The search goes on...

So, things were pretty quiet on the rishta front. My Mum is usually the one who finds new prospectives, but recently, my Dad has renewed his efforts too. This, like everything else in life has its positives and negatives. My Dad has the opinion that as long as a guy is basically good overall, it doesn't matter if he's from the Motherland (Pakistan, for my parents). I, however, have seen a lot of friends and family marry people from back home and there can be a lot of problems (culture clashes, different expectations about each partner's role, blah blah blah); some people can deal with them, because they're awesome like that mashaAllah, or because they go to Pakistan every year, or various other reasons. So, pretty early on in the rishta search, I requested my parents to keep the search in the UK.

Recently one of my Dad's friends said that his friend had a single (and looking to get hitched) nephew in London and suggested that he be introduced to me. All he told my Dad was that he's been in the UK for a few years, is an accountant, and working in a big company. My Dad mentioned it to me and since I could tell he really wanted this to happen (I guess when it's someone your friend suggests, you think it's going to be someone great), I didn't make my "but he's a freshie" argument.

So the day came when the guy came to visit from London. He arrived at the house with my Dad's friend and his uncle. I helped my Mum in the kitchen, preparing food to be served (like a good girl) and then my Dad suggested I bring in the tea and be introduced - urk. I grudgingly entered, said salaam and stood there, red and embarrassed as my Dad introduced me, saying that we (i.e me and the single guy!) should communicate among ourselves as the 'bazoorgh' (rough translation, 'old and experienced') men can only suggest people be introduced because they're from good families, but it's up to us to decide whether we're compatible. A quick glance at the guy when I came in told me he was really embarrassed, and not that impressed. Lovely. My Dad then got me to write down my email address and give it to the guy. Hideously. Awkward.

It transpired that the guy was 29 and doing his final ACCA exams, was working in security (for a big company), and only had a year left on his work visa, so wanted to get married here. Hmmm. And he didn't contact me anyway so I don't have to think about it any more now. Alhumdulillah.

I think my Dad didn't realise how awkward it was to go into a room of random men and just be introduced and basically pushed to initiate contact with someone without finding out if there's anything in common.

There was another potential from one of the Muslim matchmaking sites, but the guy wasn't on the same page as me when it came to interacting with family, so we agreed to draw a line under it.

There is one more prospective on the horizon just now. Another younger guy my Dad knows has a cousin living in London. He's originally from my town, and his family stay fairly near us, but moved there for work. My Mum has had a phone conversation with his Mum, and she seems normal, which seems to be a precious rarity nowadays. His parents came to our house to visit. After a couple of days, his Mum phoned to pass on his phone number, so I could pass on my email address. I asked hime to email me with a biodata/ profile/ what he's like and what he's looking for. He then emailed me telling me his height and weight (I think he misunderstood biodata lol), and attached a couple of photos and asked for a couple of photos of me and my biodata. That's all. So I duly replied (with photos attached, as requested), telling him that height and weight aren't my main priority, so y'know, tell me a bit about yourself kind of thing. He hasn't replied. I hate waiting because it means I end up investing more time thinking about something that possibly - probably, won't happen. How hard is it to send an email, dude? I mean, really. And by the time you're nearly 30, you should be mature enough to let someone know if you're not interested in them too (which I'm assuming is the case), so that they can write you off and move on! I am past the stage of being offended if someone rejects me after seeing my photos. If they don't like the way I look in the nicest photos of me that I have, they probably won't like how I look in real life. That's okay - beauty's in the eye of the beholder and not everyone will find me attractive. Some people compliment me on my looks, some don't. It's all good alhumdulillah. My patience with the waiting game, though, is wearing really thin. OK, so I might not get married in the near future, or at all (inshaAllah this won't happen!) but it would be so much easier if people didn't draaaag things out. Grrr. It's just starting to feel a bit like groundhog day. I want a new story! *Sigh*. All in due course inshaAllah

Book spotlight: 100 shades of white

Lately I've been feeling a wee bit down, so I decided to re-read one of my previous favourite sad but ultimately feel-good books: 100 shades of white, by Preethi Nair. When the author couldn't find a publisher who could publish her previous book, 'Gypsy Masala', she reacted by publishing and distributing the first run of copies herself. This fact really impressed me! The book is definitely a girly one, though I wouldn't put it in the category of 'chick-lit' (I hate that phrase and would only put books I think are rubbish in it!). On re-reading it, I didn't like it as much as I did the first time, mainly because of the writing style (incidentally, another book that this happened with was 'The kite runner', by Khaled Hosseini) - it was a bit too simplistic, like it was from the young adult section of the library. It's a shame, because I thought the plot was great, and if the writing had been more high-brow, this could have been a masterpiece (in my opinion).

The blurb:

This book is about a mother who tells a lie to protect her children and that lie comes back years later to destroy the very people it was meant to protect. 
Nalini, has a carefree life in India until her husband sends for her and his two small children to come and join him in London. Uprooted, he abandons them ruthlessly and leaves them with nothing. In order to protect the childrens' sense of self worth, Nalini tells them that their father died heroically in an accident and whole realities are build on this one lie as their fight for survival begins.

This book has some critical acclaim. I agreed most with this quote from the Guardian: "She writes evocatively about childhood and there are passages of tight and lyrical immediacy"

Quotes I loved

The second time I read this, I noted down the quotes I liked from it - I've left out the ones that are spoilers! These are the main reason I would read the book again.

Maybe there are one hundred shades for explaining truth, a spectrum of light to dark, depending on the vulnerability of those who have to hear it. Things are not always so clear-cut, they are not either black or white, life just isn’t like that. I know my mother would disagree, arguing that there is one immutable truth and it is just a question of facing it.

Astrologer: ‘you must not marry in pursuit of love, for this, too, is an illusion, just a state of mind […] never lose sight of your gift. If you do, you lose your centre and all else falls away. You are already very blessed, for many people must go in search of their gifts. Lifetimes are spent on this. You know where it resides, hold onto it.’ […] He responded by saying that happiness was a state of mind and nature dictates that states are forever changing.
For me, the 'gift' is Islam, though that's not what was being referred to here

She pleaded, saying that love was fleeting and that the constants in life came from the sense of self and not from another
I love this - it's so important for your feelings not to be controlled by another person. Obviously for Muslims, the only constant is Allah and this is the only love that will never be fleeting inshaAllah!

Having abundance brings many choices and when I am faced with decisions today, I relish them, revelling and indulging in possibilities and consequences. Back then, there was none of this […] It was a fight for survival and this eliminates the luxury of emotion: if you stop and contemplate you lose the battle and so I was grateful for the fact that there was no time
I thought this was a really interesting point. It's easy to forget that a lot of my 'dilemmas' only exist because there is abundance in my life. I remember a documentary called 'blood, sweat and t-shirts' about a bunch of students from the UK who went to India to experience the lives of people that worked in sweat-shops etc there. Before they went, a couple of them didn't understand why people didn't just get an education or better job, but after they had been there, they saw that those people were actually trapped - the situation is different there.

At times, I didn’t want to see because guilt crept into my soul. […] Sometimes you see things and there is absolutely nothing you can do so you pretend you don’t see them because it hurts a lot less.
Something I can totally relate to.

My mother would say the right people are set to us just when we need them and they come in many guises. The beggar asking for food may well be a pauper, but it is only our judgement of him that makes him a pauper. ‘When we hold our judgements and see beyond, magic happens,’ she would say. ‘When we believe in someone even if they don’t believe in themselves, magic happens.’ Where was she now? What would she say to all of this? I know she would say trust, because according to her, trust prepares the ground for forgiveness. Only when you put your faith and trust back into life, are you able to forgive, and with forgiveness all surmountable obstacles just dissolve.

My mother used to say that it was forgiveness that worked magic on the soul and made miracles possible. According to her, forgiveness from a broken heart combusted energy that made insurmountable obstacles just dissolve. So if she found Luxmiammayi gossiping about her, she forgave; if a servant boy stole whatever little she had, she let him take it; if I hurt her, and I know I did, she just forgave me. Not the forgiveness that belongs to a coward – he who sees but refuses to believe and so pretends nothing has happened – but the kind of forgiveness which belongs to a courageous heart, the heart that accepts and says no matter what anyone does, or whatever circumstances are thrust upon it, it will always, always be all right. It does not become embroiled and constrained in anger and bitterness, but moves forward and grows
I really loved this description of forgiveness, and it's something I aspire to.

My mother had always said that trust prepared the ground for forgiveness. It was essential to have faith and trust in something and forgiveness would then have a firm anchor. Essentially forgiveness was the first step and gratitude was never far behind. Gratitude could come in a hundred forms […]. Gratitude, she said, was the only form of showing appreciation, a way of paying the rent for being allowed to do what we loved […]. Gratitude, she said, kept fear away. If we focused on what we had, it grew, but if we thought even momentarily of what we feared, the fear would multiply and take us backwards. So she even gave thanks for the bad things that happened. […] She also said that gratitude brings all the ugly things to the surface and an abundant life is one that faces all that is ugly and lets them go.
A life of shukr is a successful one then :)

Life doesn’t always work out the way we imagine. Sometimes the worst things end up being the best and other times, what we think is the best thing that ever happened is not necessarily so, and people we don’t like end up being the kindest, most generous people’
Similar to "...perhaps you hate a thing and it is good for you; and perhaps you love a thing and it is bad for you. And Allah Knows, while you know not" [Qur'an; al Baqarah verse 216]

I have now come to realise that if you are not happy in one place, it doesn’t matter how many millions of miles away you are, happiness isn’t suddenly going to come and find you
So true! It's easy to think running away will solve things, but it never does. A lot of times I've realised that a problem I'm having is in myself, not my situation.

Grief brings you to a place where you realise that nothing really belongs to you, it is all borrowed and what you are faced with is the cold, blank reality that truth stays, it is the only thing that accompanies you, standing all tests of time. My mother was right when she said it came in just two shades; black or white, ingrained in the soil with the hands with wich it is planted. Truth grows constant, bearing its fruit, following your every move.

I have learnt that life does not punish, it teaches you to let go, let go of all you fear or that fear becomes you

The process of acceptance and forgiveness for me took many, many months. I came to accept the past and all those I had hurt unintentionally and learnt to forgive those who knew no better and had hurt me. Sometimes there is no point in trying to figure out why; it is better to accept and to move on.
Hear hear!

Has anyone else read this? If so, I'd love to know your thoughts on it too :)

Dead ends

So, regarding the guy that I talked to my cousin about (who I had reservations about because he came across  as pompous to me, my uncle talked to his family suggesting that we be introduced, but they weren't interested because they're looking for a family of professionals. My family all have degrees and jobs, but what people generally mean when they say 'professional' is 'doctor' :/. Moving on....

The guy that contacted me on one of the matching websites has not replied for a while. Also, I have a strong suspicion, from the information he's given so far, that he is the same guy who was married to a girl I know; him and his family abused her. It's weird; that guy's mum had been in touch with my Mum twice to suggest him for me, and she said that he hadn't been married before, but had just had his nikah done (that doesn't even make sense to me). This was a silly lie to tell because we knew he had been married for at least 2 years; my parents were at the wedding. If this guy is the same guy, he has lied on his profile, saying he's never been married. If he's not the same guy, I'll be very surprised.

UPDATE: I found out that one of the prospectives that came for my sister was divorced. The guy and his family neglected to mention this. I understand that some guys are divorced for reasons that aren't their fault; if this was the case and they mentioned it and were honest, I wouldn't have much of an issue. Lies of omission are usually a bad sign. The person I found out from is a friend of the girl he was married to. Apparently the guy and his family treated her really badly and made ridiculous demands of the girl's family once they realised she had a wealthy family. This is the type of story I keep hearing about different guys. It's so sickening, and I'm finding it difficult not to tar all men with the same brush. I pray that Allah makes all the qualities that I find so abhorrent, ones that don't exist in me (ameen).

Thankfully, I have a lot of things to be getting on with in the next few weeks, so I'm hoping that these dead ends and lack of other prospectives at the moment won't get to me too much. I plan to have some fun girly time at the weekend, and have 2 different weekly Islamic courses to go to, plus a test to study for, for a double weekend course I attended; and I'm starting back at work in the next week too inshaAllah.

Peace out; salaam :)

Antidote to giving up

So many times, in different spheres of my life, I've felt like giving up hope. I don't know how many times I've thought "What's the point? It isn't going to happen so I might as well not try".

Things are not going forward on the rishta front. Things have gone very quiet. This all started to get me down until......

Somebody posted on facebook something like "when you feel like your prayers are not being answered, reflect back on your life and think about how many of them have been"

I thought about it, and the answer, in my case is: loads. Alhumdulillah. I realised there are so many things I worried about that aren't an issue anymore, but it's easy to forget problems you had when they've disappeared.

This also brought to mind the verse 

"Oh you who believe! Seek help with patient perseverance and prayer, for God is with those who patiently persevere." (2:153)

I hope and pray that I can become of those people.

Musing on........gratitude

Somebody (I can't remember who, or what the exact wording was) recently said "when bad things happen to us, we often ask "why me?, but this is hardly ever the case when good things happen to us". I realise I complain a lot, so am going to try and counter that with this in mind.

It's funny, the number of times I've done something silly, but nothing bad happens. Today I left my keys in the car door and went out for the day. The car was still there when I came back. Other times I have dropped my debit card, and someone has handed it back to me, or I've forgotten my bag or phone in a dodgy place, but I've come back for it still to be there, or in the lost and found box, with everything valuable still inside.

Alhumdulillah

Eid!

Assalaamu alaykum!

I've had a fantastic time over the last few days with great food, fun and family alhumdulillah. I feel like Eid is kind of a consolation for losing an excellent companion: Ramadhan, for another year. I feel blessed. My Dad was organising some sadaqah to send to Pakistan to feed and clothe people and reminded me to give it in Ramadhan so I would get the extra ajr (reward) - how awesome is that mashaAllah. I only realised recently what a blessing it is to have parents who think about my spiritual wellbeing, as well as everything else. Alhumdulillah.

Update: the guy my cousin tried to hook me up with didn't reply to my last email for a while (bad sign), then sent me a message to say that although we seemed to be similar, he didn't think his circumstances and this time in his life were right for looking for a marriage partner, so wouldn't be taking things any further. He was very polite about it, and I'm glad he contacted me rather than just leaving things hanging in the hope that I'd eventually figure it out (which is what most guys do). I think it's because they get nervous about the whole thing when it seems like things are getting serious, or they just go along with things, then realise they're not interested/compatible but are embarrassed to say. I don't feel offended when people just tell me, but I feel offended when people leave things hanging: I see it as bad manners. Alhumdulillah, I was relieved - I had a feeling from the start that he was just going along with things. Awkward meeting averted. There are some people who I feel I'm not compatible with, but have to go along with things because in all honesty, how can I know what's going to be good for me? Also, some people can be so different in real life than online or on the phone, so it's best to be open minded and consider every option seriously.

Now I have another cousin who has told me that one of the Shaykhs in my area,, who was my teacher in one of the Islamic courses I went to, has recommended someone as a potential match for me. I have seen his profile on certain Muslim matrimonial websites (and he's looked at mine before - the advantages of website stats), and, as usual, I have my reservations. First of all, he has seen me on those websites, so could have contacted me if he was interested. Maybe having a recommendation from someone else changes things - I don't know. He is from a different ethnic background. Now I don't mind this in principle, but there is the issue of ingrained cultural values in each other that can be misunderstood; and language barriers. Also, he follows a different school of thought and seems a bit strict and serious. Lastly, he said something in his profile about wanting someone who has been through serious rough patches in life. Unusually for me, I felt very irritated when I read this. I know that alhumdulillah, I am really quite privileged, but I don't think that this should be held against me. I have witnessed the look on previous potential suitors faces when they see this, and can almost 'read' that they're thinking "spoilt girl".  I feel like it has given me the mental space and stability to try and help and consider other people, and I know that it is part of my peronality to be reflective. I know some people who have had a hard life, and have then turned bitter, and away from religion, and I know people who have had an 'easy' life, but strive to use their time and resources for others, and for their own spiritual fulfilment and depth, and vice versa for both of these cases. People's strength and goodness is determined by how they react to situations, people and circumstances, not the situations and circumstances themselves - they are God-given, so I feel like it's a bit arrogant to filter out people by those criteria.   I am a bit bemused about how much this struck a nerve with me to be honest, but venting usually helps, so there you go!

I am going to contact my cousin and ask him to talk to the guy about me, and maybe give him a link to my profile and/or email address inshaAllah. This could be a dead end but I've got to try. I don't know where my destiny lies.

Another update: I now have a reply from someone on one of the matrimonial sites from a guy who I thought wasn't interested. It's really hard to know whether something like this is worth pursuing. I think it's always better to arrange a meeting sooner rather than later to find out. But it's awkward......so awkward lol

Ramadhan

Salaam and Ramadhan mubarak!

I have to say, before last year, I never knew what it was to look forward to Ramadhan (I used to dread it - astaghfirullah), but after making a firm intention last year to make that Ramadhan the best yet, and setting myself goals, it just became so much easier alhumdulillah, and I felt the blessings. Here are some of the resources that helped me. They are all things that need to be looked at daily, so I found it created the habit of doing good things regularly:

ROC your Ramadan with Shaykh Riad Ouarzazi (available for last year as well: just don't type '2012' when you search for 'ROC your Ramadan'. Wee profile of him here

Ten minute tafsir with Shaykh Sohaib Saeed

Ramadhan journey planner by Saiyyidah Zaidi. Here's a link to her blog too.

Ramadhan makes me so happy because everyone makes a big effort to be good/nice, and to maximise ibadah. It's beautiful mashaAllah. It reminds me of that feeling I got when I went for umrah earlier in the year with my family "Alhumdulillah, this is how it's supposed to be, and what life is about; I don't ever want this feeling to end". Ramadhan will end, but I need to plan so that inshaAllah, I'll be a better person with better habits after it.