Shubnum Khan's Blog, page 6
January 16, 2017
The Bowed Head (Poetry)
I fear sadness now,
knowing what it can do
turn my head away from it, bow my eyes in the face of it
delicately,
at my edges it pecks, but I am covered beneath; layers of tissues, ice on the edges, and yet, yet,
at the right moment, in the right breath with the right sort of eye,
I am soft enough to tear apart
my face already breaking,
look how lovely the mornings are,
the way the clouds break the light
knowing what it can do
turn my head away from it, bow my eyes in the face of it
delicately,
at my edges it pecks, but I am covered beneath; layers of tissues, ice on the edges, and yet, yet,
at the right moment, in the right breath with the right sort of eye,
I am soft enough to tear apart
my face already breaking,
look how lovely the mornings are,
the way the clouds break the light
January 14, 2017
A Moment (from the square)
Once in Madison Square, I stopped a woman with a pram and she took a photo of me next to a sculpture and I was wearing my big jacket and I had to put my bag down, behind me and I kept turning back to check on my bag and so in the photo I have a face like someone who is turning to look back.
A Moment (from 2 squares)
In Times Square, I stopped people and asked them to take photos of me so that I could send them home to my parents. And I don't think people felt sorry for me, they smiled and did it and not one person ran away with my camera (my no.3 fear), but in fairness, I did choose families and women in heels and old men so that I would have a head start if they did.
Once in Madison Square, I stopped a woman with a pram and she took a photo of me next to a sculpture and I was wearing my big jacket and I had to put my bag down, behind me and I kept turning back to check on my bag and so in the photo I have a face like someone who is turning to look back.
Once in Madison Square, I stopped a woman with a pram and she took a photo of me next to a sculpture and I was wearing my big jacket and I had to put my bag down, behind me and I kept turning back to check on my bag and so in the photo I have a face like someone who is turning to look back.
A Moment (from Manhatten)
In Times Square, I stopped people and asked them to take photos of me so that I could send them home to my parents. And I don't think people felt sorry for me, they smiled and did it and not one person ran away with my camera (my no.3 fear), but in fairness, I did choose families and women in heels and old men so that I would have a head start if they did.
Once in Madison Square, I stopped a woman with a pram and she took a photo of me next to a sculpture and I was wearing my big jacket and I had to put my bag down, behind me and I kept turning back to check on my bag and so in the photo I have a face like someone who is turning to look back.
Once in Madison Square, I stopped a woman with a pram and she took a photo of me next to a sculpture and I was wearing my big jacket and I had to put my bag down, behind me and I kept turning back to check on my bag and so in the photo I have a face like someone who is turning to look back.
January 9, 2017
Summer in Durban (Sunday Times)
There’s never quite a summer like a Durban summer.
Each November I anticipate the heat with growing dread. I begin preparations by checking that the air-conditioning units are working, that their remotes have batteries and that all stocks of insect repellent are replenished. Next everything gets moved to the fridge; flour, spices and even the bread. Anything that is not safely inside the fridge will sprout legs in the heat and run off.
The creepy crawlies arrive gradually beginning with the ants then a few mosquitos, then some lizards until eventually there’s a swarm of flies on everything. By mid-December the wood bores are flourishing and every surface inside is littered with tiny wings in the morning. But a Durban summer is not complete without the giant flying cockroach that leaves me, even to this day, running hysterically for cover. By mid-season the roads are as full as the beaches and you’re confronted with a GP number plate at every turn. Queues build up at the mall, at restaurants and even the bank. There’s chicken bones and broken glass on the road and in the sand. At this point the humidity is so high that strangers are drawn to one another without meaning to and they stand together in a sweaty unhappy mess. And by January the air conditioner has packed up and the repairman who promises to fix it never arrives.
It is about at this time that I seriously reconsider living in this city. In fact I seriously reconsider living at all, tearing my hair out whilst fanning myself and dodging flying cockroaches in the relentless afternoon heat. And it’s right about then when the heat has become unbearable and I’ve decided to buy a one-way ticket to some Northern country, I hear a rumble in the sky and a second later the pitter-patter of rain fills the air. And then just like that I am reminded about what I love about summer in Durban. Afternoon storms that send a hiss around the city as everything cools down, running out barefoot to the garden to get clothes off the line. Bunches of dusky pink litchis at street corners, golden mangoes sitting heavy in trees, giant watermelons rumbling on the back of fruit tucks and eating peaches with the juice running down our hands. Summer in Durban means secret swims in the neighbour’s pool while they’re off on holiday in India. It means wading into the warm Indian ocean smelling of sunblock as wave after wave hits you and scampering onto the hot burning sand searching for towels. It means sitting on crinkled newspapers in the car covered in sand eating melting vanilla ice cream cones from North beach. It means long days that never end and planting bright summer flowers for the new season with my parents in the garden. It means library books and cousins from Jo’burg and meat burnt black on the braai. It means nostalgia and promise all at once. I means this city with all its heat and humidity is truly my own.
And I realise then that summer in Durban might be unbearable but there’s nothing else like it.
Shubnum Khan is the author of Onion Tears (Penguin). The novel was shortlisted for the Penguin Prize for African Writing and the University of Johannesburg Debut Fiction Prize.
(Originally published in the Sunday Times Travel Magazine, 09 January 2016)
Each November I anticipate the heat with growing dread. I begin preparations by checking that the air-conditioning units are working, that their remotes have batteries and that all stocks of insect repellent are replenished. Next everything gets moved to the fridge; flour, spices and even the bread. Anything that is not safely inside the fridge will sprout legs in the heat and run off.
The creepy crawlies arrive gradually beginning with the ants then a few mosquitos, then some lizards until eventually there’s a swarm of flies on everything. By mid-December the wood bores are flourishing and every surface inside is littered with tiny wings in the morning. But a Durban summer is not complete without the giant flying cockroach that leaves me, even to this day, running hysterically for cover. By mid-season the roads are as full as the beaches and you’re confronted with a GP number plate at every turn. Queues build up at the mall, at restaurants and even the bank. There’s chicken bones and broken glass on the road and in the sand. At this point the humidity is so high that strangers are drawn to one another without meaning to and they stand together in a sweaty unhappy mess. And by January the air conditioner has packed up and the repairman who promises to fix it never arrives.
It is about at this time that I seriously reconsider living in this city. In fact I seriously reconsider living at all, tearing my hair out whilst fanning myself and dodging flying cockroaches in the relentless afternoon heat. And it’s right about then when the heat has become unbearable and I’ve decided to buy a one-way ticket to some Northern country, I hear a rumble in the sky and a second later the pitter-patter of rain fills the air. And then just like that I am reminded about what I love about summer in Durban. Afternoon storms that send a hiss around the city as everything cools down, running out barefoot to the garden to get clothes off the line. Bunches of dusky pink litchis at street corners, golden mangoes sitting heavy in trees, giant watermelons rumbling on the back of fruit tucks and eating peaches with the juice running down our hands. Summer in Durban means secret swims in the neighbour’s pool while they’re off on holiday in India. It means wading into the warm Indian ocean smelling of sunblock as wave after wave hits you and scampering onto the hot burning sand searching for towels. It means sitting on crinkled newspapers in the car covered in sand eating melting vanilla ice cream cones from North beach. It means long days that never end and planting bright summer flowers for the new season with my parents in the garden. It means library books and cousins from Jo’burg and meat burnt black on the braai. It means nostalgia and promise all at once. I means this city with all its heat and humidity is truly my own.
And I realise then that summer in Durban might be unbearable but there’s nothing else like it.
Shubnum Khan is the author of Onion Tears (Penguin). The novel was shortlisted for the Penguin Prize for African Writing and the University of Johannesburg Debut Fiction Prize.
(Originally published in the Sunday Times Travel Magazine, 09 January 2016)
January 7, 2017
Quote (The X Files)
Mulder: I saw things Scully. Powerful things. I saw deep and unconditional love.
Scully: I saw things too. I witnessed unqualified hate. That appears to have no end.
Mulder: How to reconcile the two? The extremes of our nature.
Scully: That's the question. Maybe the question of our times.
(Babylon 10x05)
Scully: I saw things too. I witnessed unqualified hate. That appears to have no end.
Mulder: How to reconcile the two? The extremes of our nature.
Scully: That's the question. Maybe the question of our times.
(Babylon 10x05)
Quote (on awe)
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
January 6, 2017
A History of Moments
1. Standing on the street in New York looking up at the sky watching the snow come down.
2. Sitting in a broadway play, the Phantom of the Opera mesmerised by boats gliding through the smoke.
3. Sitting on a train to Ghent by myself watching the land turn white as the snow unexpectedly comes down.
4. Sitting on a mountain top in Kashmir in the cold around a fire in a hollowed out tree, talking laughing with the darkness around us, the stars above us and horses neighing, free, running.
5. Abba standing to take a photo with me in Canada, his arm around me, my face is full and broken.
6. In a hotel room in Shanghai, eyes open in the dark the street sounds below, a fear so full in my chest I cannot breathe.
7. Sitting alone in a mosque in Seoul and crying into my scarf.
8. Mama not being able to breathe. The catch in her chest.
9. Abbajaan on the floor. Me trying to pick him up.
10. After Taraweeh, sitting in the car. Weeping on the steering wheel.
11. Hugging MZ, my big fat baby
12. Z taking me for tea, when I cannot speak
13. That afternoon in the bathroom
14. Abba
15. Mamma
16. Z
17. S
18. Taking out my earrings to give them to her in the bathroom
19. The bathroom floor
20. The loop
21. Dreaming of the village
22. Gorikhala
23. Being forced to eat peas and chicken
24. Walking through Hypermarket crying
25. My father cutting out the toes of all my Barbie dolls
26. I
27. A
28. M
29.
30. M
31. The thought of death
32. Shaving my hair off in Makkah
33. Prayer
34. Jumping, the world a movement in my head.
35. Writing. Fiercely.
36. Passion.
37. Praying.
38. Abba
39. A tortiseshell brush moving roughly through my hair.
40. An uncle who kisses us too close to the lips. Wet. Ugly. We wipe out mouths with the back of our hands afterwards.
2. Sitting in a broadway play, the Phantom of the Opera mesmerised by boats gliding through the smoke.
3. Sitting on a train to Ghent by myself watching the land turn white as the snow unexpectedly comes down.
4. Sitting on a mountain top in Kashmir in the cold around a fire in a hollowed out tree, talking laughing with the darkness around us, the stars above us and horses neighing, free, running.
5. Abba standing to take a photo with me in Canada, his arm around me, my face is full and broken.
6. In a hotel room in Shanghai, eyes open in the dark the street sounds below, a fear so full in my chest I cannot breathe.
7. Sitting alone in a mosque in Seoul and crying into my scarf.
8. Mama not being able to breathe. The catch in her chest.
9. Abbajaan on the floor. Me trying to pick him up.
10. After Taraweeh, sitting in the car. Weeping on the steering wheel.
11. Hugging MZ, my big fat baby
12. Z taking me for tea, when I cannot speak
13. That afternoon in the bathroom
14. Abba
15. Mamma
16. Z
17. S
18. Taking out my earrings to give them to her in the bathroom
19. The bathroom floor
20. The loop
21. Dreaming of the village
22. Gorikhala
23. Being forced to eat peas and chicken
24. Walking through Hypermarket crying
25. My father cutting out the toes of all my Barbie dolls
26. I
27. A
28. M
29.
30. M
31. The thought of death
32. Shaving my hair off in Makkah
33. Prayer
34. Jumping, the world a movement in my head.
35. Writing. Fiercely.
36. Passion.
37. Praying.
38. Abba
39. A tortiseshell brush moving roughly through my hair.
40. An uncle who kisses us too close to the lips. Wet. Ugly. We wipe out mouths with the back of our hands afterwards.
A Moment (from the mountaintop)
We were sitting around a fire at the top of Srayaan and it was cold, more cold than I ever knew and I was sitting so close to the fire I could feel the flames on my fingers and I didn't care if I got burnt and my back was freezing, broken and the others they were telling djinn stories about the big djinn in uncle's chinar tree outside the mosque and the hair that was growing from someone's hand and I was fumbling for my earphones because I didn't want to hear, because I already knew by then what you didn't know could't hurt you and you had to prepeare, you had to protect yourself and I put in my earphones and listened to Coldplay and looked up at the stars and in the distance in a ghostly glow on the mountain there were white horses running and even while freezing, even whilst fighting off the fear of stories, I was bewildered, in awe of the world and I think now, I hope now, I am always that way, always afraid and in love with everything.
A moment (from 1998)
Most days in the morning Harish would come and give me a handful of sweets. Sparkles, yellow chappies and if I was lucky green watermelon flavoured chappies. I don't know why he did it. No I lie, I do.
I can still remember the taste of plastic watermelon in my mouth in the morning. And then Edith coming up to me asking me for R2. She said my eyes were scary like Marlena's and she said it like she meant it. And so sometimes I made my eyes big at her and laughed. Her uniforms were always too short. She wore a thick black head band and too much eye make up and the boys liked her but someone said it was just because she was easy. But she wore a tiny silver cross and she had a tall boyfriend who came to the gate to see at her lunch time and I didn't think she was like that, even if she did always hang out with the wrong kind of boys.
I can still remember the taste of plastic watermelon in my mouth in the morning. And then Edith coming up to me asking me for R2. She said my eyes were scary like Marlena's and she said it like she meant it. And so sometimes I made my eyes big at her and laughed. Her uniforms were always too short. She wore a thick black head band and too much eye make up and the boys liked her but someone said it was just because she was easy. But she wore a tiny silver cross and she had a tall boyfriend who came to the gate to see at her lunch time and I didn't think she was like that, even if she did always hang out with the wrong kind of boys.
