Have you ever seen a person burning. Slowly, steadily smoldering inside. Eyes shifty, glazed. Not the materialistic shifty ones that x ray each and every object, analyzing and calculating its materials worth but the ones that are restless because the emotion inside is filling them to the brim. When a soul is swimming in sadness.

What can a creative writing course do for a writer and why are they needed? I think I just hopped on the bandwagon of a creative writing course out of sheer curiosity. I was curious both about the way such a course works and whether it would really prove beneficial for me.


Landing in an alien country, sitting in a room full of people who are of a different ethnicity, background, religion, country or speak a language different from you was daunting to say the least.


What I enjoyed the most was how each one of them approached writing. The myth of the native writer was broken thankfully because atleast five more people were not native speakers of the language but aspired to write a book. Everyone had a distinct flavour in their writing that somehow corresponded to their personality. A willowy, quiet, young girl wrote about troubled youths, a sixty year old English woman told her story about tea cups and a mother driven up the wall by a son burping aloud in a roomful of peaple.


I really enjoyed the way postcards were used to trigger fragments of writing which were later linked to ideas or words our tutors gave us. These fragments were eventually seamlessly threaded into stories. The excercises our tutors gave us were refreshing and inspiring though exhaustive. We had to write with pens or pencils on paper and computers were not quite welcome during the sessions. ( one person did manage to sneak in her laptop but the pitter patter sound of her fingers on the keyboard was enough to upset one of the tutors)


Writing with a pen or a pencil does have its advantages...and disadvantages. Initially, I struggled to put in as many words as I wanted. My muscles were stiff and not well oiled. It was quite a dilemma. Thinking quickly and then writing in a frenzy to get a decent amount of words on paper. Reading out aloud was not that bad. It helped to know that no one was judging anyone but I think this somehow left one desiring the feedback of others. Perhaps people are afraid to offer criticism not to become a target of it later.


London is an amazing place. It can be snobbish or standoffish at times but still accepting. The kinds of accents one encounters in group sessions, on the trains and shopping areas is enough to set your creative juices stirring. The fact that this activity was strategically located in the middle of Marble Arch and Edgware Road was a treat. I enjoyed walking in the area to catch a bite at Marush (delicious shawarmas) or try out new perfumes at Selfridges or just hop into M&S for window shopping.

There is a lot to say but I find it hard to take all the thoughts, emotions and feelings rushing through my head in a gazillion different directions roll them into a ball a throw at this writing space. The thing that perked me up was finding the last entry to be of the same month.


My writing break was exactly a day before ami arrived and today, the day she left in the morning I am writing this new post. Its a consolation. I find my fingers playing to on this keyboard with delight again. Even if the turnover maybe limited it has to be consitent.


I have a new maid, again. I think its number 8 ( a big number... 8th of the ones that lasted a few days)


One of my friends taught me a great lesson today. Of Insensitivity. And I thought I would not know what to write about today..hmmm. The mind works in mysterious ways. I already knew the ground rules.


Dont bother about what people say.


Devil may care attitude mixed with a flat expression.


Place yourself first.


And Relax, Relax, Relax..the world can go to hell!!! I would like to add to this list. And not to be afraid. what will happen will happen. All the rules above may sound unislamic and against the values of the East but the rule that I am adding seems to be logical. Kismet. I consider insensitivity...just a part of it and not the whole a part of it. Maybe its a thought that has fixed itself in my head for just this time and my opinion will change. But for now it seems apt. Being insensitive to what is happening around you, your world maybe falling apart...but you just pick up and go because that is what is expected of you. Nobody will give you a hand.


My innocence might be lost forever.

I have just made qeema and some yakhni for a mutton pullao. The day is melting away fast and soon it will be night. While my pots hobnobbed on my stove, I finished the last pages of 'Forty Rules of Love' by Elif Shafaq, a Turkish writer. On the cover of the book The Times describes it as a 'jewelled, luxurious book' and Independent finds her a 'challenge' to 'Paulo Coelho's dominance'. There is no doubt the book is beautifully written: the proof I finished the book in three sittings with what not going around! And yes there is the ''religion of love philosophy'' which Coelho's books also echo. But some passages did make me question things.
I love the way she describes the episode of how Rumi and Shams met.
Shams meets him in the middle of a bazaar and catches hold of the bridle of his horse. Before anything he wants the respected scholar to dismount and speak as an equal. He puts forward a question 'who is greater the Prophet (P.B.U.H) or the Sufi Bistami?' and then says the Prophet (P.B.U.H) said 'Forgive me, God, I couldn't know thee as I should have, while Bistami pronounced, Glory be to me, I carry God inside my cloak?'
Rumi replies even though it seems Bistami's statement is bigger it is actually not. It is the other way around. He likens God's love to an endless ocean with each human bearing a cup to drink from it. Bistami's vessel was small and a sip of the ocean was enough to satiate him whereas the Prophet (P.B.U.H), the chosen one, had a bigger cup to fill. Elif refers to the Quran then 'Have we not opened up your heart?' Thus the Prophet's (P.B.U.H) cup was widened to a degree that it was 'thirst upon thirst for him'. Even though he (P.B.U.H) said 'We do not know You as we should.' Rumi finds that 'he (P.B.U.H) certainly knew Him as no other did. (The above para has been taken from Elif Shafaq's Forty Rules of Love)


There can be a thousand adjectives to describe the prose. Beautiful, lilting, lyrical, lucid, rapturous, crackling, powerful, effortlessly smooth and easy to read, magical, musical even but I would pick 'what a talented writer..truly God gifted.'
The question in my mind is about sharia. Although it is described as a burning candle by Shams, only to show the way to the destination, can it be abandoned? The journey is indeed more important and the goal the ultimate prize but what of this detail. It cannot be trivial because the Prophet (P.B.U.H) did not abandon it. It is the judgment of who is good and who is bad that can be abandoned. Who are we to judge? This right belongs to Allah alone.

When I am really down there have always been books and stories to cheer me up. One of the darkest times of my life was after I had finished school. More than a year of torment and suffering found a break in an exam! Alevel literature, taken in three months, required strict discipline and a long list of reading. I relished it.
King Lear by Shakespeare, Chaucer's tales, Volpone, Age of Innocence, Mansfield Park, Frost, Emily Dickinson, Heart of Darkness and so much more.
I remember sitting by a spluttering gas heater and a bowl of water with a book on the thickly carpeted floor. Losing myself in fictional places and characters, forgetting the real. What a pleasure it was.
Then another dark time years later. Tolstoy was discovered to put a nice bandage on myself. Nasim Hijazi, Phillipa Gregory, Sophie kinsella peopled my sad world with their stories and characters.
These days are not so dark. They are simply tiresome and lonely. I have bumped into Jane Austen again. A film I watched in 2005 Pride and Prejudice, I watched again. It was comforting like hot chocolate. I love the plot, the dialogues and the people in it.

life has stilled itself. Sometimes I wish for company, someone to talk to alot. Then there are times when I do get the opportunity and come home tired. I feel exhausted. Will there ever be something to excite me furiously. I mean something more than just passing days. I hope so. But I am not ungrateful. Maybe its a luxury, this lull, for I have known storms.

The first thing that I noted on my blog before I began writing was the date. Thank God the last entry is of the same month. I intend to keep my enteries regular inshallah even if they are short. I think I am down with maid fever.
Nearly two weeks ago I decided to keep a full time maid. Apart from the obvious questions of why would I require such services and where would I put her, the question of how would I procure one became quite a headache. From putting ads in my supermarket, to approaching dodgy companies to running after friends' maids' contacts ( wonder if the apostrophes are well in order). It has been a learning curve to say the least.
I just had to take a break to explain to my maid in my higgledy piggeldy Arabic that she can eat and drink whatever she wants.

Pros and Cons of keeping a maid

I think I will add on this list as time passes
1. You get a chance to not only excercise your vocal chords, your brain jogs an extra mile trying to construe a sentence that works despite being in three languages or may I say four.
(Arabic, English, Urdu and Indonesian)
2. You discover google translate and though it makes your life harder when you find the correct alternative but the maid is still clueless, it is a marvellous discovery nonetheless. ( Gosh my sentences are getting loooonger, but who cares. Here I am the boss and yup no. 3 stems from this)
3. You are the boss.
4. Think again when you have to give endless demonstrations for the umpteenth time by washing the sink or mopping!
5. Meeting a cornocopia of characters. Listening to unbelievable demands like 'I want an attached bath!'
6. Privacy can go out of the window.
7.Finding yet again that life is a surprise. The most unlikeliest of the candidates stepping up to do the job.
5. Some good things come with a pinch of salt. Another reason to thank Allah that He has blessed us!

The heat is on but the flowers in my garden are bursting into bloom. Every time I look out the window, I have an urge to take a book outside and sit on the red tiles of the veranda but when I open up the glass doors, my body negotiates if its a good idea to step out of the airconditioned room. The bubble bursts in exactly a minute.