Sunday, April 08, 2007

My mood is ethereal

The night has fallen and the humming of the fan enhances the silence all around. I am sitting in my study room with a new book around. "...And Another Woman Shall Bear Me" is the collection of articles by Khadijah Gauhar an Afro-Asian writer. I have already finished a couple of articles and surprisingly the first article was finished even before I reached home after purchasing the book. My bike was standing idle for almost a month and I decided to take a ride on it. I went straight to the bookshop to get the book and on my return trip I found my self stuck in a traffic jam. The blockade was so massive that I switched off my bike and opened the first pages of the book to read. I created an island of serenity in the midst of mayhem and started reading the book. As I engrossed myself in the thoughts and ideas of the author I forgot that I was stranded in the traffic jam and the feeling of being in control gave me satisfaction at a time when most of the people seemed frustrated. I read about the author's apathy towards restrictive form of education she got in a school of a Muslim neighborhood of Cape Town in 1930s. As I finished the first article with these words " I believed that the general aim of sound education is to help individuals to grow to fuller maturity; to help them to live well with his or her own world or society", I looked around and found no improvement in the traffic jam. I waited for few more minutes and then turned the bike back to reach home via long route. I am reading the other articles now but I will never forget the start of the book as it was made in very unusal environment for reading. My mood is ethereal.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where was I when this beautiful blog was being written. Glad to be here.

Sugababee said...

thats awesome... great contrast... so much peace amungst so much mayhem...

Good for you!:)

Masood Ahmed said...

@DiO: Thanks.
@Sugababee: Welcome to the blog and Thanks.