View from my window

I am amazed that we don't notice change while it happens. Maybe because it is so slow- one micro pixel at a time! Though we do notice change when it has happened, we notice it when it is too late, we notice it to record an absence. For instance, Facebook will, I am afraid, irreversibly change our attitudes to relationships with people and things in times to come. At least we have known another era, kids growing up in FaceBook era won't know any other reality. To start with everyone in our contact list is a 'friend'. I might add my parents but when they join Facebook, they will have to be my 'friend'! My husband is my friend, so are my siblings. Oh yeah that girl I met last weekend on the beach who was very friendly and wanted to add me to stay in touch-is also a friend! What about that annoying guy in high school whom I was so happy to have lost in my life but now he has added me (I accepted his 'friendship because he was a friend of a friend and I didn'...

I am torn between birds eye view or ants view! Not that we are ever privy to enough information to give either with any authority. All we can do is catch some snitches and try to construct a reality. Always a little apprehensive about how things would turn out, that is if we are honest about knowledge dissemination. I say this because curiously we are always given the impression of having knowledge, there is nothing that goes on in the back rooms of power that is not shared in the press room, 'on or off' the record, and manages to come into the electronic or print media and we, the poor 'awam' or common man, subsequently hear about our fates. It is also quite strange that this media, acting as either mouthpieces of powers that be or awam's beneficiary and taking up the role of Nostradamus, can predict destinies of nations. They can foretell a destiny many months in advance. So the power is, not in the knowledge of what is happening right now but, in how early you ca...

A little boy of nine, a back bencher in my class of about 40 suddenly came into my attention. It was their Islamiat period and I was standing in front of them and trying to convince these little kids that God wasn't a menacing and ferocious being and didn't want people to die in his name when I suddenly noticed this kid. He was trying to hide his tears which were falling at a greater rate then his wiping ability and his face had crumbled. Since I was probably the only one who had noticed this and wanted to preserve his young pride, I tried to continue with a heavy and wondering heart. When the bell rang, signalling recess, all the kids rushed out of the class. I sneaked a look at this little boy and saw him bent down almost half way into his bag hiding his face from his classmates. When all had left he peered furtively and when he saw me looking at him, ducked promptly. I gently went up to him, pulled a chair beside him and asked him what the matter was. His tears started fal...