9/11 24/7
Nine Eleven Twenty Four Seven
Hello there…
New York was getting ready for a year 5 of 9/11.I still remember myself all geared up to leave on 9/11/2001 from Boston. I go down, desperately wanting to leave the Huntington apartment , The Greenhouse and there’s a clerk right there looking at my face in wonder, asking me to return upstairs and check the news. He tells me in clear terms: two birds have hit the World Trade Center…go back to your apartment, lady. Well, the lady did go back to Apartment ND-6 and watched the whole episode being played and replayed and replayed over and over again…along with her 5 year old, Sharaf. Sharaf and I were both packed and ready to go back home. We had both done our share and we couldn’t have done better with a heart failure. All we needed was rest. Boston certainly wasn’t the place that allowed rest. Boston was only quick trips to Emergency, with counts falling and having high fever and being told that today just maybe the last day of our lives. No one has any extra cushion to offer. Sharaf and I , between ourselves, often were able do a countdown on his surviving minutes. That is what America, perhaps, is all about till this date. No body spares you any extra rope to tie your emotion to the land and feel at home. Your life’s digitized in this land. You are under surveillance every second. Even Google Earth tracks your precious home down. Yet we love coming back to this country for education, for better jobs, for having children grow up in a diasporic community where the culture would teach their generation to make themselves at home with the space that they live in. Their 16th would be perhaps in a nearby neat community hall or a club, falling in pattern with the Western way of celebrating maturity.These are the NRN: the non resident nationals, who live their lives away in hybrid spaces and call it: home. With every security threat delivered to this nation, these NRN’s take it on their own shoulders, get quick to react and retire to their little spaces and feel insecure with every passing glance that apparently mean nothing, but may actually mean: Hey, You Muslim ! I felt the same shock with my twenty year old this time. On our way to New York, the travel requirement in Heathrow drained us of all our energy. We were a pair of enthusiasts who were simply looking forward to a lovely flight with Virgin. Firstly, her handbag which is a humble black computer bag did not fit the wooden slot, then we were checked and checked, rechecked and re re re checked…There better be a later edition of re’s and post’s. This world has reached its own reality that has exhausted all the linear frames of time. There’s nothing called nothing today. Nothing IS everything. It’s okay to feel funny, okay to say whatever you want to, okay to insult , harass, scream , hit and run…all at the same time. This modern life permits simultaneity. That’s supposed to be the beauty of our times. You can listen and talk at the same time. The times have trained us to be sincere to our multi tasking proficiencies. We commit a hundred things to a hundred people over a period of an hour. Our calendars are blocked with appointments stretching up to next summer. We get stuck in our own bubbles, lead a regulated life, travel with caution, check the MSN weather right before we leave for work, ride a subway for almost free for the whole day, go to stores and get one free gift with every two purchases. Gee. Things are so promotional these days that one wonders how these stores are making their numbers every season. Even the waiters of a Raffles Coffee shop are out there in the streets trying to sell you their 9.99 breakfast with only waffles and tea. Every one’s so, so aggressive down here. Every street is meant for you. You can shop, hop the avenues, visit the Met for free on Fridays after 4:00 pm since it’s a TARGET sponsored visit. Every street in the U.S of A is living text of the green monster. Yet there are human beings playing the sax at central park, moms dancing to the music with their young moms; there is free music at the Union Square. I saw fewer musicians on the subways this time. They seem to be enjoying the air above and not paying attention to the dimes not coming their way. anymore. I am glad. I am glad that there’s still music in the air; I am glad that there are buses that don’t make you sick of the cramped underground; I am glad that New Yorkers still find time to take their dogs out for a walk after dinner. I am not quite so glad to see all the street vendors being Bangladeshi, every second cab driver asking me whether I am from his home town, the man in ‘Curry in a Hurry’ trying to jeopardize his very own Bangla just by being extra American that he has turned into after the long post ‘71 war years in this land. I wish the Korean town right on the 32nd street would not only advertise SPA treatments and Kim chi. I wish the Chinese would do better than the laundromats that they do so wonderfully with. I wish the chicana serving us breakfast could be another Anzaldua in the making. I wish all the hybrid people in this land wore more colors of their own nations and added to the existing stripes. Aren’t collages prettier than the simple three colors? I wish every race in this ‘land of many’- had streets of their own which would cater to their own culture and voice. Oh …how I wish to be a part of ground zero this year, two more days from now. This world today, is all about 9/11. The world today is all about insecurities, fears about another blast nearby, the fear of losing a loved one in another war zone, the fear of not being able to live a life that one has so long dreamt of. World today hopes for a ceasefire every minute; today’s world has turned deaf to deaths of young soldiers in frontiers which promise the absolute demise of terrorists. The world today is all about suicide bombing, hyper realities and make shift consolations of a shared fear. The grief of loss has left the world numb. It has commercials to distract us from the terrible news of bomb blast in the neighborhood. The world today airs talk shows in every channel that spare no private moment in a life under spotlight or scrutiny. Every life is doomed to dissection. Every happiness is a moment of branded glory, every loss- an outcome of an over dose of some rare thing. Manhattan Memory and Minutes Time’s standing still on a dusty, dry den of Manhattan,With a tamarind tequila on handBetween the 33rd and the 34th, the endless bars have played hosts to it.She treks to the nearest point, tricking plains and teasing heights,Fluttering lashes, full lips and willing, Time’s willing to transact on condition only:No bombs, no A-threats, no Bush, no Iraq, no Afghanistan, no she doesn’t want bullets to pierce the bubble of her Apple.Memory, her best lover’s begging her to return but can only pay through barter:Memory has lost every single life in his pocket, has been wrecked by wars,So, Memory can’t pay tonight.Time and Memory need to perfect their union tonight.American tomorrow wakes up to a 5 of 9/11, 24/7.To heal open wounds, to prevent Ms. Melancholia hanging around the 5th AvenueAnd to stop her from embarking on yet another version of High Infidelity,Time and Memory collaborate and decided on a sensual session of passion… Just to cope with the grief of ground zero with shame, pain, minutes marked with silence, tributes and tears. September 24.2006 I am seriously running behind schedule. What I should have written right after I landed in Dhaka is being written 13 days later. Well, missing appointments, missing the right turns in life, missing life itself: all are part of our routine today. When words fail, pictures take over and cover the gaps:I took the first picture opposite Ground Zero where the wall boldly reads: NEVER FORGET with colors borrowed from the American flag and lists the names of the heroes who lost their lives 5 years ago; the second picture is of an artist, oblivious to my attention and curiosity and sketching the expression of grief, tracing the emotion of the aggrieved families; the third is of a group of lovely dogs wearing the very same ‘I love America’ T shirts and drawing ample attention; the fourth, a testimony to America’s great Conspiracy Theory: The Lies will not stand Yet all grieve, some with anger, some with reconciliation of some degree, some with ultimate passivity, and some even with a repression displaying outwardly indifference.To many, I might have looked like a tourist merely with a silver box trying to arrest memory, adding insult to their pain. My snap shots, after all, add no meaning to their realities, do they?I am tempted to take a guided tour of Ground zero which attempts to explain the entire history.But then I stand and shudder and shy away from the thought…I painfully remember the guided tour that I took trying to relive History of Road 32 in Dhanmandi which echoes the same pathos of loss. I was disappointed, truly and really, just because tragedies cannot be re-felt, re lived.The moment’s gone, left you and what’s left is mere simulation that commercializes the agony.And somebody, somewhere profits from that.Somehow, we are too close to 9/11 to write history. Immediate pasts should be merely recorded and not displayed or archived at all. That takes the edge of the emotion away. You feel, you grieve but you should not arrive at conclusions marked for you by the cleverly boxed premises handed down to you. There’s a Tribute centre, the boundary reverently marked with barbed fences, while right outside the mark, there are buses selling 9/11 coffee cups, souvenirs, key chains, books, photographs. Almost everyone has a 9/11 T shirt, even the dogs that I took pictures of. The train of Harley’s with American flags made the noise of their lives. It was strange compared to the couple of moments of silence that the nation celebrated in the morning.Too many conflicts, too man ironies, too many losses in our psyches to handle. The negativities have given birth to multiple shifts in our faith: Had I not lost my country, I wouldn’t have wanted one; had I not lost my son, I would not have sought revenge; had my head scarf not been made fun of at school I would not have taught intolerance to the kindergarten kids; had my daughter not lost her life on 9/11, I would not have been estranged from my Muslim neighbor, a part of my life for the last decade or so. Who makes it worse, though? Can there be an ICJ for Heads of state who resort to verbal abuse and rhetoric and ignite the nation? Isn’t it the Head that starts to rot first as it is the only part that is most removed from the bottom? I just happen to be a flaneur, a casual stroller who sees everything episodically and as surfaces.I casually walk around the Washington Square Park and watch a concert, dedicated to 9/11. The key word is: Love and all they sing is: All you need is Love.
Hello there…
New York was getting ready for a year 5 of 9/11.I still remember myself all geared up to leave on 9/11/2001 from Boston. I go down, desperately wanting to leave the Huntington apartment , The Greenhouse and there’s a clerk right there looking at my face in wonder, asking me to return upstairs and check the news. He tells me in clear terms: two birds have hit the World Trade Center…go back to your apartment, lady. Well, the lady did go back to Apartment ND-6 and watched the whole episode being played and replayed and replayed over and over again…along with her 5 year old, Sharaf. Sharaf and I were both packed and ready to go back home. We had both done our share and we couldn’t have done better with a heart failure. All we needed was rest. Boston certainly wasn’t the place that allowed rest. Boston was only quick trips to Emergency, with counts falling and having high fever and being told that today just maybe the last day of our lives. No one has any extra cushion to offer. Sharaf and I , between ourselves, often were able do a countdown on his surviving minutes. That is what America, perhaps, is all about till this date. No body spares you any extra rope to tie your emotion to the land and feel at home. Your life’s digitized in this land. You are under surveillance every second. Even Google Earth tracks your precious home down. Yet we love coming back to this country for education, for better jobs, for having children grow up in a diasporic community where the culture would teach their generation to make themselves at home with the space that they live in. Their 16th would be perhaps in a nearby neat community hall or a club, falling in pattern with the Western way of celebrating maturity.These are the NRN: the non resident nationals, who live their lives away in hybrid spaces and call it: home. With every security threat delivered to this nation, these NRN’s take it on their own shoulders, get quick to react and retire to their little spaces and feel insecure with every passing glance that apparently mean nothing, but may actually mean: Hey, You Muslim ! I felt the same shock with my twenty year old this time. On our way to New York, the travel requirement in Heathrow drained us of all our energy. We were a pair of enthusiasts who were simply looking forward to a lovely flight with Virgin. Firstly, her handbag which is a humble black computer bag did not fit the wooden slot, then we were checked and checked, rechecked and re re re checked…There better be a later edition of re’s and post’s. This world has reached its own reality that has exhausted all the linear frames of time. There’s nothing called nothing today. Nothing IS everything. It’s okay to feel funny, okay to say whatever you want to, okay to insult , harass, scream , hit and run…all at the same time. This modern life permits simultaneity. That’s supposed to be the beauty of our times. You can listen and talk at the same time. The times have trained us to be sincere to our multi tasking proficiencies. We commit a hundred things to a hundred people over a period of an hour. Our calendars are blocked with appointments stretching up to next summer. We get stuck in our own bubbles, lead a regulated life, travel with caution, check the MSN weather right before we leave for work, ride a subway for almost free for the whole day, go to stores and get one free gift with every two purchases. Gee. Things are so promotional these days that one wonders how these stores are making their numbers every season. Even the waiters of a Raffles Coffee shop are out there in the streets trying to sell you their 9.99 breakfast with only waffles and tea. Every one’s so, so aggressive down here. Every street is meant for you. You can shop, hop the avenues, visit the Met for free on Fridays after 4:00 pm since it’s a TARGET sponsored visit. Every street in the U.S of A is living text of the green monster. Yet there are human beings playing the sax at central park, moms dancing to the music with their young moms; there is free music at the Union Square. I saw fewer musicians on the subways this time. They seem to be enjoying the air above and not paying attention to the dimes not coming their way. anymore. I am glad. I am glad that there’s still music in the air; I am glad that there are buses that don’t make you sick of the cramped underground; I am glad that New Yorkers still find time to take their dogs out for a walk after dinner. I am not quite so glad to see all the street vendors being Bangladeshi, every second cab driver asking me whether I am from his home town, the man in ‘Curry in a Hurry’ trying to jeopardize his very own Bangla just by being extra American that he has turned into after the long post ‘71 war years in this land. I wish the Korean town right on the 32nd street would not only advertise SPA treatments and Kim chi. I wish the Chinese would do better than the laundromats that they do so wonderfully with. I wish the chicana serving us breakfast could be another Anzaldua in the making. I wish all the hybrid people in this land wore more colors of their own nations and added to the existing stripes. Aren’t collages prettier than the simple three colors? I wish every race in this ‘land of many’- had streets of their own which would cater to their own culture and voice. Oh …how I wish to be a part of ground zero this year, two more days from now. This world today, is all about 9/11. The world today is all about insecurities, fears about another blast nearby, the fear of losing a loved one in another war zone, the fear of not being able to live a life that one has so long dreamt of. World today hopes for a ceasefire every minute; today’s world has turned deaf to deaths of young soldiers in frontiers which promise the absolute demise of terrorists. The world today is all about suicide bombing, hyper realities and make shift consolations of a shared fear. The grief of loss has left the world numb. It has commercials to distract us from the terrible news of bomb blast in the neighborhood. The world today airs talk shows in every channel that spare no private moment in a life under spotlight or scrutiny. Every life is doomed to dissection. Every happiness is a moment of branded glory, every loss- an outcome of an over dose of some rare thing. Manhattan Memory and Minutes Time’s standing still on a dusty, dry den of Manhattan,With a tamarind tequila on handBetween the 33rd and the 34th, the endless bars have played hosts to it.She treks to the nearest point, tricking plains and teasing heights,Fluttering lashes, full lips and willing, Time’s willing to transact on condition only:No bombs, no A-threats, no Bush, no Iraq, no Afghanistan, no she doesn’t want bullets to pierce the bubble of her Apple.Memory, her best lover’s begging her to return but can only pay through barter:Memory has lost every single life in his pocket, has been wrecked by wars,So, Memory can’t pay tonight.Time and Memory need to perfect their union tonight.American tomorrow wakes up to a 5 of 9/11, 24/7.To heal open wounds, to prevent Ms. Melancholia hanging around the 5th AvenueAnd to stop her from embarking on yet another version of High Infidelity,Time and Memory collaborate and decided on a sensual session of passion… Just to cope with the grief of ground zero with shame, pain, minutes marked with silence, tributes and tears. September 24.2006 I am seriously running behind schedule. What I should have written right after I landed in Dhaka is being written 13 days later. Well, missing appointments, missing the right turns in life, missing life itself: all are part of our routine today. When words fail, pictures take over and cover the gaps:I took the first picture opposite Ground Zero where the wall boldly reads: NEVER FORGET with colors borrowed from the American flag and lists the names of the heroes who lost their lives 5 years ago; the second picture is of an artist, oblivious to my attention and curiosity and sketching the expression of grief, tracing the emotion of the aggrieved families; the third is of a group of lovely dogs wearing the very same ‘I love America’ T shirts and drawing ample attention; the fourth, a testimony to America’s great Conspiracy Theory: The Lies will not stand Yet all grieve, some with anger, some with reconciliation of some degree, some with ultimate passivity, and some even with a repression displaying outwardly indifference.To many, I might have looked like a tourist merely with a silver box trying to arrest memory, adding insult to their pain. My snap shots, after all, add no meaning to their realities, do they?I am tempted to take a guided tour of Ground zero which attempts to explain the entire history.But then I stand and shudder and shy away from the thought…I painfully remember the guided tour that I took trying to relive History of Road 32 in Dhanmandi which echoes the same pathos of loss. I was disappointed, truly and really, just because tragedies cannot be re-felt, re lived.The moment’s gone, left you and what’s left is mere simulation that commercializes the agony.And somebody, somewhere profits from that.Somehow, we are too close to 9/11 to write history. Immediate pasts should be merely recorded and not displayed or archived at all. That takes the edge of the emotion away. You feel, you grieve but you should not arrive at conclusions marked for you by the cleverly boxed premises handed down to you. There’s a Tribute centre, the boundary reverently marked with barbed fences, while right outside the mark, there are buses selling 9/11 coffee cups, souvenirs, key chains, books, photographs. Almost everyone has a 9/11 T shirt, even the dogs that I took pictures of. The train of Harley’s with American flags made the noise of their lives. It was strange compared to the couple of moments of silence that the nation celebrated in the morning.Too many conflicts, too man ironies, too many losses in our psyches to handle. The negativities have given birth to multiple shifts in our faith: Had I not lost my country, I wouldn’t have wanted one; had I not lost my son, I would not have sought revenge; had my head scarf not been made fun of at school I would not have taught intolerance to the kindergarten kids; had my daughter not lost her life on 9/11, I would not have been estranged from my Muslim neighbor, a part of my life for the last decade or so. Who makes it worse, though? Can there be an ICJ for Heads of state who resort to verbal abuse and rhetoric and ignite the nation? Isn’t it the Head that starts to rot first as it is the only part that is most removed from the bottom? I just happen to be a flaneur, a casual stroller who sees everything episodically and as surfaces.I casually walk around the Washington Square Park and watch a concert, dedicated to 9/11. The key word is: Love and all they sing is: All you need is Love.
I also watch a lovely fusion: an Indian musician with Sitar being accompanied by an American in flute playing a Raga. I remember my once-upon-a-time best friend being a Jew, with whom I shared my passion for Jazz, with whom I had spent hours in beaches, clubs and corporate structures, invested in common interests and nurtured the relationship. Pluralities in our identities rose beyond religions and races. I recollect conversations on our gods being different, just as our taste in cuisine was. If we could loop those differences with compassion, then wouldn’t it be easier for us to understand that our Leaders just sit there with strings and use Our gods as Their tools? And in the process, our God becomes their power, their gain? Why aren’t good leaders born anymore? Maybe as mothers, we haven’t done enough; maybe we just haven’t sacrificed our own ambition and simply given up our lives and concentrated on being simply Mothers? Maybe one generation of mere Motherhood would have bred Leaders in the truest sense?
Saw an unusual picture this morning.
It’s a picture of a convenience store in ruins after a tornado in Kentucky. The picture has a rainbow in the background. Can we, this minute, close our eyes and just pray for a little rainbow magic, wherever we are, however we are and whoever we may be?
