are women, these are Muslims, these are fat people). It doesn't matter how diverse this group is, their traits in the perception of the viewer are seen as generalized - a fat person is always unhealthy, a Muslim person is always religiously dogmatic, a woman is always a nurturer.
These stereotypes eventually get mixed up with our value judgments of the terms that the majority group has attached to them; since Americans view unhealthy as bad, religious dogmatism (other than in Christian sects) as a threat, and nurturing as a positive, but weak personality trait, we start churning out reductionist terms and mixed metaphors.

- A fat person is bad. A fat person can be compared to someone who is stupid because they don't have the capacity to maintain their health.
- A Muslim will support terrorism because of their religious dogmatism. That is bad. We are threatened by all Muslims.
- Women are weak and therefore are relegated to their role in the house because that's the only place they will be safe.

See the logic here? Even if you are not in the majority group, you are exposed to these mixed metaphors and internalize them. These ideas of what is "bad" and "good" are then projected onto situations where they make absolutely no sense. We start to run wild with our metaphors and they ultimately have us making claims that we ourselves don't agree with. For instance, I am all three of these categories: an overweight (fat), Muslim woman. Would you make the leap in logic when talking to me that I am a domestic nurturer who is religiously dogmatic, supports terrorism, and am too stupid to take care of my health?

Even if you have not met me, these conclusions seem a little harsh to be drawn from a first encounter. But these ideas are rooted so deep that they envelop us everywhere, and when we make general statements even pointing towards them, we are hurting people. Think of how many times you see fatness compared to stupidity in the media, for example, and you will understand how prevalent it is. Even if we may not see ourselves making those connections, they are there and they influence us.

So, am I saying that we need to rid ourselves of metaphors entirely? No, of course not. Metaphors can be a helpful tool in explaining complex social situations. But I believe that people do not monitor themselves nearly as much as they should when their construction of these metaphors is at hand. Essentially, they play into the stereotypes that surround us and hurt certain groups. I ask that everyone try to watch their metaphors and logical conclusions before putting them out there.

What do you think? Does discrimination come from mixing metaphors or is there another factor involved here? How would you check metaphors? Would you? Let me know.

You may also be interested in reading my opinion articles The South Asian Question and Oops, Your Islamophobia is Showing.

Oops, Your Islamophobia is Showing

(Muslim and proud.)

I have not written about a contentious argument this month, but there are some things that just push my buttons. I am a routine reader of Salon.com's Broadsheet, and recently they posted up an article about Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping and how her captor used a veil to keep her secreted away. But my quarrel is not with the article itself, which generally presented the issue in a fair and balanced light. My issue is with the commenters.
Why is it that whenever Islam is presented, in any light, people find it their mission to bring up their own prejudices and ignorance? Commenters, in responding to the idea that Smart did not take her veil off in the presence of a male police officer who was on the case, make statements like "Any religion that requires its ordinary practitioners to wear a uniform is inherently fascistic and undeserving of respect or tolerance" (Nebris)? Can we please call out McDonalds and Wendy's for their uniform-mandating fascistic tendencies then?
And let me unpack that statement a little further, not because this commenter needs to be singled out, but because their reaction was reiterated multiple times and I have seen it in too many places - especially when discussing veiling.
This comment shows an inherent ignorance about Islam in that 1. it makes the case that all Muslim women are required to wear the same garb, 2. it puts the commenter on a higher plane of authority than 1.6 billion people, and 3. compares Islam to a political concept of fascism that has inherent social implications in that it spurs memories of WWII oppression.
Clearly, this comment is not meant to add any ideas to the conversation, and for so many people to be making the same insensitive remarks, it makes me both angry and makes me worry about my safety. I do not want to meet someone who has these views out on the street.

I'd much rather we take on our discomfort with certain practices by gathering information about them before blasting off ideas that make the internet (and our world) feel more unsafe and more hateful than it really should be. On Salon, I thank VanessaG (another commenter) for setting some of the misconceptions straight. She tells us: 1. the image Salon used is of a niqab, not a burqa, 2. the rules of modesty only apply around men not related to the woman and offers that a female officer could have been brought in to investigate, 3. police officers should have training to understand what to do in this situation, and 4. a blond, blue-eyed girl can be just as Muslim as a black-haired, brown-eyed girl. Remember that 1.6 billion? We come in just as many variations as Christians or anyone else.

Check out Muslims Wearing Things if you want to see some beautiful examples of "Muslims dressed in their garb" (a.k.a. business suits, t-shirts, salwaar kameez, and anything else they want to)

You may also enjoy reading my opinion piece Discrimination and Mixed Metaphors.

The Tired Artist

This peacock's name is Phil.

As of today, I have returned to the fold of college students. With classes and books and other nonsensical ideas such as program filing for next semester (although the website is mysteriously lacking in functional ways to do this). Overall, the last two weeks have gone by with a blur of intensity that just left me unable to write for days!
But now, alas, it is NaNoWriMo and I have to remedy my lethargic writer's state with 1667 words per day [I started two days late, so I have to catch up, but hey, it happens]. For now, I am taking a procrastination break to record down past events for tangible reincarnation.

Last Saturday marked my 18th birthday, so I am now technically a legal adult. With no job and a hefty sum of debt. I can see how our economy has tanked so badly; we imbue even our youngest adults with this overwhelming sense of lack. But, aside from that, everything went fantastically! I partied it up with my friends, got a Halloween costume (a week early, obviously) and ate cookie cake with whipped cream until sickness set in. It was a memorable evening.
When we got back, four girls conked out on my floor, reminding me of the days when the Sixth Floor Legends were all plopped into one room, struggling for space on a thin slice of floor... ah, the good old times. I can't believe I did work after that - we had school for an entire week and I can't seem to remember any part of it except talking to people about wanting to go dancing again. And having random intimate conversations in the middle of the night (isn't that what college is all about?)

Preparation for the weekend was an exercise in separation anxiety; I hadn't realized how much Barnard felt like home until my dad showed up on Thursday and started marveling about how I now live on my own... similarly, when we finally packed up our bags and headed out to New Jersey, it was a strange feeling to be leaving campus for a longer period of time. I guess the converse wasn't any better - Molli tells me that staying on campus was pretty dull (as expected with everyone flocking to their corners of the earth), but the feeling still remained.
When we did leave the city, I was immersed in Bangla. Culture, food, everything. People in our culture often don't mind if you "crash a party" (as my dad would say), so we ended up at a commemoration for a man who had died two years previous through friend-of-a-friend contacts. Many people were there, not only to pray but to enjoy great food (goat!) and chat with their colleagues. Sometimes my thoughts fly away with me on these trips, however, so I started asking my dad awkward questions about what he would want us to do when he died. He waved me away, told me to eat some more goat curry, and yet the thought still remains in my head. It shows me, somewhat, that I don't know much about Bangla culture. I feel now that I need to learn before I speak again.
As we piled into the car with Moushir and his family, I began getting the third degree about not calling in two months... this is another Bengali context, of course (we always want to be in communication). There's no escaping the guilt of not feeding back to your community; you lack the words other than "I was busy" and that just makes you sound like a snob. Hmm...
However, each time we head over to my dad's friends, we are treated exceptionally well. My first trip to Philly was the next day with Ashraf and his family. We saw the Liberty Bell and some historic sights, ate Philly cheese steak, and [most importantly] Da and his friends talked about the past.
I have, since last year, thought about writing a biography of my dad. His misadventures, even if never published, make up an amazing story that I would like to preserve. Why not, right? But now I see that others in our community have similarly interesting stories. So, though I will start small with my dad, I think I will progress to write on their stories as well. Time will tell me how that goes on - especially with NaNo right now - but I think it would be an amazing compilation of a different type of immigrant story. We'll see.
The point is, while my dad was here, I realized yet again that there are so many interesting things that your parents just don't discuss with you. Entire generations pass on without their histories recorded. On the train back to New York, my dad and I started talking about life and death again (because, as he said, Bengalis are always "solving world issues" - through talking endlessly about them) and, although I hope that my father has another 40 years under his belt (Insh'Allah), it is pertinent to be uncovering bit by bit what hasn't been learned yet.

So, my weeks were somewhat philosophical and somewhat racy, but positive and negative equaled out in a sense. I am never ordering clams again without asking about cookedness [they served them raw] and I am no longer going to eat that much candy corn [guh]. Those were parts of my young self doing it's thing. But I am going to "listen to my elders" as every text would say and know now that living on my own in New York City is where I need to be right now. Is that my old self? Well, it's coming along.

Check out some more posts featuring my photography.

Songs On Repeat

This place has gotten so comfortable that I'm playing music over and over again in my head and singing it out loud at random intervals. I think I've become slightly creepy.
I know that I always take the time to tout the merits of being here, but I've just realized that there is always something to do here - and to a person who has to be chronically busy, that's a good thing.
Anyway, enough about the merits of Barnard, I am going to write a series of Snapshots of New York in order to profess my happenings here in easily digestible bites. Yeah, that's my inner newscaster.
1. My all-time favorite. We were buying dresses at a local stand and there was a Muslim black woman speaking with a black man; she was outfitted in traditional garb but her voice was definitely characteristic of the American black person. They were discussing women's rights - peacefully! I always hear things about conflict between people: Christians don't understand Muslims, they are automatically targeting each other's faults, making everything seem horrible when it's just different... But they were just talking about how people don't understand that women choose to be under the hijab and that there is respect, not oppression, in that culture. It just made me smile and feel as if there is hope for the world.
2. When we were lost in Harlem (or Washington Heights - we got on a train and went uptown and I don't know from there) it was very scary and there were mobs of shady people and trash [a real 'experience' from a suburban girl who hasn't really met the inner-city (thank God for brown skin!)] However, amidst it all, as Amy and I were walking down we overheard a conversation with a guy and his daughter. He was telling her a story about autistic children and how they have problems; the girl was very small, and so she asked questions. He said that there were people in the world who just didn't give up on them and they improved: his last line was "Don't ever give up on anybody."
3. Walking around Time Square, there are throngs of people. Hawkers selling things on the street, vendors selling halal hot dogs and other tidbits for reasonable prices, Indian-run souvenir shops with long lines of tourists. I think that the bright lights get to you sometimes; you watch up and not down and that's where you get your purse stolen. But I think that the nightlife is what really appeals to me - a short subway ride away there is an all-night party and no one can stop it.
4. These same subway rides, every once in a while, produce something else entirely. From the most innocuous (such as a man singing gospel songs in order to gain a little spare cash) to the most saddening (a one-eyed beggar who could barely speak asking for donations), it is always a different ride. There were kids selling candy for a dollar each so that they could get some money; there were pierced people and cut people just laughing along as they rode downtown... Our friend even got trapped outside the train as we laughed and waited for him at the next stop. It really is a 'snapshot' to take any subway train.

Now that I've gone on way too long, I just wanted to note that there is something different everywhere you turn. No matter where you're going or what you're doing, it's the experience that you're living for - and there's an experience every minute.
We are going to jam-pack our last two weeks here.

Read more posts about my awesome Barnard pre-college experience.
You may also be interested in reading about what happened when I started attending Barnard for college.