Probably in common with many people, one of my family’s hypotheses when I took up this path was that there was a girl. In their mind’s eye, I had fallen in love with a Muslim girl and had thus converted to placate her family. An amusing theory, I must say, because there was no girl …
Even after nearly twenty-one years of marriage, my Turkish is extremely lamentable. To date, I have only been able to manage small talk and enough to cover essential shopping. But there’s a Turkish proverb that springs to mind these days: something about a clean conscience. About making amends to move forward. To lift a weight …
At college, I had two friends of Muslim heritage. The first of them resented the Muslim tag and pretty much rejected the faith completely. The other one was slightly more serious, fasting in Ramadan and being careful about eating halal. The first of the two would get annoyed with the latter for telling him to …
I deserved approbation for many things back then. I deserved censure for my sense of entitlement. I could be berated for believing that to be treated with respect was my divine right. I was rightfully admonished for glancing all around me, my gaze unrestrained.
As parents, we naturally worry about who our children take as friends. We’re worried about unserious mates who will distract them from their studies. We’re paranoid about county lines drug gangs targeting our sons. We’re frightened about groomers targeting our daughters.
The eyes do not see the self. They look outward, not inward. They seek beauty, imprinting the heart with all they see.
Perhaps this time around you will get it right. Let the one in love marry the good man, and let her be honoured, valued and cherished. Let her find happiness, pleasure and contentment in that union. I am completely opposed to compulsion in matters of the heart, for or against. A forced marriage, I cannot …
I believe — in my own limited understanding — that I fell foul of the defenders of a young woman’s honour thrice in my youth.
Put away your youthful zealotries. By the time you have reached your forties, you will have abandoned everything you once thought to be true. That won’t help those whose lives you ruined or disrupted though.
My paternal grandfather kept on his dining room windowsill a bronze cast. If my memory serves, it depicted Shiva as the Nataraja, Lord of the Dance. It always fascinated me, for it was the first thing a visitor would see when visiting their home, passing it to reach their front door.
I concede that even the worst experiences — which at the time seemed utterly horrendous — turned out to be blessings in disguise. If I had not felt so completely broken then, I would never have sought to be fixed. If I had not been lost, I would never have tried to find my way.
Dear me, This is another of those letters I’m writing from the future. I wrote to you previously, but it seems I didn’t go back far enough. I feel like the Terminator, going after Sarah Connor when she’s a fully autonomous adult, instead of a foolish girl just finding her feet. So here we go …
I see my life as an exposition of irony. Divine poetry, if you will. People who repeatedly warned against me through different phases of my life turned out themselves to have been engaged in the very actions they erroneously attributed to me.
There’s no point thinking, “What if?” What if I had been nicer to that person? What if I had done something differently? What if I wasn’t such an idiot? What if I had said something else?
All that is to be is written. All that was never to be was written too. We were never in control of anything. Sometimes we have no idea why we make the choices we do. Mostly they defy any kind of logic.
