How do I fix a broken heart?

On my visit to India, I was given a CD recording of a young Islamic scholar's speech on 'Islam and social service'. Now this Sheikh is a passout from Al Azhar University so the lecture was laced with quotes and references from the Holy Quran and hadith.

A story from that recording stayed with me about a saintly Muslim teacher who was asked by an old and poor non-Muslim woman to pray to God for her lost child.

The pious man prayed to God and and his prayer was answered. The old woman's lost son was found.

Now the old woman had thought to herself that she would make 'halwa' (traditional sweet) and feed it to the saintly man if her son was to be found. So, to share her happiness when her son was found, she visited the old man who was sitting with his disciples and taking the 'halwa' in her hand offered it to the teacher.

The teacher was in a dilemma and his students sensed it. That day, he was fasting. And Muslims don't eat or drink while fasting. The old woman who was not a Muslim apparently did not know about the teacher's fast and its conditions.

For a moment the teacher thought and then opened his mouth and let the poor woman share her joy with him by eating the halwa she had lovingly prepared for him.

After she was gone, the students were quick to quiz him on this. "Why, teacher, did you break your fast like this?"

The teacher replied: "I know I can mend a broken fast with another one, but I do not know how to mend a broken heart."

(I understand this was a voluntary fast (nafil) and this story made an impact on me. Did you like it?)

Emigration Clearance Not Required

The officer at the emigration counter was young, and talkative.

As I stood in the queue waiting for my turn, I could see that he was making small talk with most passengers.
Some passengers replied to him smiling. Some grimaced. Some looked the other way as he spoke.
Was he cross-questioning them? Or just making small talk?

It was my turn.

"Are you Indian?" the officer asked as he trained his eyes on me. He was holding my Indian passport.

"Shuddh Bhartiya!*" I replied, matter of factly.

"But you look like a foreigner," he insisted.

Is it my beard that is bringing this line of questioning, I wondered. Kept quiet.

"What do you do?" he asked

"I'm a writer," I said.

"Written a book?" he asked.

"Not yet. Perhaps when I have a few grey hair in my beard," I said to him, getting bolder.

"Yeah, then your writing will have more weight." He seemed to get it.

"Absolutely," I said.

"Write a book like Satanic Verses. You know, the one Salman Rushdie wrote," he said with a sly smile as his hand reached for the exit stamp to be put on my passport.

"I'll write a refutation to it," I said.

Thap. Thap. He stamped my passport and got ready to talk to the next passenger leaving India.

I moved on to the boarding gate, taking my country's parting memory with me.

A bitter one.

[*'Shudh Bhartiya' means pure Indian in Hindi, India's national language]

Becoming a foreigner in my motherland

I have just returned to the UAE from India - and this trip made me a certified NRI (Non-Resident Indian). How, you ask?

My tummy crashed.

The way it does for foreigners who visit India and can't take the spicy food.

I felt ridiculous carrying a mineral water bottle around, like the firangi backpackers you see in India whose tummies can't take our desi water.

The street side stalls called out to the real Bhartiya (Indian) in me. Ah... the paneer-pakoras, the chaat-paaprees, the spicy, oily, mouthwatering stuff that I used to savour without reservation when I lived in India beckoned. And I, with my digestive system in a sorry state, stayed put.

I'm back in the UAE, and my tummy is still trying to get a foothold on slippery ground.

Can't wait to get the system going and then get back to the brown khubz and the shawarmas - oh how I missed thee, ya UAE!