[Reader-list] ROMANCE: Caste no bar

[Naeem Mohaiemen]

Mike Ghouse's blog post has been circulating on the journo networks,
possibly as an antidote to the muslim-loyalty question again
circulating in the context of Obama, etc.

This quote: "I said, you heard it Ma'm, my caste is Male, Man, Mard,
Pursh, looking for Female, Woman, Aurat, Naari; the other caste. After
a frustrating interrogation (because I had liked her daughter's
profile) I asked her if she was interested in me or if it was her
daughter."

Reminds me of that hoary joke: "age no bar, caste no bar, sex bar bar"

-naeem

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2008
Searching for Love, the internet way
http://mikeghouseforamerica.blogspot.com/2008/09/searching-for-love-internet-way.html

It is quite a journey, and I am learning it at every turn.

Way back in 1995, I had placed my profile on an Asian match making
site expressing who I was, and what would it take to make the
partnership work. My personal conviction was for relationships to
sustain, flourish, enjoyable and be durable, they must be anchored in
justness, the feeling where neither one feels taken advantage of or
taken for granted.

It would be a moral crime to ask your partner to change for you
without giving her (or him) the very same right. If you are not
willing to change for her (or him) then you have no moral right to ask
her to change for you. It creates an imbalance and consequently eats
away the joy that both partners deserve. Change should be based on a
lasting and a just equation. Life is about balance.

I received quite a lot of responses on that profile, to my chagrin, it
was the mothers of the women calling and writing to me, the greatest
disappointment came when a mother of a professor of sociology in one
of the Canadian Universities called me up, I was taken back, she
wanted to know the properties I own and heck; she wanted to know my
caste, which I responded with "male" she turns around and asks me what
that was again? I said, you heard it Ma'm, my caste is Male, Man,
Mard, Pursh, looking for Female, Woman, Aurat, Naari; the other caste.
After a frustrating interrogation (because I had liked her daughter's
profile) I asked her if she was interested in me or if it was her
daughter. Of course, that kind of conversation does not go further.
She hung up and I could hear the complaining her daughter had to
endure.

I went to an Urdu Mushaira (Poetry recitation in the language of Urdu)
in Richardson, my favorite thing to do. I was impressed with the
language and voice of the emcee Najma; she had a dignified stage
presence. Years ago in late sixties and early seventies there was a
"Baji" on BBC Radio's Urdu service, I listened to her every Wednesday
evening at 8:45 PM in my home in Bangalore, and I had a crush on her
voice and the way she spoke Urdu. Najma beat all that; she had the
most beautiful radio voice I have ever heard. I asked her to co-anchor
a TV program with me on channel 52 in Dallas, and then she joined me
as a co-talk show host on Radio. We were just friends, never even held
hands together. One day I told her the story of this Canadian Mom and
she had her eyes wide open and asked me to fax her that profile. Later
on that evening when I called her to find if she got the fax, she said
that I wrote it about her without her knowledge. I reminded her that
it was written much earlier and was on the net. That gave me the goose
bumps and changed the world for us until she passed away in May this
year. http://www.mikeghouse.net/Articles/Life-is-a-poem-of-love.asp

Now, I am searching again, for a life time partner either her life
time or mine which ever comes earlier. I listed my profile on a few
mainstream sites and withdrew from some as there are some serious
scams going on out there. I warn you to be aware of those. May be I
was driven by that experience to write this column.

Laugh it out loud, when I say I did not know Diana Lane until a month
ago. I see the beautiful pictures of this lady on the match making
site and I could not resist writing to her. Then a flood of emails
start flowing between this Becky Brewer and me, and within three days,
this dumb ass experienced-me falls in love with this woman head over
heels. I never thought I could be infatuated like this ever again
after that Shakila craze in my college days, where I took my poetry
pen name as Shakil, when she barely knew I even existed. I never
thought my heart would actually pound like that, I felt the sucker
beating fast when I put my hand on the chest. I anxiously waited for
Becky to come on line and chat with me. She was the most perfect woman
I ever came to knew, I was actually praying and thanking God for the
good innings one after the other. Fortunately, the flow of
communication was so beautiful that I saved it to read again, I liked
that feeling of romancing, desiring some one, wanting to be with some
one; oops, it was 50 pages in all! I hope to share that small story
some day; meanwhile I will collapse that into four paragraphs.

Becky was an antique dealer from West Virginia shopping in Nigeria
with her daughter. She did not have a phone number in that hotel and I
believed her. Upon return to the states, she was going to visit me for
a week in Dallas and I was going nuts, I was uncontainable as if
Goddess of love Aphrodite, Apsara or a Hoor was going to land in my
home. She even emailed me a copy of the Airline ticket.

A week before departing Lagos, she was devastated, Angel, her daughter
fell from stairs and had to be taken to the hospital. A few hours
later Becky chats back, she is down, she cannot get the Doctors to
operate on Angel's fractured skull, she did not know what to do, and
she did not have the money either. I asked her to go see the US
embassy as I would call them up to help her; I have some friends who
could have done that. But she declined and said negative things about
the Embassy, I did not agree, but I let that go. However, I was
puzzled when she did not want to give me her passport number, where as
she had asked me to give her my password to my profile on the listing
agency, which I did, so she can make sure that they remove me from
their site, she said, " you are mine". Man that kind of ownership
knocks the guys down, even if they are fricking 56 years old.

You may have guessed it by now what happened next. I went to the
Western Union to wire her the money. There are a lot more details,
chicanery and tricks, but I will keep it to four paragraphs. When I
got back home, there was another lady from Sweden on line, she had
really liked me a lot but understood that "I was someone else's". She
had become a friend and chatted about different things, then she
wanted advice, she told me the same story as mine, verbatim, her guy
was from Belgium going to South Africa to shop for Diamonds, poor girl
had wired him the money. I jumped out of my chair, dropped everything
and called Western Union, luckily I had wired the money at 8 PM Dallas
time, which was 4 AM in Lagos, Nigeria and the funds had not been
delivered. They put a stop and I picked my money back the next
morning.

Becky was crying on the other side and, by then I had done enough
research and put two and two together. I was feeling bad, what if this
was real? Would I let a little girl suffer in the hospital? Am I that
selfish? Then I recovered and realized that she had me. I chatted (all
of it was on yahoo chat) with her and told her to go get the refund on
ticket, she had paid one way fare of $5,600.00 on KLM, and she had
originally lied to me that she had paid in cash. The roundtrip ticket
from Lagos-Dallas-Lagos was $1,050.00 and she had paid $11,200.00 for
the two. It was a real booking paper faked by one of her scheming
friends at KLM.

I got several of those emails, one was a Ghanaian girl going to back
to Ghana for teaching, she said it was the noble thing to do; she was
with her little daughter too. She sends me a picture of a pretty
Vietnamese woman, when I asked her about a Vietanemese Ghanaian, she
disappears. She did not even know the word Vietnam. Next day, I see
the same picture with a different name. I am not scaring you, but just
be careful. I have reported each one of those. I can smell those
skunks from across the ocean now. No, I will take it back, it may even
be next door operation. Perhaps this may not even be a girl; it may be
a sweat shop operation where the girls or guys are paid $100 a month
to net $20 to $25,000 a month by trapping people. I thought I was
smart, I am glad I found out otherwise.

There was a time, where friends set up the blind dates, but every one
knew each other. It is still operative but becoming rare, as no one
wants to be blamed if things went wrong.

"Fear of Rejection" is the mother of all fears. We have several
friends around us, but yet, we are afraid to ask. Before passing,
Najma had reminded me that "I had not asked her out" because of that
fear. She alluded to me that we have several friends and that I should
move on with life after she was gone. That fear grips me again and it
is real. I can stand up to any one including Bush and the McCain
bullies, yet I am drowned in a silly idiotic fear.

Each one of us is stuck up with something or the other; there was this
Debbie girl, who had a perfect female body one can only imagine, I
found myself making excuses not to fly with her in her two seater jet
to go for a dinner in San Antonio. I am scared of heights, my knees
freeze and hands clinch. Years later when I married Najma, she drove
through the little hill in Redwoods and decided to turn back as she
could not see me my dark skin turning white. By the way, those are the
only two fears I have; of heights and of rejection, yet I am a dare
devil peace activist and a public figure.

When I placed myself on the net, the humbling experiencing started to
become a routine. When the beholder in me sees the beauty in a woman,
instinctively I want to know her, but when she does not even respond,
I cringe like every one else. Then I look at my own situation, I do
the same, when a woman wanted to connect with me, I find excuses. At
least I wrote her back that I am considering another relationship. One
lady demanded to know; what was it that I don't find in her. I was
pleased with her questioning but got turned off when she was flashing
the money she had and that our lives could be set for eternity. The
philosophical question we need to think through is what is it that
attracts one to you, and you to the other? Is there a rhyme or reason
to it? Are we biased towards certain individuals? Why did I not want
to respond to her? I found myself not finding an answer to these
questions and am glad about it; it is a humbling and an enriching
experience.

And finally, I have written the following on the net, I believe it is
a reflection of my heart and my mind, in the same order and I would
welcome any comments and suggestions.

My life is simple and I enjoy every bit of it.

Each one of us is a unique being; we are our own models and have to
live our lives responsibly. If we can develop an attitude to accept,
respect and honor the god given uniqueness of each other, then
conflicts fade and solutions emerge.

I do not expect us to be a perfect match for each other, but if we
want to have good life, we have to have the willingness to accept the
otherness of the other; be secure enough to live our own dreams, and
be a catalyst to each others growth and grow both individually and as
partners.

I have my own life mission "opening people's hearts and minds towards
fellow beings", as you may have your own. We have to follow our dream,
honor and cherish it. Individuality is important to me and I would
fiercely guard each other's freedom to be who we want to be.

We need to consciously create a beautiful future for us; we have to
make the time to listen to each other's achievement and frustrations
on a regular basis with lots of love, forgiveness, kindness and
humility.

When we make mistakes, it is good to know and share about it with
humility to learn and avoid. We must consciously develop our tone to
exclude blame and "I told you so" kind of verbiage. Either of us
should fight the temptation of having an upper hand when the other
makes the mistake, as it moves the relationship away from partnership
to competition. We have to let it go and not be stuck in it and
sacrifice the next beautiful moment of the day.

At the end of each weekend, if we can cultivate a habit to clean our
slates; praise the goodness and kiss for the weaker points in each
other. I welcome the kisses, lol! Forgive ourselves and our partner
and commit to start the next day without uploading it with tension,
apprehension, anxiety and ill-will.

Unconditional love and support is important to have an enjoyable life
together. We have to be a relief valve to the other, and an allowance
for brooding must be factored in our relationship. We have to give
room and space to each other as needed. , our relationships with our
families will remain intact and flourish, the more "sum of" we are,
the better person we will be to each other. Love is not divisive, it
is a multiplier.

Every thing will be an open book; we have to accept each other as we
are over a period of time, without a desire to change the other, the
more we are ourselves, the greater the bonding would be.

If Spontaneity exists along with thoughtfulness with moderation and
modesty life would remain exciting. But, whatever we do in life, we
must do it whole heartedly or simply not pursue it.

Our peaceful moments would be sitting quietly in a swing set in the
backyard or the rocker in moonlit nights and gazing stars and the sky
with refreshing breeze kissing our faces.

Listening to the music, together or each others music or our own,
visiting friends and going for a drive, gardening are soothing parts
of life.

I believe in creating our own sacred places of romance to visit
frequently; it is something we can look forward to as a romantic
pilgrimage.

My palette can accommodate most foods, but stable items would be Thai,
Indian, Cajun, Mexican, Italian, steak, grilled fish or Chinese food.

Walking in rain and smelling the fresh smell of earth buoys me up,
there is nothing like it.

I enjoy reading, writing and speaking on interfaith, pluralism, peace
and Multiculturism.

Honoring and respecting every which way one acknowledges and worships
the creator is my value. He (she or it) belongs to all, and all of us
belong to him. He treats us all with dignity, in God's eyes, we are
all his creation and he loves us all. We do have a choice to earn
additional grace by being good to his creation; life and matter.

Although I sound religious, I am not, I am spiritual. Goodness
centered rather than God focused. I believe the purpose of religion is
to bring peace, balance and tranquility to an individual and what
surrounds him or her; life and the environment. I would say, as the
beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, faith is in the heart of the
believer.

I enjoy being a composite of the cultures that make me a Muslim, an
Indian and the American.

Mike Ghouse