But never the ones I make to children. I never squinch on a promise I make to anyone under the age of  ten. To flint that innocent expectancy and to then just snuff it with fake-ass assurances or forgetfulness, has all the cruel of setting a kitten’s tail on fire. And kids remember stuff like that. There was this girl my mum once gave a lift to who borrowed the Mad magazine I was reading that morning. She promised to return it. Never did. I don’t usually call people this, but really, Bitch! It was one of their special editions. I hope she developed a really embarrassing but non life-threatening rash, that could be easily treated with a few applications of some smelly topical lotion.

Promises. I have some trouble with them.

Especially the ones I make to myself. I will write something for posterity everyday. I will finish the short story now-now. I will take more pictures. Et cetera.

So, it’s muchly obvious that The Year of Thinking Recklessly project, while having bloomed with some promise, is now in need of some deodorizing. I’m sorry. I just can not keep it up with it. It was a bit stupid of me to take on the commitment knowing that my movements would not be regular or predictable for the five months into this year. The inclination towards recklessness has been nuked by constipation.

Dare I promise to try again next year? Nah.

No related posts.

flew an eagle

soaring and swooping.

What a bird!

Unlike anything

I’d seen or heard.

Oh, but I heard

and it didn’t sound

oppressed to me.

–

(Of course, if I understood more than one-seventieth of what she was saying, I’d be able to provide a fleshier commentary. But, g’damn, her voice is impressive.)

Similar posts:

1. 1 – promises

Just when I believed

with all of me

that I could never,

ever, ever,

ever,

even

possibly,

in one

billion lifetimes,

or two,

or three,

love a

millimetre more,

he goes

and makes

the perfect

chicken and

mayonnaise

sandwich.

Similar posts:

1. 3 – completion made manifest
2. 20 – between memories
3. 5 – between memories

Having read installments of this title via dailylit.com, I wanted to take a bash at designing* a cover for it. I took my cue from protagonist Prudence Crowley’s nickname ‘Tuppence’.

Graphic source: Karen Roe

*Don’t judge me by this cover. All these years and I’m still n00bing about:)

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1. Happy VD…
2. Guess That Typo! Round two
3. I make Ad-Jam…(1)

on which

in his

name I will

be called,

I will

be

called

in his name.

No related posts.

some cool down to rest this mind.

Looking for a gentle nothing,

some soft peace, the praying kind.

Similar posts:

1. 11 – of sons and daughters part 4
2. 22 – between memories
3. 1 – promises

After a great dance of squishy hopping about, I felt less eeeghwaikeeooogheey and a bit more 9-years-old-after-madressah-braving-the-oceans-of-the-civic-centre-parking-lot-as-a-keen-stomping-adventurer-on-her-journey-home.

When we got in, I washed my feet with soap. They were feeling kind of furry.

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1. 15 – fi misr
2. Pedobear fi Misr
3. Blotting paper

puts a fair amount of

stretch and fade

in to the spaces between mistakes.

Just three more minutes

on this cycle

and you will never have happened.

Similar posts:

1. 6 – dream things
2. Shaira

hairdresser in Germiston

told my mother

We don’t cut Indian hair.

Their strange scissors could have

cut through concrete and my

toddler curls,

the way they sliced my mother so.

–

(Indulge me, I’m busy filing.)

Similar posts:

1. 20 – between memories
2. 22 – between memories
3. 21 – between memories

I only found my tears at the funeral.

That old man was too cool.

Star quality before stars lost their quality.

You shoulda seen the pictures,

like some David Carradine in the dust.

Wild Bill Hickock with a soccer ball

that Bhamjee could shoot.

And on a big night or holy day

you know how everyone asks for maaf**

and Papa would just say

“Agh it’s alright”.

Oh he lived full.

But too quick.

With a thousand devils’ cares

and the name of a winning horse

and innocent errant truths on his tongue,

like when he met a burkah-bi aunty

and told the room how they

go way back in the day

and used to dance at Chez Gay

(that was so far back it really meant the home of happy)

Ah Papa, I can almost see you now,

waiting for that reckoning.

And it’s going to be fine,

‘coz you know what He’s going to say,

“Agh Bhamjee, It’s alright.”

–

Similar posts:

1. 20 – between memories
2. 21 – between memories
3. 23 – between memories

They were dumb as molasses
they’d only harass us,
for homework
copied on noble gases.

Grown-up girls don’t make passes
at dumb boys, those asses.
Have no time
for those stuffed with what crass is.

I will tell you what sass is
it’s not for the masses
only those
men with coke bottle glasses.

Similar posts:

1. 20 – between memories
2. 23 – between memories
3. 18 – Between memories

by not presenting

them with the

alternatives.

Think of the waste

that is a plait

pulled

and

oiled

and

love-in-tokyo-ed.

When God

gave us the faculty

to use scissors,

I could have been as free

as Abdul across the road.

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1. 21 – between memories
2. 23 – between memories
3. 18 – Between memories

is God’s way of pinching.

“Wake Up.

Just a few more minutes

is time you

will never have.”

No related posts.

As you

must be

with pomegranates.

The good jewels

stick.

Membranes

are finicky.

But do

take the time.

Similar posts:

1. 20 – between memories
2. 21 – between memories
3. 23 – between memories

1. I have a real problem managing time.

2. Hence I’m a pro-procrastinator.

3. It is difficult for me to wake up early especially if there is nothing pressing to attend to.

4. I sing along to jingles and other tracks when I watch TV or listen to the radio.

5. Chaos is my element.

6. I’m always up for eating strange things.

7. I like the bitterness of schweppes dry lemon and malts.

8. My dreams are often strange and textbook. (There’s one I would like to translate into an art installation; a swimming pool shell filled with condoms that have had little notes placed in them by people writing about their regrets or unfulfilled dreams)

9. I’m easily distracted.

10. I can lose hours on repetitive games.

11. I really, really don’t like conflict.

12. I’m selfish. Not because I want to be, but because I don’t know how to be any other way. (I am an only child)

13. My stuff is everywhere.

14. I speak silly.

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1. 5 things
2. “Be water, my friend” and current addictions
3. tagged by mangoes and mint

“Bikya! Bikya, bikya, bikyaaa! Beeeekya, bikya, bikya, bikyaaaa!”

It goes on for most of the day, the calls varying in intensity and persistence, but always with the quality of stirring Cairo’s kitty population.

When we first heard them, we thought  it was an Egyptian-variety Hadeda.

But these weren’t birds, rather men in bakkies or carts looking for old things to buy.

Zakiya and Zaheer told us about them when we first got here. She said it sounded like they were calling out her name. I can’t disagree:)

Clicking through wikipedia and blogs, I learnt that bikya is taken from the Italian roba vecchia – “old clothes”. Egypt has had Italian presence since the Middle Ages and the ‘clothes’ bit has since evolved to include anything that could be re-used. I can imagine the tenacity and resilience of the bikya call puncturing the waking dreams of generations upon generations.

Still, it’s a pretty cool way to upcyle your clutter.

Naeem’s been looking at classified plug-ins for some of his wordpress blogs and tossed the idea of a book swop/sale listing at me. Not even a few seconds into the install when what should we hear from the streets below but the universe speaking to us in the strong and clear directives of “Bikyaaaa Bikya, bikya, bikyaaa!”

So with that, I bring you “Books&Bikya“, a free space for you to list:

• book/bikya swaps

• book/bikya sales

• pre-loved books/bikya to pass on to others

• interesting things you’re looking for

• crafty things

• upcycling initiatives

• book club/thinky meet ups

• events

De-clutter. Share. Upcycle. Make a clean buck. Make good clean friends. Get creative. Be thinky.

No related posts.

I am me with you.

Just a tad more.

Similar posts:

1. 2 – between memories
2. 4 – between memories
3. 7 – between memories

Once, in awkward preteenage, she and Nisa shared a brief, aghast giggle when Ayesha from the butcher told them that her parents still did it. It used to be all so very euw and yuck back but oh look at her now — just pass the age her mother had been then– having done and done and still doing. To think of her child as a sexual entity shifted the colour-fill from her outlines in much the same way when as a teenager she chanced upon her parents kissing. But then, what had surprised her more, was that there had been such warmth between two people she’d always thought of as having been forced upon each other.

She’d read Shakira’s diary once, after her pockets had just about split from all the neuroses she carried. A mother’s worry trumped boundaries. She scanned the pages for keywords, not wanting to read too deeply and steal even more from her daughter. Her eyes latched onto a name. Shameem. And she found it on every other page after that and then on almost every line. There had been a Shameem in Zeenat’s Std9 class. At the all-girl school. A sharp pain jerked her away from the pages. She didn’t realise she’d been grinding on her own teeth. She read on. “I can’t believe I fell for it. All his dumb lies.” His. Not Her. Zeenat pinched her own ears for failing her daughter. She cursed this Shameem for bringing Shakira pain and closed the diary. After that, she only worried for her daughter’s heart. Not who it belonged to, but how it was received.

And Ismail seemed a gracious and grateful recipient. Zeenat just had to stare as her daughter stared at Ismail who stared back. This was all so very novel and sweet. But for the pachyderm balancing the tea tray on its trunk.

Iqbal and Ridwaan were deep into shoptalk. Feroza shared her recipe for Melting Moments biscuits between enthusiastic mouthfuls of confectionary being denied the very same. She seemed a great fan of her own words and was too enamoured to notice Zeenat’s distraction.

Would it be so awfully wrong if she just sewed her mouth and guilt shut? There was the chance that Shakira and Ismail did not share any genes. They didn’t look like brother and sister. Ismail had his mother’s pop of a nose and her small eyes. He was also what she’d once heard described as soft in the middle, and she knew it was the type of build that goes to portly pot in advancing years. Much like what had happened with his father. But still, he had a pleasant face. Friendly and open and full of unabashed admiration for her daughter. Zeenat could easily just never say anything to anyone. No one had to know. Not Iqbal. Not Shakira. It didn’t seem as if Ridwaan had made the connection. And even if he did, wouldn’t he have as much to lose? She could lie about Zeenat’s birth details. What good were men with dates anyway right? Besides, she could panelbeat the truth into anything.

But what if, what if, what if they were half-siblings? Could she live with herself, live with her God or without Him, on the split chance that her daughter was part of an incestuous marriage. What if they had children and something went wrong? She couldn’t turn blood into water. And then everyone would know what she’d done, twice over. Please Allah, a heart attack would be just perfect right now…

“So Zeenat, Iqbal tells me you’re of the Fifth street Khariwalla’s. I knew the family well. Very well.”

It was the first full sentence Ridwaan had directed to her since they sat down for tea. She looked up from her cup and into his eyes.

He knew.

—

Part 8 (& the end) to follow.

Similar posts:

1. 11 – of sons and daughters part 4
2. 12 – of sons and daughters part 5
3. 10 – of sons and daughters part 3

At a masjid fi misri just before maghrib I find jidatee* with her nose in His Signs, while a metronome of bone on bone keeps time with each fatha, each kasra. Those knees creak as much as the scuffed plastic of her chair.

She’s not really my grandmother. I hear only one word out of her hundred. “Ana la atakalam arabiyya”, that’s what the guidebook told me to say. “Er er er, ana talibah, min junoob iffrikiya”, that was today’s lesson.

Jidatee, who’s not really, fingers the cloth of my jacket before pointing to my skin. I think she’s trying to ask me why I’m not black. “Er er er, ummmi, er er er, ummi’s ummi’s ummi er min Hindee-yah”. I hadn’t yet learnt the word for grandmother or the greatness thereof. Jidatee brings her finger to her forehead to make a little circle in the middle. “La, la, Muslim” I say. Sounds a bit like a song, and we laugh before we pray.

–

*arabic for my grandmother

This started out as a poem, but I couldn’t.

I ran one of those vintage photoshop actions on the photo of a window in Masjid Bilal. It’s just down the road from our flat in Madinat Nasr. I’ll be posting more pics soon. Perhaps I should retitle my 20-ken project to “The Year of Shooting Recklessly”. I’ve been a bit suck about the writing. Our place is on Naguib Mahfouz street, so I’m trying to channel some prolific writer spirit. So far all I’m filling up with is karkadey and basboosah. Good gorge, Cairo’s wonderful.

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1. Pedobear fi Misr
2. 25 – fi misr
3. 20 – between memories

They were probably aiming for défilé.

Acute Fail.

Similar posts:

1. 25 – fi misr
2. 15 – fi misr