Bushra’s Blog

Three years ago today my dad passed away so I can’t help the inevitable reflection that comes with this day and this time of year in general.

I was thinking about how my dad used to take a lot of pictures. We have albums full of pictures of family, friends, and some people who I don’t even recognize. In these pictures, you can see the evolution of my siblings and myself, from the cute baby years to the oh-so-awkward teenage years. We even have pictures from family trips to Pakistan where cousins who are now married and have children are all just little kids themselves.

I never really noticed when my dad stopped taking pictures and I don’t remember what exactly happened to that camera he used to lug around. He had a special bag to take it around with cushioned spaces for the body of the camera and for the flash, slung over his shoulder and ready to go when needed. Eventually, it gave way to an Olympus 35mm camera which I used a lot, taking pictures at mehendis and weddings of family friends since the mid 90s. In 2003, we were ready to join in on the digital camera craze and my dad tasked me to research and get our family’s first digital camera. Although it wasn’t technically mine (dad’s funds were used), I sort of took ownership of the camera and eventually branched out and got my own point and shoot, which eventually gave way to an entry level digital SLR a couple of years ago.

In the Bollywood movie Wake Up Sid which I just watched a couple of days ago, the main character finds his passion in life through photography. He found out that his dad used to be into photography too and when Sid asks his dad why he stopped taking pictures, his dad said it was because Sid grew up and didn’t have time for his dad to take pictures anymore.

I couldn’t help but think of my dad at that moment. One of my cousins once mentioned that I’m a lot like my dad since I always had a camera in my hand. Truth be told, I hadn’t made the connection. I had forgotten that my dad enjoyed taking pictures long before I even held a camera. While I wouldn’t categorize myself as an actual photographer, I love taking pictures and I would have loved to talk about pictures with him.

As I was recently digging through some old pictures, I came across this one of my dad. He’s either graduating from high school or college. In all honesty, I don’t know but I thought I would share:

I’ve decided to slowly start scanning in all those pictures my dad took over the years to help preserve all the memories he captured. It’ll take a while and I know that there are companies that can do this kind of thing, but I’m going to try to do it on my own.

Salon.com featured an article with what they consider to be the top quotations of the decade. This one’s my favorite:

6. “As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know they’re some things we do not know. But there’re also unknown unknowns; the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” — Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Feb. 12, 2002, effectively telling us that the government had no idea what it was doing by invading Iraq.

The above made me laugh and cringe at the same time.

While I’m talking about Salon.com, check out Glenn Greenwald’s article The Degrading Effects of Terrorism Fears, in which he argues that “A citizenry drowning in fear and fixated on Safety to the exclusion of other competing values can only be degraded and depraved.” There’s really way too much in that article for me to grab and quote here so check it out on the site. Definitely worth reading, as is everything else Greenwald writes.

Children of Dust is about the evolution of the author from Abir, Amir, and then finally, into reformist blogger Ali Eteraz. In his first book, this former blogger takes the reader through his childhood from a village in Pakistan to his life in the United States.

His father had promised Allah (swt) a servant in the form of his son if he and his wife were granted a boy. Born with that covenant hanging over his head, Abir Ul Islam, now known as Ali Eteraz, did strive to be the best Muslim he could be while growing up in Pakistan.

In the United States, he tries his best to fit in, even changing his name upon excessive teasing from classmates – Abir= “A Beer”, etc. Ah, the creativeness of classmates when it comes to foreign names. I know that pain so well. Second graders can be so cruel.

But I digress…

In college he focuses back to religion. He dodged non-Muslim girls until he came to the realization that he needed to find himself a nice, pious Muslim girl which ultimately leads him on a trip back to Pakistan. His trip to Pakistan becomes a defining event. Due to events detailed in the book, he came back a different person.

That episode is what fuels another part of Eteraz, the part that slides away from Islam. This part was … interesting to say the least. Here is a guy with a lot of knowledge about Islam who stopped believing while giving the outwards appearance that he was, in fact, a pious Muslim brother. Out of all the less than stellar acts he shares in his book, this is the one that really made me wary of Ali Eteraz. I mean, he was pretending to be a good Muslim, even going as far as getting himself elected president of his college’s Muslim Student’s Association. He only seemed to do things to get attention, for people to notice and respect him.

Due to the aforementioned, I couldn’t really decide how I felt about the author. I didn’t appreciate the kind of person he described himself to be. However, I did appreciate his honesty. We can clearly see his motivations in his life and what drives him to do what he does. You may not agree with his actions but either way, Eteraz is a gifted writer. He could have sugar-coated events and periods of his life but instead he writes a memoir that I could respect even if, at times, I didn’t really respect the man himself.

This is not necessarily a memoir of Pakistan like it says on the cover, but more like a memoir of a Pakistani- American. Read Children of Dust with an open mind to find about how Eteraz coped with too-strict imams at the madrasas in his village in Pakistan, how he escorted the Tablighi Jamat around the United States much to his embarrassment, the intense situation he found himself in while in Pakistan, and how after 9/11, Eteraz’s life took yet another turn. This book is by no means the end of the story that Ali Eteraz and so it will be interesting to see what his future writing projects entail.

As 2009 ends, I just want to say that I’m really grateful for all the things I have in my life. I feel like I’ve been doing a lot of complaining as of late (apologies to the folks who have had to listen to all that) but in the end, I have quite a bit in my life and I need to acknowledge that.

Some pretty cool things have happened this year:

-I finally took my GREs. When I’ll apply to grad school is another story…

-I got a job after 8 months of unemployment. In the process, I’ve met some pretty cool people.

- The nephew and niece are just as cute as ever.

-Um, a bunch of other stuff.

-I got a nice flat panel monitor to use with my laptop?

Okay I’m reaching but I can’t seem to remember anything else to put on this list.

-Oh wait! Dave Eggers drew this really cool picture in my copy of The Wild Things:

And with that, I’ll leave you all be.

Happy New Years! InshAllah may everyone have a great 2010!

A lot of sites are not only writing about their “Top 10s” of the past year, but of the past decade. So I thought, why not do that too? I mean, my opinion is just as valid as anyone else’s.

I’ll give you a second to stop laughing…

Here it is, my “Top 10″ of the last decade. DISCLAIMER: I’m not proclaiming these to be the 10 best ever as I am well aware that everyone has different tastes. Also, I’m sure I forgot about something here or there that I wish I would have included.

In no particular order:

Donnie Darko – There’s just something about this movie… I can’t quite explain why I’m so into it. For some reason, Donnie speaks to me. All I know is that no one can ever doubt my commitment to Sparkle Motion.

Pan’s Labyrinth – I think that how one interprets the ending determines whether one is an optimist or a cynic.

Children of Men – A lot of the movies about the not-so-distant future depicted dystopian societies and this was one of them. There are some excellent scenes in this movie.

Spirited Away – I remember when I was watching this movie for the first time on DVD. I hadn’t been that engrossed in a movie in quite a while. I was so deep into the fantastical world that Miyazaki created, I couldn’t get up to make myself a mocha even though I really wanted one. That is huge, my friends.

Pride and Prejudice – I wasn’t too keen on watching this movie because I wasn’t a Keira Knightly fan and I thought the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice was really good. There wasn’t much too improve upon, y’know? And yet, I saw this movie despite my misgivings and loved it. This is probably the girliest movie I like although I didn’t think of it is a girly movie until I had let my manager borrow it and he returned it like this.

V or Vendetta – Remember, remember the 5th of November… I don’t know how many conversations this movie inspired. Everyone I know who watched it wanted to talk about it and give their take on the events that transpired in the film.

The Prestige – I just thought this movie was awesome and ended up reading the book it based on, which was great in its own regard.

Waking Life – I get something out of this movie every single time I watch it. In the simplest way to describe it, it’s an animated movie about dreams but it really is a lot more than that. Whenever I recommend Waking Life to someone I always say the same thing, that it’s not a popcorn movie that you watch with your friends, it’s a movie you have in which you have to focus and stick to it, even if the beginning doesn’t seem to make any sense. Trust me though, it pays off.

Before Sunset – I love how this sequel to Before Sunrise is set 9 years later, with the actors 9 years older themselves. I wasn’t sure which one I liked better and kept on flip-flopping between the two before Before Sunset finally won out as my favorite. Jesse and Celine had more realistic views in this movie than in the other one, mostly due to their characters’ experiences in the time that passed in between the movies. I definitely have appreciated this movie more upon multiple viewings.

Monsters, Inc.- Hands down my favorite Pixar movie. “Oh, hey. We’re rehearsing a – a scene for the upcoming company play called uh, Put That Thing Back Where It Came From Or So Help Me. It’s a musical.”

Honorable Mention: Volver, Once, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Persepolis, Batman Begins/The Dark Knight, Memento.

And there it is. Feel free to tell me how lame my movies are and that the movies on your list are oh so much better than mine

I realized something the other day. Or last week. I forget when.

Anyways back to what I was saying…

I realized I haven’t updated a lot, wasting a lot of my spare time not doing much of anything (I don’t think sulking can count as an activity) so I thought back to when I did 30 Posts in 30 Days earlier this year and figured I should do it again.

The posts won’t be about any particular topic but will probably fall under religion, books, movies, comics, and whatever else strikes my fancy.

So here goes.

P.S. “Strikes my fancy” is a weird phrase.

Yesterday, there was a suicide bombing in Karachi, Pakistan in which a someone blew himself up at a Shia mosque on the day of Ashura. This is just one of many suicide bombings that have occurred in Pakistan as of late.

I can’t understand this. Not only the killing, attempted or otherwise, of innocent people, but the act of suicide to accomplish such an act. Every Muslim knows that killing oneself is a sin in Islam.

In Dying to Win, author Robert Pape writes about the origin of suicide bombing and its use as mostly political (foreign policy, etc). Basically, it was never used as a religious form of terror. And yet here, it is. All of a sudden, some Muslims believe that it is totally OK to kill themselves for religious purposes. I really, truly wonder what is said to them that convinces them that performing this act is not a violation of the core of their own religion.

I haven’t been to Pakistan in a couple of years, but I’m wondering if there’s some sort of movement to help re-educate the brainwashed few and make them stop killing themselves and their own people. A massive undertaking, no doubt, but I’m sure it would be well worth it for the country to invest in a project like this. I know it’s easy for me to say that sitting here in the States but I worry about Pakistan and I really do want it to be a better place, InshAllah.

The latest straight to DVD DC animated movie came out on DVD a while ago and I didn’t really have a moment to talk about it. So here goes…

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies was what I was waiting for to be the animated movie to elevate Superman on my list of DC animated movies. While Superman:Doomsday is at the bottom of my list, it didn’t mean that it was bad just that it wasn’t as good as Batman: Gotham Knight and the rest of the movies.

This, on the other hand, was bad.

Ok, ok, not terrible, just not as good as I wanted it to be.

Here’s the story – Superman is framed for murder by President Lex Luthor to get him out of the way for, um, something. But no worries, because Superman’s bro is on the case! That’s right, despite the fact that he said he wouldn’t help Superman out of what was obviously a trap, Batman shows up in a nick of time to save Superman from Metallo who, incidentally, is the one Superman is framed for killing. (Might I point out that although Superman didn’t actually kill Metallo, it sure seemed like he had wanted to?)

Anyways, the two heroes spend the duration of the movie not only trying to clear Superman’s name, but to also figure out why he was framed in the first place. After 66 minutes, it was all over. Yeah, that’s right, the whole thing was only 66 minutes. Most of that time was spent on Superman and Batman fighting against various superheroes and supervillains with a bit of plot dropped in here and there. I admit, the movie had it’s moments though, like when Superman called Batman his best fwend. Awww. Hehehe.

The only cool thing about this movie is that it had the original voice actors – Kevin Conroy as Batman, Tim Daly as Superman, and Clancy Brown as Lex Luthor. Other than that, it wasn’t that great. This movie officially holds a place below Superman:Doomsday on my list of the DC animated movies.

Here’s hoping the next straight to DVD feature DC throws at us is better than this one. Look for Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths in 2010.

Last year, I wrote my first ever Am I Ready to Back to Pakistan entry so I thought I would continue the trend with another blog post.

It has now been two years since I went on a trip to Pakistan with my family. I discussed the issues I had in the entry I referenced above and so once again, I’ll ask myself the question:

Am I ready to go back to Pakistan?

Not yet.

Please note this is different from the resounding “Nope” I gave in my last post.

While I still can’t bring myself to think about the next time I’ll go to Pakistan, I do find myself warming to the idea that I may make a trip there sooner than I thought I would (although considering that I thought ‘never’ was going to be the next time I go anything would be considered sooner).

Yes, I did have issues while there but in the end, Pakistan is part of my heritage and I don’t want to deny any of that.

I would do things different though. I don’t want to experience Pakistan stuck in my relatives’ houses. I want to get out and see the country. Better yet, I would want to make the trip about both Pakistan and India to visit the area in India where my family used to live before partition. I really want to explore my background and I figure wandering around Pakistan and visiting Uttar Pardesh in India is one of the best ways to do it.

However, before I make any kind of trip, it would be awesome if someone who actually cares about the welfare of the country came into power in Pakistan. The citizens of Pakistan deserve that at the very least.

So…. watch this space next year for another round of ‘Am I Ready to Go Back to Pakistan?’

I was lucky enough to catch a screening of Where the Wild Things Are last night at the Metreon in San Francisco. Author Dave Eggers, who co-wrote the screenplay was in attendence and said a few words before the start of the movie and a Q&A with director Spike Jonze, actress Catherine Keener (‘Mom’) and Max Records (‘Max’, the kid in the movie) followed the screening.

I really liked the movie. However, this isn’t quite a review as it is about a thought I had during the movie: I really don’t know how it would play for little kids. At times it was dark, the kind of bleakness that a child may have trouble coping with if watching on a big screen.

As I was discussing the movie with a coworker today (some people knew I was going to watch it and wanted my take on it), I told him the above. I said that although I got a sense that most of us in the theater really liked the movie, Where the Wild Things Are didn’t really come off as a family film and so I wondered how successful this movie would be. Don’t get me wrong, I want it to make a ton of money, I just couldn’t help thinking about it may have lost some of its potential audience due to the nature of the film.

My coworker said that this may not be a hindrance for the success of the movie. If anything, this movie is better off being aimed at adults.

I thought about that and realized he had a point.

The crowd in the theater consisted mostly of older people, from mid-twenties on up, with a lot of middle-aged folks in attendance. If Where the Wild Things Are was entirely for children, then multiple generations, the many who have read the book since the 60s, would have felt left out. Instead, we were given a movie about a child, about innocence, and it worked. Somehow, I was able to really connect with a movie in which the title character is a little boy in a wolf costume with an incredible imagination.

Of course, there’s another point that I may be missing entirely – maybe kids these days can handle more emotional upheaval than I give them credit for. They don’t need to be coddled, y’know?

Here’s hoping Where the Wild Things Are is the success that it deserves to be. Props to Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers for sticking with something that they believe would better represent the book instead of creating the film that the studio initially wanted. However, to give Warner Brothers credit, they did eventually come to see the movie as Jonze intended it. They also provided a print of the movie for benefit screenings, like the one I went to last night. The proceeds went directly to 826 Valencia writing/tutoring center. Very cool.

Also, just as an FYI, Dave Eggers wrote a novelized version of the movie called Wild Things, which will be released soon.

The movie will be released on October 16. Watch it!