other|matters

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice showcases the handsome and wealthy but also proud and aloof Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. As the story goes on, his character surprises and develops in ways that Miss Elizabeth Bennet, prejudiced by first impressions, is quite unprepared for and which eventually lead to Colin Firth stepping out of a lake distractingly dressed in a clingy wet shirt.

But I digress.

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I don’t expect anyone to believe straight off the bat that Basil didn’t convert to Islam for me.

Granted, God alone knows if he would have ever converted had he not met me. But though I may have opened a then unthought-of door, I didn’t force him through it. Both of us were very clear that we didn’t want a conversion of convenience, so he converted only after careful study and reflection.

But once I’ve explained all that, I get tired of still seeing the disbelief in people’s eyes. They can certainly have curiosity, questions or doubts about his journey to Islam or “authenticity” as a Muslim, but I expect them to make up their minds after they spend quality time with him, not before.

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I’ve known “Axx” since 1991, he was one of the first people I met at college. I had just been introduced to him when he asked if I too, like all the other desi women, was studying for a BM. When I inquired as to what that meant, he explained it was a Bachelor’s degree in Marriage.

At the tender age of 18, Axx had already mastered the art of putting his foot in his mouth and choking on the knee.

We became friends in spite of awkward beginnings and polar opposite views on the creation of Pakistan - a topic which can prevent people from becoming friends in the first place and has the potential to drive them apart once they are. Somehow over the years, we’ve found our way through even the most fierce disagreements.

Until I became practicing again.

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My family is unfailingly polite.

My sisters, during labor, continued saying “please” and “thank you” in between contractions, much to the consternation of the staff. And I’m told constantly that I’m a model patient by the nurses. “Stable” is what they like to call me. The easy patient they can assign to the floater nurse because I’ll sleep through the night and will not smack them when they come to take my vitals or blood at 4 am.

Well, all good things must come to an end.

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A rural Purelander lass

When you have an autoimmune disease that severely limits energy and movement, you have to plan each day carefully. If I bathe today will I also be able to stand long enough to cook? Can I manage 74 stairs roundtrip to check the mail? Do I have it in me to run that errand 4 blocks away (plus the stairs)? In San Francisco, I also have to factor in the constant hills and chart the flattest course possible. On some days, the flat line between the couch and the loo is about all I can manage.

Sometimes though, you just have to laugh in spite of it all. Like the whole Wax Factor. Lying in the hospital unable to do much beyond basic grooming is at first embarrassing and then just amusing. My eyebrows look like Brooke Shields circa the 1980s and seemingly have found a fine fertilizer in the on-going steroids course.

They are very, very…expressive.

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