A Note of a Personal Sort

I've resolved to take off the hijab, and just go about with my bushy, frizzy hair on show.

POURQUOI, you say?

I'm tired. (Je swee fatty gay).

I'm tired of plodding around, minding my own business, subject to nasty stares from Staunchly Mozlem-Hatin' Canadians (usually of ze French variety...more's le pity). The negative stuff is proportionately minuscule, but I feel it more.

 I'm tired of always feeling hesitant to plunge into anything outside of what I know, because by looking 'overtly Mozlem' I'm having to shove past that mountain of strangers' perceptions, misconceptions, and political/philosophical stance.

 Even if people are nice and normal to me, I'm aware that it can go either way, that I represent an entire religious group, and they can project whatever prejudices or hatred they have, onto me, without even speaking to me.

Some people get offended by what's on your head. That, or they feel sorry for you, assuming you were held at knife-point on your twelfth birthday, by a vicious, bearded Mozlem man, who demanded you succumb to the Oppression System! 

"Okay, alright!" I wept (they think), "I'll...don the...cloth! For the rest of my days! I'll scrub your kitchen floor with my ragged self-esteem! I'll sweep the floor of my prospects and opportunities and meekly bow down before your misogynist tendencies!"

"Promise?" he snarled (he: probably my father, although a brother, l'oncle, and husband are suspected too)

"Oui! Oui! Just, mind the jugular! Please! It's my only one!"

"Prove yourself!" he threw a heavy, black cloak at me. It reeked of gloom. Of tyranny.

Hands trembling, gulping back a sob, I draped the cloth on my head, suffocating my wild, Hermione-like mane forevermore. Somewhere, a fairy died.

Having thus initiated me, the Mozlem man growled his approval, and cut me a slice of cake. 

Recently a guy started 'chatting me up' so I quickly tossed in the word 'husband' and tried to get away. After which he looked at me with great pity and said, "Happily married?" as if Muslim women are all condemned to demonic husbands straight from al-Qaeda.

 I'm also tired of having people like non-hijabi aunties and stupid people in general, act like I've committed a crime if I laugh too loudly, or have too much of a personality. These people are Muslims, but they have a tendency to treat hijabis like a lower form of life. It's like the caste system but dumber. Especially happens at auntie-oriented parties where they wish I would just sit silently, occasionally offering to wash the dishes, or say "Ji, auntie. Aap bohut zyada Aishwarya se milti hain." 

 They want me to be mute, a maasi (maid) away from home (Pakistan)! Just to sit there like the fool I am (low IQ denoted by scarf), while they scuttle about, tossing samosas, gossiping, and being generally nauseating.

"Aray?!? A hijabi girl?!!" they think "Having fun? The gall! I don't wear hijab and even I am not having as much fun as she! After her!" And in their minds, they have unleashed a fantasy, chappal-bearing infantry, to teach me to keep to my place.

 Putting on the hijab was a big deal itself, because:

 1. my dad was bluntly against it (surprise surprise)..

 "Why do you need props to be a decent person?"

 "You'll become an old lady before your time."

 "You're going to get into trouble with that, in Canada." etc.

 He's charismatic and wise, so I sought his approval more than my mother's (who was for it, but has less vivacity).

 2. I got little support among 'my own.' Muslims often tried to convince me to take it off and be 'normal.' Of the latter, all I need to say is, they were all traditional desi aunties, and it's understandable....

3. 'Twas a spiritual move on my part, but I was still erratic in my daily prayers.

4. I'm really self-conscious and shy as it is. 

I dunno. 

I've also had a pretty bad childhood in Canada, at public schools, where a bunch of stupid girls would make up lies about me, and Kiran (another Muslim girl). 

We had other friends but they couldn't really be around to protect us all day. 

Once these girls (they called themselves the Pixie Club) threw pebbles and twigs at Kiran, on the playground. When I came running, they pretended that WE were the ones throwing stones at them.. and told the playground monitors so... (they used to throw twigs at the hijabi auntie Muslim playground monitor, btw, never got in trouble either).

Or they'd lie to teachers that Kiran (Kiran was their no 1 target because she could barely speak enough English to defend herself) had been screaming racial slurs ("black cat") at one of their black friends, Alanna. 

This was ridiculous because 

1. Kiran and I had two black friends in that class. They weren't assh@ts like Alanna.

2. Kiran had no idea what saying 'black cat' would accomplish. She could barely speak English. She had said "blackboard" to me, and they knew it.

Teacher didn't do anything even though a bunch of kids spoke up and said they were lying about Kiran...who had dissolved into tears..

Those girls were terrible. They'd walk by and kick us and act like it was a mistake... They would whisper to us how ugly we were. (We never told on them, because once Kiran had, and they literally followed her all the way home--Kiran's house was walking distance--shouting insults).

And then one day one of these girls--Ashley--aka the unofficial 'leader' of the Pixie Club--came up to me. It was after class, and I was the last one out as usual, being extremely disorganized... 

She basically said Muslims were all trash, animals, ugly (I guess that's when my obsession with makeup/looks started)... That her parents were always telling her about things on the news (a man had murdered his daughter that year, it was in all the newspapers) to show her what animals we were...

That her parents had told her to bully/torment me and Kiran whenever she could, because we were Muslims...other weird stuff. 

She also said our homeroom teacher was REALLY good friends with her mom, so complaining about Ashley wouldn't do anything to her...

Basically she was telling me that I was just going to have to suck it up, the way the Pixie Club treated me and Kiran, because I was Muslim, and deserved it.

So over the years I just internalized that I deserved the worst, because of my identity. 

I'm now at a point in my life where I can look back on all this.... I realize I need to start from scratch.... The hijab is 'cramping my style' and adding to my crippling shyness....

because I feel as I used to back in grades 4-5-6, when I was bullied/taunted for my religion, when I go out with it and receive some kind of negative response...

Of course, in those grades I didn't wear hijab, and actually grades 5-6 were at a different school with a different Mozlem-hating bully (a French Canadian girl, incidentally), but I guess those experiences had kind of beaten into me, that I sucked, and I 'attracted' bullies, who just further drove it into me that I was scum of the earth!

I'll just keep working on 'inner me,' and work my way out.

Long stream-of-consciousness ramble and high-five to all the RockStArzZ who read through... (crickets)

Review: Bad & Beautiful by Ian Halperin

I am interested in the world of Glam Wham Bam as much as the next moderately overweight housewife. Nothing has given me greater thrills than skimming the cover of Vogue magazine at the checkout aisle. Nothing--until now!

I wish I could start this review of with these words, as indeed, I have. But scratch that! Instead, I have to begin like so, perched atop this wobbly stool that creaks every time I lean in for effect...with dim light shed from a solitary, dying bulb.

In a grim, preferably baritone, voice, I speak: This book isn't worth anyone's time. It is trash, copy-pasted umpteen times, disguised as ground-breaking, investigative journalism. That about covers it.

The introduction is quite confusing, hinting at noble intentions but then quickly swerving. Coward. Stick to your guns, have some sort of a point! But sensationalists never do. 'So uh..I'm gonna, at the risk of...of a great many unidentified risks, expose the dark side of modeling! This is for all you aspiring models out there, so that...so that you are inspired to further your careers in modeling! Yeah! That's right! Keep it up! You go girlfriend! May the Red Bull be with you!' etc.

In the beginning, Mr. Halperin resolves to go 'undercover' as a model; that part made me giggle. As he described how a flamboyant French hairdresser (except he was an American photographer) snapped picture after dazzling picture of his ravishing self, I sniggered.
It's funny when men preen, thasall.

There's a picture generously included, of the author's modeling efforts. There he is in all his glory, reeking of 'ishtyle,' sneering with the confidence of Napoleon. Only the cheap plastic of toy sunglasses stand between us and total annihilation from his piercing, Dumbledore-esque gaze. (The Indian cricket team undoubtedly come to this photo, time and time again, for inspiration.)

"Wut is your style number?"

"Wut is mobile number?"

Also snigger-worthy were the bits in which he describes how various almost-supermodels come onto him. Poor guy! He has to let them down ever so gently. Still, they weep on his manly shoulder, pound on his chest with emaciated fists, screech like scorned banshees, and rage, rage, against their plight.

The rest is filled with a gajillion anecdotes, scant on solid fact. References go like this: "a top model of a very well-known agency told me, over a lot of cocaine, all the sordid details of her sorry life, and I was like wow." "A movie critic from a province I must not name, lest the modeling mafia come after me, ratted on his dirty clubbing pals." "Milan is a very, very bad place to be an unchaperoned girl, because this unknown model said so!"

This vagueness was meant to inspire awe. It's so secretive what this man's doing, so risky, he can't give much away, but even through such strain! He managed! He tried! Or...he made it up? Surely?

Stories about models being relentlessly abused are balanced with old news about models who went psycho and shot errrrrrybody! Or became 'exotic dancers'...or rebuilt their lives with accounting! Whoo hoo!

It's all badly written. He tries to come across as compassionate, but obviously he wants to exploit these survivors for their stories. By the way, the word "rape" gets old, fast. It's safe to presume, if this book is to be believed, that every single model is degraded to shreds within moments of being signed on. To speak out would mean that everyone, from her agency to any prospective clients, abandon her, so most play along. This book could be condensed into half its size if he'd left it at that.

Incidentally, Carre Otis' book Beauty, Disrupted, might be a good read for those who would like more on this subject. I'm not interested, having come across an excerpt, and feeling depressed afterwards. It's better written than Ian Halperin's book, though.

Reading between the lines, it sounds as though Mr. Halpe--scratch that--Mr. Dude, we'll say, had a good time with a lot of  beautiful women, at nightclubs/beautifulwomens'apartments, where drugs were passed all around, and he DEFINITELY had some (despite staunch claims to the contrary).

A lot of women admired his...his....um...side-burns, probably, and tried to get naughty. (Perhaps, in that time, he also cultivated a lush handlebar moustache--give 'em more to swoon over, eh?)
Anyway, with sensitivity, tact and decency that many a diplomat would do well to emulate, Mr Dude lets these women down, whilst plying them, slyly, with drinks. They inevitably reveal to him all the tragic stories of their lives. (Hint: rape, rape, more rape). Every now and then, a drug-dealer conveniently passes by, to add to the plethora of dull characters that Mr Dude can populate the book with. Oh, lest we forget, there are homosexual escapades detailed, too. It's really, uh, ground-breaking, and stuff. Revo...revo...revlutionary. Hic.

In between booze and sleaze, and Godknowswhat, he scribbled it all down on some napkins. These were subsequently mailed to Mr. Dude's mother, who, bless her, pieced it all together, as, indeed, she used to piece together scraps of his old garments into prizewinning quilts. With the dove-grey typewriter Mr Dude had gifted her for Mother's Day, she wrote the bulk of the ex-po-zay.

Meanwhile, Mr. Dude recovered from his hangover(s), read up on Versace and the Supernova Models. ("Facts. I haz").

He then strained his wits over two VERY random chapters to prove he listened VERY CAREFULLY in Grade 5 when they were learning about research papers. These two chapters are tossed into the book, in a way that makes little sense. The Versace tribute ("he wasn't a model, but his story is CHOCK-FULLA sensationalist slobber, SHOCKING revelations, so WHY THE EFF NOT!" -Mr Dude) is the final chapter, the Naomi/Christy/Linda/Cindy/Claudia one is somewhere in the middle. Oh, I forgot, Kate Moss also gets a chapter all to herself, because, why not? She's iconic. She SURVIVED HERSELF. Dude.

Moral of the story: Don't let your daughters become models (said Jenny Shcimiziuuszui, who, incidentally, sums everything up in a few interesting paras near the end, commanding eloquence that Mr. Dude would kill for, if he realized he lacked it). But wait--Mr Dude interrupts--do! Because...uh...Versace...uh...artistry....uh...*hic hic*...all that jazz....