(A version of this entry is cross-posted at UPI)

Al-Fatiha (The Opening)

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate
All praise is for God alone, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds,
The Merciful, the Compassionate,
Master of the Day of Judgement.
You alone do we worship, and You alone do we turn to for help.
Show us the straight way
The way of those whom You have blessed- not of those who have been condemned or who have gone astray.

(Qur’an, 1:1-7)

Al-Fatiha is the most recited verse of the Qur’an. A practicing Muslim says it during every prayer, at a minimum of 17 times daily. Not only is it the opening chapter of the Qur’an but by saying it to ourselves repeatedly we seek to open our hearts to God and to be aware of the many openings and opportunities to come closer to Him that He provides us with every day.

The openings are also present in the places and people around us – if we take the time to become conscious of them.

I’m beginning to think that I was unfair in my initial characterization last week of Pureland as a consumerist hell sadly lacking as a spiritual refuge. While true in many ways – both here and, increasingly, everywhere – there is so much more to being here.

It’s strange being an expatriate – I often feel slightly off-balance or out of place in both countries that I consider home. When in Freeland I am struck sometimes by how little I share culturally with other Americans in spite of being born there, but when I come to Pureland it’s often the same.

In both places I can be overwhelmed and alienated by feeling unfamiliar in places where I expect the soothing touches of home.

I think one of my issues has always been longing for the past, looking back like Lot’s wife and hardening into a pose that prevents me from appreciating today. For so much of my life I longed to go backwards, to undo, to relive and it’s really only been in the last three years that I’ve started trying to walk forwards instead of backwards.

Much of that change has to do with being married to my partner Basil, who makes the present a wonderful place to be.

The miasma of cynicism which seems to hang over Pureland chokes me upon arrival. President Musharraf has now completed seven years of implementing his “enlightened moderation” at this point. Looking back at the continual history of coups in Pureland it’s unsurprising that people no longer believe in accountability – for elected officials or for themselves.

It takes some time to see through the fog, but eventually I start remembering all the things that I love about this country instead of focusing only on how it has changed. Being here again brings a flood of almost-forgotten memories, beautiful and awful, as if they are somehow connected to the soil, carried in the air here. All the years that I lived here, all the people that I’ve been, come streaming back to me.

Looking at any object around the house is like seeing it reflected in my eyes at fourteen, eighteen, twenty-five, thirty and every age in between and beyond all at once.

I wonder if, beyond security or covetousness, that a longing for rootedness plays a role in Punjabis’ obsession with land. My father, a successful urban cardiologist, refuses to sell his farmland in his ancestral village because he says that it is our heritage.

Even if one rarely visits or thinks of it, does that zameen(land) or mitti (earth) course through our veins shaping who we were, are or can become?

Openings to the Divine come in so many unexpected, unlooked for forms and provide an opportunity for us to look closer, and to look again. A storm late last night was the opening which paved the way for me to love Pureland again.

The storm came in the way that they often do here – sudden, thunder and howling wind-filled, lighting up the sky dramatically and threatening to take the windows off their hinges, while simultaneously blowing deliciously cool winds and rain to scatter the 90-degree heat.

Pureland is one of those places where summer rain signals joy – people walk the streets with smiles on their faces in spite of ankle-deep muddy water instead of running inside to stay dry. I never understood why my parents liked the smell of rain hitting the dry earth until we moved to Pureland and I first experienced one of the intensely hot summers for myself.

Now, when they say mitti ki khushboo (the earth’s perfume) I know exactly what they mean. When those first few drops of rain fall upon the dust they release one of the most heavenly and joyous fragrances that I know, ushering in pure ecstasy and relief from life-oppressing heat.

At suhoor (the pre-dawn Ramadan meal) shortly after the storm in a newly cool house I looked around at the faces of my family gathered at the table and thought to myself that this is really what it is about after all.

Whatever bad times we’ve had, whatever difficult dynamics we still deal with as a family – all of which seem to arise to confront me whenever I visit – at the end of the day, they’re my blood. And that counts for something, and makes up for a lot.

As we sat at the table Amiji (my mother) told us about her childhood suhoors in her ancestral village. A group of dhol-walas (people playing traditional large two-sided drums) would start going through the village at 2 am playing drums and singing naats (poems in praise of the Prophet) in order to wake people for suhoor. By the time they finished wandering through the village drumming and signing, it would still be two hours before the pre-dawn meal.

Then, my sister told us how when she was studying in a Lahore college the local mosques would start broadcasting into their microphones cough – clear throat –cough – “Hazraat! Sehri khatam honay mein do ghantey hein!”, warning people of the impending end of suhoor, also a good two hours beforehand.

In both cases, it’s a wonder that anyone got any sleep at all. But Ramadan is not about sleeping after all – it is about becoming awake and alive to the blessings pouring down upon us every minute of our lives, like a raincloud that has sheltered and nourished us all along but which we suddenly become acutely aware of and grateful for.

As we listened to and laughed at everyone’s Ramadan tales with the fresh, rain-cooled wind blowing in through the windows I looked around the table again, lingering on each dear face. My five-year old niece was also there, sleepy but intent on sitting with us.

We’re forming her memories of Ramadan and family life here and now, and I hope that they are as sweet as many of mine are. It is a such a gift to be able to take be a part of forming who she is and will become, especially because I am so often a far-away Khala (maternal aunt) in San Francisco.

This particular opening, stormy though it began, allowed me to appreciate again the infinite blessings of family and home, for all of which I am very grateful.