Choosing Life

Copyright (c) Maheen Hamid

My deepest apologies for the long hiatus in the blog.  

The past few months have been difficult, as the news wires get clogged nearly every day, with some senseless tragedy somewhere in the world or inexplicable outcomes of elections across the globe.  Where innocent lives, of adults and children alike, are cut short by actions of other human beings, or the threat of such continues to increase.  Be it a militant attack, military sanctioned event, police brutality, irresponsible leadership, revenge killing or honor killing – they all amount to human lives being cut short in unnatural ways as a direct result of choices made by other human beings.  I struggle to understand the depth of inner toxicity required in one’s heart to resort to such killing, let alone the many twisted ideologies driving them or the puppeteers behind the scenes.  

The types of killings are not new.  Machetes, guns, vehicles are not new weapons of choice.  What has changed significantly is how imagery and news of these massacres are propagated to the populace.  Over the past several years, as media has gotten more pervasive, it has been difficult to escape the onslaught of sensationalized negativity or, worse, be influenced by fake news.   Somehow, such horror stories seem to resonate with the consumers more than stories about human kindness. Stories about the human endurance.  Stories about love.  It baffles me.

Not wanting to be owned by such media created frenzy, just a few weeks ago, I even declared that I refuse to create temporary hashtags to show solidarity with the most talked about massacre of the day.  I feel it disrespectful to the many lives that get cut short prematurely in many other places around the world.  My heart cries for all losses, and I stand with anyone who is kept from living their life to their fullest potential.  I stand with the victory of humanity.  After crying every time I saw a new media story, I decided that I cannot change the world for everyone, but I can certainly choose to make a difference in accessible need areas. I felt internally aligned with my purpose in this universe once I had taken this stance.  

And then #Holey happened. 

On July 1^st, my hometown of Dhaka came under militant attack in a most vicious way.  Instead of going into full details of the sequence of events on the blog, I share some links here and here.  The event was life-changing in many ways.  This was close to home, in a locality I frequent(ed) often, affecting people I knew, perpetrated by young men from families not dissimilar to mine, claiming to be an ardent practitioner of my faith, with the ring leader an alum of my alma mater, and the victims killed in the most inhumane and deliberate manner.  One of the victims was a freshman from UC Berkeley, a school that is a mere 45 minutes drive from my current home, working on an internship arranged by a good friend. There are so many paths from my life connected to this incident, and its continuing implications in Dhaka, I can no longer treat it as an event that happened ‘over there’.  I fell into an abyss of asking “Am I doing enough?”

In the last couple of years, writing has been a way for me to reach for the light.  When I have jumbled thoughts, I try to pen them to understand where I wish to arrive.  Since Holey, I questioned if I could embrace the light, if my heart felt so dark?  How could I even think of sharing my thoughts when I couldn’t understand them?  I was numbed into silence. Numb as I read numerous accounts from different people about loss, responsibility, governmental failures, the methods of conversion in the young from innocence to militant, the breakdown of the social fabric which allows such conversions, procedural failures and purported triumphs.  I, like many other practicing and God-fearing Muslims, wonder how these heinous acts remotely reflect the teachings in our faith.  The media outlets of every kind have been clogged with people positing theories of various flavors and as the chatter intensified, I went into a quieter place trying to understand my role in all of this.  

I am all too common in my way of life. Working hard every day to maximize my potential as a human being, and to raise my two young children with a strong sense of love and reverence for the living and God’s creations.  I truly believe that this is at the heart of Allah’s message in the Quran, a Book that I view as a code of life with examples of how to treat relationships and transactions, with fairness.  Much of the suggestions need to be read in the context of 600 – 700 AD, when the Book was scribed.  I cannot claim to be a scholar of the Book, but I have certainly found these messages to be consistent throughout its chapters – do good, be good, don’t forget you need to answer to Allah.  Recognizing this, I keep questioning what more I could do to uphold the beautiful nature of our faith, for my children and for society at large. I find that I still don’t have good answers.  

Am I being too simplistic in my choices?  Is it cowardly to focus on raising respectful, responsible citizens, to the exclusion of being able to reach out wider?  Is it wrong to feel a sense of gratefulness for the blasé life-style?  Is it a sign of deepest despair that I choose to focus on my immediate world instead of reaching out and helping out the groups who are in need of help?  Or is it survival that I am focusing on the things over which I have a modicum of control, while so many things in this world spin out of control? I do not know the answers.  

What I do know is that I take time every day to say a prayer for anyone who is in need of them.  I thank the Almighty for bestowing me with relative peace and health.  I have come to accept that I cannot right all the wrongs in this world, and it is egotistical of me to think that I could even if I tried.  Allah created a beautiful tapestry, with knotty ends beneath the surface, and we must accept that not everything is meant to have closure.  Of the nexus of people I have the privilege of associating with, if I can keep harmony with the majority of them, I think I have done a decent job of engaging with people at their levels and have tried to get along while respecting our differences.  I find a sense of calm in realizing that my life’s pattern has been the same.  Injustice, inhumanity, unkindness – all throw me off kilter for a while, but then human endurance surfaces and takes charge.  The mind convinces the heart that trying to do the most good within my given constraints is still a life worth living.  I don’t need to feel the burden of the world’s unhappiness.  Perhaps, this is the survival instincts of today’s times, where it is easy to get drawn into the broader global stories and feel a sense of deepened responsibility for humanity.  Or perhaps my hope is that as I live my life making the best choices I know how, the underlying kindness and love will serve as a beacon for those who feel lost.

As the chapters of our lives unfold, I hope I continue to question my purpose in it.  And I pray that the lost souls around the world also take a moment to find the calm in the storm within.  I hope we all question: are my choices driven by my ego or by the need to create a world that my children could learn to love?

Past blends into the Present

The following is a piece I wrote 4 years ago, on the eve of my little brother's 19th death anniversary.  May 20th remains a day when I reflect and revisit the moments spent in our journey to save Ashiq, and what it has meant for my evolution as a human being. Even though I attempt to write down my thoughts during these rare moments of reflection, many times, works of words become perfunctory, a mere string of letters flung together that miss the voice that can speak volumes in its silence. However, when I wrote this piece in 2012, I felt that I truly spoke from the heart. 

Ashiq: Feb. 17, 1990 - May 20, 1993

May 20, 1993, 9:57 A.M.  As Ashiq’s little life flickered out, and all around the room cried in unison, the scene that got emblazoned in my heart is that of my parents kneeling over him, wailing as if their lives had left them as well.  After a year of fighting, the cancer had won and my three year old baby brother was on his way to Heaven.

The aftermath of such a loss is indescribable.  Only those who have gone through the experience can fully appreciate the whole spectrum of feelings.  One of many I experienced is being in a body that seems unhinged from the rest of the world, almost as if I was outside looking in at the spectacle going on around me.  I still slept, ate and went through all the motions that made the world turn, but an unnamed part of me died with him that day, and a new one came to be.  And I was only his big sister, not his mother.

We were in England for his treatment, so the rituals we followed after his death were slightly different than had we been at home in Bangladesh.  We had to make arrangements for his body to be embalmed so that it would withstand the long hours of travel to Bangladesh and eventually onto our village home where he would be buried in the family graveyard.  At least another five days from the time of his death.  Before Ashiq’s body was taken to the morgue, his body was straightened and left on the bed where he breathed his last.  And I lay there next to him for a couple of hours.  I caressed his cold body and made promises.  I promised to live a life that would allow me to see him again someday.  I promised to take care of our parents.  And I asked for his forgiveness for not understanding how little time he had and for how jealous I had been for all the attention he got that I did not.

At about 1 pm, the car from the morgue arrived and my father (Abbu) wrapped Ashiq's little body in a blanket and carried him down.   This is the next scene from that morning that still haunts me.  I watched from the bedroom window as Abbu walked out with him.  My father, a man with a will of iron, carefully carrying his dead son to prepare him for the next life.  And as he walked through the gate, one of Ashiq’s arms fell out of the blanket, his little palm facing the overcast sky.  It looked so final, so futile and so poignant.  I often think perhaps it was his way of saying goodbye to me since I was the only one at that window at that moment.

The days and months after that are a blur.  Once in Bangladesh, all the commiseration naturally gravitated towards my mother (Ammu), as a moth to a flame.  Ammu had gone into her own shell and it had become impossible for her to let anyone in, let alone reach out.  I honestly do not remember how I spent my time.  I cannot recall a single person who came to me and said, “I understand you are in pain, and I want you to lean on me”.  My older brother (Bhaiya) and Abbu were there but I do not remember really connecting with them.  It was as if each of us had become a drifting island, far apart from the other with no communication channel connecting our souls.

A few months later, Abbu thought of something that eventually salvaged me, at least.  He thought to create ASHIC Foundation, A Shelter for Helpless Ill Children, as a non-profit organization to help children living with cancer in Bangladesh.  Back then, there was very little being done in the field in our country and Abbu felt that Ashiq’s short presence in our lives was Allah’s message to us to do something about it.  He also felt that ASHIC would be the vehicle through which he could bring his wife back to life.   I had always enjoyed writing, a cathartic release for all my pent up emotions.  My parents asked me to write Ashiq’s story in English, based on a story Ammu had written in Bangla.  Since Ashiq’s passing, it was the first time I was forced to relive the moments once again.  I finished the piece but I still remember the pain I felt in penning the words.  If any of you are ever interested in reading about Ashiq’s life through my mother’s eyes, you can do so here: http://ashic.org/en/ashiqs-story/

Since its infancy, ASHIC Foundation has gone from strength to strength, today being recognized as a center of excellence in pediatric oncology in the South Asian region.  Many of the programs introduced by ASHIC were inaugurated on the 20th of May, as a meaningful way to remember Ashiq’s legacy.  Even as I write this, my parents have just inaugurated the second ASHIC Palliative Care Unit in Dhaka, where a terminally ill child can get access to end-of-life care. 

Over the years, my personal journey with ASHIC has evolved.  It jolted my family back into the living and gave all of us a sense of purpose.  I put my heart into its activities, created marketing materials for a broader audience.  But I always stopped short from emotionally obligating my friends to donate to the cause.  I felt that if someone knew me, they would know that ASHIC is important to me and they would support the cause without being told to do so.  When someone did step up, they had my undying loyalty and when someone ignored me even after a specific request, I took it personally.  I now realize that such simplistic thinking has lost its place in this crazy world, due to nobody’s fault.  It’s a busy world and people need reminders.  Most people have many financial commitments and even if they love me, they may not always be in a position to help me.  Nowadays I don’t mind reaching out to my closest friends for help nor do I mind if they do not.  ASHIC is a cause that I think is worth supporting and I will always be a staunch advocate, wherever it sticks.

I now live in the United States and I have supported the ASHIC activities from afar, with my writing skills and strategic thinking.  A big part of my heart remains in Bangladesh, with the children ASHIC is able to help.  My biggest achievement in life will be when I can help in bringing our family dream to fruition – to create a world-class hospital for pediatric oncology, which will go on to change the face of how childhood cancer is treated in our part of the world.  A place that will allow these terminally ill children to live their short lives with dignity, which I believe is the most basic human right we are born with, regardless of race, religion or creed.

Over time I have come to realize that I am not made the same way as my parents, who can continue to go out there and reach out to so many children dying from cancer.  In Bangladesh, the treatment capabilities are still so primitive that many of the terminally ill look stripped of any kind of human dignity, with bulging eyes for the neuroblastoma kids, protruding tumors for the Wilms’, burnt skin for others with failed treatment protocols.  My parents go and stand beside them, hold them, caress them.  I cannot.  It reminds me too much of losing Ashiq, and it kills me to see so much suffering.  It makes me question Allah, Who is kind and merciful, and I cannot put myself in a situation where I question Allah so much.  I need to believe in Him and I need to believe in the afterlife.  I made a promise nineteen years ago.

Shades of Love

I often wonder about love.  It is complicated and messy, and yet when felt truly from within, it is the most beautiful emotion we experience. I always find it ironic that we will get hurt the most by people we love the most.  It should be easy, the single most unifying emotion for all humanity. Yet, we cannot often even get it right in our own homes, let alone expect it to grow and smother the angst that plagues us across divisive borders of growing magnitudes.


Maybe the first step is to love the self so that we can put forth our most authentic version of who we are. Thoughts?


"Love is so simple
Yet, so powerful.

It heals, embraces, comforts,
Instilling a feeling of buoyancy,
A sense of belonging.

It belittles, possesses, conquers,
Weighing heavy on the heart,
The oppressed objectified in its name.

Can lovers be in love without expectations?
Can lovers fall out of love at will?

How can one be in love but be unable to live with that love?
How can one live without love?

We beg off love.
We sigh in love.
We breathe for love.
We are love."

-Maheen (c) 2016

Where is me?

The gentlest touch of the morning breeze
Rolls over my face,
Awakening the soul within.
For a brief moment, I embrace the soft glow of the sun,
A blanket of pixie dust that reminds me
How the divine simply cannot be overshadowed
By the mundane.

As little hands pull at my shirt,
Eagerly pointing to the door,
My revere is broken.
There is much to be done and more to be explored,
The brain racing before the heart.
Lists, todos, tight schedules;
There is no dearth of responsibilities.

Running from task to task,
I lose myself in the minutiae of the daily chores.
There is utter joy in watching the children,
But a restlessness in caring for them.
There is creativity in crafting the new deal,
But frustration with the repetitions.
There is pride in multi-tasking,
But impatience with the interruptions.
There is love in my heart,
But indignation in my reasoning.

Inner conflicts colliding throughout the day,
A tiresome fight of mind and matter.

The evening ends with repeated requests for bedtime,
Indifference and downright denials as responses.
After much cajoling, the last battle cry has been sung,
And all is finally quiet.
There is but a moment to reflect,
Before the label changes from mother, career woman, daughter, friend,
To wife.

Much as the warmth of the loving caress is welcome,
And the banality of the day's last conversation,
A habitual and cursory connection, 
I cannot help but think of how
The self has gotten lost,
The morning's blissful promise
Melting into an inky night
That will be filled with a deep slumber,
With no dreams.

Perhaps, tomorrow, I will remind myself that
To take a moment to breathe,
And touch my soul with a tenuous fingertip,
Is a responsibility to me.

Perhaps.

-Maheen (c) 2016

"The Woman": Maheen (c) 2016

B.I.G Journey

This is the start of my B.I.G journey.

I have spent years weaving stories in my head.  The simplest of interactions often inspire a flurry of images that I often do not make the time to capture in words.  I started to chronicle some of my experiences in forms of short essays or poetry, and I realized that there is great power in the art of words.  It is not just a momentary escape, but has been a path of healing, understanding and internalizing all the ways I can make my life more beautiful from within.

I started writing about snippets of personal experiences, which grew into amassing stories of those around me and funneling it through a simple play of words in my poetry.  As kindred souls congregated around my writings and asked for more, I realized that I derived greater joy in my desire to give back to the universe than to sit back, full of expectations of what I could get from it.  It has allowed me to be kinder to myself and to those around me, somehow dissipating years of longing and resentment against all the things I accused life of denying me.

In the hopes of using this blog as a way to share my life lessons and my rambling thoughts, I bring to you my journey of how I feel best in giving.

Maheen (c) April 2015

"Enjoy the light, my love,
For it may be gone tomorrow.
What we have is this moment,
The only reality that matters."
- Maheen (c) 2016