Thought Shots

Just seen the film 'The Citizen'. The movie relates the struggles immigrants have to often go through in the United States despite being good samaritans. At the center of the story is Ibrahim Jarrah (played by Khaled El Nabawy), who arrives in the US on the 10th of September and becomes caught up in a post-9/11 world that he and everybody were least prepared for. He is detained without any cause and kept in prison for six months. He gets released eventually, free from all charges, but does so after having suffered much at the hands of the government. The movie brings to light the panicked reaction that the Bush administration gave after the September 11 attacks and the negative consequences that had to be born by innocent people like Jarrah. Every Middle Eastern, South East Asian or bearded immigrant was begun to be considered a terrorist. They were imprisoned for no reason, deported to unknown places and no record of their arrest was made. The people were, literally, made

I have been reading Salman Rushdie's memoir, 'Joseph Anton'. In it, Rushdie has described his life before, after and during the 'The Satanic Verses' crisis when Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini had issued a Fatwa of his death for his "blasphemous" writing. In the book, Salman uses a courtly urdu word, 'Farishta'. He was referring, of course, to Gabriel who handed down the message of God to the Prophet. I couldn't but think that we all have our own Gabriels. These Gabriels may not be winged in the real world but they surely give us wings. Taylor Swift talks about this in her song 'Better Off' when she says, "We drive around town in a rusty old truck/Somehow it feels like we're flying". And we don't have to have a PHD Degree to be able to recognize these Farishtas. Perhaps, bells would start to ring in your head or things would seem brighter and more colored. But you would know it when they are before you

How do you describe something that is beyond words? When I saw the Taj Mahal yesterday, that is what I thought and that is what I am thinking right now as I try to describe how I found this number one wonder of the world. It is truly a wonder, of course. The brightness of its whiteness, the perfection of its construction from every possible angle, the detailing of its artwork in marbled stone, its towering presence and sheerly stupendous beauty that has to be seen to be believed. They call it the temple of love, the symbol of love, the ultimate gift ever given by a man to his beloved and they call it paradise built in stone on earth. Shah Jahan is said to have designed the place basis the description of the paradise as given in the Holy Quran. And he did it all for his favorite lady- Mumtaz Mahal. Just tells you how love can inspire someone to create a work of perfection. It is one of those structures that is on almost everybody who is anybody's 'places to see before yo