noreensnasir

[noreensnasir]

Chain migration

I’ve been thinking a lot about immigrants lately – those who struggle hard to learn English upon arriving in this country, like my mother, who attended Head Start with me every day so we could learn together.

And those who never do, like my grandparents, who attracted funny looks as they took walks in our suburban Midwestern neighborhood, but who briefly provided my parents with the sense of comfort and familiarity they left behind years earlier in search of a better life. Or my maternal aunt, who playfully teases her younger sister for becoming so American after twenty-something years away from home. Or my paternal uncle, who finds American rules of the road a little intimidating, but was always ready to walk his wife home at the end of her long shift at Dunkin Donuts. Each of these immigrants lived with us at different times of my childhood, and I am glad they were able to.

My mother scolds me often for not understanding the importance of family. “You were born here,” she says. “Tumme kya pata hai?” ‘What do you know?’

I’m constantly being humbled to admit I don’t know much, but I have seen this firsthand: family is everything to an immigrant, and its value extends far beyond linguistic or professional skills.

Aug. 4, 2017

#immigration

[noreensnasir]

Mo(u)rning

“The Morning Brightness” -By the morning brightness, -and by the night when still, -thy Lord has not forsaken thee; nor does He despise. -And the Hereafter shall be better for thee than this life. -And surely thy Lord shall give unto thee, and thou shalt be content. -Did He not find thee an orphan and shelter, -find thee astray and guide, -and find thee in need and enrich? -So as for the orphan, scorn not. -And as for one who requests, repel not. -And as for the blessing of thy Lord, proclaim!

–

The imam’s melodic voice washes over me and my whole body is at attention.

I guess it's standing here in this row – feeling someone else’s elbow rest easily against my own – that gives me the assurance that this is where I’m supposed to be.

I guess it’s hearing the auntie whisper praises of God under her breath as she touches her forehead to the ground next to me that makes me feel like I’m in on some kind of secret.

I smile timidly through tears. I feel deep in my bones that this is something special. I think this is where I’m supposed to be.

Maybe it’s jumping up to stand too fast after blood rushed to my head in prostration that jolts me to realize- something inside isn’t quite right.

Or maybe I’m dehydrated and dizzy.

Crying is not good for water retention or clarity.

I want to wail.

I want to fill my throat with worship and proclaim loudly my faith and devotion.

But I am reminded that we don’t do this in prayer. And as I stand in the back of the room, behind rows and rows of men, I am reminded that we, sisters, don’t do this in prayer.

I feel a silence reach over my mouth and shroud my heart. I feel a tightness in my chest.

For 28 years, I have been trying to know my God.

To know that He remembers me. That he sees me in the back row. That he remembers me when I am huddled with my bleeding sisters in the other room, not in the musallah at all. When I am in pain and discomfort, and when I am not sure where I belong.

Every month, like clockwork, she rears her ugly head and thrashes violently, as she contemplates eating her own hollowness – falling short, once again, of fulfilling the function for which she was created. And bleeding and bleeding in vain and in mourning.

I am not allowed in prayer in such a state, they tell me. Or maybe I am meant to take this time as a reprieve. 17 years of this, and I have not yet decided whether this is a blessing or a curse.

My heart is adrift. And my body is at war with herself. I clutch my abdomen, unsure of whether I want to soothe it or rip it apart. I close my eyes and sway and steep in sorrow.

How can I not feel forgotten?

–

I sway more subtly now as I stand in line for prayer, my hips rocking ever so slightly, to and fro, matching the rhythm of the recitation and the swaying of the woman next to me –

Our bodies preparing to perform an elegant dance of devotion.

I know this is where I belong. But I’m having to create a room for myself… and I am tired.

I can’t seem to shake the thought - that maybe there isn’t space for me here. Or just not enough.

My furrowed brow sinks into the prayer mat as I prostrate again to my Lord.

At least I have my Lord.

Sometimes I fantasize about visiting the House of God.

But even in my religion I am unable to shake the narrative that I am not whole unless I have a man by my side.

Tears well up in my eyes as I think of these things. As I am beholden to the men in my life for whom I am in a constant state of waiting.

What cruelty is this?

What lesson is this?

I trust there is one, or I would not be pressing my forehead to the ground in anticipation of an answer.

“Your Lord has not forsaken you.” “Your Lord has not forsaken you.”

My Lord forgive me, if I have said too much.

June, 2017

[noreensnasir]

Punjab

I took a photograph on my last day in Pakistan - of a golden sun, shrouded in summer smog, setting on Lahore’s old city. I captured it a few moments too late, but time is a shifting concept here, anyway. Blink, and I've missed a million things, all at once. Turn the corner, and I face a stranger, or a memory, or a folktale… It's really all the same. 

I am Firangi, American-born, and then, all of a sudden, I am my cousin's daughter, standing in the dirt house where my father was raised, contemplating a new life with a man I've never met. And then I am my rickshaw driver, wiping beads of sweat from my forehead with a dirty rag, stained with paan and petrol. A pothole. We swerve. I catch myself with the lustful gaze of an outsider, and at once, I am ashamed. 

The rickshaw stalls and my heart lurches into the street before I retrieve it. The evening call to prayer is drowned out by the musical horn of an industrial truck - heavily adorned, like a village bride dressed in her own dowry; The driver, desperate to be heard, honks incessantly; no one’s in his way. A donkey moans alone on the side of the road and motorcyclists rev their engines in tempo, a weathered school of fish, scowling as they squeeze past each other, eager for refuge at the end of the day. 

For a moment, as the muezzin’s voice blares from speakers attached to a minaret, a vendor stops his cart and breaks from reciting his song of vegetable selections to the public. 

I like the way his voice trails as he wails the last item on his list. I like the way the minarets shoot up into the dusty sky, and muezzins across the city call residents to prayer in rounds, voices overlapping.

I like to take all of this in from my perch on the back of this open rickshaw, where I scowl at men who stare as the wind tangles the stray hairs from under my scarf and the backs of my legs stick to my seat from sweat, gluing me to this moment. We swerve again and I laugh, open-mouthed, with the boldness of a foreigner. The driver and my cousins are amused. Or maybe embarrassed. My hands and feet have collected a thin layer of dirt, and I contemplate my full-sleeved-shalwar-kameez tan lines when I wash them clean. 

A boy defecates across the street. A girl with my nose and an infant at her hip extends her palm at a stoplight, ‘madam, please, madam…’ before we leave her in a cloud of exhaust fumes. My squinting eyes catch a man smirking at me. I am naked. I am an imposter. I am caught.

A furrowed brow my only defense against sensory assault, I will myself not to look away. Like I’ve got to prove to my cousins or my ancestors that I can take it. ‘Dekha? Wapas aa gaee, na? I mask my English accent. Look, I’ve returned.

A plea, or a promise, or something like a reckoning. I’m sorry. Forgive me. I was a hairy child, embarrassed by my grandmother’s henna-dyed, neon orange braided hair and my parents’ scrutiny of our very white neighbors. What would you know about the life of a brown suburban kid in America. It was never my choice. I don’t know what I would choose. 

But I’m here now. See, how my skin glistens brilliantly, mocking me, like it knows something I don’t. We turn another corner. Where is home? Am I lost? I leave tomorrow. How will I go back? Will you take me when they won’t? And they don’t. They never have.

2017

#lahore #pakistan #rickshaw

[noreensnasir]

Bibi

She smelled of achaar — of pungent, pickled mango and strong, South Asian spices. And of the Johnson & Johnson baby oil she had me massage into her thinning hair before combing through the tangles with the dull comb she thrust into my hands. I’d string the strands — right, left, right — into a tight, skinny braid. A henna-orange rat tail. The shorter strands — white at the root — peeked out from the crisp white chaadar framing her dark brown, wrinkled face. Her beady eyes were so comically exaggerated behind her thick eyeglass lenses. Her expressions were just as dramatic. I’d often stare at her in wonder. She seemed so funny to me sometimes. Like a cartoon character from a very distant place. She was my Bibi.

***

She knew how much I loved her aloo mattur — her potato and pea curry — so she made it with fervor. It was perfectly salted and there were more peas than potatoes and it was never too spicy. As the stew simmered, she smacked around some balls of wheat dough, lightly powdered in flour, before slamming them onto the skillet and sending the roti my way seconds later — warm and crispy and soft and chewy in all the right places. They’d appear suddenly, like flying discs soaring from the stove-top to my side at the table as my legs dangled enthusiastically below. She took delight in feeding me. And I delighted in licking my oily fingers at the end of it all.

***

They called her a firecracker. But my Bibi wasn’t always so bold. There was a time when she was more humble and reserved than the Bibi we knew and loved and rolled our eyes at in frustration. She was more timid when she was first married to a man who was years and years older than her — she was just a teenager at the time. But we were told even in her timidness, there was a spirit inside her that she wouldn’t hide. Even in her timidness, she was bolder and brighter than her peers. Perhaps it was this boldness that made her husband love her so dearly. She bragged about that, years after he died — that he loved her so much. Like it was a rare thing for a husband to love his wife. Maybe it was.

She aged, and she had children, and maybe that transformation — from bride to mother, from mother of one to mother of two, three, six…, from teenager to twenty-something — made her bolder still. Made her louder yet. Gave more power and punch to the jokes and the stories she unabashedly shared to anyone who would listen, and to those who wouldn’t.

***

I sighed loudly and grimaced when she yelled down for me from the second-floor bathroom. There was my naked grandmother sitting in the tub — arm extended with foot scrubber in hand. “Get my back, will you?” she’d ask. It was really more of a demand. “Make sure to get the dead skin, scrub off that maal. May God give you only the best.”

I’d frown as I scrubbed her wrinkled elbows and the soft, aged, brown flesh on her back; dry skin falling into the water pooled around her flattened bottom and my pale feet. “Ahhh, shabaash,” she praised me. “May God give you the best.”

***

“Go get the tape recorder!” my dad ordered, with a pressing urgency, as if her voice would grow silent in a matter of moments.

She had a voice of gold, or maybe we felt that way because she was our Bibi. In any case, it was rich, in that ancient sort of way — it stemmed from the wealth of a full life. She was always singing. Her voice lingered in the morning sunlight when she was the only one awake, as she paced back and forth in the foyer of our home, her cane keeping beat to her steady melody.

They were old Punjabi folk songs — songs none of us knew. Some were songs she made up — with sacred words she invoked, set to tunes she imagined. When she didn’t have the energy to belt out the words, she would hum. Always, there was a holy hum in the air that surrounded her.

We were all aware of the magic that appeared in our home when she sang with abandon. She lost herself in the harmonies, and we allowed ourselves to enter into a trance at her open invitation. I watched her swinging back and forth — her large, round body rocking side to side, her head performing a subtle dance. I was transfixed. She was amazing to me in those moments. I wanted to know more about her, her story, her past, her history. I wanted to know how she had loved and what struggles she had lived. There was a depth to Bibi that I didn’t understand. But I never asked. Maybe my Urdu was never ripe enough. Maybe I never tried. And so I never knew.

We captured her voice as a recording — song after song, dubbed over a black plastic cassette with the title “Desi sangeet” scribbled across. We did it all in one afternoon, with the same sense of urgency my father had when he asked for the tape recorder. Like we knew the moment was fleeting, like her voice would soon be silenced.

***

It was the first time I saw my father cry. My strong, stern, jolly Papa, sobbing quietly, hunched over the telephone, cradling it like his mother once cradled him. It did not come as a shock — she had been sick, and she had returned to Pakistan months earlier.

My father has lived most of his life outside of the comfort of his mother’s gaze. But now his Bibi was gone for good, and through his short, sad moans, I caught a glimpse of what it meant to leave home, to strip oneself of all that is familiar and loving and easy. I felt anxious as I witnessed his shoulders shaking — not from laughter, like I had seen them shake in the past — and I quickly looked away. I was ashamed, like I’d seen something not meant for my eyes. But my shame ran deeper than that moment. There was a guilt that hung over me, like a dense fog that cloaked my heart. It was a sadness, but it was also a sense of loss, of missed opportunity. It was the realization that I hadn’t loved my Bibi the way she should have been loved. I hadn’t asked her the questions I could have asked her, should have asked her. I hadn’t realized the wealth of her story, didn’t realize it yet. Maybe my Urdu had never been ripe enough. Maybe I never tried.

As I watched my father hold his head in his hands, alone on his bed, I wished to hear his Bibi’s soulful hum drifting through the rooms of our home one more time.

#grandmother

[noreensnasir]

Gwen

She always saw me. And that was always enough.

Tears come easily to me, and they have flowed freely in the last week. But I didn’t know I had so many more left.

I’m sipping coffee from my NewsHour mug as I write this, wondering how to wake up from it all.

I was a shy 23-year-old when I first arrived at the NewsHour in 2012. I felt like a kid among giants then.

Gwen noticed me early. She wanted me to break out of my shell; I always understood that. But she never forced it. She smiled broadly, diffused discomfort with her witty jokes and her perfect side eye, and laughed loudly. Over time, I allowed myself to feel comfortable, and laugh loudly with her. She never shied from emotion.

She never leaned in expectantly when I raised my voice. She sat back, nodded respectfully, and supported my words with her own. When she challenged me, she did so gently. I sensed the approval in her eyes when I spoke, and cherished the slight smile at the corners of her mouth when she liked one of my pieces. That was all the validation I needed.

I will miss her hugs the most. They were warm and tight. Sometimes the tears would come when I felt alone at my desk, and I’d go to her office, trying to keep composure and maintain professionalism as I sought her guidance. She always offered it with grace, and with a hug. No matter who you were, you felt safe in her arms.

Gwen was my hero. And she will always be my role model. Thank you for believing in me, Gwen. I’m slowly beginning to believe in myself.

Nov. 15, 2016

#journalism

[noreensnasir]

Waldan

My Ammi: born almost exactly 10 years after my Papa in a nearby village – an hour-long horse-and-buggy ride away – on a chilly, Punjabi October night.

Gumtala. For Ammi, a simple life amid dirt walls and stacks of dried buffalo dung – fueling the fire for endless rotis that her mother, Bobo, perfectly crafts – round, crisp, soft, warm. A large courtyard where she plays with her cousins until her tall, slim, bearded father waves his long index finger angrily in the air, scolding her for not sitting with a book in hand, or until her sisters nag at her for skimping on housework except in front of guests. Nasreen. They call her Cheena. She dreams of other places.

Pindi Minhassa. For Papa, a simple life in the sprawling fields along the Baein river. Guiding a group of buffalo to graze and bathe, always wary of when Baein would rise and flood over, and he’d have to steer a rowdy bunch of beasts back, praying the dirt walls of his home would withstand the rushing water this time. Sarwar. They call him Chabbu. He’s the baby boy of the large family. His father, Lala Ji, passes away when he is 21. He bears the burden of making it out and beyond this simple life. He looks to science.

Albany. There is something strange about this cold place. So far from anything familiar. Sarwar spends his days at the University. The chemistry lab is a comfortable place. Nasreen navigates the neighborhood with her toddler son. This new world excites him. He is just starting to pick up English words. Going to the grocery store is a frightening task. How to get there. What if the clerk asks a question. How to respond. Their daughter is soon to come. They’ll shift to the Midwest and Nasreen will take her to Head Start. The two will learn English there together. Another son will come, too, a few years later. He’ll be welcomed by this small family and the love of a growing community – other immigrants who’ve found comfort in each other’s familiar struggles. By then, the struggles will have started to ease. Going to the grocery store is no longer frightening, only mundane. Sarwar and Nasreen will be easing into this other life: this land of opportunity, sometimes acceptance, sometimes hostility, often skepticism. They will cherish their past, and pray that their children will know something about honor, challenge and patience. And their children will try to piece it all together and understand.

Oct. 8, 2016

#parents

[noreensnasir]

Baein

I've spent a lot of time in recent years thinking about family history and how little documentation there is of mine (births and life events measured in guava growing seasons and that year the wheat crop was high...).

I think a lot about how my parents' lives were so different from mine growing up -- they've experienced two different worlds, while I've had a mostly easy, suburban, Midwestern-American life.

I thought about all this on my very brief trip to Pakistan earlier this year. So on our way to my dad's childhood home in Pindi Minhassa -- a small village outside of Lahore -- I asked him for some of his reflections (interviewing family feels funny). Here's a little thing I put together from our conversation.

Sept. 29, 2016

#pind #punjab

[noreensnasir]

Whose world

I hold the phone at arm’s length away from my ear, my head tilted in the opposite direction, my eyes rolled upward and fixed on the uneven surface where ceiling meets wall. I don’t want to hear this. I am so sick of hearing this.

When did it become exhausting to hear the sound of my mother’s voice? My mother, who carried me, who ripped apart her flesh to release me, who raised me and let me go. My mother, who trusted me. Who trusted God to guide her daughter, who expected me to fulfill the dreams she dreamt for me. When did I come to dread these moments?

My mother passes the phone to my father. I hear the hesitation in his voice as he musters up the courage to confront his feisty, bold and utterly single daughter.

“We’re just waiting for you to tell us some good news one of these days…” he says, timidly.

“Alright,” I snap back. “Then you might not hear from me for a while. And maybe, if something works out, I’ll give you a call someday and we can talk then.”

Instantly, I feel guilty. And I weigh my shame against my frustration and stumble through the rest of our conversation with a series of mumbles and trailed-off thoughts…

Why is this so difficult?

I hang up – the swollen lump growing painfully in my throat – as I try to make sense of my rushing emotions.

What is it about these conversations that trigger such visceral reactions from me?

Maybe it’s that I have never been good at pursuing what you say you want of me, Mama. In fact, I make it a point to show you I seek the opposite. Does that make me a rotten child?  

When you smack my ass and tell me to run on the treadmill and stop being so lazy because my hips are too big and my legs too fat, I make it a point to sit defiantly, groan loudly, and shove a cookie into my mouth. This is my way of showing you that hurts, and I am damaged.

In this way, I learned to hate parts of myself. When I run away and retreat, I try to find ways to love myself again. I wish I could communicate that to you. But we do not speak the same language.

Mama, you tell me you love me. Mama, do you love me for me? Mama, am I a disappointment?

Papa, you get it, right? You taught me to be bold. You showed me what it meant to be strong.

Papa, is my strength not enough now?

Am I not enough now? Will I ever be enough?

If I succeed in every aspect of my life but this one, will I have failed?

Will I always be something of a disappointment in your eyes–

Until I have a husband. Until the world can call me some man’s wife.

My parents, what hurts me the most is that our dreams are the same. I have run away and retreated to seek out all the things you’ve wanted for me. But the walls I built when I felt you tried to mold me into someone I was not in control of are too thick for me to show you what lies on this side.

I wish I could tell you of my splintered pride and the hurt I felt when I asked a boy if he’d consider me, and he said no. I wish I could tell you of the times I’ve wondered what it is about me that makes me unappealing. I wish I could come to you for comfort when that dreaded question creeps into my mind: ‘why not me? What’s wrong with me?’ I wish I could express to you the pain of feeling unwanted.

I am afraid. I am afraid you will tell me I am too picky. I am afraid you will tell me I need to temper my expectations. I am afraid you are right.

[noreensnasir]

kinu kinu kinu

Roadside | Somewhere between Multan and Lahore. 

[noreensnasir]

“If the sisters can’t see you, why should they listen to you?” - Noreen Nasir, Washington, DC

[noreensnasir]

Makkah Meets Millennials: Noreen Nasir

Photo by Medha Imam

How I know her: Former roommate and current/forever dance partner.

How the world knows her: Journalist, singer, puzzle addict, writer of witty Tweets.

What I love about her: Her journey to find the answers to critical questions we didn’t even know to ask.

Keep reading

[noreensnasir]

[noreensnasir]

Heer-Ranjha Nostalgia

#punjab lovestory

[noreensnasir]

to love the questions

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms, or books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." - Rainer Maria Rilke