Samhain

If you have seen Darth Vader, Mary Queen of Scots, Professor Dumbledore and Wonder Woman walking hand-in-hand, chances are that you witnessed a group of kids heading to a Halloween costume-party (or a hallucination thanks to your funny smoking habits).

Halloween, celebrated on October 31^st, is marked with elaborate festivities in many countries. In Pakistan, there is a rising inclination towards anything “foreign”. Naturally, Halloween-themed parties are becoming quite the fad with every youngster feeling “hip” at simply the prospect of an invite.

When Sameer told his parents he was headed to IBA’s Welcome Party for the Batch of 2015, they refused to believe him. The reason was that he was dressed as the Joker, with his face painted white, his eyes hollows of dark kohl and his lips the vibrant red of blood. Without explaining, and cackling madly to add to the effect, Sameer left the house, leaving an air of mystery behind.

The reason Sameer did not bother to explain to his parents that he was headed to a Halloween costume-party was because he knew his parents believed it to be a Christian tradition (one not to be followed by devout Muslims) and clarifying the misconception would have taken hours.

Most of us are under the same misconception.

Halloween is actually a secular tradition, dating back more than 2,000 years to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. In U.K. and France, the Celts celebrated the New Year on November 1^st to mark the end of the summer harvest and the beginning of winter. It was believed that on this night, the ghosts of the dead returned to Earth and their presence allowed the priests to make predictions regarding the future. To celebrate this occasion, bonfires were built, animal sacrifices were made and the Celts dressed up in costumes. When the Romans conquered the Celts, they combined Samhain with two of their own festivals. By the time Christianity’s influence had spread to the region, the Church had to sanction November 1^st to be celebrated as “All Souls’ Day” (to honor the dead) in order to replace the Celtic holiday with one of their own. The All Souls’ Day celebration was also called All-Hallows, and the night before the celebrations began (i.e. October 31^st) came to be known as All-Hallows Eve, and later, Halloween. The American version of Halloween included “play-parties”, characterized by sharing ghost stories and mischief-making. To commercialize the concept of Halloween, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go “trick-or-treating”. Because of these developments, Halloween lost its religiosity and became the nation’s second largest commercial holiday.

While Sameer enjoyed the Welcome Party, he feels confident assuming his parents would not be happy with his explanation and would question him on his eagerness to celebrate “Christian” holidays more than the upcoming Eid-ul-Azha.

Young Man of 24

Sameer had been pacing like a caged tiger in his room for over an hour and was beginning to feel hot in his cotton kurta-shalwar. Having no prior experience in such matters, he wondered how the next hour would unfold; his mind raced over the possibilities.

When he heard a vehicle approach, Sameer repeated his ritual of rushing to his first-floor room window to observe the make & model of the car. He peered down to see a white Margalla stealthily inch forward and stop right before the protruding black gate of his house. For an inexplicable reason, the Top Gun anthem started playing in Sameer’s head.

They had arrived.

Four people descended from the car: an uncle with a white beard, an aunty wearing large gold bangles that glittered in the sunlight, another aunty clad in a sari and a young man of 24 years of age in a sharply-pressed suit.

Sameer ran to his sisters’ room. Sabina was helping Sadia get ready for the show-and-tell. As Sameer proclaimed, “They are here”, the doorbell rang. Sadia nodded in resolution, looking much less nervous than Sameer felt.

When Sameer entered the drawing-room, his father had already started debating Imran Khan’s politics with the uncle and his mother was already discussing tomato prices with the two aunties. This gave Sameer the opportunity to scrutinize the young man of 24. He was well-built and well-educated, having done his M.B.B.S from the same university Sadia was in, Dow Medical College. Sameer knew the basics of what Aaliya aunty (Sameer’s mother’s friend who had set up the rishta) had told the family the previous evening, but that was obviously the golden side of the toast. Sameer was searching for the blackened, burnt side. Did he do drugs? Did he have a girlfriend? Did he eat naswar? Did he pick his nose in public? Sensing Sameer’s eye on him, the young man of 24 attempted to make polite conversation. Sameer replied warily, not willing to approve of the guy easily.

Over the next few minutes, as the conversation turned towards the families, the real agenda of the night was set in motion. The aunty in the sari began lauding her nephew in not-so-subtle words. She even hinted at the vast number of rishtas he was apparently receiving from beautiful girls all over Karachi.

As Sadia and Sabina entered the room with refreshments Sameer kept his eyes on the young man of 24, who had started ogling his sisters. Feeling uncomfortable, Sameer offered him a samosa.

As the aunties began grilling Sadia with questions, Sameer couldn’t help but feel proud of his sister for handling the situation well. He on the other hand, was still waiting suspiciously for the first wrong move by the opposing party. Aaliya aunty had warned the family that rishta-walas deliberately visited the washroom on some pretext to see its cleanliness, purposefully asked the girl-in-question to show her skill in the kitchen and intentionally arrived just before Maghrib to see if the girl was sufficiently religious to excuse herself for prayers. The formula proved undeniable: the aunty in the sari claimed she was staying off sugar (which in all honesty, she needed to do) and asked Sadia to make another cup of tea for her. The uncle asked to be led to the washroom so he could perform ablution for Maghrib prayers.

3 points for the Margalla team.

After prayers, the families sat down to some serious business. Sameer sensed a perceptible change in the air but didn’t understand it until the aunty with the gold bangles started interrogating Sabina. Sameer saw his parents exchange a worried look. The uncle stepped in boldly to claim that their son liked Sabina not Sadia. This announcement was met with stunned silence, though given his way, Sameer would have responded with some excellent abusive words. Sameer’s mother signaled him to take his sisters upstairs.

When he returned, the room was thick with tension. Sameer’s mother was explaining that Sabina was just 16 years old and not ready for marriage, while Sadia was ready to get engaged. He did not approve of the pleading in her voice. Sameer’s father turned to his wife and said, “We don’t need to send our daughter to a house where she was a second choice”. Sameer felt proud of his father in that moment. With nothing left to say, the Margalla team hid their faces and scurried away.

Game. Set. Match.

What Will Your Obituary Say? - Part II

Imagine what your obituary will say. That’s who “you” are.

Or is it?

                

In one class with the aforementioned teacher, while discussing the compartmentalization of knowledge that man does today to specialize in one particular field of interest, the question arose of who Man really is and whether meaning should be derived from the material life.

Compartmentalization of knowledge has created a breed of human beings indistinguishable from their field of specialization. Thus, a doctor has no meaning in life other than the one he derives from his job. A banker has no sense of being other than the one she obtains from her daily work. A newscaster does not know anything other than reading out transcribed news; a chef’s life is defined by the food he prepares.

Sameer and his peers have already started identifying themselves with their chosen fields of interest. Sameer intends to major in Finance and therefore, all his activities are garnered towards this field. Once the transformation is complete, Sameer would come to identify himself solely with his profession. If asked to describe himself, Sameer would use the terms “intelligent financial analyst” or perhaps “calculated risk-taker”. Either way, who Sameer is becomes contingent on his specialization.

The alternate is to view oneself as the creation of a supra-human entity. For a Muslim, this entity is Allah. But are we truly absorbed by the essence of religion? Evidence suggests that today’s life calls for a separation of religion from the core existence i.e. religion is used simply to add cosmetic beauty to one’s material life.

Sameer can already see this happening in himself and his colleagues. Religion has been shunned as a secondary aspect of survival. Communication with God is reserved for moments of pain and suffering. Prayers are conducted automatically five times a day without understanding the meaning behind the Ruku, the Sajda and the Salam. The mentality is that if one is religious, one cannot hope to survive in the business world. Consequently, who “Sameer” is cannot be fully explained via religion; Sameer is lost in translation.

Sameer’s obituary will not describe him, rather his achievements (or lack thereof) in life because that’s how he appears in front of the world. His thoughts and emotions become irrelevant. Such an existence is naturally caustic to happiness. Increasingly, humans are becoming psychologically challenged as the world is fragmented into smaller niches, each niche attempting to understand life but being unable to do so on its own. As a result, Man is unable to understand life and is stuck questioning the point of it all.

On the one hand, Sameer feels lucky to be able to think this way, to question and to attempt to understand his own existence. On the other, he feels lost in the cosmos of this life, stuck between materialism, religion and oblivion unable to even describe himself.

What Will Your Obituary Say? - Part I

While no one expects to come across intellectual thought on a social networking website, Sameer did, while gliding through Facebook. He stumbled across a surprisingly pensive status-update from someone on his friend-list. It read: “If you can read this, you should thank your teachers”.

Few people in the world are blessed with the opportunity of acquiring formal education and fewer of these few truly gain the benefits of a first-rate one.  In moments of clarity, Sameer can envisage his life being molded by the schooling he has had. Sometimes at night, in the few minutes before sleep engulfs his brain, deep thought captivates him and he cannot help but be grateful for all that he has been taught over the years.

In Physics, Sameer remembers being told that the atom can be broken down into its constituents, the electron, the proton and the neutron. In Micro-Economics, he recalls marveling at the negative income elasticity of inferior goods. In Ethics, Sameer learned to appreciate the beauty of John Rawls’ theory of justice behind the “veil of ignorance” and in English Literature, he understood the irony in Twelfth Night, where Feste, the “Fool”, is the wisest character in the play.

With time, some of these concepts erode or are replaced by new ones, but some remain with the student forever. Concepts that stand the test of time do so because of how they were taught.

Some of the more peculiar teachers and their eccentricities remain etched in Sameer’s memory. He will never forget the teacher who doesn’t teach and instead, keeps smiling at the class, making everyone feel uncomfortable. He will also remember the teacher who treated the class to “funny” brownies one day. However, the teachers he will remember most are those who have left a mark on him because of what they bring to the class with them.

In the current semester, Sameer has come across one such teacher; a brilliant man who cultivates interest in the subject by adopting a teaching style that captures students’ attention and by allowing students to think for themselves and raising questions about the meaning of existence, life and religion. The said teacher could take the easy route by assigning readings and taking exams on rote-learning but he chooses not to do so. Instead, the classes are designed to stimulate realization. Sameer manages to not only stay awake in the classroom, but also ponder over sensitive topics.

Normally, the teacher begins class by asking each student a question that delves into the inner thoughts and feelings of Man. For instance, “if there was an earthquake, what is the one thing you would save?”. The reality is that Man would save other human beings.

Another question he asked was “who are you?”. Seemingly obvious, this question is the hardest to answer. Is who “you” are how you see yourself or how the world defines you? Sameer believes it’s the latter.

Man is defined by others based on what they see and perceive. Existence is shrouded by the appearances one keeps. Therefore, how people view you is not who you really are. You are described by your profession and lifestyle rather than by what you think and how you feel.

Imagine what your obituary will say. That’s who “you” are.