Today: A Kaleidoscope

It is not every day that you can get out on the streets of Karachi and have access to fresh air. However, today was just that fortunate a day because most of the city's population was locked inside their homes, huddled away on sofas or the floor, glaring at the TV screen. Those considered pious in every household were glued to prayer mats, praying for the national cricket team's victory in the world cup quarter finals. My family however, is allergic to cricket and we spent the day...well, just like any other holiday.

With mild sunshine and early summer breeze, the weather was quite pleasant for this time of the year. My dad offered to let me drive around, since the streets were deserted but I refused. It causes me a lot of pain to acknowledge this, but I refused to drive, when my dad actually offered to let me drive. This of course had nothing to do with the kind of patriotism that most residing in my nation feel - the kind that comes across through cricket only. Although, it's entirely another story that my patriotism is directed more towards Venus. 

It was simply because I didn't feel well enough to drive.

As requested, I scanned N's presentation for flaws and to provide moral support. I was so pleased when I opened that Powerpoint file because the colour scheme of the presentation was black and blue! I've always loved those colours, they're so rich and deep. Also, they remind me of my blog and how I've deserted it. With that thought, I decided to base a blogpost on that presentation, as a token of gratitude because it reminded me to redirect my attention towards my blog. 

And here it is!

1. Thank you N. The presentation was pretty cool, I just didn't get it because we haven't studied that stuff yet. Under normal circumstances I would freak out because of that, but presently I'm not in the mood.

2. After scanning it, I wanted to point out a few things that I felt could be an issue so I called up N. It was so funny. I mean, there was nothing funny about it but this was probably the second time we talked on the phone and it felt funny to just hear the other person's voice, having no perception of their face or expressions, apart from that your brain can conjure up. I know that's how phone conversations are, but it's just so amazing that your brain associates recollections of expressions from the bank of your memory when you hear a voice, without a visual stimulus. 

Only this year, we were taught in bio how that happens through the synapses in our neurones: When you hear a new voice and see a new face, pathways (in simple terms) are created in your brain, along which whenever signals travel, you can recall and identify the person responsible for creating that signal. So when you hear the voice alone or see the face without any auditory stimulus, signals are carried along the synapses corresponding to either voice identification or face identification, in the latter case. And as one of these pathways are excited, the pathway that was created along with it also responds to the signal and is automatically stimulated to give a recollection of both face and voice together.

This is why I love the brain, it's SO amazing! That is also why I hate it when people fail to use it and act stupid and fake.

3. It seems as if my maternal instincts are now restricted to my blog (before this it was the kittens, but then they died), since I fail to employ them when with human children. I hate that about myself. I love most children, find the annoying ones really scary and crave to learn how to deal with them. I would like to think that it's another universal conspiracy that I am incapable of talking to children and making them happy. That makes ME very unhappy. I am so jealous of all those girls my age who can handle children so easily because I can never make them stop crying, etc. I can't even hold them in my arms for a long time because I'm too afraid! Just the other day, I was at a friend's place, whose nephew I adore more than any other child I've adored in the past few years. She went out of the room for a while and he started crying. I just stood and stared at the child with the most concerned face I could possibly have and I think I was near to tears myself because I just didn't know what to do! 

Anyway, I feel very motherly towards my blog. When I began paying attention to it after a long dry spell of desertion, it looked almost orphaned to me and now it seems to be recovering.

And those who studied alkanes and alkenes without me: That was the only topic I REALLY needed to revise in AS organic at the moment because I make myself exceedingly complacent with the fact that it's easy and I need to concentrate on other things like Acyl Chlorides.

S-da-B, guess what? One of my friends just re-enlightened me with the knowledge that lots of 'mailay Karachi boyzz' are speeding towards the seaside on motorbikes. This is why I prefer 'maila pakistani boy' over 'poor German girl'. They are SO patriotic, 'poor German girl' was fake and kept whining about Germany and the attic.

All: I don't like 'mailay Pakistani boys', okay? I just think their hairstyles are better than that of Ann Frank (or whatever her name was spelled as).

Of Some Precious souls

If you've read my blog, or even skimmed through it ever, you would know that I don't usually talk about my personal life here as most other bloggers like to.

Today, however, is different. I feel like talking about my day, simply because it was nothing special and yet so special.

My lovely friend, whom I love more than the non-existent 'luv of ma lyf' taught me this really sweet phrase in Japanese, she kept saying it throughout the day and just watching her say those magical words made me so happy. Of course, her ability to look Japanese played a great role in accentuating the whole effect and also, my happiness.

That was not all that she did for me today, though. S picked up my bio notes for me when they just threw themselves upon the floor for the sole purpose of annoying me - another universal conspiracy, but guess what? I've learnt to live with them now as they happen all the time!

She picked them up for me because I decided to be stubborn and show those notes I didn't care. During the class, she gently squeezed my arm so that I'd feel better. Later, S made sure I was comfortably seated when I'd been excused from Language class, regaled me with the "Tsu- khasa" story and made me laugh. She attended physics class with me and walked downstairs with me while we were discussing how we can't have an 'inqilaab' (revolution) yet.

That's not all, though. At night she remembered to inquire about my health, although I wasn't visibly sick today - it's very easy to forget how somebody was feeling when they don't look sick. If you do remember, you're just a really great person. Later, I bugged her with a really stupid problem and she gave me some really good advice, which immediately got me out of an awkward, messy situation.

I love S. The fact that I lay quite a lot of stress on 's' sounds when I speak, used to appear to me as a technical problem with my voice box, but now I just think of it as a token of love and gratitude I feel for the presence of S in my life. With thoughts like these, I feel bad about disclosing universal conspiracies to the world, but I MUST voice the truth!

And then there's S-the-B.

She's just SO cool. I never write like this, especially on my blog. I just speak this way but right now I'm breaking all the writing rules I've made for myself.

S-the-B makes me laugh so so so so much everyday, right before physics. I feel refreshed during that class and actually understand what my teacher is talking about, though I may not necessarily understand what exactly he's talking about. For example, I am aware of the fact that today surface waves were being discussed but I didn't really understand, or pay much attention to what they were, etc.

S-the-B came to see me for a second time today -yes, fate was being way too nice to me today, it seems. Maybe I should be scared because it might just be preparing the stage for another huge conspiracy like my bio notes taking a dive. Maybe that's what you refer to as an "academic deep-dive".

This is a moment of revelation. I feel so enlightened now.

The best part of seeing S-the-B however, remains untold. She told me she got me an amazing gift! I was excited beyond what the powers of my description can conquer, especially at this time and in this state. S-da-B (as she might like to call herself, because she's just 2 kewlx), rummaged inside her bag for a minute or two, while I just eyed the opening of the bag with eyes wide and watery with the anticipation of what might come out any moment. I would like to imagine that my tongue was also lolling to a side or that I looked like a character from Japanese anime but well, I guess none of that happened. Meanwhile, S-da-B produced a wrapper (of something) from her bag. It was transparent and pink on the top and bottom. It said the following:

AAA HIGH QUALITY on the top pink part

and

MADE IN JAPAN on the lower pink patch.

We tried to figure out what it could have been wrapped around but failed because I was almost exploding with glee. Why wouldn't I? it was graded with triple As. Yes, that is how HIGH the quality was, of whatever it contained. S-da-B found it on the floor of one of her classes and picked it up just for ME. Cox she luff me so much!

I love you too. Both of you.

I would also like to thank N, for being there and just uplifting my mood with some absolutely random musings.

And that concludes the most prized moments of my day.

Oh and Pakistan Zindabad! Since we've entered 23rd March now. 

P.S. I'm writing this because I couldn't conclude my day without doing this.

Please try and ignore whatever errors you find in this post because I'm not well. I can't make sense of most things, my spine and shoulders are hurting so badly I can barely keep my neck in one position for more than five minutes. My apologies if that sounds like whining but I just HAD to mention all that.

Suffocating Sundays

Pacing in the drawing room, as that’s the only room I prefer to live in through the summers, I spend my days. I sit, stand up, walk and sit down again. The drawing room is my kingdom in the sweltering heat of the desert Karachi seems to be turning into. Since this season is also associated with exams, the most important ones of the year, I pretend to study in the drawing room. In fact, that is why I chose this room to live in, in the first place – I thought studying there would be easier. It was, in the first year. It really seemed so. But now… it just isn’t, bluntly speaking. Blunt – it’s a great word. It sounds so blunt, it gives a blunt feeling that vividly imparts how blunt one feels. So it’s also ironic, perhaps. Or was it oxymoronic? Okay, this really isn’t how I should be at this time of the year because I have an English exam in two months!

Anyway, I was talking about the drawing room and how it no longer seems like Jasmine’s part of the palace. I stack up my books in my drawing room and papers too. Lots of them. It looks like a study but that’s hardly what I do there now. I realized weeks ago that I no longer study there, but it was only today that I realized what exactly I do there. I pace around the room, sit down on one of the sofas, gaze into the sunlight streaming in through the windows; contemplate on how hot it actually is and compare the bougainvilleas I can see on the window opposite mine, to roses. Yes, the bougainvilleas belong to the people who live in the house opposite mine, since nobody in my family has the patience for gardening. I love flowers and all, my childhood fantasy was having a rose garden but I rediscovered this fantasy only days ago, while doing a yoga routine. Yeah, that depicts how much importance I’ve given to the idea in the past few years.

So yeah, we were talking about Sundays. No, I was supposed to talk about Sundays since I titled this post accordingly. I like being blunt. Being blunt on Sundays, because that’s how Sundays are: boring, bleak and blunt. I love power of three, whoever designed this technique in the English Language, must have been amazing. Or well, very fond of details and repetition in the very least.

Redirecting my attention to Sundays, I hate them. They make me feel disoriented, just as this post sounds. I get bored, can’t concentrate on anything, there’s nothing good on TV. I also feel morose for absolutely no reason and that frustrates me, which further leads to stress. And some more stress when I realize that I could be doing severe damage to the mood centers in my brain. In fact I believe I HAVE already done the damage and that’s why this happens to me with a greater intensity each coming Sunday. I think I’m only left with the anger/depression center and perhaps only a molecule of the happiness center. This certainly goes for Sundays, if not other days.

P.S. I’m also certain that I have ADD (Attention Deficit Ooh shiny!) I change my train of thought a little too often and ‘shiny’ corresponds to not only physically shiny objects but also shiny thoughts, metaphorically speaking. Shiny train tracks for my trains of thought, if you will.

Oh and, thanks for bearing with me. Have a great Sunday, or what’s left of it J

The Phase of Red Haze

One day you wake up and switch the T.V. on to see a blast of red and pink and hearts and fur. If you survive that, you reach for the remote with quivering hands since most of your energy was lost when your eyes popped out and bled to death. By the moment you find the remote, manage to keep your heart beating and your lungs properly aerated (though I could be strangled for using such a layman term when I’m a pre-med), you realize that Valentine’s Day is just around the corner.

Poor old Saint Valentine (s). They could never have imagined they would be remembered centuries later in the ‘ultimate’ celebration of love. I don’t know if their saintly nature would permit them to be happy about it or they would just run off to a cave, take an oath of silence and spend all their lives praying to be redeemed of such worldly fame. However, if they didn’t have a nature quite so simple they could have realized that this fame could mean the success of their mission to spread Christianity, if used properly. As it turns out, they weren’t quite so fortunate because not only were they simple and faced severe persecution at the hands of the Roman dictators but the Catholic calendar refused to recognize their sacrifice and deleted their names from history!

Yes, I know their story is sad. But ours is grimmer. Every year, we set out to celebrate this day with an unwavering sense of responsibility. There are cards, gifts and God knows what not, perhaps all in the spirit of expressing unity with Christendom, because as they say “The spirit is universal!” But what if the whole idea isn’t Christian at all? We are expressing unity with Paganism? Plausible, but the problem lies in the fact that this isn’t even a real festival! It’s a mixture of Literature, imagination, confused history and mirch masala!

According to the Catholic encyclopedia, there are three saints by the given name who died on 14^th February in different years. The Encyclopedia states that Valentine of Rome died about 269 AD and Valentine of Terni died about 197 AD, all we know about the third one through this source is that he died in Africa. Notably, there are no romantic elements in their original biographies and this connection was created in the 14^th century. Those who believe that it was these martyrdoms that came to be celebrated by Christianity as the ultimate sacrifice for love are wrong for the following reasons:

1. Why would Christianity celebrate these ‘persecutions’ as the sacrifice for romantic love?

2. Christianity was not even prevalent at that time. The Roman Empire followed polytheism and roman imperial cult up to 380 AD. The reason why these saints were persecuted was that Christianity was unacceptable for the Romans. Why would these Romans allow a celebration that paid homage to a man they’d killed, when the killing was meant to demean his influence?

Clearly, Christianity had not by then decided to make such a big deal out of it, which is probably why they forgot to take enough notes about these ‘martyrs’. And maybe that is why these characters were an easy target to incorporate into a mesh of lies.

The first recorded association of these events with romantic love came in a great work of Literature in 1382. Geoffrey Chaucer, sometimes known as the father of English Literature made a reference to Valentine’s Day in the popular context in his poem “Parlement of Foules”. Chaucer wrote:

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

["For this was Saint Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate."]

This poem was written in 1382 to honour the first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia, which had taken place on May 2^nd, 1381.

It is invariably assumed that Chaucer was referring to February 14^th as Valentine’s Day; however that was hardly the mating season for English birds. It is thus argued by reliable critics that he was instead pointing to May 2^nd, (the King’s engagement day) which is the saint’s day for Valentine of Genoa. Being a poet of inenarrable profundity and having a wild imagination, Chaucer used birds to symbolize the King’s union with Anne, (hence the origin of the phrase ‘love birds’) and made a historical reference to another saint Valentine, simply to record the event in history. However, Chaucer seems to have achieved a lot more than that.

It has been proposed by various critics since then that the connection between Valentine’s Day and sentimentalities was indeed built by Chaucer but over time it began to be seen in a different context – that related to Lupercalia. In ancient Rome, Lupercalia was a ritual practiced between 13^th and 15^th February to offer sacrifice to the Gods in order to ward off evil spirits and welcome purity, health and fertility. It’s sad that they were deluded into thinking that their wishes were granted because their limestone gods were pleased by their sacrifice and remained unable to figure out that spring – the time of earth’s fertility came after February anyway!

Since this was also the time when most of the saints named Valentine were executed and Chaucer had already introduced the idea, a confused bunch of people – who did not know history too well – decided to mistake Chaucer’s St. Valentine and its context for some other events and construe things into something they weren’t, all in the hope of creating Philosophy/Literature or a place in history. This is how we ended up with what we now know as the spirit of Valentine’s Day: hearts, furs, red and cupid, love calculators, ‘u r da luv of ma lyf’ and the (mostly despicable) likes.

How touching, right? If only I had a heart.

Note: It is not the least of my intentions to offend anybody or disrespect any faith. I have written this simply as a service to humanity because I strongly believe that we get pressurized by the ‘flow’ and do things just because everybody else is doing them, without knowing why. This attitude is not healthy for any society because it reflects that we have an individuality crisis and I simply want my readers to know why we do certain things and that we DO have a choice.

Nature versus Nurture

Girls drift to the thump of the dhoal in the brightly-lit lounge, decorated with flowers by the bride’s family. Demurely batting her thick, sooty lashes she peeks at the groom-to-be, who steals a stealthy glance at her when the ‘elders’ aren’t looking. And the friends on both sides who can almost see the current buzzing between the two burst into giggles and hoots. The engagement was a reflection of the turning point in their lives when they would get married after four years. The lights around them blur in the moment when their eyes meet for a brief instant and the world swirls into a beautiful haze when their hands meet to cement the beautiful bond, to clasp their lives together with a shiny latch. Later they spend the night touching the gifts received from the other side, weaving their enchanting world on their respective ends to be knit together soon and also diving into the chocolates and other eatables received.

And the next day it begins. The buddies just get high on some video game booze or just hit ‘purple haze’ to celebrate the leftover bachelor splendor. But the other side has the REAL fun. Phone buzzing with calls and texts, all of which are brimming with teasers; asking for pictures and each and every update on the matter, especially what he said, how, when, etc. And then how could we forget the “Haan bhai, ab tou aap humein bhool hi jayen gi” accentuated by the high-pitched heeheehee giggle. And then they all need a thousand and one pictures of the ring from all sorts of angles as if the poor ring is a pornstar! It only gets better when they present the bride-to-be with tea-sets and china as her birthday gift since she is the ‘mangni-shuda khatoon’ now and the soul (whom I wouldn’t call poor) although sometimes flustered, cannot have enough of the raging attention- which is her natural reaction.

So she finally emerges with all the pictures and updates and the closer friends who are so privileged since they get all the exclusive details before anybody else does, consider it with unwavering resolve, their responsibility to spread the news as fast as they can to everyone they possibly can. What could be a better medium than facebook? It also serves as the perfect wooing network where they can tell random guys about the oh-so-lucky girl-since-she-got-engaged-and-now-has-an-identity-in-society, prodding them to perhaps offer for them or see them in a new feminine light since they were the bridesmaid and even caught the non-existent bouquet! She totally has to be next and if he doesn’t hurry… well, there’s not much to lose except for the high-pitched giggle. In my opinion, he will survive.

And then everybody who is remotely affiliated with the affair clucks their tongues and out comes a ding-dong or maybe a siren for at least a month. The giggling bunch tries to keep the vigour alive, tries to find new techniques to make it exciting and maybe fiery which makes the listener go all dying-of-lust perhaps. They do everything from making lame jokes (which are supposed to be probably provocative and get the concerned orange on fire by blushing), to listening to live repetitions of all the incidents since the beginning of the affair until the affair turns out to look like this (below) to me. Yes, it’s the orange phenomenon which in my small world states that engagement affairs and oranges have a lot in common. When either gets squeezed, it’s the source of Vitamin C in flesh (since the pulp is in the juice) but when it’s squeezed for a month at least, it looks like it came from Ethiopia two minutes ago. By the end of the month, it’s hyperventilating, and its skin has been squeezed so much that it hasn’t just lost the zest but also the oils!

1. Getting insanely excited about the engagement/ marriage of a friend or cousin, etc;

2. Always talking about herself, admiring herself in the semblance of a mirror she can find, pouting and playing as fragile as egg-shell china;

3. Talking gibberish in a baby, whiny voice with a perfumed accent and looking like a clothed skeleton;

4. Getting scared when Sir Bilal slams a duster against the wall and continues getting scared when Sir Bilal purposely overdoes it (OH GOD! IT JUST NEVER WEARS OUT ON HER!);

5. Being immensely self-obsessed and getting excited by absolutely lame stuff like a senseless picture of a friend’s bedroom wall decoration;

6. Being so stupid that the worries of life/ society/ whatever goes on around her do not bother her (since she’s incapable of thinking and having a wide perspective- she’s the subdued one after all) and she can always very simply go shopping for days without any of it ever crossing her mind.

It’s all so feminine- so stereotypically. Surprise, surprise, we don’t live in the Shopaholic novels. (Please notice and admire the use of symbolic colours!)

The stereotypic female loves playing fragile, finicky and dumb all the time.

Female: “Oh my God! My nail chipped, will you take me to the doctor?”

Male: “Oh it looks horrible, you chipped it? Get into the car!”

And they rush off to the doctor; you can imagine a siren in the air if you want. Oh and I forgot to mention that this pair is in a medical school- a.k.a. doctors-in-the-making.

But WHY does she play so unnervingly dumb? Because apparently men like it, it’s the perfect luring mechanism because it’s juice for a man’s ego when he finds a dumb female to spend time with. Oh, how he loves to pick away the splinters of everything the female doesn’t understand. It makes him feel oh-so-intellectual and ah, the sense of power he treats himself to when he can subdue, the dumb, weak vessel (was it vessel or weasel?). Face it: men can’t appreciate the fact that a lady’s intellect maybe higher than their own, even if it isn’t remotely connected to their area of expertise; especially when they need amusing company- who can make them feel bloated with their ego. Although of course not justified, it’s understandable if men do that. It’s probably an innate part of their nature or maybe it’s the protective side that kicks in when they see a stupid-enough-to-fling-herself-over-the-balcony-while-checking-out-her-reflection-female. But when you make that side of the equation zero, the constant that glares back at you is female encouragement. Men would never do it if they never had the chance to – the chance provided by the dumb-playing female.

The paradox is why does the female lower her self-esteem and degrade her intellect by acting like she can’t understand the simplest of things and they need to be interpreted in explicit detail by a man. The source of degradation in this case is the female herself who encourages men to degrade her mental capacity – an unforgivable sin.

After some painstaking assessment on a serene Saturday afternoon, I have formed a critical psychological analysis of the matter which suggests that it is probably desperation that drives them to be this way – desperation to feel accepted and perhaps loved like the oh-so-lucky engaged lady. The cause of desperation might be social insecurity, for which the women are not to be blamed, it’s an unfortunate idea ingrained in our minds since before birth.

We long to be loved, pampered, treated well – human enough; but to long to be a part of the crowd that’s all the hype (the stereotypical, superficial females who are so full of vanity) and be praised all the time is not human nature. Human = humble. I probably sound insane since I digress from the clichéd opinions but I know I’m not. And I don’t care how narcissistic I sound. It’s probably also because people find it hard to battle with their instincts with so much temptation around – that too is unhealthy psyche because it means that they’re making room for animalistic instincts inside their ‘human’ bodies, which obviously are so hard to shackle away that they defy sanity to kill their self-esteem and present themselves in a shiny silver platter (in which they can admire their reflection).

The underlying reason for all these interconnected issues of desperation and insecurity might be an individuality crisis that we as a society face today. I often find people exhibiting extreme copycat behaviour (excuse the layman term). They just HAVE to do everything somebody else does. I have seen people go to the extent of copying somebody else’s writing style and even adopting the way they talk! Females probably believe that their life is either with parents and then the husband and susraal is the final, supposedly heavenly abode. And there is of course no life on the bridge between the two stations. It’s just a bridge onlooking the gleaming golden river of life on both ends, etc. And also that they are to be borne either by some sort of family or some other individual: they completely miss out on the possibility of an individual identity. Since this is an ingrained and strangely obvious esoteric agenda, the giggling friends automatically, involuntarily begin dwelling upon the other side of the gleaming river and envisioning the prospective fiancés in a golden heart – because that’s the sole purpose of life?

I’m not against marriage or anything; in fact I do not feel that women and men are actually equal in every way, because they’re different. A cannot be equal to B; same is the case with the two sexes. Therefore, women should be submissive, however not mute. By submissive I mean not headstrong and selfish. The ability to compromise and understand is the most beautiful part of feminine nature and that means that we shouldn’t turn against men dreaming of banishing them from the Earth and sending them away to Jupiter on donkey carts.

However, a sense of individuality entertains the idea that life is possible without being somebody else’s counterpart and when life gives you that chance to be you, on your own, it’s for personal development so you shouldn’t shove it away looking for the next ride to cling on to. You have enough purpose in that life, the main chunk of which is to shed the stereotyped shell and become original, a female who is just you and not defined by how much she shops. There’s always a time for everything, so make hay while the sun shines because you certainly can’t do it by the river, no matter how much it gleams.

Laws of retardation:Theory Four -Taking over

World in order

I can proudly say that my plan to take over the world is now complete. It took me some 18 years to finally get here and I’m deeply grateful to the Venus-lings for all their motivation and support. All hail Venus!

On a lonely summer day, I realized I was becoming a vegetable because I could not frame coherent thoughts and my vocabulary seemed to be rotting away with a rather putrid stench. It was truly devastating and I set out to investigate the cause, which I was shell-shocked to find: It was part of the greater plan of the Venus-lings to mess with my head. They wanted to turn me into a vegetable so that I would become useless for the Earth and they could take me away to Venus and make me their queen. The question is, why did they choose ME of all people for this prestigious, yet immensely important role? The answer is as following:

1. I love Venus too much and they received these signals confirming that from my heart and brain and the apple-pie I’m going to use soon. They were baffled by those signals and couldn’t find any such signal from a single Venus-ling! I mean I had even written two poems on Venus! They were just overwhelmed by my mis-directed patriotism and totally ashamed that I wasn’t one of them so they decided I deserved to be their queen (there are no immigration facilities up there so being queen was kind of essential or the army would take me down).

2. They realized the Earth didn’t deserve me because it had become too sad for me to live in and my heart couldn't take it anymore, even the apple-pie would crumble away too soon. Nobody on earth except Subata Khalid understood what I said most of the time or not in full depth at least and most of them gave me a hard time about it, trying to put me off. The Venus-lings realized I needed an escape and the power to make things right. That would only happen if I was the queen of some other planet.

3. They were tired of watching the ill-health of the earth and decided it was time for change. I was the only one thinking of a revolution in my part of the world and people were being too mean to me about it so they decided I deserved a chance to lead the change. I also have a blog called ‘Floodgates’ for crying out loud! They just understood the ideology behind it and were too impressed.

4. They had to make me queen anyway so they decided to throw in the Earth complementary for good measure too. I mean what more damage could possibly occur to it?

Armor and artillery

First and foremost, whoever is willing to accompany me needs to have their heart replaced with an apple pie- that is the sole armor we require. We shall then order sets of cowboy boots, enabled with the most modern, efficient, and possibly high-tech spurs. This will be taken care of by Saba’s Babu and we are deeply grateful to both of them in advance.

I know I've mentioned cowboy boots and they have a more ruthless appeal to the barracuda senses but I prefer Jimmy Choos. They are just irresistible!

Mc Donald's has been especially helpful and provided us with  these fresh, juicy and very sweet apple pies at our special request (be grateful all you pie-lovers, Mc Donald's would never have had the idea if it weren't for me). I prefer these over my own because I don't have to work, they're portable and occupy very less space, also easily replaceable (all you have to do is open the window in your chest, pluck out the previous one and replace it with oven-fresh stuff).

There is a wide variety of spurs to choose from. Take your pick!

 

   

Then we need to cat-nap some caterpillars and pack them away in jars (with holes in the lids for Oxygen). Seems like I have learned to make a note of precautionary measures, courtesy of A level sciences. At least they have some courtesy. We shall feed these caterpillars with apple-pies so that they become venomous and then prepare for the major part of our plan.

The Climax

We elope to Venus and after basking in its enchanting atmosphere for a while, raid the world wearing our sparkling spur-enabled, cowboy boots. We grab a random person on earth and say “Take us to your leader, earth-ling!” This by the way needs to be accompanied by our signature action of pressing our temples with our fore-fingers and jerking the head from right to left, making a 180 degrees angle in a robotic manner. The earth-ling (we are superior Earth cum Venus-lings now) takes us to NASA. We unleash the inescapable wrath of our venomous caterpillars upon the NASA dudes, the caterpillars sting them and they die at the spot.

The fruit

We then set out to give quick, painless deaths to most of the lowly beings walking this beautiful planet called Earth, making it a little more blood-stained and dirty by slashing their throats with the spurs! Simple, quick, painless, peaceful, revolutionary, innovative and modern. The world is mine (or maybe ours).

Image courtesy: Subata Khalid, Bisma Farukh, Saba Iqbal, Atiya Rafique and Google.

Gossamer and Tulle

The romantic age that claimed of freedom and individualism and maybe considered to have given voice to feminism, popularized fashion trends that were contrary to these movements.

Quite intriguingly, the changes in clothing trends during this era basically revolved around the sleeves, implying that a lot of importance was given to the hands since they held the ‘pen’ which was considered the most powerful weapon of the Romantic revolution. The Romantic sleeves angled between various types of curves ranging from full sleeves tied at intervals with ribbon; the imbecile or idiot sleeve which is extremely full from the shoulder to wrist and the  ‘Demi-Gigot’ - full from shoulder to elbow, then fitted to the wrist.

These sleeves were accompanied by high waistlines and low, expanded necklines in order to give proportion to the body but the expansion, I believe caused women to look broad-shouldered and rather manly so it was soon ruled out. However, the high waistline that made the waist appear very small and fragile was supported with stays on the inside. These stays are what maybe considered contradicting the Romantic ideology since they majorly consisted of corsets which attacked women’s freedom to breathe!

The Imbecile sleeve

The romantics were fascinated by beauty- whether it was in nature, music, art or poetry. They valued emotion and sentiment, in contrast to the cold reason that was perceived to have driven the revolutions of the 18th century enlightenment. Since women were believed to be more emotional than men, it perhaps explains why the Romantics enjoyed such fashion trends. This style of dressing was designed to accentuate the beauty of the females by presenting them as frail maidens, which rather pushed them back into a more modest role, befitting the "weaker" sex, often described as delicate, fragile, and decorative. Women were also placed on a moral pedestal, and looked upon as the guardians of family and community virtue, and the educators of the children. This moral elevation of women would lead some to suggest that women deserved a wider role in public affairs. However, dress reflected the perception of women as weak and decorative, which smudges the comparatively exalted position women enjoyed in the romantic society.

The Crinoline cage

The Victorian era brought with it crinolines and bustles, initially liberating the ladies from corsets and frills. The crinoline cage, which substituted the numerous layers of frilly petticoats and ‘frou-frou’ used to puff up the skirts, was supposed to be a breakthrough in the history of fashion. It was a cage made either of steel or whalebone worn beneath the skirts to make them ideally puffed. It allowed the women to abandon corsets as the huge crinoline made the waste look unbelievably small anyway. However, it became quite difficult to manage while sitting and immensely humiliating when the wind blew because the ladies did not only have to sober the skirts but also save themselves from being tossed to a side under the pressurizing weight! Not just that, owing to the crinoline their lives were made even more miserable by living in constant fear of falling off horses! Almost a decade later crinolines were abandoned and corsets crept in again to accompany the ‘bustle’. It was a modification of the crinoline puffing up only the sides and back and was later enhanced by adding springs to make seating more comfortable!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

The Bustles

            

Although widely accepted by the elite ladies, some considered the bustle immodest and disturbing to look at since it made the body look disproportionate, so it was soon ruled out. Towards the end of the Victorian era, power dressing became highlighted with elaborately tailored, straight-cut jackets, reflecting female emancipation. It is as if gossamer and tulle were used as silken strangles for women, which power dressing retaliated against. This could be seen as the time when women emerged from their specifically dainty and demure roles to explore their potential of actually doing something other than batting eyelashes and curtseying. Women are essentially dainty creatures but not fragile, where curtseying is a beautiful etiquette, it's not the sole purpose of life, and the ending Victorian era made women realize this soon enough to produce Madam Curie and the likes from this race. 

However, it is sad that women in my era have become too engrossed in everything other than their true nature to have forgotten about it. So, dear women of the world, do what you please, find your spot, but don't lose yourself on the way. Grace and intellect is a part of you, find it and treasure it.