In light of my recent post on personalized license plates, these plates, which I saw on my way to work this morning, are the best ones ever:
RAADHEY.
Raa dhey.
Get it?
For those who don’t, raa dhey, in various South Asian languages, translates to something like, Make way. And the driver – Desi, of course – was speeding along and switching lanes in such a haphazard, helter-skelter manner that one would think he was back in the motherland.
[Riz Ahmed, Farhad Harun and Arfan Usman star as the “Tipton Three” in Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross’ THE ROAD TO GUANTANAMO. Photos courtesy of Roadside Attractions.]
Everyone needs to go see The Road to Guantanamo, about the Tipton Three at Guantanamo Bay.
Special thanks to 2Scoops, who first brought the film to my attention weeks (months?) ago, and to my sister’s friend S, who told us about the free screening at Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive, where we saw The Road to Guantanamo early last week.
Did I tell all y’all that my camera‘s broken? I probably didn’t. I think I got saltwater and sand in it, but who knows. Not I, since I was too busy blithely taking photos in said saltwater and sand to really be careful. Right smart of me, I know.
Anyway, a few days after my beach escapades, I turned on my camera. The lens wouldn’t retract, and the camera refused to take photos. Seriously, what drama. So I hunted around for my Costco receipt, stuffed everything back into the Canon box, did some research on another camera I had my eyes on (two upgrades up yet still cheaper than my old one, 2.5″ LCD, and a new ISO 800 option? Hell yeah!) and off I went to Costco.
Some guy named Carl at the Merchandise Return counter took back the camera, remarking, while inspecting it, “I like this camera.”
“I love this camera!” I said. “I’m really sad it’s not working any more.”
He counted out cash in twenty-dollar bills, handing me back $375. I stared. “Dude, I can’t even remember the last time I had that much cash on me.”
He laughed. “That’s a good thing, you know.”
I agreed.
I wandered off to the camera section, where I was disappointed to not see the SD600 I wanted. An employee named Madeline informed me it was only available online. GROSS! I said mentally. Outwardly, I just sighed and thanked her and inspected the few cameras displayed. I was stuck trying to decide between two little point-and-shoot digital cameras: One was smaller and cheaper, the other was a bit larger and more expensive, but it was a Nikon. But nothing looked as good as the SD600 that wasn’t there. What to do, what to do… I scrunched up my face, as I am wont to do when I can’t make up my mind (which means I perpetually walk around with a scrunched-up face, since I am so indecisive, it’s not even funny).
“Excuse me,” I asked the stranger next to me, “when they say ‘instant rebate,’ do they mean you get the rebate right at the register, when you pay for it?”
“Yes,” he said. He glanced at me curiously. “Are you looking to buy a digital camera?”
“Yeah, I wanted the Canon SD600, but they don’t have it here. I’ll have to check it out online, then.”
“My wife and I just bought a digital camera for our graduate recently, and now we’re looking for one ourselves. I think he really likes his.”
I smiled. “I bet he does. Mine was sort of a graduation present, too. Best thing ever!”
“Have you figured out what you’re looking for in a new camera?”
“Well, basically, I just returned the Canon SD400, and now I need a new one.”
I guess he took my response to mean I didn’t know much about cameras, because the kind man took it upon himself to educate me in the finer subtleties of digital technology. “Well, see, this one is 6.1 megapixels. That’s really good. You can even record videos on this one! Plus, it comes with a memory card.”
“Those are useless,” I said a trifle impatiently. “You can only fit, like, four photos on there, so you have to buy another one separately.”
He laughed. “Yeah. But, see, this Kodak one has internal memory, too, so you can save images directly to the camera, if you ever want to do that.”
“Oh.” This, then, I hadn’t heard of. “That’s kinda cool.”
His wife looked like she was done with her camera-browsing, so he started to turn away to join her. “Good luck!”
“Thanks, you too!”
I stood there for a long while, playing with the Kodak camera. I turned it on and off, and on again, checked to see if it had a manual setting (yeah, it’s called “Custom,” apparently), familiarized myself with the setup menus, looked to see if it had continuous shooting and a self-timer (yes to both), and took several photos of the advertising sign using the macro setting.
Another man stood nearby, doing his own camera-browsing. While I inspected my macro photos, he glanced over. “Excuse me,” he said, “do you know anything about digital cameras?”
I swallowed a laugh. Here I had gone from one guy thinking I didn’t know jack, to another guy thinking I looked like I knew what I was doing.
“A little bit,” I said. “I just returned a Canon, which was really good. They don’t have any Canons on display here, otherwise I would recommend those to you. And I don’t know anything about the other types of cameras here, except Nikon is, obviously, really well regarded.”
He nodded gravely.
I continued with a basic explanation (because that’s all I know) of megapixels and memory cards, shutter speeds and the different types of settings available. “You can record videos on some digital cameras, too!” I added excitedly.
“Thank you for your help,” he said formally, but smiling.
I approached Madeline the Camera Girl again. “Could you turn on that little Nikon for me, please?”
She couldn’t do that, for whatever lame reason I can’t remember, probably because it was so lame and useless. But she seemed friendly enough, so I harassed her into helping me make a decision: “See, what I really want is the Canon SD600, but, like you said, I’ll have to buy it online. Meanwhile, I need a camera to get me through the next week or two. Would you pick this Nikon, or this Kodak?”
“Girl, you need to just get one of those digital SLRs!” said Madeline.
“Buddy, those are rocking cameras,” I said, laughing, “but I’m not at that level yet. Plus, if I had a big camera like that, I wouldn’t be able to take it with me everywhere, and then I’d never use it.”
“Well, I saw one of your pictures when you were returning your camera, and I think you’re already at that level. Forget the point-and-shoot, we have a really nice Nikon SLR over there that you should look at instead.”
I shook my head, protesting, “I’m pretty much decided on that SD600.” I felt like a parrot, repeating the same thing over and over. “I wouldn’t have returned the one I had, if it hadn’t stopped working. I loved that thing, man.”
She smiled in sympathy. “I used to have that exact same one, too, until someone took it from me. It’s an awesome camera. I even read the entire manual that came with it, and everything!”
I started laughing. “Are you serious? I thought I was the only one who read instruction manuals! I felt bad, because I just returned that camera and forgot to take out all the little sticky-notes and marked pages I left in the manual.” We shook our heads at one another, amused.
“Okay,” I said, “but seriously, between the Nikon and the Kodak, which would you recommend?”
“Well,” said Madeline the Camera Girl, “I’d say go for the Kodak. It’s cheaper, and you’re going to be returning it in a week or two anyway, so you might as well save money meanwhile.”
“I like the way you think.”
“But,” she added, “I’m turning on that Nikon dSLR for you. You just let me know if you change your mind.”
I shook my head, smiling. “Maybe when I have more money, buddy.”
She tossed a parting shot over her shoulder as she moved away: “Start saving up!”
“I’ll try!” I called after her, knowing I wouldn’t, because saving? What’s that?
But I did stop by to check out the Nikon dSLR, which was suitably intimidating, and the only thing I managed to do was turn it off and then on again.
“How is it?” asked Madeline the Camera Girl, passing by.
“Scary,” I said.
I went off to pay for the Kodak camera, and ended up in a line adjacent to my friend of the camera lessons. “You picked one out!” he said, excited. “Congratulations!”
“Yep! Thanks!”
I waited for my turn to pay, and thought the guy before me in line was joking when he added, “And I’d also like two hotdogs and a Coke, please,” but apparently he wasn’t. When it was my turn, I asked the cashier, “We can pay for the food court items here, too?”
“That’s right.”
My eyes widened like those of a kid in a candy aisle. “Oooh,” I said. “Well, then, can I get three churros, too, please?”
“Sure.” He took my Costco card and swiped it, inspected the photo, and remarked in amusement as he handed the card back to me, “You’re smiling like a supermodel there.”
“Ha,” I said, uncomfortable as always with compliments. “That was the day I got my own real deal Costco card, and I was just hella excited about it.”
I paid for my new camera with some of the wads of cash that Carl from Merchandise Return had given me, and then picked up my churros from the food court. As I walked back towards the store exit, I passed none other than Carl himself, who glanced at the camera box under my arm, smiled widely, and exclaimed, “You found another one!”
“Yeah!”
I felt like a superstar. It was almost as if Costco had opened its doors that day only so that its customers and employees could cheer me on in my camera-shopping expedition. It was a feeling akin to that one song, Tell me what it’s like to be the one and only All American Girl, the All American Girl, the all amazing crazy girl.
The camera excitement lasted all of one afternoon, before I decided I hated this stupid Kodak camera with its horrendously grainy photo-viewing on the LCD screen, no viewfinder (Who cares? you say. I care, dammit!), and horrible menu setup.
I like viewfinders, even if I rarely use them. But what I mostly want – because the SD400 totally spoiled me – is easy-access setup and controls, like ISO settings and auto vs. manual switching on the main camera interface, so that I don’t have to stand there for 45 seconds too long, scrolling through menu options and switching settings when I could have taken five photos already. Geez, Kodak, get with the program already.
Also, since I feel the need to add a disclaimer, it’s not that I’m some sort of professional photographer. Digital cameras are now as ubiquitous as cell phones: Everyone and their grandmother has a digital camera these days; so do all my friends. But I do carry my camera with me everywhere, and I actually use it more often than anyone else I know, as evidenced by whatever I’ve uploaded to flickr (which is only a fraction of the photos I’ve taken, because my harddrive shows 10,000 photos since I bought my camera last August). A ten-month lifespan for a digital camera?! Well, that’s what I get for carrying it around 24/7, I suppose. And since the SD400 spoiled me so wonderfully, it’s only right that I find a replacement that lives up to the same standard.
I ordered the SD600 online yesterday, and now I keep logging into the Costco website every chance I get and compulsively clicking on “Order Status,” which doesn’t tell me anything except Your order processing is in process. Bear in mind that I went with the Express Shipping option, and my order is still in process? It’s enough to make one want to stab somebody.
This morning, I woke up because my cell phone beeped, and it was a text message from my buddy J, asking, “‘Sup, photo paparazzi supreme?” Seriously, I love my friends. They know how to alleviate stab-worthy situations.
Scattered thank-yous, mentally noted, from the past two, three weeks:
Thank you to the mailman whom I asked for directions when I got lost going to the evening of live Moroccan music in Berkeley. I don’t think you knew how to get there any more than I did, and you were suitably vague about what road I should take, but you were friendly and you underscored my new philosophy: Spotting a mailman when you’re lost is the best, relieved feeling in the world.
Thank you to the blonde guy biting his lips to keep from smiling at the Moroccan music dinner/benefit, for repeatedly switching around the lined-up juice bottles on the drinks table while the little boys who had lined them up giggled and rapidly shuffled them back into perfect order.
Thank you, neighborhoodies.com for keeping me amused for hours on a Tuesday two weeks ago, when I should have been doing productive things that would result in my having enough money to actually buy said hoodies and t-shirts.
Oh yeah, but I have a job now, for the summer. Thank you, people who gave me a job, for thinking I’m grown-up enough to handle work and for believing I’m actually worth hiring. Thank you for the money, too, because, I’ll be honest, I really do like money.
Thank you to the ambulance driver at Telegraph and 52nd, for not running me over when, oblivious child that I am, I nearly didn’t notice your speeding ambulance and its flashing lights in time. When I slammed on my brakes, so quickly I smelled the burning rubber from my tires, you continued through the intersection, turning in front of my lane. I did my usual throwing-up-my-hands gesture, and you smiled and saluted smartly.
Speaking of ambulance drivers, thank you, Ladder 49, for making me appreciate the work that firefighters do. Firefighters: You are ROCKING.
Thank you to the driver who so patiently waited at the stop sign on Homestead Ave., while the couple across from him at the intersection picked up their fallen groceries in the middle of the street. You didn’t honk, you didn’t throw up your hands, you didn’t seem to have any visibly impatient expression on your face. You just sat and waved at them to continue taking their time, and I feel blessed for having had the opportunity to witness your patience and grace.
Thank you, shutterfly.com, for sending me free prints. You sure know how to give a girl incentive to develop digital photos for the very first time (even though I’ve owned a digital camera since last August), and I’m staggered by the image quality of the photos I received in the mail. Oh, and my camera: I love you and your photo-taking, and your video-recording feature, too.
Thank you, clumsy young man who bumped into me on Main St.; your muttered “I’m sorry” and my unconcerned “Excuse me” gave the blonde girl with you just enough time to glance at me and squeal, “Oh my God, your pants are so CUTE!” She didn’t strike me as the type to be caught dead wearing my Elvis pants, but God knows I myself use “so cute” as a compliment more often than not, too, so I can’t fault her for the ditzy sort of exclamations.
Thank you, girl on Highway 4 who was driving with her bare left foot out the open window, for making me smile on my way back from a funeral. I know I’ve made sarcastic comments about these sort of driving habits in the past, but, still, I needed a smile desperately, and you did just the trick.
Thank you, man at the grocery store, for knocking on the watermelons for sale and bending down, holding your ear close to the fruit. There is an art to fruit-buying, and you clearly looked like you knew what you were doing.
Thank you, Jessica at the bank, for your handwritten, cursive Have a great day! notes on all my deposit receipts. Beyond the appreciation for your personal touch, I really do like your handwriting, too.
Thank you to the grinning blonde art student working on a painting in the library parking lot at the university, for noticing our curious glances and fully standing up and turning around to wave at us as we drove away. “Vhat a nice bwoyyyyy!” I laughed in my best Desi [South Asian] accent.
Thank you, A.M., rockstar extraordinaire, who had such a big name for such a small woman. If I could pick one single person whom I was convinced would change the world, you would have been it. And yet, you still did more in 22 years than many of us manage to accomplish in 45. Thank you for your exuberance, your passion, your dedication to justice and equality in all forms. We live in gratitude for your light.
In case we didn’t already think Z is a cool dude, I am indebted to him for reminding me about what a wonderful weekend I had recently. When he asked me the other day, “What was the last fun thing you did?” my immediate response was, “Saturday, sitting outdoors for most of the day with my nieces [they’ve grown up!] in Sacramento, taking photos and recording videos of them while they threw flower petals all over me and the rest of the front lawn.”
Click below to see their botanical carnage. [Or check here if you can’t view the video properly.]
PS: All the dialogue is in Hindku. It’s okay, you don’t need to understand the language to know what’s going on.
[Oh, yeah, and YouTube? I feel like I’m going over to the dark side. I don’t even watch anything on YouTube. But maybe the dark side would be darker if I had been using Google Video for this.]
I went to sleep the other night and accidentally left my AIM on. The next morning, I woke up to find the following IMs from my buddy Z, indicating quite clearly why we are friends:
Z: Yessiree bob, she likes her crack
Z: Always has something funny to share
Z: _____ is her younger? sister [The question mark is there because my younger sister acts a lot more mature than I do.]
Z: Mummy is yummy: rule of acquisition number 281
Z: In the garden is where the crack comes from
Z: Never ever misses an opportunity for a good stabbin’
Z: Everybody’s favorite stalker!
Auto-response from Yasmine: M says: i hear you have crack. [Fool and I are gonna be doing some crack-dealing after next Sunday’s halaqa. Ooooh, BLASPHEMOUS.]
Z: The crow smokes crack at midnight
This was all amusing enough (and Lord knows I do appreciate people who indulge my repetitive conversations about stalking, stabbing, and crack), but what was even funnier was an exchange we had had a few days beforehand:
Z: Goriyay… sun goriyay… tenu kee hoya hay goriyay… NACHLAYYYYYYYY GORIYAY
Yasmine: vat songs are you singing?
Z: i dunno, i found it on my friend’s profile
Yasmine: singing is HARAAM!
Z: so are stabbing and cursing
Yasmine: no, they’re not!
Yasmine: God says it’s okay for me [And this was the part – right after I hit “Enter” and then immediately winced – where I sat back and waited for a lambasting from my buddy about blithely talking about God in such a manner…]
Z: LOL
Z: that made me laugh out loud
Z: i’m still laughing
Yasmine: at least, He says it’s okay for me to joke about them ;)
Yasmine: it did?
Yasmine: hahaha
Z: okay, i stopped
Yasmine: i thought you were gonna get all serious and be like, That was SO haraam
Z: dammit, i started laughing again
Those of you who’ve been following along know that Baji is my (and everyone else’s) favorite robot monkey pirate. And, guess what! A wee one by the name of Mr. Mini Monkey Pirate has recently swooped down and crashed the (boat)party. Run along and wish Baji congratulations on the latest edibly adorable addition to her familia. May he grow up to own many bookcases [the best prayer I can think of for the son of a fellow bibliophile]. And may he read books, not eat them or stab them with his pirate sword.
Originally uploaded by yaznotjaz
“Everyone’s a critic, yaar,” said my friend over IM. “Let’s just call ’em all biatches.”
I started laughing, which was a good thing, because I had just spent most of the morning cursing a stranger I knew nothing about. This was two Fridays ago. It started with an email: GMail automatically refreshed my open window, I clicked over and saw a subject line I found vaguely but not unduly interesting, and clicked further to read the email. Two lines in, I sucked in a shocked breath…and expelled some expletives while making the rest of my way through the succinct, two-paragraph note. What the F*CK is THIS drama?
The irony, of course, is that I am famous amongst friends for constantly gloating about the fact that “my life is gorgeously drama-free.” And it is, dammit. I still stand by my smug assertion. Just a few minutes earlier that morning, I had been reminding my friend about the very same fact, until I checked my emails and then interrupted my cursing long enough to IM him with, “I gotta reply to an email some stupid biatch just sent me. Freakin’ drama, yaar.”
It is a testament to my friend-choosing skills that his first reaction was, “HAHAHA YOU SAID BIATCH!” Reaction number two, when I shared the contents of the hateful little email: “HOLY SHIT.”
Thus followed a mainly-one-sided discussion about the best way in which to respond. I was still on a roll with the profanity, but my friend presented thoughtful justifications for why someone would be driven to compose a note like that. “Be nice when you respond,” he suggested. “Kill her with kindness, you have the word skills.”
“BASTID!” I fumed. I stared at my computer screen, seething. “What the f*ck is this woman ON?”
I was feeling rattled and caught off-guard and seriously just plain pissed off. But I couldn’t dismiss the friend’s approach of looking at this situation from a different angle; it made too much sense. So I sighed and buckled up and wrote a sweet, rambling yet pointed response that covered all the key details in question. I used big, important words like ANATHEMA, and sent a draft of my response to the friend, to look it over.
“Anathema!” he cheered. “Ten point word. New record! Crowd goes wild!“
“I am so essmahrt, yaar,” I acknowledged, adding with malicious satisfaction, “Maybe she’ll have to look it up in the dictionary. Oh, and is it wrong to call her ‘stupid biatch’ still?”
I sent off my reply, then straightaway began to feel both relieved and amused: “I’ve never had so much drama! This is kinda exciting. No wonder people feed off this sort of stuff.”
I thanked my friend for his amusement and advice (but mainly the amusement), then left for Friday congregational prayers – in Berkeley that week – to repent for my blasphemous profanity (except I wasn’t really feeling remorseful about it, not one damn bit. But I’m sure God understood. He and I understand each other quite well). At the YWCA on Bancroft, where the UC Berkeley MSA holds Friday prayers, I listened intently to a sermon on setting long-term goals but using the short-term to accomplish them. It was just the sort of motivation I’d been needing for months. Afterward, while meeting and greeting all the people I knew, the lovely H touched me with her comment, “I like your blog and your writing style,” and then made me laugh when she admitted that she had been reading the weblog instead of her physiology textbook. Don’t I know that feeling very well myself.
I declined the traditional lunch at Julie’s for reasons I can’t recall at the moment, and mentioned I’d just stop by Cafe Milano for a frozen drink. “Try the chocolate chip cookies from Milano,” suggested my sister. “They’re even better than the ones from Julie’s.”
“Yeah?” I said interestedly. You know our family well enough by now – we’re constantly on a chocolate chip cookie quest. So I stopped by Milano and bought a cookie as advised, as well as a blended frozen mocha – the only kind of coffee I can handle, except this one wasn’t a smart choice either, since I took two sips while walking down Telegraph to my car and immediately felt the sick, anxious feeling I get from caffeinated beverages (like all those endless energy drinks I downed in college).
I drove from Berkeley back to my hometown and still felt sick, so I continued straight on Ygnacio Valley Road with the sunroof wide open, blasting music. There’s not much that an extra-loud mixture of Niyaz, Outlandish, and DEBU can’t fix on an icky day. [I love DEBU’s song Lautan Hatiku/The Sea of my Heart, by the way. Watch the video/listen to it here.] I drove twenty miles out of my way, hoping the drive would clear my head, and it did a well enough job of it.
I got home and immediately made a beeline for my computer, only to be disappointed that there was no reply from “the stupid biatch.” (There still has not been, even two weeks later. Somayya remarked yesterday, “I think she probably read your email and just felt really, really stupid.”)
While I was busy making faces at the lack of an acknowledgment/reply, my lovely partner-in-crime, Somayya, called to share exciting news: “Yazzo! Just wanted to let you know the 7-Eleven in San Mateo has blue slurpees! Come visit!”
The local Target carries blue icees, too, I realized just a few days ago. I knew I loved that place for a reason, and not just for the fact that I spend too much money every time I’m there. And, seriously, who gives a freakin’ damn about stupid biatches when my year-long quest for blue raspberry-flavored slurpees is over?
The Basic Con
by Lew Welch
Those who can’t find anything to live for,
always invent something to die for.
Then they want the rest of us to
die for it, too.
I originally shared the following Washington Post article (via Sepia Mutiny) with selective friends/family through email last week, and just realized that others might be interested in reading this as well. As I mentioned in my email, I first read this because I’m Pukhtun myself. But this is a moving and beautifully written account, and a thought-provoking one, so check it when you get a chance – the Guantanamo diary of a Pukhtun law student, by Mahvish Khan.
Ali Shah Mousovi is standing at attention at the far end of the room, his leg chained to the floor. His expression is wary, but when he sees me in my traditional embroidered shawl from Peshawar, he breaks into a smile. Later, he’ll tell me that I resemble his younger sister, and that for a split second he mistook me for her.
.
.
.
I don’t know exactly what I had expected coming to Guantanamo Bay, but it wasn’t this weary, sorrowful man. The government says he is a terrorist and a monster, but when I look at him, I see simply what he says he is — a physician who wanted to build a clinic in his native land.
.
.
.
As an American, I felt the pain of Sept. 11, and I understood the need to invade Afghanistan and destroy the Taliban and al-Qaeda. But I also felt the suffering of the Afghans as their country was bombed. And when hundreds of men were rounded up and thrust into a black hole of detention, many with seemingly no proof that they had any terrorist connections, I felt that my own country had taken a wrong turn.
While writing this post, I came across another heartbreaking article, one I’ll have to share with my father the Gardener Extraordinaire: Wilting Dreams At Gitmo – A Detainee Is Denied A Garden, and Hope is the story of an innocent Saudi Arabian prisoner at Guantanamo Bay who digs a garden using spoons.
…He said, “We planted a garden. We have some small plants — watermelon, peppers, garlic, cantaloupe. No fruit yet. There’s a lemon tree about two inches tall, though it’s not doing well.”
“The guards gave you tools?”
He shook his head.
“Then — how do you dig?” I was struggling to grasp this.
“Spoons,” he said. “And a mop handle.”
The soil in Camp Iguana is dry and brittle as flint. And I’ve seen the spoons they give our clients.
“But the spoons are plastic — aren’t they?”
Saddiq nodded. “At night we poured water on the ground. In the morning, we pounded it with the mop handle and scratched it with the spoons. You can loosen about this much.” He held his thumb and forefinger about a half-inch apart. “The next day, we did it again. And so on until we had a bed for planting.” He shrugged. “We have lots of time, here.”
.
.
.
For all that, as the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, “There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.” Maybe the History of Guantanamo will have a few uplifting footnotes. America denied them seeds and trowels and they created life anyway. We tried to withhold beauty, but from the grim earth of Guantanamo they scratched a few square meters of garden — with spoons. Guantanamo is ugly, but man’s instinct for beauty lives deep down things.