Privation

 

Ramadan means many things to me. One of them is an annual look at my relationship with my body. Every year, it opens with really intense caffeine withdrawal. For the first few days, my head feels twice as heavy, and I try to beat drowsiness all day. The cold-turkey absence of caffeine and reduced sleep combines with hunger and thirst to make you feel like a shell of yourself. Every year I feel the same confrontation: how much of my daily life is made possible only because I have a young and able body that I can push to certain limits. I anticipated the caffeine withdrawal this year and quit coffee more than a week in advance. It did make the beginning easier; my head felt lighter and I was not as drowsy. Ramadan still follows a relatively similar pattern for me every year. The first few days shock the body, it cannot understand why it is being deprived of things it expects on the day to day. Mentally, it takes almost no toll. I always used to joke that the energy that comes during Ramadan is delivered straight from Allah. Normally, one skipped meal or a day following inadequate sleep feels unbearable. Sometimes even knowing lunch will be delayed by a few hours will have me thinking about it the whole time. But during Ramadan, these things stop occupying your brain completely.

Another thing that takes time to get used to is finding moderation after sunset. For years on end, I found myself gaining weight during Ramadan. Not only was I eating enough to make up for the several hours of fasting, I was spending Ramadan eating more food than I did in other months. There are many ways to explain. Earlier when I lived with family in Kuwait, it was quite straightforward. It is a month where everyone is trying to feed each other, there are so many iftar parties all the time. But it continued beyond this period. I was putting weight on even fasting in my university where they made no arrangements to facilitate fasting. It prompts one to question their relationship with food, especially when the idea of (even temporary) privation is introduced. I would not call it simply a self-control problem. If it were, it would not be limited to Ramadan. It feels more like a negotiation with the concept of timed and deliberate deprivation. As if I were a camel with the capacity to prevent the effects of thirst and hunger by consuming extra beforehand. It does not work like that, of course. Iftar approaches each day, and I am hungry no matter what.

Fasting also strikes me as the most secular amongst the pillars of Islam. Secular not as the opposite of religious, but secular in the sense that it is less an act of faith than an omission ‘of’ it. You cannot look at a person and determine that he is fasting, as you can with a person who is praying or paying Zakat. It is the most private amongst that acts that establish your relationship with God. At sunset each day, there is no one else who can be certain of just how honest the fast was.

I often ask myself why I hold on to this religion despite the many quarrels I have with it. Islam represents many things to me. It is a call to action, a lens for me to view the world, to feel the tinge of anger I do when I see injustice, and in many cases, the strongest influence on my moral compass. On that canvas, fasting occupies the biggest place. It is the clearest and most continuous way in which my commitment to faith survives. I fasted yesterday, I fast today, and inshallah, I will continue fasting tomorrow.

Ramadan

 

I remember describing 2022 as the worst Ramadan of my life. It was the first one back in college after covid. The summer was unbearable and the university (and mess) made no accommodations. Without any way to store food in the room, I was basically fasting most of the day. That passed, and every subsequent Ramadan was easier (each spent in a different part of the world). This year, I find myself back in this part of the country. The summer, of course, is not as advanced. But in every other respect, it is vying with 2022 for the title. One of the reasons I like holding on to this tradition is the feeling you get that you are participating in something universal. An incomprehensibly high number of people – maybe a billion – are engaged in fasting all over the world. But when you fast in Delhi – and when I fasted in Patiala – you could be forgiven for feeling like you were the only person fasting. In Delhi this is obviously untrue, but because I am not living in a visibly Muslim area, and working in a kind of institution that Muslims do not usually get to, I am surrounded by people who seem not to have the faintest idea that a season of fasting is ongoing. It makes a world of difference, the feeling of solidarity from knowing other people are doing the same thing. Despite living in a city with over 2 million Muslims, not even a suggestion of that makes its way to me.

This invisibilising of a large minority in social cultural and professional spaces is a major reason this city – and the country at larger – presents to me as a hostile space. I have one of the most common names in the world. And yet not a classmate or coworker I’ve had in this country shares it. I would also say something similar for being from Kerala, caveated by the fact that they’re a much smaller proportion of this country than Muslims, and still do find representation. But it adds to the feeling of not feeling represented by anything this country projects outwardly. I would not be any less represented in a different country. They might even be less hostile. I remember an occasion I had gone to the immigration authorities in the Netherlands to renew my residence permit. The civil servant on the other side was a Hijabi woman who when she noticed I had studied human right asked me what I thought about the ‘situation’ in Gaza. I was apprehensive about giving strong opinions to someone who held decision making power over whether I could remain in that country. She offered her own opinion first, perhaps in an attempt to be reassuring. It was a surreal experience for me; this clearly immigrant Muslim woman could find herself working in the immigration department. In India, you could travel far and wide and struggle to find a Muslim woman in government employ, headscarf or otherwise. The invisibilisation is so total and unquestioned. We just do not belong.

Don't Come Back

 

Below is the text of an email I sent to a dear friend recently, anonymised and posted here because it belongs in the same space as whatever the other posts represent - a structure of longing.

Dear [Friend 1]

I have been meaning to write this email for months. I’ve told you about it more than once; I’ve told myself many times more. I could not bring myself to do it till now. Sometimes because things got in the way, and others because it felt like a difficult thing to get started with. But today I started reading “The Book of Chameleons”. There is an email in the book which talks mostly about how much the author hates emails. He complains that starting something with “Hi” deprives us of the chance for elaborate greetings and goodbyes; the entire length of his email is shorter than salutations between two dear friends in real life. You know what it reminded me of? Our goodbyes outside your flat in Leiden. Can you imagine the state of your inbox if they had to be put down as emails? There is so much I miss of what I can – without qualification – call the happiest days of my life so far. The walkable city, the cozy cinemas, the absence of cow dung (and cows) on the street. But most of all, I miss having so many loved ones living within reach for the best part of a year.

You know that scene in The Office when Andy wishes there was a way to tell you were in the good old days while you were still living them? I knew I was in the good old days. I knew I would look back on it exactly as I do now. The last time I sent an email – the one addressed to all the mooties – I gave it the character of a goodbye because I knew the good old days were ending. [Friend 2] spends a lot of her time yearning for that brief moment of belongingness Leiden gave her. I get that so much. I despised my undergraduate course, I despise my life now. But during the LLM, I had just a glimpse of how good life can be, how you can be surrounded by love and affection in a way that does not feel suffocating. I went into the Netherlands never having cooked a meal in my life; less than a year later, I hosted friends on Eid (twice!). Just last week, postcards from [Friend 3] and [Friend 2] arrived from [Place 1] and [Place 2] to my village in Kerala. I don’t think a postcard will ever have taken those routes before. Having friends is one of life’s greatest blessings; having friends all over the world is truly indescribable.

I sometimes think about the fact that little trinkets I’ve given you are sitting in [Place 3] – a city I’ve never been to. Tomorrow I will wear to work a shirt that [Friend 4] and her mother picked out for me in [Place 4]. If someone remarks on the shirt, I can say “Oh thank you it’s from [Place 4]”. I cannot describe what it means to me, sitting here in the capital of misery. There is this beautiful Italian movie called ‘Cinema Paradiso’. It is set in a small Italian town. In trying to inspire a little kid to make the most of himself by leaving that little town, one of the main characters says “Don’t fall prey to nostalgia, leave here and never look back.” I don’t think I can follow his advice. I keep looking back: to Leiden, to being a student, to feeling happy and like I belonged. I know these are emotions I will feel again; they have to be. But when I do find a place and people, I know what they will have to measure up against, and I have a feeling they will come up short.

I don’t know what an email version of an awkward and abrupt ending is, but I am ending this by saying we will see each other again before we know it.

With love

Mishal  

 

hole

 

There was a period last year when a few friends would hop on call and play geoguessr together. While we were going through some neighbourhood in Switzerland, one of them remarked how so many of the places we saw were beautiful and it made him realise what a shithole we lived in. I could not even bring myself to laugh; he was just stating a fact. Every thing I do in this city is protect myself against it. An air purifier because the air is poison (a mask outdoors for the same reason), a water purifier because the water is poison, a VPN connection because things are banned arbitrarily, and so on and so forth.

How does a city – and by extension the country – become so hostile and inhospitable? There is a tweet I go back to often, some guy larping as Timothy Clifford said: “The purpose of life of an Indian is to escape India, it can either be done by leaving India physically or figuratively by shifting to a gated community. Once the Indian escapes India, India becomes the best country in the world & requires no improvement.” When I was house-hunting here last month, I found a real nice one-bedroom close to work at a decent rate. The broker tried to sign me up excitedly because I said yes almost immediately. He took one look at my ID and said sorry your name is going to be a problem. It is a story that surprises no one; even the well-meaning can do little more than say they are sorry this is how things are. But this is how things are. There’s no name purifier I can buy to account for your minds being poisoned. Why must I have place for a country that has no place for me?

 

Live Live

 

One time I was talking to a girl whose description of her work hours appeared nightmarish. When I remarked that it sounded awful, she confirmed that it was, but on the ‘bright side’ it was helping her ‘get to the end of the day’ really quickly. Like each day was something to dispose of. I was in awe of the fact that not only had she decided that her time was an encumbrance, she was also actively engaged in an occupation that did not allow room to think about it. A few months ago, a friend suggested that I read and reread the first chapter of Deleuze’s Nietzsche and Philosophy, saying that it would make me think about how one might live. It was a chapter he went back to often. I joked that it sounded like his Quran. It made me think about where I go (or have gone) to seeking answers to how one might live.

Yesterday, I remarked to another friend that I was more than the sum of the identities, and probably hated all of them (some more than others). That is something that definitely informs how I live. Every aspect of my identity is used pejoratively, both by me and against me. The other day my sister was disparaging how the British museum (and colonial logic) claims that by stealing artefacts from colonies, that actually ensured their security from the savage masses. I am not usually inclined to playing Devil’s Advocate, but living in a country where you cannot say with confidence that the Taj Mahal will survive the decade, it is difficult not to think they had a point. Imagine the Kohinoor if it was still in India.

So how might one live? Right now, I live by not correcting anyone who mishears my name as Vishal. Vishal offers safety and currency.  I eat less, lift less, smile less. I live as if this period is a a loading screen, waiting for real life to render. It makes me feel like Steinbeck’s quote about poor people under capitalism thinking of themselves as temporarily embarrassed billionaires. People without the capital to be who they actually are, but certainly expect to get there forthwith. To take comfort in telling yourself this is all temporary reminds me of another divine exhortation: to live with the knowledge that all of life is temporary.

So how might one live? Speaking of Steinbeck, I’m halfway through Grapes of Wrath. There is an idea he captures really well; that of everyone playing their part in service of a larger system whose machinations they’re not privy to let alone in control of. The incoherence is apparent to those on the receiving end. The people evicting the sharecroppers pin the blame on a faceless bank. “But the bank is made up of people,” reason the exasperated sharecroppers. They do not understand how an institution can evict them, leaving every person involved blameless in their immiseration. The giant evil killing machines would not work without a mass of people greasing the wheels, convincing themselves they are not part of the problem. They just want to be at brunch.

So how might one live? Was Ali Shariati right? What peace can one make with a world where a peaceful life for you can only come at the expense of the life and well-being of countless others? And if you are one of the others, is it incumbent on you to resist? Is it conscionable, rather, to seek a bridge to the other side knowing it cannot support the weight of everyone that might try to follow?

Might one live?

Allah is not obliged

 

“Allah is not obliged to be fair about all the things he does here on earth” says Birahima, before and after narrating a story that sees him end up a child soldier in multiple warring factions, brush with death repeatedly, and on at least one occasion, become a victim of sexual assault. It is his refrain throughout the book titled “Allah is not obliged”. The narrative is not particularly religiously inclined. The disinterested ‘Allah’ could just as well be another. What does it matter when referring to their lack of obligation anyway. The reason for this rationalization about Allah is self-evident in the novel. A benevolent god might look out for you, a cruel one might punish you in particular. But it is an indifferent, ‘un-obliged’ god that just lets life happen to you, and lets people hack each other to death without consequence.

The narrative is peppered with a number of refrains that Birahima keeps saying, evocative, almost, of ‘Brutus is an honourable man’. One is also reminded of Holden Caulfield at times during the novel, but Birahima’s sardonic resignation is graver and more total. He has witnessed (and presumable partaken in) incredible cruelty. He refers to himself as both blameless and beyond redemption. Almost everything he deals with is not something a child his age should be encumbered with. But Allah is not obliged to be fair about these things.  

I remember a quote from The Stranger about man being able to get used to anything. It might be something Mersault remembers his mother saying in prison. I have also seen a similar sentiment attributed to Dostoyevsky, maybe from the House of the Dead. They are right. Man can come to terms with anything. Like that meme of a guy visiting a girl’s apartment for the first time and remarking “damn b****, you live like this?”

During Christmas 2023, I was part of a small group of students ‘stuck’ in Leiden while everyone went away on holiday. We were shown around frat houses in the city by someone from the University’s well-being team; she happened to be a frat-house veteran herself. One of the party halls we entered was nearly impossible to breathe in owing to stench of beer on old wood. By her account, the odour had had over a century to take shape. While everyone on the tour turned into temporary mouth-breathers, our guide continued her narration unfazed. “I don’t smell anything out of the ordinary, to be honest”, she said. She was used to it. You can get used to anything.

In this city that is polluted like no other place in human history, people have the habit of sitting around log fires in the evening. The smell of incomplete combustion spreads in every direction, worsening conditions in a city already choking from the smoke. My solution is to shut every orifice and sit next to the air purifier, but people spend all evening sitting by that fire. You get used to anything.

Birahima mourns specific events in his ordeal. There are deaths that make him cry, other cruelties that make him feel pain. Finding out about the passing of his aunt – one he never met – brings him to tears. But he does not lament his general fate. Perhaps he does not know to; he has not acquired the vocabulary to express discontent at the fact that life is unavailable to him. He does not know to mind how unfairly life treats him. But is he unaware of the unfairness? If Allah is described as not obliged to be fair, it is because Birahima perceives unfairness. It is because he cannot explain to himself why blameless fearless Birahima falls from misfortune to misfortune. This is, nevertheless, a quickness in accepting his fate that cannot be expected of adults harbouring hopes and dreams.

I spent most of reading time at the back end of last year on Dostyevsky. It was motivated for the most part by that Baldwin quote about how Dostoyevsky makes you realise the things you are going through today are not that different from what people were suffering a hundred years ago. “This is a very great liberation for the suffering, struggling person, who always thinks that he is alone. This is why art is important,” says Baldwin. As someone who lives through life expecting and treating most unwelcome experiences (and they are mostly unwelcome experiences) as penance, I found myself relating deeply with Dostoyevsky’s characters. As one of the last great conservative intellectuals, it is very clear from his protagonists that his idea of how one might live is inextricable from suffering. This suffering often appears to be in service of a calling greater than oneself, but I think one could be forgiven for thinking Prince Myshkin believes meaning inheres in suffering. He certainly thought himself obliged to suffer. I would argue he thought it increased his virtue. And he (not unlike myself), would be unable to articulate why so much penance was due. What made him start from a diminished sense of self-worth? I think I can answer for myself; I can theorize, at least. I am a collection of ‘lesser than’ identities. Whenever I am Indian, I am punished for it. Whenever I am Muslim, I am punished for it. Whenever I am Muslim in India, I am punished beyond measure for it. A name and papers that will follow me without my ever having asked for them. But Allah is not obliged to be fair about everything, and to quote poor Birahima “The same goes for me. I’m not obliged to tell my dog’s-life-story. So I’m going to stop for today.”

In the Country of Almost Men

I just finished reading In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar. Narrated from the perspective of a child whose father is hounded by Gaddafi’s security state, a decade on from the revolution. While going through the reviews of ‘The 400 Blows” on Letterboxd, I came through one saying they wanted to beat up every adult in the movie. Something similar could be said of this book, especially in relation to how everyone treats Suleiman. No one bothers to explain to him what is going on. Even at the end of the book, when his mother determines he should spend the rest of his childhood outside Libya, he is put on a plane without being told there is no return journey scheduled.

Suleiman is not the only child whose eyes the story is told through. His mother (who is only 24 for most of the story) is in the habit of getting inebriated at night and telling Suleiman all about her own childhood, including the ‘dark’ day when – at 15 – she was forced to marry his father. We see, even from the perspective of a 9-year-old Suleiman, all he wishes he could do is go back in time and liberate his teenage mother from this fate. He wonders what hopes and dreams that girl might have had, and how all of that was relegated in his interest – the child she did not want. Suleiman takes particular exception to his mother using the collective ‘you’ pronoun to include both him and his father when frustrated, making him complicit in the excesses of his father.

Reading through a narrative of living under dehumanising repression in Libya is personally interesting. I am not unaware of the iron grip that Gaddafi or any strongman in anti-imperialist states would have had to maintain on the local population. His eventual toppling and the fate of Libya since speaks for itself, but it does not invalidate the very real suffering inflicted on many undeserving people over several decades. I saw a meme recently that went something like “Arab political thought is like: I don’t care that he murdered your uncle, that man was a fucking lion”. There is not insignificant truth to that. Internal repression has often been necessary in statecraft for everyone trying not to regime changed for not bowing down to imperial interests. The cruel fate of many a leader of the decolonisation era speaks to this. Some, like Lumumba, did not even get to have a dignified burial. Gaddafi did not either. A story like that really makes me question everything. That political action is possible without causing suffering is a liberal fantasy that falls flat under any scrutiny. But to be confronted with that, over and over, both globally and domestically, is incredibly disillusioning. It asks of you, more or less, to choose between the limited upward mobility (and chance to escape) that your socio-economic condition grants or to stay and fight, risking the little autonomy that education and property has earned you. The currency of clean language and perfectly creased shirts has always represented, for me, a ticket out of here. But it is also true that it allows for an elevated voice – and an easy target – to rail against injustice. But there is cowardice in my hopes and dreams – Slooma’s mother wins in the end, she is the one who comes closest to getting what she wants. She is the first one to choose conformance.