12 December
This afternoon Edward Said gave a talk at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical School. Q said they had a difficult time advertising it. All the posters would mysteriously vanish as soon as they were put up. Halfway during the lecture the fire alarm went off. Edward remained cool as a cucumber. It seemed intentional. The lecture was about ageing and production in the arts. Do you produce differently when you are older? Are you wiser? Beethoven made wild discordant music at the end of his life.
21 December
We all went and saw Edward and Mariam last night. He had just gone through a new kind of chemotherapy, and we had to sit far away from him as he said he was very radioactive! A friend had just telephoned him and said, finally, the Arabs have an atomic bomb! He is an amazingly brave man. I hope this latest cure is going to work.
22 to 25 December
Sol, Q and I are on our way to Mexico for four days and then Honduras. I am obsessed with the volcano Popocateptl, which is puffing away and erupting. It hasn’t done that in a century. I love volcanoes, so I am taking this as a personal welcome. Names are impossible to pronounce in Mexico, but what a place. We have a rented a taxi that stays with us. The driver is named Vicente, like the president. Our days are filled with touring archaeological sites, churches, museums –the best in the world and art. Everything is on a large scale. A six-kilometre path for processions on feast days of the Virgin Mum of Guadalupe and her miracles. Our Vicente says that’s what the Vatican envies – the miracles.
Diego Riviera is a revelation.
26 December–26 January 2001 – Honduras
We are in La Ceiba – tropics and the monsoons. Super-lush greenery; what are sold for an exorbitant price in our world as indoor plants are present in the wild here. I saw a tree with great yellow flowers on short stems just growing out of the trunk all the way up, and lots of new birds.
Kiko and Sowf live in a little concrete square house. They keep getting robbed. He’s doing his doctorate on the rainforest. We spend the New Year in Esperanza. At the Hotel Esperanza, an Xmas tree at the entrance desk rings the tune of ‘Jingle Bells’ any time one passes by. We try to phone Ma from the telephone exchange; the guy said, ‘Oh, where Saddam is?’ Needless to say we could not connect, but we certainly made his day.
Butterflies are so prolific here, big and so bright they give the feeling of flowers in the air.
Back in La Ceiba they are robbed again, so we move to another house.
Honduras has two American fruit companies. They used to be called Standard and United, now they are called Dole and Chiquita. They thought the names more in keeping with the 20th century.
14 February – Beirut
It is like a refrain: Iraq is being bombed again. Thirty-four British and US planes hit five different areas in Iraq because Bush says Iraq poses a big threat to their airplanes. Never mind that they are in Iraqi airspace, and that the no-fly zones are not a UN order. But where are we getting all this new stuff from, considering everything is monitored?
And they call it routine. Since when can you call bombing a country routine? I’ve switched to watching Iraqi TV, but they don’t say anything. In fact, someone is handing out presents to the Palestinians. Poor Palestine. Now that Sharon is in, that’s the end of Palestine; it’s going to be kill, kill and kill.
18 February
We have been through two US presidents and now the third. Don’t they have any imagination? Can’t they find another target?
Powell calls Iraq ‘the continual threat’, and Bush calls it ‘Swiss cheese’. I wish the Swiss would sue him. They are building up Saddam again with their propaganda.
5 March
What horrors are going on in the world now:
Animal holocaust in Britain for CJD.
A Palestinian Holocaust.
The UN embargo on Iraq.
Statues of Buddha blown up in Afghanistan.
African holocaust with AIDS ... and so on and so on.
Here in Lebanon no one wants to eat Iraqi truffles because they say they are radioactive from the depleted uranium left over from the Gulf War. In fact, they mostly come from the Tikrit area, which suffered less pollution than the south.
David Hirst came for dinner the other night. He is just back from Bahrain, and said Bahrain had become ‘the whorehouse of the Saudis’, and that he is going to write an article about it. I said, ‘Another country you are going to be persona non grata in.’
‘Saudi,’ he says, ‘not Bahrain.’
19 March
Am having an e-mail correspondence with Kiko about leaf-cutter ants – they fascinated me in Honduras, lines of neatly cut, same-size bits of green leaf walking in a line. He said that they had attacked his pink pui trees on the site, too, but they don’t like it too much because it’s toxic. I asked how they could eat it if it’s toxic.
‘They don’t eat it,’ he said, ‘they just take it down their tunnels and chew it; it ferments and grows something they live on.’
So they are really farmers and cultivators. I said that if it ferments, it must be alcoholic, and they might be quite high as they walk in line, bum to bum.
At Khala Munira’s today two ladies were talking about the fashion of the hajj now. On their return, their cars are covered with flowers and balloons, and at home they hand out chocolates with sibha (worry beads) attached and little pitcher in cut glass for zam zam water. On leaving, one is given a little bag of goodies like in a kiddies’ party, with memorabilia from the holy land.
30–31 March
A Conference on Memory for the Future.
Many Lebanese live in fear of the memory of their past, the sixteen-year civil war. Some statistics from the war: 184,000 wounded; 27,000 missing and lost; 13,400 handicapped; 120,000 dead; 2,000 women killed after being raped and 2,641 booby – trapped cars.
The conclusion of the seminar was that it takes time to judge one’s compatriots for the crimes they have committed during any war. That’s why we see it’s so difficult for most Serbs to let Milosevic go to The Hague, and the Israelis for Sharon re: the Sabra and Shatila massacres. It is only ten years after the civil war has ended in Lebanon that films and books are starting to appear on the subject.
17 April
Ma’s latest theory: Iraq’s soil is blessed because 47 prophets of all religions are buried there. So it will always be fought over and protected!
29 April
Samir said he was having trouble sleeping, so Ma says, ‘I’ve found the best way. Think of a film you like and follow the story.’
Sol says, ‘How about Gone With The Wind; four hours later you’re still awake.’
‘No,’ Ma says, ‘a simple one.’
A doctor told Q that the best way was to concentrate on your big toe. It’s so boring, you pass out immediately.
15 June
Lunch at home: Samir, Minni, Eid, Ma and me. The conversation was about boys and girls playing as kids. My story was about my cousins’ daughter May, who was always longing to play with her boy cousins. One day she was found lying on the grass while the boys were jumping and screaming about; when asked why she was not playing with them, she said she was playing dead. Then Ma said when we were young in Delhi a whole troop of friends had come to play with us in the garden. Daddy came out and saw Dood sitting by himself, and asked why he wasn’t playing with us; he answered that he was, but he was the daddy. So Daddy hooted with laughter and went in to tell Ma that now he knew where his place was in the household. Minni said her story was worse; playing with her brother Micki, he’d tell her she was the mum and he was the maid, and he’d take the doll and dress and undress her while she would just sit and watch.
12 September
Yesterday, came back about 3 p.m. and switched on the radio as always – the first thing I do when I come in, in case I miss some earth-shaking bit of news. I heard that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, so I went to tell Ma that to switch the TV channels.
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sp; She was watching The Hound of the Baskervilles, a Sherlock Holmes mystery she’s seen dozens of times. Regardless – she was glued. I kept going back with more details: ‘There’s another plane,’ I said: nothing doing. Finally the movie was over and we switched to CNN. Well, the USA cannot be the same anymore, and like the rest of the world, we were stuck to the TV. Who could carry out such a synchronized bit of planning? Ma said only Usama Bin Laden is intelligent enough and has the money, which you’d certainly need for an operation like this. Dunia said it could be domestic, like Oklahoma. Anyway, they are not accusing anyone just yet. This is scary: the big and mighty USA is vulnerable too.
15 September
They know the names of the hijackers now, and they are all Arabs. God help us. The USA is preparing for war, but against whom? Iraq, I guess; it’s always an easy target, and what is left of poor Afghanistan to bomb? Only Sharon is the winner; he will do what he wants to now.
I am supposed to be going to Greece to take T. A. her painting. What a time to travel with a 2-metre-plus roll of canvas that is packed and looks like a lethal weapon.
17 September – Greece
Well, managed OK at the various airports, but was not allowed to carry it on myself. The staff asked what it was and I told them, ‘A painting.’
‘So big?’ they asked. But it went through the X-ray machine without a problem. T. A. loves the painting. It tells the history of Monemvasia, which is where she has her house.
Two weeks later
I am in Serifos with Panos; we are on the balcony watching the falcons circling overhead and talking to each other. This morning a falcon was chasing a pigeon, and then a whole bunch of pigeons ganged up and chased him away: safety in numbers. Like Bush, I told Panos. He wants the whole world with him to attack Afghanistan, like the whole world ganged up against Iraq. How come the whole world doesn’t gang up against Israel?
In Serifos the frogs are large and mute. You see them lurking on stairs, beautiful, fat and silent. I am surprised the scientists haven’t used their genes to make other frogs croak less.
4 October
Went to see Avra and Michael, old friends from Baghdad. Michael has been given 70 untranslated Greek letters to Lord Byron to translate. Six of them are from two boyos in love with Byron, but mostly they ask for money or quinine for medicine. Such fun; Avra has written three books and Michael one or two. Amazing. Both are in their 80s, an example to us all.
7 October
On the plane going back to Beirut. Whenever I was going back to Baghdad, there was always this feeling, a slight dread and fear of the unknown. But not so for Beirut: a happy feeling to be going back home.
19 October
The bombing is continuous in Afghanistan. Today’s paper says friendly troops have landed, whatever that might mean, in American war lingo.
The anthrax story continues in the USA and now it has been also discovered in South America and Kenya. Butler, in the Herald Tribune says it’s most probably Iraq. He will never forgive being ousted from there, losing that profitable job. Meanwhile Scott Ritter says it’s anthrax made in the USA. Maureen Dowd, that wonderfully witty lady, says Bin Laden might get his wishes fulfilled, for women to be covered. She is now typing with long gloves on and everyone is out buying a gas mask. Not quite the standard gear for cover-up, but it will do.
Cess sent me an e-mail joke yesterday: someone whispers in Bush’s ear, ‘Your wife is pregnant.’
He answers, ‘Must be Bin Laden.’
1 November
In the USA, how you look is what counts now. There have been many incidents of attacks on would-be Arabs; even a poor Indian Sikh was killed because he wore a turban, by someone who thinks Arabs look like characters from the old-time movies, when they roamed around in turbans like in The Thief of Baghdad. Wonderful cartoon in the Herald Tribune today: Bush at the centre surrounded by his generals, with a caption that says, ‘The Taliban’s spirits have improved since they have been eating our food drops.’
Does the bombing of Afghanistan to smithereens make any sense?
9 December
Went to Sidon and Tyre today, had lunch on the seafront in the port; the fishermen were mending their nets. All of them, sitting in their boats were using their toes to hold on to strings or bits of net while mending them. I thought what a waste, one doesn’t use one’s toes anymore. I am going to start using them for brushes waiting to be used while painting. In our childhood we climbed trees a lot but now there are fewer trees and climbing is out of fashion for kids. We might outgrow the use of our toes in years to come.
9 January 2002
For a semi-exiled Iraqi, losing a residence permit is not the best situation to be in, but I guess life could be worse. I spent yesterday being interrogated with a lot of minor criminals – passport forgers, thieving or runaway maids, etc. I promised the interrogator a painting and he promised me my permit. But of course it’s thanks to Nidal, my magic open sesame, who has come to my aid yet again. I am supposed to be the manager for their poetry reading festival in Bahrain in a few days. Some manager, losing her identity card.
Sol left me a note yesterday before leaving for Yemen: ‘Get organized.’ Magda has given me an organizer. I told her I doubt I would ever open it. People are always giving me files, hoping that I might put a few bits of paper in them. I am genetically disorganized like Ma. Sol is very neat like our father; Dood is only neat in his architectural work.
17 January – Pakistan
It’s becoming a yearly habit, to be in Pakistan to see Handy. For me the Subcontinent, India and Pak, are like home, as I grew up in India. People tell me, ‘Are you crazy, how come you’re going to Pak?’
I say, ‘Where do you think you are living, seeing that our whole area is in turmoil?’
Handy is now on the committee for The Kashmir Peace Plan between India and Pak, and has to keep rushing off to Islamabad for meetings.
My bird-watching! Here in Karachi, it’s the crows, they talk and talk – they are supposed to be harbingers of news, and some people know how to understand them: naturally, only the old folks anymore.
Meanwhile the Bush-and-pretzel episode continues – it’s really very funny, but I can’t think why the White House let such an idiotic thing be known, even though it actually happened.
29 January
On the 27th we had a party, and Ardeshar asked me whether I would like to see some paintings. ‘Sure,’ I said. So at about midnight he takes me by the hand, much to the surprise of all left behind, and we go to his house. We are greeted by four dogs barking away. There I find the most beautiful drawings: prints of portraits of Salvador Dalì’s, portraits by Picasso, Manets of his mistress, Rodins, Dalì sculptures and more Picasso. I am in a state of shock and awe at this most exquisite collection. Who says small is not beautiful!
We have a Iranian lady fortune-teller telling our fortunes. Davies is doing her exercise, marching on the grass; I keep telling her not to walk in straight line so as not to make a path in the grass, but it’s of no use. Vivaldi is playing on the music machine, and Halim is behind his pillar.
Meanwhile, at the airport, the FBI is checking PIA passengers going to the hajj in case of an al-Qaeda escapee. Pakistan is cross because, they say, why aren’t they doing the checking? Is the US here to stay? Are they slowly easing themselves out of Saudi Arabia? When they have flattened Afghanistan into a desert, it will be easier to put in a gas pipeline from the Caspian, through Pakistan into the Indian Ocean. Easy access.
30 January
We are in Larkhana, Sind, Handy’s hometown. A Bin Laden-type figure lights the fire. It seems to be his duty, as he comes in to check it every half hour. At lunch we had river-fish pilau; it’s the dish of Larkhana.
I ask Masoud, Handy’s brother who looks after their estate, ‘Who came to complain today?’
He says, ‘A bunch of chaps, relatives of a murderer who had killed a fisherman.’
The real murderer had been killed by a snake, so the
y brought a relative and Masoud said the verdict was to set him free, but they would have to pay five million rupees to the fisherman’s family. The relative of the murderer will come tomorrow hidden in a car, a patrol car ahead of them to clear the way. Once they leave the Khurho house they will be under the protection of the Khurhos and will not be killed. Also, a wrong mullah was arrested today, so he was trying to get his name scratched out of the files – lovely lot of tribal mafia dealings.
We go to hear ragas being sung in a mazar near Hyderabad: Shah Abdul Latif, Sindi Sufi poet of the 17th century. In the mosque, people are milling about; there are quilts on the floor on which whole families sleep. People use the place like hotel. Ladies very high on the Sufi music are swinging their hair about. Iskandar, the guide accompanying us, says the same ladies come every week. They pretend they have a jinn so they are left alone by their husbands. It scares them to have a jinn-inhabited wife. The extremes some wives have to go to, to escape ...
Baghdad Diaries Page 19