Yay! Alhamdulillah, I finally managed to post the supremely beautiful layout that Excalibur made me. Excalibur rules!

-ahem- But I've made a boo-boo, and I can't find the comments box anymore. Somebody...help?

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog...

At least three or four times a week I kick myself for not taking the digital camera with me everywhere I go. Today alone I kicked myself twice.

The first time was for the photo opportunity I missed at the intersection of Margalla Road and uh…I forget the name of the other street. But right in the middle of the intersection was an accident. A Honda Civic broadsided a Pajero (luxury SUV) and you know what? The front end of the Civic (called an Accord in the States I think) was crumpled, and the Pajero wasn’t even dented! The driver of the civic was crouching down and trying to extricate his bumper from inside of the Pajero’s wheel casing but the Pajero was unscathed. That’s what I wanted to show in the picture. It was really amazing. (No, I’m not totally callus, Alhamdulillah, both parties from the accident were ok. They were all standing around and glaring at each other in the presence of a cop when I got there.)

When I told Aniraz of what I saw, she laughed and said, ‘Are you sure that wasn’t (name censored)’s SUV? Mr.Name Censored, we will call him Joe, is a friend of the family who works for the Embassy of (Name of country withheld). Oh wait, Joe is from uh…Transylvania. Yes. Anyway, Transylvanian Joe’s SUV is armor-plated and the glass is bullet proof. When we saw it for the first time we were like, Hey Joe, nice SUV! And Joe said, “Yeah, it’s nice to look at, but hell to drive. It weighs over a ton with the armor plating and it’s got no pick-up. And once it gets started, I have to floor the brakes half a kilometer in advance if I want it to stop. It’s like driving a semi.”

Transylvanian Joe is a healthy guy, and he says even he can barely pull the door open, and woe to whoever leaves a finger or hand in the way when it slams shut! An armor-plated SUV is not a family vehicle, not unless your family has fingers to spare. I’m content with my silly pop-can-on-wheels compact car. It zips! It zooms! It out-maneuvers Pajeros! (It has a superiority complex! It thinks it’s a formula one racer! Mwahaha!!!)

What was I saying? Oh yeah, I pity the fool who crashes into Transylvanian Joe’s car. They should aim for something softer, like a brick wall.

What was the other photo I missed? Oh yeah, an old chawkidar (security guard) in uniform, with a white beard, praying barefoot in the grass beneath a red hibiscus tree with his shotgun laying neatly at the head of his prayer rug. I love that about Pakistan, when it’s time for prayer (Maghrib especially) you see people praying all over the place, on the side of the road, in cricket fields, in small groups outside of shopping plazas…It’s nice.

You know back in the States, one semester I had an evening class in college that started ten minutes after Maghrib began. So I would sneak around the halls looking for an empty room to pray in before class. Once I was praying in an empty room (the Qiblah faced the door) and just as I said Takbeer, a Sudani man from my class (who I didn’t even know to be Muslim) walked in with a prayer rug on his arm, saw me, made a nervous squeaky noise, and then walked out of the room backwards.

He always gave me salaams after that. :) A nice brother, MashaAllah. And now, an informal poll: What’s the weirdest place you ever prayed in? Or the weirdest experience you’ve had with praying in a public place?

When I think of every path
Where I’ve ever trod
I laugh at all the crazy spots
I stopped to worship God…

-Dawud Wharnsby Ali

posted by Abez @ 7/31/2003 04:36:00 PM