"Woofy"...

It was my second day in the cold, sunny Johannesburg. I was staying in a big old estate turned into a guesthouse, with alot of zebras, horses, birds and different breeds of dogs wondering around . A nice place to rest and be with nature.
I saw her sitting on the stairs, staring at the birds. Beautifully white, shiny sad eyes, with an unforgettable personality. She was totally unlike other dogs. I took her as a Canadian Husky in the first place. I said to the owner of the lodge, "What a nice dog you have, so beautifully white"
And she smiled, " Its not a dog, its a wolf, a 2nd generation Canadian wolf born and living in our estate for last 6 years"

Wow! I couldn't believe my eyes that i was playing with a wolf. I never met a wolf before in my life, and definitely not someone so close. All the images in my mind about wolves were from the scary werewolf horror movies I saw over the years, showing the anger side of wolves, making my fear instincts on alert, but this wolf was not angry. May be she was, but not showing. She was different, not like the other dogs, who come and wanted to play with you. She was on her own, a totally self-actualized creature, never asking you to be played. If someone calls her, she just comes closer and stares boldly and honestly, not a single word or bark, just her eyes saying silently, I belong to no one. 

Long before I read Hesse's book "steppenwolf"(a must read) and i remembered one of the chapter, where Hesse talks about the dual nature of the character Harry. One being of the human, and the other being of the wolf, and both trying to dominate each-other.  Whenever the human side of the nature is doing some thing good, its the wolf that was laughing at him and whenever the wolf was dominating, the human part condemns him. Both natures living in perpetual enmity. 

I wondered about "Woofy" the wolf, how she has managed to soften the wolf side of her and living peacefully with the humans. The owner told me, her parents are still living in the cage, but she is used to of humans and pretty domesticated, although still sometimes they find the birds and some dogs around butchered but not eaten by her.

I thought may be we all humans have the wolf in them living in perpetual enmity with the human side, just like Woofy, having the human part in her and in constant fight with the wolf inside.

Neroli Lady....

تجھے صبح بازار میں ،بوڑھے عطار یوسف  کی دکان پر ،میں نے دیکھا 

 This morning in the bazaar when I saw you
At old Yusuf the perfumer’s shop

تو تیری نگا ھوں میں وہ تابناکی تھی ........

 In your glance was that shine

(Excerpts from N.M.Rashid's Hasan the pot Maker)

I am sitting now in this Lebanese restaurant called 'Epidor' in the oysterbay area of Dar es salam, and for no reason I am thinking of this Neroli lady i happen to meet in my trip to U.S. It was my last day in America before flying back to Africa, where my hosting brother took me to this old Pike-place market in downtown Seattle.

I saw her talking to one of her customer, advising on the type of perfume oil to use in the upcoming lunar eclipse,.......this lady (having my personal reasons to be called Neroli) was somewhere between 22 to 24 years old , quite young, and having tattoo and piercing all over her body, but their was this shine in her eyes exposing her real identity, setting her aside from everybody...  (as if the character Jahan-zaad, from the epic poem of N.M.Rashid was coming to life, and watching me from the same eyes)...

"Yes! how can i help you sir!" she asked.
(Aah! yes, certainly you are the only one who can help, i thought) and said,

Neroli Lady

'Yes i am already in love with your shop, tell me where to start'.I joked with her, but in reality that old shop was something to be loved. Lines and lines of old sepia glass bottles with no advertisement wrappings on them, just plainly and humbly showing the names of the things collected from across the world, spices, resins, dry flowers, sandal, and other perfume woods, lines and lines of anything to do with perfume materials stored on the shelf, each calling us all from their shadowy existence, waiting to give their very best, their sole existence to anyone who can rescue them.....

She looked at me and said, "Well you can follow my nose and look behind you on these small essence oils,or you can follow yours and see which smell attracts you the most".
I turned back, and i found alot of finger size bottles containing essence oils of all sorts, hundreds of them,frankincense, patchouli, lavender, civet... all the few names i knew were there plus many more... and i told my brother, 'man here goes my two three hundred dollars on these tiny bottles'. 

I remembered some years back when Ertyaas was initiating me into the world of natural perfumery and fragrances, she said once, "you must remember that every perfume is like a memory personified and lost in time, each time you smell a certain fragrance, some where deep down in our minds one of these old lost memory wakes up from its deep slumber, as if the legendary sleeping beauty is awoken by the kiss of a prince from far away land, and wanting to talk to you of all those years of waiting and silent wailing......" And here i was, in the middle of so many sleeping beauties waking up for me , so many memories , each letting me think of the gone by days,  the pine trees of my land, the butterfly museum, the autumn trees of Stockholm, the corals of Indian ocean, the walk along the river Seine, the long gone friends, all these memories that perfumed my life up until now......

"Here you go sir" packing all my purchases and said,"all these essence oils you have purchased are here and here is one small complementary gift from our shop so you donot forget us". I checked and saw this small bottle containing the Neroli essence oil........ and i thought, how would i ever be forgetting of this lady now, specially when i would be smelling Neroli......

Thank you, Neroli lady for making my day....

Note to myself:
If ever i convinced my self of settling up in U.S , one of the reasons would definitely be this Neroli lady and her shop.....



P.S:
Neroli is a very delicate essence oil, introduced into perfumery in 17th century by the princess of Nerola,Italy (see wiki for details)

Link of complete N.M.Rashid poem with English translation
Hasan Kuza-gur

Hopes , fears, love , guns ..... Choices.

"I dont know how it happened that I the admirer of logic and rational thinking became obsessed with the world of feelings and hopes and love and beauty" I said to Ertyass.

She smiled and said " And you still worry about taking this decision? "

We were sitting in a beach bar in a nice big costa rican's resort enjoying tacos with Guacamole dips and black bean souce with Zacapa. It was my first trip in the Caribbeans and i was already feeling at home in the lovely world where Marquez's butterflies were flying, Neruda's cherry blossom was happening and every created thing looks like Octavio's fountains of water...

" No i do not worry anymore of my inclining, but i was just thinking how come i changed so much!"

She said," Well! People change.... Look at this country we are sitting now , Costa Rica...., used to have a size-able army to safeguard its pretty exposed boundaries, very logical and rational to have such an army when you are surrounded by the same, every one does without asking why :)  , and then one day costa-ricans decided not to have an army at all. It is 60 years now and they do not have an army and they are still surviving, I would rather use the word enjoying than surviving. And can you see this subtle sublime smiles on the faces of these Costa-ricans....such hope in the middle of a world surrounded by such big standing armies..... Viola!"

"It is very difficult to sell hope then selling fears" I said.

"Yea, you are perhaps right .... very few people dare to do that.... look at our country .One bomb destroys the hope of thousands of flowers blossoming around in our country...One ideology of fear makes us spend so much on cuddling our fears that we forget nourishing our hopes and love of mankind" and smilingly added " I hope someday our people will also realize the power of love over the shadows of fears........I really hope, that one day comes soon enough in our lives, when there is no army in our country too, when their is no army in the whole wide world...."

And our flights of imaginations were interrupted by our smiling hosts literally pulling us to join the Meringue dance classes.

On our way back we landed from the land with a constitution allowing no army, to a land having the biggest army in the world and with a constitution safeguarding the right of every individual to have a gun. It was so funny, this country having the biggest army in the world fearing us small people, letting us wait for hours on the airport, asking silly questions.......and we were comparing the two extremes in the subtle facial expressions of immigration people on both the sides, just 2 hours away........

One thing I figured about America is every body is so possessive and obsessed about the choices they want to make, I met some lovely republicans from the south discussing the medical care and socialized medicine, and as per them the choice should be given to them to decide who to help.....a choice that in reality ends up with insurance companies robbing masses, of billions of dollars, but choice is important...(reminded me of the forced zakat deduction system in our country).... The democrats on their part also use the same word choice in their own way... On one side they want strict regulation on medicare, and on the other side they support gay marriages, seeing it as a personal choice....

On my days in America, walking through  the streets of Los-angeles, and Seattle... I was thinking, can choices be taught? It certainly seems to be the case in my country where our choices are dictated by our strict moral upbringing, but is this a case in the so called free world of America as well? May be the forefathers who migrated to America made difficult choices in their own lives, disregarding all that was taught to them from the society morals and ethics and religion... perhaps its the DNA of those adventurous people which still boils when it comes to making personal choices?

On the other hand, is not the choices that makes people's life so difficult? can a world not be beautiful without choices...is choice not just a confusion between what is beautiful and what is not.

May be i am getting too old to think about choices and feel blessed in my already achieved world of beauty and love.