The end

After nearly ten years, ati-the-reader.blogspot.com is now concluding its final chapter. The blog has been a definitive part of my life, and I have enjoyed being a part of yours (whoever you are) in all these writing years.

If you need to reach out to me, I can be contacted at nurhidayatia@gmail.com. We will probably see each other again, in one way or another, in the physical or virtual world.

Until then, here's wishing that you will have the life you always dream of!

Stronger than you

Here is the thing: I am the kind of girl who relish in abandoning things.

I couldn't remember how it started. But I didn't set out to be strong. I was a doted child. The only girl in the family. The kind of girl who is always buoyed by the assurance of a slow haven of a flowery swing.

And then someone came and cut the rope that held me to the sky.

These days people often commended my calm exterior, and always, I would laugh a little inside. If only you knew.

I was an angry kid, and my blinding rage sometimes made me feel like I could kill myself.

First, I kicked a window until my foot bleeds. Then I shoved my standing fan from my desk to the ground, rendering it useless and pathetically swinging to its death.

I hit my head against the wall. I cried. I lost my faith.

One day, in my anger and with tears stinging in my eyes. I stood up and started to clean.

When I was done, I was sweaty and breathless but with what feels like an amazingly calm space inside my head.

I learned then to be strong I need to cut the frills away from my life.

From a hoarding princess, I became a spartan soldier.

I found with great joy the satisfaction of purging things I don't need. I threw away boxes and boxes and boxes of letters. I passed along gifts I couldn't and didn't want to use. When people find it difficult to stay in my life, I didn't stop to wait for them.

I learned Stoicism,  dived into Objectivism. I walked so fast sometimes my legs hurt.

Now can you see why I cannot stop and wait for you?

Because I am afraid.

I am afraid, if I stop for even a second - I will explode.

Conversation about god - II

I am not an atheist.

a·the·ist [ey-thee-ist] 

noun: a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.  

Origin:  1565–75; < Greek áthe ( os ) godless + -ist

I believe in god. Perhaps no longer in a way any organised beliefs would expect me to, but I believe in something higher, larger and more expansive than life.

I had doubts, of course.

In moments when I find god cannot explain the unfathomable, I find it easier to be a rationalist -  relying only on what is immediate around me. My question at times like these would echo in my head over and over and over again:

"If you truly are omnipotent, how could you let all of these happen?"

When I am confronted with the magical impossibility of life and its beauty, however, I know I could not deny god.

When I see a cat sunning itself under the happy sun, peacefully co-existing in my close presence.

When I find myself in a company of a complete stranger, so different from myself in nature and worldviews, yet so similar in our hopes and dreams.

I would find myself saying, "that's you right there, isn't it god? Looking at us, smiling at us."

Do I believe in religion? I believe religion is an organised set of beliefs and values systems, and nothing more.

Religion is not necessarily interchangeable with faith. In the same way one can be religious but not spiritual,  one can also be spiritual but not religious.

I believe in indiscriminating god.

Whether we are man, woman, white, black, straight, gay, rich, poor, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindu, Buddhist, etc. I do not think it is our god-given mission to decide which religion/sets of faith/values/personality should triumph another.

When I am presented with a question - are you a believer? I said yes.

And when I was asked, then why are you not a Muslim/Christian/Hindu/Buddhist? I would go back and ask myself, but how do you know (what to believe in)?

Do you believe in something because it's right? Is something right because you are told it's right? Or because you are convinced it's right above all others which are wrong?

How do you know if something is right above all others which are wrong until you have made enough examination to understand the limitations that lead to their imperfection?

If they said, it depends on your faith. So I say, well, my faith is in god.

Then, they asked, what is your moral guidance?

I answer, to equate irreligous to being immoral is rather simplistic, isn't it?

On the days when I was religious, and I met others who are not - I ask myself, what's stopping them from doing evil? What's encouraging them to be compassionate?

What is it in my religious bearing that they don't have? And if we are different in religion, why are we the same in our conducts as human being?

Bam! It struck me. Religion, rituals - are physical, social conduct, they are what gives you identities, labels. Faith, beliefs, moral values - are inherent, and can be manifested in many forms.

I believe human beings - any human beings - are inherently good.

So does it matter if they are Muslims, Christians, Buddhist, Jews, Hindus, straight or gay?

No. To me, it doesn't matter.

Does it matter to god? I don't know.

I'm not exactly in god's place to say so or otherwise, am I?

Evolution of the faith(ful)

There is a growing presence at my door and I keep trying to ignore it. It's called Life.

With the passing of a New Year, which I welcomed with an equal mix of apprehension and ease, I can't help but feel a sense of trepidation that something big and monumental is to happen. I've been going through my days guarding closely what is dear and familiar, claiming solitude and exception from being among people.

Yet, I know from the deepest heart of my hearts this lurking presence, with its quiet smile and coaxing spirit, will never go away.

Marrianne Williamson says "it's our light not our darkness that most frightens us".

As I sit in the corner, trying to concentrate in my book, tending to my cats, running - in order to drown the niggling knock, knock, knock of my subconscious - I am beginning to realise this tug of war between light and darkness is going to be around more often going down the road.

From embracing fully the faith I was born into, to charting an entirely new path - the prospect is a frightening one.

Nevertheless, there are times in life holding on to what you believe in trumps conformity, and the choices you make could either make or break you.

This is one such thing for me. 

#2 - 16 November 2012

I sat by the window, alone, as the scenery outside changes from the suffocating bumper to bumper I have been seeing in the past few days to the quiet and dry countryside of Kanchanaburi. 

There are still development here; tar, concrete, buildings and all. The square road grid and Japanese cars, the men in suits on the billboard and bottles of Coca Cola and Sprite; somehow, these one-size-fits-all development template tend to make you feel like you have never left your city. 

But they are not why I'm here. It's the lush and green spinal mountains, standing tall at the backdrop of the city and forming its backbone, that I'm after. 

From inside the bus, as we inch nearer and the mountains rise above me - I couldn't contain my smile. 

I'm answering the call of the mountains and its water. I'm coming home. 

#3 - 15 November 2012

We were stepping out of the mall when I first saw it.

The crowd were bursting with music, beer and sweat in the Oktoberfest-like atmosphere, and I was getting dizzy from the craziness of it all.

I don't really like crowd. They make my heart race. 

But then I saw it from afar, shrouded in golden light, and my heart quickens - this time for a different reason.

My stride turned into a quick run. I didn't bother explaining my euphoria to my colleagues. I only turned briefly towards them, while pointing in frantic to the other direction. "Find me over there," I mouthed, and then I was off.

Knowing I only had little time in the city and confined to certain kilometre radius around where I stay, I didn't make any specific plans to visit generous temple and wats in Bangkok. I was contented to just roam around its streets and find what little signs of devotion I could in its people.

I don't quite understand my obsession with all things religious. It's just ever since the moment when I found out I have lost my faith (in God), I am always in search of a way to fill this gaping hole inside me. And no matter what I do, I can't seem to fill it.

It makes you wonder if you have some incurable disease no one else can't know what it feels like. It makes you feel as if you are forever missing out on something.

"Having faith is a gift",  I blurted out to my friend. We were standing on the sidewalk, watching the locals stop by and pay respect to the towering Lord Ganesha, the one I was so excited to spot not a moment ago.

To be honest, I envy all of them. For having such devotion, such belief. Some of them are on their way home from work, some of them are itinerant youth with their spiky hairs and low cut jeans, bottles of beer in hand - but they all stopped, knelt, and prayed.

I concentrated my stare on the golden statue - elephant heads, four arms and all - and waited to see if I feel something stir inside.

Nothing, yet again - and I feel like a failure.

"Having faith is a gift", I blurted out to my friend as he walks towards me. A cloud of understanding wash over his face, and he looks at me helplessly. How I wish he knows what I'm talking about.

#1 - 13 November 2012

It is Tuesday. This morning I went out running again. I am beginning to love this ability to move around people so seamlessly, so anonymously.

It's been more than ten years since I am back in Bangkok, and I'm not sure if this lack of fear of the city has a lot to do with my previous relationship to it years ago when I was small, or if it just means that I've grown up, that I've grown formidable and strong that nothing fazes me anymore.

I'd like to think it's the former that's true.

Roaming around the streets of Bangkok in the early morning is beginning to bring home a lot of meaning I've been searching for every time I feel like I don't have enough answers for every questions I keep building up inside myself - 

that I am fortunate, that I am insignificant, that I am big and small and I am capable of doing whatever I want to do and whatever it is I do, they actually don't really matter.

As I step out onto the street, everyone else is already ahead of me. The man who yesterday wore an orange t-shirt is pushing a cart filled with goods. He is probably heading towards the same spot in front of the tower where I saw him yesterday. I tried to outpace him (seeing as I don't have anything heavy to push), but he was faster.

Another man, older, one of his legs cut short by a stump. His skin dark, probably from days and hours under the sun, is washing himself with a small pail of water by his side. He is taking his time, slowly caressing dirt away from his body with a white cloth.

I wanted to look away, but I didn't. 'Feel this." I told myself. I'm not sure how long has he been on the street.

Moments like these are why I go out every day, pushing my body, my emotions and my mind to the limit. This is how I connect myself to the physical world, to the outer world, to make sure I am still somehow anchored, grounded to the roots of what is making my being possible. 

Otherwise I will forever feel as if I am floating, drowning inside myself. As if I am not real, that I need to ascertain - I can feel something.

You are part of a beautiful story

As you fall, remember that you are part of a beautiful story that did not start when you were born.

- I Wrote This For You 

It's November and rain is pounding on our soil like a long-lost lover. One evening I was out running when suddenly the wind shifted and torrential rain mercilessly poured down on me like missiles.

There were thunders and lightning too, and I was forced to take shelter under the small booth by the bridge, laughing and praying to God to keep me safe.

It's been a long time since I felt so alive, vulnerable, strong, thrilled and at peace all at the same time.

I don't know if I qualify to be defined as a believer. But I'm beginning to think whatever happened to me in the past years, they cannot simply be random, disconnected series of events bouncing off each other like gaseous molecules in a closed jar.

One thing is always a cause to another, and had I not the littlest faith to take so many unknown paths - I don't think I would have made it so far.

Which is why, as I stood there in the rain - feeling afraid and exhilarated at my own helplessness and the possibilities of surviving and life and living, I look up at the sky and found myself saying, I'm all yours, God, do with me what you will. 

Who is your personal god?

I believe we all have a personal god we subscribe to and act for.

Many of us co-religionists will quickly say what are you talking about? My god is so and so! 

Collective god, is what most people would be referring to, the god everyone claim they believe in, the god everyone is comfortable in believing exists (without having to go through the hassle of proving whether it does exist or not).

What I am referring to is a more personal god. The underlying forces which drives each and every one of our actions. The reason for our beings and the cause of our survival.

Perhaps, a better question I should ask is: What do you live for? What wakes you up every morning? What makes you take that step forward instead of cowering in fear in your little corner? What dries your tears and props up your feet to keep you walking when you fall?

What makes you take that leap of faith?

Where the one ends, where the other begins?

“Everyone and everything is interconnected in this universe.” - Jeff

We were on our way back to the city. They were belting out to songs coming from my friend's MP3 player, a biographical collection of her life. There were songs I remember fondly, from our times together in school and the forest.

They made me think of the weekend. They made me think of the surreal, but memorable trip I had up north.

My friend's mom has cancer, and I wish I could give the world for her. 

There were fragments of memories of her in my life for as long as I had known my friend; him talking on the phone to her as her endearing abang chik, him berating us over the way we cook because they are never like his mom's, him telling us early in our friendship how he showed her a photo of us. 

For us, the trip was for her. For my friend, the trip was an attempt of fitting us in his shoes.

From showing us his playground, to his normal weekend jaunt at the harbour haggling for fish, to him sitting down beside his mom, comforting her in the dead of night, to her strong voice waking her grandchildren up early in the morning for school.

We have been made privy to her life, and as I sit in the back of the car I was shaken by the revelation how the mere fact of her existence is the greatest gift I've been bestowed and one I will not be able to return.

Sometimes we forget we have a past. Sometimes we forget our lives are much more intertwined and complex than we think. Sometimes we overlook how a person we think so insignificant could have so much effects on our lives and people around us.

"The first is the recognition that the great mystery is not death but birth. The great gift is life and loving and being loved in return." - Arthur Dobrin

Little daily miracles

"What is the meaning of life? That was all - a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark".

- Virgina Woolf and the Languages of Patriarchy

We were standing by the railing, looking out to the man-made water body in front of us. It's early evening and already dark, and I was remembering stories about how fish the size of a child can be found in the lake.

There was a group of tourists taking pictures. Besides them, we were on our own. 

"A lot of people say it's boring," I was telling him about how the place is growing on me, "but I love it here. It's like..."  

"...you own the place." He finished my sentence. I looked sideways at him, and he smiled. 

I returned my gaze to the dark and unassuming sight in front of me. 

Sense of right and wrong

When did it all began? I remember seeking to start a conversation with a virtual friend during my freshman years. She had just found her salvation through a close-knitted religious group abroad after a difficult break-up of her engagement, while I was fresh out of my high school experience – learning to swim in the confusion tides of different thoughts, cultures, and beliefs.

I was beginning to realise probably everything I was taught to believe in is inaccurate1, or off-the-mark (I’m avoiding the word “wrong”, for its definitive nature), so I told her, “I want to start all over again. From zero. I want to look at the world from a plain view of flat nothingness. Not guided or influenced by pre-conception of things I’ve been taught before.“

She was quiet, a silence I gather a result of being stunned. I have said something out of norm, I have stepped into a dangerous territory.

“What do you mean by starting from zero?” She asked. I was going to say, from belief to non-belief, and probably to belief again. Just like experiment, when you want to find out the effect of something new, you have to remove all variables and start all over again, right? But I refrained myself.

We didn’t continue our conversation. The friendship tapered off as the years gone by. She married a man she knew in the community she was involved in and had a daughter I’ve never met, while I continue to swim in my ocean of great confusion.

Today, I realised, it all started like a great snowball of chain reactions. I had in me planted a seed of doubt, and it has grown malignantly inside my head like a tumour. Infecting my earlier beliefs, thoughts and convictions. Manifesting abnormal symptoms and alienating behaviours. I am infected and there is no turning back.

A different side of Jakarta

I am writing from the luxurious comfort of Jakarta Le Meridien's lobby. Outside, guards in uniform stand by the electronic scanner, greeting every guest who walks in with a generous smile.

By experience, I know every vehicle which comes in will suffer the same fate too. Policemen with their metal detectors will stop each and every one of them, asking to see every guest's face by insisting the driver to lower down all windows.

Inside, men in suits walk around with one hand in their pockets - looking at the same time important but carefree. As if they own the world. The clacking sounds of high heels distract me, a celebrity-looking woman walks past with her head held high, with men trailing behind her like ducklings following their hen mother.

I came to Jakarta with expectations, and none of them has been met so far.

Why is it, when we want to do something good, it has to be confined within the boundaries of existing systems or institutions?

For three days, eating inappropriately overpriced food, sitting around in an unnaturally regulated room temperature, we speak of how we want to try to save the world and change humanity. Granted, millions have been spent for lower income groups who is supposed to be our beneficiaries, plans for policies are underway to ensure more sustainable and equitable world.

But are we doing the right thing? Who are we actually benefiting? Who do we eventually leave feeling good, our beneficiaries or ourselves?


I know I'm supposed to be inspired, but at the end of it all, I think I'm left feeling more disenchanted than ever.

And Jakarta feels like a date gone wrong. I'll have to come back, next time.

Unnecessary disappointment

What is better to fill a holiday than Andrew Bird and Louisa May Alcott? Andrew Bird's raw voice is intoxicating it lifts you up into an altogether different universe, while the story of Jo and her sisters are refreshing enough it keeps you grounded in the reality of life.

There is little about the life of unemployment to be recorded nowadays. Apart from the usual reading, writing and pondering, I do nothing else to qualify my stories worth writing about. I wanted to write about the past, but the cheerful thought of them is tarnished with the grim prospect of my life at present - so I chose to preserve them where they belong. When I'm in a better state of mind, I'll revisit them again.

As for the future, although they warrant the most sparkling enthusiasm - I am reminded to be careful of unnecesary disappointment. The application is nearly complete, and I've begun to read and write for the proposal. However, since my life at the moment seems to move at a rather slow and disconnected pace - believing in possibilities is proving to be difficult.

A vagrant's friend

My head was lolling to the music when he came, I was partly drowsy with sleepiness - battered from the 10-hour journey from Down Under, and partly anxious at the thought of seeing him after all these while. But when I faintly heard my name and I turned around to see his face breaking into a big wide grin - I felt light as a feather.

Friendship is a strange thing, I must concur. It grew from the least expected, and sometimes against the continuum of space and time. People always say the best of friends grew out of thick and thin, for better or for worse. But sometimes magical moments sprouted out of the driest and the barest of all lands. Sometimes an utterly honest manifestation of what a soul is capable of can only be seen in one spontaneous second - unplanned, and uncharted.

I am a wanderer, a gift of friendship is something I don't have at my continuous disposal. A floating and an aimless vagrant, I hold on to the memories of beautiful moments like a tramp hogging bare shillings on the floor. Like that one perfect morning in the terminal, they're hard to come by.

The land of weird and wonderful

On Friday, I had glutinous Chinese meals with my friend cooked especially by her mother. Although we were quite hindered with everyone's ability to converse fluently either in Chinese or English, we ended up laughing most of the time it doesn't matter. Afterward, as I was about to start working at my desk I received a knock on my door. "You have to come out and see us", was the first sentence my friend uttered. A friend's friend was working on his photography project and he wanted to take photos at the bus stop - of half-naked people.

So there we were, under blistering rain and amidst thunderous wind, the foursome combination of weird and wonderful people. While I stood by the road side, shivering in my pajamas and blue cap, holding the umbrella for the photographer, the subject of the photo walked idly back and forth in his boxer short, iPod in his ears and sunglasses on his face. My friend occasionally barked from the other side of the road, her Australian accent was unmistakable, while our neighbour watched us amusingly, his head covered under a part of his shirt like someone wearing a hijab.

We reminisced on the night later on, sipping chai latte and quietly listening to the Velvet Underground. I told them, 'seriously guys, I don't need drugs to get high - I'm high now as it is with our life'.

My friends and I went to a talk by Christopher Hitchens on Saturday. As a part of the opening night for the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Hitchens discussed his arguments against religion and god. Interestingly enough, even though I find myself nodding to most of his ideas, I did not find the coincidences frightening anymore. As I thought to myself in the morning the next day, if god really exists and he is going to judge me, then let him.

And Sunday was the highlight of my weekend. At the generous expense of my friend, he got us free tickets to watch the Australian National Rugby League (NRL) Grand Final. As my friend and I took the train from the city in the afternoon to his house, we could sense the excitement brewing as throngs of people in blue and yellow or purple jersey shirts, scarves, and caps passed through us. In their exhilaration, some people attempted to engage us in conversation by calling us their Indonesian friends.

As we walked into the ANZ Stadium later on, everyone appeared to burst with energy and anticipation. Although I am naturally apprehensive of crowds and loud voices, I let myself soak in the atmosphere like a dry and new sponge. Sitting there, seven rows from the field and in the middle of eighty thousand strangers, I feel small and overwhelmed with the magnanimity of life and fate and the world.

From afar, the combatant players on the field looked like bison fighting in their mating season - fierce, fast, but muted. Even though I couldn't set my heart to support anyone of the two teams, I watched my friends with keen interest as they jumped at every possible close calls for victory. The team my friends rooted for didn't win in the end, but the sombre mood was quickly replaced by our lively discussion during dinner.

And so passed one of the best weekends I ever had in a long time, which I believe is a starting point for many more to come. Isn't it funny how often only in the end the beginning starts?

The story of stuffs and gender

After almost a year and a half in Australia, there are two things I am beginning to look at differently now.

Firstly, what, why, and how much stuffs I am using in my daily life now as compared to when I was in Malaysia. Transportation provides the first striking difference, whereas in Malaysia it's almost impossible to walk to get anywhere near to my destination, I only have to walk to get to school, buy my groceries, and watch movies these days.

Not only I drive almost every day in Malaysia, but every two or three month I drive intensively back and forth from school to home. Although I admit I enjoy driving immensely, especially so with the company of friends and along the beautiful beaches of Pahang, Terengganu, and Kelantan; living in Randwick now provides me with the satisfaction of being able to connect to my local areas, to know every road by foot, to know the owner of the store, to get a glimpse of familiar neighbour every time I walk by. At the same time, it doesn't cut me off from the world.

In terms of buying food and things, I notice how I am producing less surplus when I started to get things I only need. Part of it is attributable to living alone of course, because in Malaysia I usually buy things for my brothers and nieces, which also explains how we are more connected by things than communal interactions in our life now more than ever.

Watch the Story of Stuffs to see what I mean about buying and using stuffs and their impacts on our lives, and watch how much our world has changed since 200 years ago.

Another new perspective which I found revealing is the interplay of sex and gender in our society. Sex is biological, but gender is cultural. Who we are and how we behave is constructed by our society. And guess what, even what we interpret from the Bible, the Last Testament, and the Quran are socially constructed. It really is a question to ponder, what values underlie our judgments in the interactions of our daily life, and how sometimes we are clouded by perspectives which we think our own but not.

I've gained a lot of insightful awareness and confidence in the past year, and I believe I'm already miles away from what I had been before. The only question is, how do I bring these realization home and stay true to myself while bringing about the change I want to see in my home country?

There is something about me and god

And for thirty years he has not prayed, has not received communion and has not gone to church. And this is not because he knew his brother's convictions and wanted to share them, nor was it because he has resolved something in his heart, but simply because this comment of his brother's was like a finger being pushed against a wall that was on the verge of collapsing from its own weight. - Confession by Leo Tolstoy

If God is made of kindness and good hearts and generous friendships, I wonder at His magnanimity. For it's something I'm awarded in abundance lately, and let me tell you, I'm not really the best of all believers.

What am I?

How often do you think you ask yourself the question in your lifetime? What am I, what are you, what are we?

Sometimes I feel like I'm destined for the life of a rebel, the fiercest of all activist and supporter of environmental cause - but I learned now how my soul can be easily disturbed by the crudeness of picket line and angry shouts of the protesters. I even feel for the person hated by most1, a quality I find confusing in myself. Because I'm not sure whether it indicates a failing of resolve or a gentleness of heart. I certainly hope it's the latter.

As a result, sometime I try to imagine myself living a life of a bureaucrat, a policy practitioner. I know my professional qualities have a penchant for it. I'm rational and almost unemotional when it comes to making decisions. I can plan things, innovative things. But at most times I have a feeling I'll be suffocated in no time living in a culture which dictates what, how, and why I should do certain things. I'm not sure I can stand it for longer term.

But most of all, a life I certainly imagine and long for is a life of a writer and society observer. A life with no strings attached, a life which allows me to roam free and engage with everyone around me as I like. Yet, I need purpose in my life, I am best when I am driven by schedules and goals - so a life of a social hermit will not exercise my potential.

So who am I, really - and what am I meant to do?


¹ If you're wondering who it was, it's George W. Bush.

Letters to a Friend: 1

Cowper St, July 1, 2009

My dearest,

There are times when amidst joyous moments, I am brought back to a slither of memories when you and I trotted the same land. Because sometimes even invaluable my experiences had been in this foreign soil, I still severely wish how I could see you present among my acquaintances, savouring the spices of my adventurous journey.

We had a generous dinner last night, the three great cook of the house as we call ourselves, each made food fit to serve an army. Lasagna, polenta and grilled vegetable stacks, spring rolls, spinach and cheese-filled cobb bread, salads, and Indian-fused pasta brought by our gentle neighbour spread the table. The food, suffice to say, filled us before we even get to greet our dessert enthusiastically.

And oh the companies! It was such joy to listen and witness the conversations. The avid observer you know I am, I listened with indifference as the dinner table became a battle of eastern and western cultures. They had discussed with rare spirits about the fear our fathers and mothers harbour of our wobbling young impulses. While some hold dear their parent's trust, others flee to pursue their heart's desire.

It made me question myself, whether I boarded the plane to say goodbye to everything which is not to my heart's desire or I had left with ample trust to honour my parents pride in me for taking such uncertain road.

What of your thoughts, my friend, what road have you taken in your life and why so? Ever so little I understand of your life, your composed and warm manner always assure me of the world's kindness and honesty. It is you who reminds me, every time I had to contain my anger towards the world, there is always a reason to go home.

As fiery as the conversations had been, laughter and merriment followed the rest of our night. It suited me very well because such conviviality let me alone with my own reflection. It is often at such times my thoughts are tenderly drawn towards the memory of you. As if in the middle of our youngest Indian ambassador demonstrating his eloquent dance and the audience laughing around him with delight, I could see you there too nodding appreciatively with the little crooked smile of yours I've come to memorize in my sleep.

Can you tell my why my friend, even with the generosity of technology around us, these minutes and miles between us do not seem to budge faster and more rapidly for our impending reunion?

Awaiting your reply, 

Very sincerely yours, 

Ati A. Aziz.