Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Night at the Ashmolean
Ashmolean Museum opened its doors exclusively to Oxford fresher students on the night of 06 Nov, 2012. From 1900-2130 hrs, all areas of the museum were open to the students, there was some activities lined up, like a DIY tresure hunt, various medieval board games, making a gargoyle sculpture, sketching old clay tablets, and guided tours of the various galleries in the museum. Every gallery was filled with treasures from around the world, Japanese kimonos, Italian gold watches, Chinese paintings, Egyptian coffins, Roman sculptures, British porcelain, Greek bowls, Arabian doors, Mughal miniatures, Stradevari violins and paintings from every era. An amazing tribute to the diverse range of human artistic experience.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Odette and Odile
On Wed, 16th of Oct 2012, I saw my first every live ballet performance.
I had been planning to watch a ballet performance for sometime but unfortunately the best ballets had been sold out well in advance. Luckily on the Tue night, 15 Oct, I suddenly found out that a few tickets had become available for the matinee performance of Swan Lake performed by The Royal Ballet, at The Royal Opera House. I immediately bought the tickets, booked my bus for London, and the next morning was on my way. I got off from the bus at Victoria bus stop, and decided to walk to the Opera House, it was a 40 mins walk which felt like a mere 5 mins. I passed by Buckingham Palace, The Mall, Trafalgar Square, The National Portrait Gallery. Interestingly, contrary to what I had come to believe from watching Indian movies, I saw no pigeons in Trafalgar Square!
I reached The Royal Opera House and waited for the the performance theater doors to open. They opened at 1:30 pm, I took my front row center seat, and was delighted because I had a clear view of the orchestra and was as close to the stage as possible.
The lady sitting to my left was celebrating her 60th birthday and as a treat her friend had brought her there, earlier her friend had taken her to The Royal Ballet school and she had met with the young ballerinas in training.
The ballet started, and with every passing moment, each leap, each pirouette, I fell more and more in love with Swan Lake. It seemed to be the perfect coalescence of all I had seen on TV, the beautiful music I had heard, and the movie Black Swan that I had loved so much. The choreography was the one from the 1895 revival and the Tchaikovsky music was breathtaking.
During the final break, before the last act, I found out that the lady sitting to my right was actually from Karachi, Pakistan and was working for Hello magazine in London, we talked for a while and we both laughed at the amazing coincidence of two Pakistanis both having links to Karachi, sitting side by side, so randomly at a Swan Lake performance.
For days afterwards, I kept humming tunes from the ballet.
I had been planning to watch a ballet performance for sometime but unfortunately the best ballets had been sold out well in advance. Luckily on the Tue night, 15 Oct, I suddenly found out that a few tickets had become available for the matinee performance of Swan Lake performed by The Royal Ballet, at The Royal Opera House. I immediately bought the tickets, booked my bus for London, and the next morning was on my way. I got off from the bus at Victoria bus stop, and decided to walk to the Opera House, it was a 40 mins walk which felt like a mere 5 mins. I passed by Buckingham Palace, The Mall, Trafalgar Square, The National Portrait Gallery. Interestingly, contrary to what I had come to believe from watching Indian movies, I saw no pigeons in Trafalgar Square!
I reached The Royal Opera House and waited for the the performance theater doors to open. They opened at 1:30 pm, I took my front row center seat, and was delighted because I had a clear view of the orchestra and was as close to the stage as possible.
The lady sitting to my left was celebrating her 60th birthday and as a treat her friend had brought her there, earlier her friend had taken her to The Royal Ballet school and she had met with the young ballerinas in training.
The ballet started, and with every passing moment, each leap, each pirouette, I fell more and more in love with Swan Lake. It seemed to be the perfect coalescence of all I had seen on TV, the beautiful music I had heard, and the movie Black Swan that I had loved so much. The choreography was the one from the 1895 revival and the Tchaikovsky music was breathtaking.
During the final break, before the last act, I found out that the lady sitting to my right was actually from Karachi, Pakistan and was working for Hello magazine in London, we talked for a while and we both laughed at the amazing coincidence of two Pakistanis both having links to Karachi, sitting side by side, so randomly at a Swan Lake performance.
For days afterwards, I kept humming tunes from the ballet.
Salsa!
Brasenose College has a very active HCR (Hulme Common Room, the gathering point for graduate students in the college). They have a salsa class every Sunday. This Sunday, was the first one that I attended. My fellow dancers were an interesting mix, with people from Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Romania, Ireland, India, and Scotland. Only a few of us had danced salsa before, I certainly hadn't. We learned four dance steps, and practiced them for the next couple of hours, switching dance partners after every two songs or so. It was fun, and definitely a good exercise. Looking forward to more dance lessons!
Eid in a foreign land
Firday, 26th Oct, 2012 was my first Eid-ul-Azha in UK. I had found out before hand that there was a big central Mosque in Cowely, where one of the main Eid prayer in Oxford would be held at 9am. My rough estimate for reaching the Mosque was 40 mins, on foot. I woke up at 8am, and was immediately faced with the desire not to go to Eid prayer, I felt that it didn't really matter, it wasn't as if I had any relatives that I would be meeting at the Mosque, but by 8:15 I convinced myself to at least get ready for the day. I dressed up in jeans, dress shirt and sweater, and was ready by 8:30, and knew in my heart that even if I started to walk right then, I would be late and miss the prayer in any case, but I convinced myself that just walking to the Mosque in itself was worth the effort and I should give it a shot. In typical Oxford fashion, it was raining outside, and so I began my trod towards Cowely.
The Mosque in Cowely has a big black dome and is situated in front of what appears to be an old-ish Church. I reached there at 9:05 and was relieved to hear that the prayers hadn't yet started. I fell in line with the rest of the people, all dressed in Shalwar Kameez, entering the Mosque. The first thing I noticed, from the writings on the Mosque gate, was that the Mosque had some very tell-tale Sunni sect roots, and at that instant I realized that I will not be offering Eid prayer in the Shia fashion that I was accustomed to. The Mosque was very spacious and I found a place in the central hall on the upper story. The Molvi Sahab leading the prayer was talking to the congregation in two languages, switching between English and Urdu, he was asking the congregation to recite the Durood repeatedly, in an effort to delay the prayers slightly, because apparently a large number of people were still settling in. At 9:15 the congregation stood up for the offering of the prayer, and when the Molvi Sahab was about to start the prayer, someone from the back shouted, please wait a bit more, some people are still coming from their homes, to which someone in the congregation retorted, that if they are still coming from their homes, then it's too late already, they should stay at their home now.
The prayers went smoothly, I offered mine with my arms to my sides (the Shia fashion), and everyone around me with their hands together (the Sunni fashion). When the prayers finished, and people started to get up, I was suddenly hit by the realization that this would be my first Eid when I would have no one to hug and wish "Eid Mubarak", not my dad, not my cousins or uncles, I was in a foreign land, among strangers. But, I had barely processed this stream of thoughts, that the guy who had finished his prayers next to me, turned around to me and wished me Eid Mubarak and gave me the Eid Mubarak hug. That was it, that was all it took, I was content, as I walked out of the Mosque, I felt in my heart that for the first time I had fully seen the system, the Muslim brotherhood that we had heard about all along in our classes, the system of Islamic brotherhood had not failed. That one hug from the stranger in the Mosque, was the hug from home, a hug from Pakistan.
After that, I went to my Engineering dept. building and it was business as usual.
The Mosque in Cowely has a big black dome and is situated in front of what appears to be an old-ish Church. I reached there at 9:05 and was relieved to hear that the prayers hadn't yet started. I fell in line with the rest of the people, all dressed in Shalwar Kameez, entering the Mosque. The first thing I noticed, from the writings on the Mosque gate, was that the Mosque had some very tell-tale Sunni sect roots, and at that instant I realized that I will not be offering Eid prayer in the Shia fashion that I was accustomed to. The Mosque was very spacious and I found a place in the central hall on the upper story. The Molvi Sahab leading the prayer was talking to the congregation in two languages, switching between English and Urdu, he was asking the congregation to recite the Durood repeatedly, in an effort to delay the prayers slightly, because apparently a large number of people were still settling in. At 9:15 the congregation stood up for the offering of the prayer, and when the Molvi Sahab was about to start the prayer, someone from the back shouted, please wait a bit more, some people are still coming from their homes, to which someone in the congregation retorted, that if they are still coming from their homes, then it's too late already, they should stay at their home now.
The prayers went smoothly, I offered mine with my arms to my sides (the Shia fashion), and everyone around me with their hands together (the Sunni fashion). When the prayers finished, and people started to get up, I was suddenly hit by the realization that this would be my first Eid when I would have no one to hug and wish "Eid Mubarak", not my dad, not my cousins or uncles, I was in a foreign land, among strangers. But, I had barely processed this stream of thoughts, that the guy who had finished his prayers next to me, turned around to me and wished me Eid Mubarak and gave me the Eid Mubarak hug. That was it, that was all it took, I was content, as I walked out of the Mosque, I felt in my heart that for the first time I had fully seen the system, the Muslim brotherhood that we had heard about all along in our classes, the system of Islamic brotherhood had not failed. That one hug from the stranger in the Mosque, was the hug from home, a hug from Pakistan.
After that, I went to my Engineering dept. building and it was business as usual.
Monday, November 12, 2012
"Pak sar zameen shad-bad"
On 03 Oct, 2012, the Rhodes class of 2012 had their official group photo taken at the Rhodes House. I had initially planned to go dressed in a suit, but on the morning of the group photo, I felt that Shalwar Kameez was the right choice. And so, dressed in a black kameez and white shalwar, I arrived at the Rhodes House. It was a very pleasant day, one of the rare sunny ones here in Oxford. We were all taken to the Rhodes House garden and asked to stand in the order of our heights, which is a always a fun sorting activity. Then the photographer started picking out people for the front row, and he chose me for it too, yippee! After the photograph was done, out individual portraits were taken, and it was around this time that the Rhodes scholars from all the different constituencies started to sing their national anthems. First were the South Africans, then the Indians and then I was asked to sing my national anthem, and so I sang the solo.
"Pak sar zameen shad-bad". Standing there in the Rhodes garden, I felt like a child again, singing the national anthem in my school assembly.
"Pak sar zameen ka nizam". It also felt as if I was reciting the words from my heart for the first time, my first national anthem.
"Parcham-e-Sitara-o-Hilal". That day I went back and found the national anthem in Urdu and put up a print out in my room, to remind me always of this beautiful emotion.
"Saya-e-Khuda-e-zul-jalal"
"Pak sar zameen shad-bad". Standing there in the Rhodes garden, I felt like a child again, singing the national anthem in my school assembly.
"Pak sar zameen ka nizam". It also felt as if I was reciting the words from my heart for the first time, my first national anthem.
"Parcham-e-Sitara-o-Hilal". That day I went back and found the national anthem in Urdu and put up a print out in my room, to remind me always of this beautiful emotion.
"Saya-e-Khuda-e-zul-jalal"
SMS = Bananas
The mobile phone networks in Pakistan are an amazing blessing, one that like so many things you don't fully value, until you land in a country which follows arcane phone contract plans. Case in point: (you guessed it right) UK. UK has a majorly contract based system, get the phone and sell your soul for 24 months, and the pay-as-you-go (PAYG) plans that come with some of the network providers are even worse than the monthly plans. One text messages can cost as much as a pound of bananas (£0.12). For non-Pakistani readers, in Pakistan one text message costs £0.00002, I have no idea if you can actually get anything in UK for that price. So, for my first 4 weeks in the UK, I checked out many a service providers, trying in vain to capture Pakistani levels of dirt-cheap local calls and texts and a good price for calls back home. And then, I did what Pakistani romeos do all the time, multiple sims for multiple purposes. I got myself a Lebara sim for calling back home, which with it's £5 weekly pass, costs me 5p per minute to call to Pakistan, and for local use I went the Giffgaff way, which with it's £5 montly goody bag gives me 300 texts per month and 60 minutes, with all Giffgaff to Giffgaff calls for free. Two sims, my sturdy 6 year old Motorola C118, almost bliss. Ah, the good old days of my Pakistani Ufone and Telenor sims.
Catching Fireflies in Cowley
31st Oct, 2012 was my first Halloween in a country which actually celebrates it, and in typical Oxford fashion, I was faced with the option of being at two equally enticing places at once. My college was holding its termly graduate dinner that night and I had pre-booked tickets to an Owl City concert for the same time slot. Decisions, decisions. At lunch time, a visiting student from Germany was talking about how she was going to miss out on the graduate dinner, because she had been unable to sign up for it in time and viola, my conundrum was solved for me, I quickly offered her my seat for the graduate dinner and firmly set my mind upon attending the Owl City concert. Despite my enthusiasm, I had only heard two Owl City songs till that date, Fireflies and Vanilla Twilight, and so went into the concert with a heart to hear completely new melodies. Four fellow Brasenostrils (yes, that's what you call a student of Brasenose College) and I set off towards Cowley and the 40 min walk seemed to pass in 4 mins. When we reached O2 Academy, we were faced with the biggest queue I had ever seen, but luckily due to our pre-booked tickets, we found that we could queue-jump and didn't have to wait long at all, to get in. None of us were sure if there was another act before Owl City, and so when three guys came on stage and played a great song, that all of us loved, without knowing whether this was Owl City or not, I found later that it was Mathew Makoma and I was faced with the tempting question, "How well am I able to distinguish quality and value from hype and brand?", concrete answers still pending.
The night was bucket loads of fun, and the whole Owl City band turned up in costume, with the lead singer in Batman garb! Certainly, a Halloween night that I loved. When post-concert, I came back to college, we found out that the Graduate dinner speaker had been a controversial banker, who had made money thorough some not cleanly ethical mean during the crash, and everyone was abuzz about his evil nature. I was glad that I went with the Fireflies.
The night was bucket loads of fun, and the whole Owl City band turned up in costume, with the lead singer in Batman garb! Certainly, a Halloween night that I loved. When post-concert, I came back to college, we found out that the Graduate dinner speaker had been a controversial banker, who had made money thorough some not cleanly ethical mean during the crash, and everyone was abuzz about his evil nature. I was glad that I went with the Fireflies.
Day of Love and the white pick-up van
On 21st Sept, 2012, after a teary eyed farewell from my parents in Multan, I reached Karachi. I reached Karachi on the "Day of Love" (as it was called by newspapers in the UK), the day when we decided to protest against a movie. Essentially I reached Karachi on the day that no transport was available and children were playing cricket on the roads and pelting rocks at the unfortunate cars that dared to pass by.
At the airport, after finding out that all the available taxis were demanding an ounce of gold to take me to my friends' place, I just waited around for a while and I fortunately ran into Faheem R., a comrade from PNEC, and it turned out that, coincidence of coincidences, he too was going to UK the next day and was going to be at UCL. We hired a radio cab together and set off into the city.
I reached my friends' place, I was greeted with the warm welcome that I had come to expect (Dabang Haleem zindabad). Juni, Madi (or shall I say Ladoo), Core, Mehdi, all of my post-PNEC, PNEC-buddies were there. Due to it being the "Day of Love", we were pretty much deprived of any fun that could have been had in Karachi, but nonetheless my bunch of friends were as awesome as always and we spent the day telling odd ball jokes, come the night we were faced with a conundrum - how to get me to the airport? Due to the situation getting worse thorough out the day, none of the radio cabs were available anymore, and that's when Juni and Madi called one of their friends to borrow his white "garri" (literal meaning = anytype of moving four-wheeler), and he asked them to come over and take it. I expected a car, but when Madi and Juni, came back, I realized that it was a white pick up van, the sort which I had usually seen transporting all manner of goods around the city, from chickens to school kids. And it was in this white pick up van in which I loaded my 40kg+ luggage, the three of us squished into the front and set off into the Karachi night. A more PNEC-esque fun trip to the airport could not have been wished for. We reached the airport, had baklawa, samosay, chai and a sprinkling of gossip. At about 2 am, I said farewell and went to the departures lounge. I am not sure how it was for the protesters on the street, but for me, 21st of Sept was definitely a "Day of Love".
Next stop Dubai...
At the airport, after finding out that all the available taxis were demanding an ounce of gold to take me to my friends' place, I just waited around for a while and I fortunately ran into Faheem R., a comrade from PNEC, and it turned out that, coincidence of coincidences, he too was going to UK the next day and was going to be at UCL. We hired a radio cab together and set off into the city.
I reached my friends' place, I was greeted with the warm welcome that I had come to expect (Dabang Haleem zindabad). Juni, Madi (or shall I say Ladoo), Core, Mehdi, all of my post-PNEC, PNEC-buddies were there. Due to it being the "Day of Love", we were pretty much deprived of any fun that could have been had in Karachi, but nonetheless my bunch of friends were as awesome as always and we spent the day telling odd ball jokes, come the night we were faced with a conundrum - how to get me to the airport? Due to the situation getting worse thorough out the day, none of the radio cabs were available anymore, and that's when Juni and Madi called one of their friends to borrow his white "garri" (literal meaning = anytype of moving four-wheeler), and he asked them to come over and take it. I expected a car, but when Madi and Juni, came back, I realized that it was a white pick up van, the sort which I had usually seen transporting all manner of goods around the city, from chickens to school kids. And it was in this white pick up van in which I loaded my 40kg+ luggage, the three of us squished into the front and set off into the Karachi night. A more PNEC-esque fun trip to the airport could not have been wished for. We reached the airport, had baklawa, samosay, chai and a sprinkling of gossip. At about 2 am, I said farewell and went to the departures lounge. I am not sure how it was for the protesters on the street, but for me, 21st of Sept was definitely a "Day of Love".
Next stop Dubai...
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