Noorah.

In the silence, I await my destiny. I look around. Of course, it is not there. The clock. Sun is casting its spell at the fullest but there is the warmth rather than the heat. Around 3:30 PM, I thought. An hour more.

The month of August had always been busy for my family. My father and brothers got occupied with threshing and selling the bags of crops in the town’s whole sale market. I, my mother and younger sisters would help them separating hay and storing rice and spices to last for the year. Last August, there were no rains. The crops dried and the family’s food supply was cut by half. It was a difficult time. I, a widow aged 32 living at my father’s house, was an added mouth to feed. Then that day..

Jemal, the youngest of the siblings had wandered to the other side of the river in search of Jamuns. The Jamun trees were across the river that separated the two villages. Three days after this incident, a huge party of blood thirsty villagers came from the other side to the Chaupal. My father and brothers were called by Sherwan. 

After my husband died, I had stayed with my parents for the last 20 years until Jemal was accused of stealing Jamuns by the Pathans on that rainless August morning. Revenge meant blood. For a dozen Jamuns they were ready to kill him. But Jemal was to live and see the next August.

A useless widow of no value saved her brother’s life in a flesh trade between the respected families of both the villages. I sit here awaiting my rape which my family had forced me to accept and hence save the younger son’s life. 

The smell of alcohol, several red eyes and Pan stained teeth are now approaching their prey.

She is the one

She is the one!!

It’s difficult to actually describe her in words
As dedicated as a teacher and as independent as birds
From morning to noon and noon to night
she has taken care of all our fights!


From the day I was born to the day I will live
She has always followed the philosophy of ‘Give’
Never has she desired anything other than joy
even those, solely for her girl and her boy.

Her wants and desires were last and the least..
all her prayers centered on protecting us from the beast.
All our sorrows always evaporated, and we did not where
we even didn’t know that they were deposited in her share.

We are her stars, we are her life
she even considered mother above 'The Wife'.
to see a smile on whose faces she worked day and night
balancing those spectacles and her week eye sight

When I studied in the night ,I wasn’t  alone ever
there was always that hand guiding me forever
happy for my success and sad when I failed
she never showed her tears but alone she wailed.

The woman who requires a special mention of praise
those silent eyes, peaceful mind and loving gaze
This is to the woman I love, admire and respect
whose dedication even the almighty cant suspect
to the world she may be just another,
but to me she is the one I call MY MOTHER!!!

Dedicated to my mother. Love you ma. Part of Blogadda ‘Memories, Conversations and Incidents withmy Mom’ contest.

Distances apart though we are, our hearts are nowhere close to far..

Internet@Mobile Phone - fun and much more

My mobile phone connects me with the world. Internet is indeed fun on it.

Early Morning hours:

The alarm goes beep-beep-beep and repeating the sequence of events I open up a sleepy eye and look for my cell phone. While switching the alarm, I see a couple of outlook messages (my messages from work). Scanning through them I realize that there is no time for that extra 14.85 minutes sleep today as I have a meeting schedule for 9:30 AM. Lazily I drag myself out of bed but I don’t forget to kick my sleeping partner (my husband :D) at the same time.

‘Ahh.. WTF. What time is it?’

‘It 7:45.. I have a morning meeting so you better wake up..’

‘Ok, wake me up at 7:55..’. It’s the same every time. I don’t forget to thank the mobile internet providers for this boon that made me NOT miss this meeting today and move on with the day’s chores.

Almost morning hours:

‘The damn GPS.. I told you to buy a better one. How am I supposed to know where this new office is exactly located? I have no freaking clue about the driveway.’

‘Could you please reach out in your pocket and take out that flashing phone on which you spend hours talking to your mother and use it for a better purpose this time. Go to BING maps.. ‘

And we did reach on time to the new office.

On the way back home

The gasoline level on the screen was going nearer to ‘E’ by each moment.

‘I will turn to a gas station..’

I replied’ why there is so much gas still.. why do you want to waste my time..’

‘It showing ‘E’.’

‘Oh, I thought ‘E’ was meant for Enough..’

He kept on laughing the whole way while I searched on Car-Pal app on my phone that gave us directions for the nearest Gas station where I could also understand ‘E’ meant ‘Empty’L.

  

Weekend planning:

I said ‘Why .. Why can’t we go for Picnic in the Marymoor Park this weekend? I know because you want to sit at home and watch the match (The Cricket Match: X) for the whole day.’

I so wanted to go for this picnic from the past few days. I had been planning for long and now all of a sudden because India reached the finals of the tournament, we had to stay home. This was not done.

‘It’s not because of the match only.. .’ with special emphasis on ONLY! ‘Look at the weather predictions.’

I checked my mobile phone and checked the weather app. I Binged to make sure the app was giving an accurate result and there it was saying ‘Heavy rains from early hours to late evening on Saturday!’

Beaten again L

At the theatre watching ‘Hunger games’

I went to watch Hunger Games (it’s a movie based upon a novel of the same name) recently with a friend of mine. There is something about the air conditioning system in the theatres. Though I hate to admit this but the water rush combined with the cool covering of air works in good collaboration with my internal system to lure me at least once towards the restroom. This phenomenon often attacks before the interval of the movie. So, yet gain I was sitting there all huddled, counting minutes to the interval- break and with trying to vaguely follow the story line.

She said ‘Go, hurry ..’

‘What, I don’t want to miss the movie. I think something drastic is going to happen to District 13 now.’

‘Nothing is going to happen. The movie will be slow from now to about 6.5 minutes. Go run..’

How do you know?

She showed me this app Runpee on her mobile. For details of how this app works and what is it for (however you must have guessed till nowJ), I will let you BING it.

10 minutes later, the people from District 13 in the movie were still alive and I was waiting for something drastic to happen with the relaxed look on my face. 

As I came out of the movie, we were in Dilemma where to have the lunch. We were trying to remember whether there is an Indian Kebab restaurant nearby. Local Scout came to our rescue. I instantly took out my phone and a tab on ‘Local Scout’ not only told me the restaurant I was looking for more but 3 more Indian restaurants nearer to the place we were at that moment.

Life seems to be so easy and better when you have a real friend that connects you to everything you need at the right moment. Internet is not just fun it’s so much needed to make my life easy and manageable. These are just some of the examples of how internet@mobile helps me solve my issues while driving, out of home or at a place without a PC.Ocourse, there is social netwroking - facebook, twitter, gmail, hotmail, skype and what not.

I love the moments when I am on way back home in the bus and talk to my mother on skype. Had it been possible without the phone and the internet on it. Never. 

In fact, this article has been partly written on my way back home from a busy day at work on my mobile :)

Want to have some fun and make life easy for you: Checkout what Vodafone is offering: www.vodafone.in/fun.