all things green & alive

One of the worst things about being part of the “elite class” in a third-world country is that you tend to, despite your good intentions, underestimate the initiative of those who’ve put you on that pedestal. I wouldn’t say potential, worth or ability, but initiative – it goes along with “exposure,” and “mentality.” Favourite words of those [myself included] when justifying the difference in life, living conditions and circumstances between “us” and “them.”

Therefore I must admit my surprise [and consequent shame thereupon] when I saw a degree of awareness towards the environment and organic, chemical-food at the annual flower show in Karachi on Sunday.

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I was cheered at the thought of, a). just being able to go to things like this now that i’m unemployed and, b). taking pictures and c). satisfying my infantile curiosity and journey into cooking through looking at fresh herbs.

The photo above is such a simple composition, but I love how the mid-tones are not so much darker than the highlights, giving the whole photo a sort of electrified feel. The light even casts that afternoon chiaroscuro on the purple ones in the corner. And, I just love visual variety stretched across a one-dimensional singular plane: a.k.a, a flat shot.

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But coming back to the organic food.

I was really happy when I saw the stall for “Sungold Organic,” a family-run business of chemical-free, organic vegetables. With a farm in Malir, they deliver their robust produce to eager city-dwellers, who, like me, are suckers for the hipness of notions like organic. Of course, we must note that MOST of our locally grown produce isn’t quite as tainted by chemicals as it is in the slick processing machine of first-world capitalism. That said, I am deeply appreciative of any efforts to make 100% organic food conveniently available here, and this is probably fueled by a recent re-checking of my rather poly-cystic ovaries, and a vehement insistence of the gynie towards the cessation of all eating of white, processed flour, and of as much processed foods as is possible.  The stall also housed a very earthily packaged line with things like whole-wheat aata, brown rice, etc.

The Sungold peeps weren’t the only ones promoting organic food and cultivation, which was nice. Another stall with what seemed like a bunch of housewives [polite request to temporarily excuse stereotyping and judgement] had eagerly displayed their organically cultivated “kitchen garden” items. Pamphlets with how to keep soil rich and organic were also included. The jar in the photo above is a jar of pickled beetroot, which is part of their bottled line. I bought a rich, aromatic strawberry preserve, as well as lip-smackingly sour pickle accompaniment (a.k.a, achaar) made with tomatoes, red chillies, and much more.

Yum.

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Positivity 101: locate your centre-of-gravity

When people say, one needs to stop focussing on the negative, it takes a while to realize what they actually mean by “focussing.”

Sometimes it can take years.

When someone close to me started constantly telling me to be positive, a good 5 years ago, I listened, and thought I understood, but I had NO IDEA what he meant.

The many shades of grey in “us.”

I hate this dank, dark murkiness.

I’ve been through many break-ups in my time. Lately, as my body has changed over the last 4-5 years in my late 20′s, I’ve started letting the idea of womanhood and its imposing biology weave into the fabric of relationships. Maybe it all started with that one statement from my friend: “Don’t push him away, don’t test him. Women like to do that. We like to test our men.”

one part trapped energy, two parts sulphur.

i sit here with red nails and the lingering threat of a migraine.

the red nails are to revive a little oomph – the migraine – well, that’s another story.

as someone who’s always thought of themselves as healthy, it was traumatizing and baffling to me when, in my mid-20′s, i developed a unique malaise that i could not explain, predict or get a handle on. emotionally, physically and psychologically gut-wrenching, they involved blinding pain, sickening nausea tinged with a kind of rabidness, a certain chemical zing. a chilling tightness in the bones of my face, in which you could almost hear a piercing resonance, like the elusive, demonic ringing of a wetted glass rim. and if, as often was the case, the nausea was viscous and effective, the regurgitation process heaved and humped through my ribs with a hilarity of speed. The violence of it left my skull simply blighted with a diffused and vibrant numbness. these were nights and days that melded into each other, slowly disintegrating my consciousness into the ether of the dwindling darkness…

although the thing is still recurrent, they seem to have settled into a lesser frequency and less intensity. i am always plagued by the notion that it is, as the holistically-oriented philosophy of my step-mother and father would suggest (and that of a few others, like my mother’s free-floating, also single, alternatively-bent friend), that this is the result of some terrible mis-trapping of negative energy. an entire mis-interpretation of life, where some basic life force is steeped in anger, limiting all future possibilities of success, happiness and cutting my potential in half.

i’m a sucker for these soul-level conspiracy theories.

but it so happens, that there may be a theory with some real proof: i recently learned, through some colleagues, that the organization i’ve worked in for the last three years, has an acute excess of sulphur. this was the result of the environment assessment team hired by its management, when the IT department put their hands up in the air and said that they simply cannot account for the perpetual and tireless dysfunctionality of office computers.

sulphur poisoning. three years.

the flip side is that i am hoping to see a revival in certain aspects of health – not only migraine, but also hair, dark circles, the general playing out of mood.

• strangely gratifying, to know that the general, pervasive malaise that you couldn’t pinpoint, may be rooted in some empirical facts.