Still Thinking…

Ahhh…the things we take for granted. My Singaporean self is so used to celebrating Eid or Hari Raya on the same day, yesterday’s hulla-bulloo was a tad overwhelming and regardless, very exciting!

It started the moment I parked my car at Kerrisdale, heart leaping with joy as I was about to hop myself to Pier 1 Imports to get me some nice cookie containers and Fall accents for the house. DH and I planned to drive to Mission on Raya Eve to sleepover and spend Raya there – so our house has to be ready before we take the long drive. Eve of Raya is not till the next day, so I was patting my own back for being one day early in my prep.

That’s when my phone ring (yes right after I got out of the car, typical dramatic point!) and it was MIL. She said the mosque nearest to the Mission house is celebrating Raya the next day ! What ? But I am not ready, I said ! So she asked what method are we following – and I told her I have to call her back in an hour while I consult the resident ‘ustaz’ in my house, DH.

As I stood there flustered by the prospect that I may not be having my first ever Raya abroad with my only family here – my in-laws, I understandably could not find any coins to insert into the parking machine. Darn. This is not a good time to park illegally in Kerrisdale, I thought. The street was very busy and I need to get my shopping done. But if Raya is the next day, I also need to get home so we can get to Mission on time.

Then as if on cue, the (sometimes) annoying Blackberry had a red light. An email came from a good friend here, and the title? “Eid Tommorrow”, or something like that. Arrggh!! Is this serious?! Eid is suppose to be on Saturday, not Friday – the day before I need to go shopping leisurely! I called her and had a yakkety yak about my own confusion, and she did a quick briefing of the different methods – global and local sighting, and how DH and I have to basically decide which method we follow. The reason? Mosques in Vancouver (and mostly Canada and US) differ in the methods – so it depends on which method you are comfortable with. She follows the global sighting method.

So I called DH, who took my call with the most calm and unperturbed manner when it comes to Eid-Day excitement. Typical engineer self versus bohemian social science person.

Me ? I was so excited I must have spoken so fast, that I can barely understood myself. I wanted to know when WE are celebrating Eid. Basically – are we global sighters or local sighters, I asked. “Why is that a question?”, he said. “We follow local sighting, no question. So we have to wait until the local sighting mosques make an annoucement”. Wait? Did I hear WAIT ? But there is no waiting in Singapore! We just KNOW when Raya is and plan our lives way ahead of it!!

The next 2 hours of my life, between Kerrisdale and my place – my mind was whirling with all the “Why must this happen to me on my first Raya abroad ?? ” thoughts. Yes, negative ones. You see, as a virgin on celebrating Raya abroad, I was calculated in taking care of not being too sad about being away from my own family and friends. I thought that hey, just don’t be in 2 minds about wanting to be in 2 different places for Raya, celebrate with the in laws and the Malay Muslim families in Vancouver and I should be able to forget the ‘missing Singapore’ bit. But if Raya is to be celebrated on Friday as announced by that 1st mosque, I am in danger. Because I assumed that most Malay Muslim families and my in-laws would follow THAT mosque since it is very near their homes. And so my celebration fantasy will dissapear into thin air. I had initially wanted to celebrate Raya with my friend and her family too, but since she has planned to visit some families in Victoria (an offshore island off Vancouver), I had meticulously erased THAT celebration fantasy off my head. I am left with the in-laws and Malay Muslim families as my respite, so they cannot be celebrating a day ahead of me!

Yes, yes, I know. Selfish minds. It is called pain management, ok.

The long wait finally came to a close when I educated myself with what the global sighting and local sighting method is, by reading, making calls and reflecting. It was the fastest discourse I have ever done when it comes to religious matters, but I concur with DH’s decision on using the local sighting method. So now that my heart is rested well about WHEN Raya will be for us, we waited for the big announcement if there were any local sighting of the Syawal crescent in Western Canada.

When in anxiety, you should zikir yes? Well I did, for a few minutes. My hand then picked up the phone to call who else but ? Yes, Mak. Told her about the hulla-bulloo and she was so amused by it and how I am ‘suffering’. Thank God Mak has a sense of humour. If she has been the bawling type who waxes lyrical about oh-why-must-you-be-so-far-away-on-Raya-day , then I would be in tears faster than an F1 pit stop. Her cheerfulness cheered me up, so I was upbeat again. Another respite came from a close friend in Singapore who called and after hearing out my rapid-fire anxiety of uncertain Raya celebration, she said, “Oh dear !! Oh dear !! Major dilemma for you, man ! Jalan Raya fun or completing Ramadan!”. Darn. Hit home like nail. I thought I grew up.

A few hours passed and finally announcements were made by other mosques about when Eid will be. No crescent was sighted locally so Raya will be on Saturday. MIL decided to follow local sighting too and so my entire in-laws family will be having Raya on Saturday, yay! So its back to Plan A – clean up the house, drive to Mission, cook up a storm with MIL, gorging on the Kuih Makmur and Kuih Tat that SIL and me made over 6 hours that day, etc etc. Raya will be on Saturday and I assume the Malay Muslim families on that part of Vancouver are doing it then too. Ah bliss.

After our last terawih together, DH and I went to the supermarket to get last minute supplies – yes fresh flowers included. I may not have the fun of ‘stealing’ leaves from the Chinese cemetery in Singapore with my kookoo cousins this year, but heck, I am paying for them this time.

Selamat Hari Raya everyone.

Many eons ago when Madonna was hot and wearing leg warmers (even in tropical heat!) was a fashion statement, I used to wonder what the Terawih prayers was about. I couldn’t wrap my head around praying for more than 4 rakaats (in Terawih, the minimum is 8) in Ramadan especially when you were feeling exhausted from fasting the whole day. I would stay home, watch TV and sleep before my family returned from the mosque. Mak, bless her for her unimposing ways – had always reminded me to go for Terawih prayers when I am ready, but reminded me more sternly that my wajib prayers have to be perfected first.

Therefore, my love of doing Terawih during Ramadan only started in my young adult years. I remember it was in my early 20s, and there was a group of us (very close friends) who frequented Hard Rock Cafe often enough to get ‘special entry’ from the back door. It was Ramadan, and we all decided to pray more. Mak was our pillar then, she guided us every step of the way even if she knew that we were going through a phase. My friend (who was the only one who drove then) would pick all of us up in his 2 door sports Fiat, my mum included. And even though she would have preferred to go to the nearby Al Ansar mosque where most of her friends were, my friends and I insisted that we wanted to pray Terawih at a more ‘hip’ mosque – the Masjid Kampung Siglap. And so she would oblige our whims and young fancies, never once did she seem unsupportive of our new spiritual journey. After every prayer, she would accomodate and follow us to eat supper at a nearby coffee shop, and answered all of our silly questions about religion and how do to our this and that right.

When I moved to Tampines, I observed how my mum would walk (even when she is limping) to the mosque with her plastic water bottle in hand, to do the Terawih every single night. I would follow suit, but while Mak would be doing 20 rakaats, I would be doing the minimum 8. My nieces and nephews do Terawih effortlessly too, and it made me think about how young they start doing such beautiful prayers during Ramadan. I am so proud of them.

And during the last 10 days of Ramadan, Mak would be hobbling again to the mosque at 3 am in the morning for the Qiyammulail prayers and I would wonder again. I observed, asked all the questions I need to ask and as expected, she answered in her most patient manner and usual soft spoken ways (yes, I did not inherit this personality trait. I am loud, many says a surefire sign that I am my father’s daughter!). When I finally went for the Qiyammulail for the first time, my goodness…what did I miss ! Qiyam is an experience on its own that everyone MUST try at least once in their life.

Now being so far away from her, my spiritual journey is my own. I don’t have her to lead by example and for me to ask questions to, but both DH and I still think of her first when we have a question to ask about religion. We do our Terawih at different mosques to experience Canada’s diversity, and I feel blessed with all the different imams who have been leading the Terawih this Ramadan. I have never had a series of Terawih done with different styles of reading the surah’s all in one Ramadan. Because of the different mazhabs, there are also little differences on how we all do our prayers, but I have learnt to tolerate, educate when asked and inform when someone is learning.

I seriously think that if left on my own, I wouldn’t have the wisdom to be as patient and unimposing, especially when it comes to religion. I learnt that from Mak, as I now realised how patient she has been with me in my growing years.

God knows how I miss her.

I finally managed to quench my thirst for a real Ramadan last night. “Real” – is to me the observation of doing things way beyond fasting and daily prayers, and trying to do a bit more than the usual. It was my first terawih prayer for the year, the first done in Canada and how sweet it was that it was also the first time that DH and I are able to go for terawih prayers together. All these years, we have been observing Ramadan in different parts of the world – all 18,000 km of it, and made do with our own little spiritual journeys. We don’t have the luxury of going for terawih or qiyam together as a couple, hand in hand in Ramadan, as we keep each other posted about our spiritual investment via long distance phone calls.

Anyway, my first 2 weeks of Ramadan flew past me in a whiff. I was caught up in work and my colleague from the SG office as in town. In between – I was in Toronto too. In Toronto, I found out that some halal restaurants are opened till sahur, how cool is that. In this industry, most meetings are done over lunches, coffees and dinners and I had to endure quite a few of those while fasting. It was me (and my colleague) who insisted that the meetings will carry on anyway, regardless of the fact that we won’t be eating. We both felt the same way – it is us who are fasting, not the broadcasters or other non-Muslim producers. We should not impose on others.

So a few meetings went by with us sitting across the table, – while the others eat. It was a funny scene to say the least.

My first terawih prayers was beautiful. We prayed at Richmond Mosque, which I think is the first mosque ever built in Vancouver. When we were finished, I walked slowly to the mosque entrance looking for DH and it was then that it hit me – this is the first time we go for terawih together after 4 years of marriage. In a typical setting, some people may feel sad but yesterday, I felt blessed. Vancouver was windy last night and the sky was exceptionally bright. I love windy nights and with the Autumn leaves falling, everything was perfect.

I don’t wish to look back and see how my last 15 days of Ramadan was ‘wasted’. A casting agent friend called to check if I was going to the film festival’s gala last night, and I proudly said no. When he asked why, I said : “I am not going, I have a lot to catch up. You have no idea.” He must have thought that I am buried in budgets and treatments. All I had in mind is I need to race for what’s left for the holy month.

I may have not started Ramadan this year with a pole position, but I am not disheartened. My real Ramadan is just about to begin, even if it was a tad late – starting at 16*.

nb *: 16 being the 16th day of Ramadan

I never had a Jewish friend, neither do I know much about Judaism. Yes, shame on me. I feel that I should know the basics at least of one of the 3 monotheistic religions in the world , but I don’t. There is so much about comparing Christianity and Islam that I tend to ignore, the third.

Well, that changed since I met AG. A fellow producer, we have much to talk about. He had some difficult times lately and a month ago, he moved out and is in a new apartment in the same neighbourhood where we live.Two weeks ago, I made a humoungous amount of mee goreng and dropped a pot for him. Told him it is a Malay thing. And he walloped it all.

Anyway, today we decided to meet so he can pass the pot back to me. It was during the queue at Cafe Artigianno that this conversation happen.

AG: So is Ramadan today?

ME: Huh? No..if not why would I be queueing for coffee with you?!

AG: Oh yeah

ME: I want to eat something…hmmm(looks at lemon muffin)

AG: You know today is our Rosh Hashana

ME: Rush what ?

AG: Rosh Hashana.

ME: What’s that?

AG: Its our New Year.

ME: Oh really?? So why aren’t you celebrating?

AG: Because it starts tonight. At sunset.

So that was my AHA moment. At sunset? Rosh Hashana? Isn’t that the same time as when Ramadan sets in?

I have never heard of Rosh Hashana before so there were quite a lot of questions that AG had to answer. Poor him. But I was intriqued. Rosh Hashana never falls on a definitive date. Like Ramadan, it is a lunar sequence. The Jews celebrate it in prayer and by blowing on the shofar, a special horn.

Apparently, Rosh Hashana has been coinciding with Ramadan for the past 3 years, a rarity says the experts. Masya’allah only Allah knows the secrets.

Ramadan Mubarak everyone. May this year be a better reflection of ourselves than the last.

Ah again. Five times in a row.
Vancouver is voted as the most liveable city in the world, by the Economist magazine.

Way back before I got hitched to a certain supergeek who made Canada his home 18 years ago, Vancouver let alone Canada – has never been on my have-to-travel list. I know it is a pretty city, but I don’t care much about it because ‘pretty’ is not an adjective that attracts me as a city when it comes to exploring. My young blood then hungers for raw energy in a city, so being all pretty and dandy is errr…unattractive. Funny eh?

My first year living in Canada was not in Vancouver, but in Mission – 1 hour drive away from Van . It is a little sleepy country town, flanked by salmon-filled rivers and clear creeks. We have a monstrous house and lots of greens. I remember reading the news about how Vancouver is the most liveable city then, and I was curious. My relationship with the city was contained within the context of having meetings, hanging out in the robust coffee culture and of course the usual visits.I like Vancouver then, but am not sure about its livability.

Now that we have moved to Vancouver, I can vouch for the tag the city has earned. Vancouver is very pretty, but more than that – I love how graceful the general society is. I fell in love with the love people have for animals here, the respect for differences and the general courtesy even on roads. I recalled a cousin from SG who was here last Spring. She was crossing the road and saw a car coming. She stoppped, thinking that she should let the car passed. But in Canada, most cars will stop instead to let the pedestrian pass (even with a long line of cars behind you). This happened many times, and she went home impressed. I don’t notice these things. I should, I know.

I love the variety of landscapes that Vancouver has, both geographically and in its people. Only in Van can you find mountains, the blue water, rivers and a high-rise buildings next to each other. We live near the beach, and it so happens that our place is on top of a hill. Our morning drives to downtown means we get a full view of the mountains, the beach and the skyline and a few minutes later, we are driving parallel to the coastline. Now that it is summer, you can see seagulls flying past and the beach crowd basking in the sun. It is a gorgeous way to start your morning, and we are always happy driving from Mackenzie Heights (where we are), past Kitsilano Beach and then crossing over to historic Gastown (where DH’s office is).

And only in Van, can you see literally a variety of colours in peoples’ skin.

However, Vancouver is not without its downsides. There are poor areas, and there are very-open druggie infested parks. There are also the not so pretty sides of Vancouver, though I must say these areas usually have the best food ! But I love this diversity.

My own take on the new ranking is, I am blessed and very happy to be in one of the most beautiful city I have ever been in. But that aside, liveability is not a definitive term. How do you define liveability? From whose perspective are we measuring liveability from? John Doe may want a tiny apartment for himself, and to him thats liveable. Jane may want a huge house with a big lawn, and anything less to her is not acceptable. See where I am going at?

If the readers of the Economist are the ones who voted, then chances are these are educated and well-travelled individuals, who would probably be living and sampling the more comfortable side of Vancouver anyway. Of course they see the very pretty and beautiful side of Vancouver every day. In a way, DH and I are cheating by living in that side of town. Our space is small for the huge rent we are paying, but our choice to live on the West Side is totally about location. So we have to bite our tongue and pay the price. We would have loved a bigger space, but this is what we have decided on for now.

Talking about the common Economist readers, I can see it from the area where we are renting right now. You see Bentleys, BMWs and Porches parked on the streets where we are. Our Honda looks a little meek sometimes but thankfully, we don’t have a yearning to have big cars right now. We are just very happy with the proximity of our place to everything we like!

Another issue with liveability is affordability. Vancouver is very expensive to live in. A very pretty heritage house , with only 3 bedrooms and with a fully manicured lawn is a whopping USD$1.5 million at least. And property taxes will easily set you back with US$7000 a year. Surely you want a gardening team with that, like my landlord does. So add that on to your maintenance cost. We both don’t like the idea of slaving our lives for another mortgage, so until such time that we have a whole lot of cash to throw (including the ever-useful gardening team! – renting is hot on our list:) Seriously, can you see DH or I pottering away in our garden to keep cost low ? I think we will end up killing the plants.

Anyway, here is a tribute to the city I now call home. Vancouver is a very nice place to be. So all of you who are still contemplating a visit, just pack your bags and get your a** here. Nothing beats the warmth of family and friends I grew up with in Singapore, but for now, I am content. Alhamdulillah.

Five directors.

None can make the production start date.

Everyone’s filming.

WHO will direct Pirates?

Maybe Cookie can do it. He looks bored anyway.

I have been wanting to update this blog but the Summer sun distracted me. Sometimes I think blogging is detrimental to friendships because no one calls you anymore, citing “I read you did this and that on your blog…” as a way to catch up. What bull. Nothing replaces real time spent talking on the phone, email or hanging out to nurture friendships, so all of you out there guilty of doing this own up. There are maaaaannnyyy…lol.

So this week was our supposed vacation week. The past 3 weeks or so were hectic; fireworks, expo, friends from overseas staying over and of all things, our car broke down. We are pretty sure the time is almost up for the Honda Accord, and so we have been amusing ourselves test driving cars and reading reviews after reviews.

Thank God Cookie is healing well, out of depression AND up and about. In fact, enjoying too much of the outdoors may I add. He has been behaving more like a dog lately, extremely obedient on command and he walks with a bounce beside us on cue. Weird cat. DH swears Cookie is a dog incarnate.

The best news lately is the family goat farm in Malacca. The goats finally arrived and so begin our foray into making an abandoned land into something productive.A long, long time ago my great-grandparents left a chunk of land to my mother and her sisters, but the land was left abandoned for decades. Until someone (I still don’t know WHO exactly! I am the youngest in my generation and get left out of important information often…hahahahah) decided to set up a full service goat farm. This is a major milestone for my family, as we have never ventured into a business in such a scale as a family before, and definitely not farming! Between us are people who specialise in engineering, technician, accounts, entrepreneurs, administrative, parks and recreation, journalism and broadcast, IT and management. Note that NONE of us have any experience in farming, let alone setting one up. But I suppose our motivation is to make good use of an inherited land, something that our ancestors will be proud of and the kids can call their own.

Talking about kids, I think they had a blast visiting the family goat farm. Being the urbanites they are, this venture brings them back to their roots.
I will let my niece tell the story about how that visit was (now that the goats are in!).

Perhaps I will never look at a goat the same way again. Then again, I don’t get to see them in its full glory here in Canada – only the cut ones.

Oh my…where do I start?

Cookie, the Ragdoll has not been taking our move to the city very well. For the past 3 weeks, he has been hiding under our bed, will only come out for food, loo and to sleep with us (sometimes) and then he runs all too quickly into his little dark hole under our bed.

His nervousness is understandable. The little kitty (well, he is 5 – I wont say little too many times !) has NEVER lived in the city before and is so used to the old house’s huge lawn and backyard. Back in Ruskin, he has the creek to explore, a few neighbourhood cat-friends to play with, and also Smoky (another family cat) to terrorise. Summer days like now are his favourite – he would disappear for long hours outside and then sometimes return home with a ‘gift- – be it an unfortunate bird or a mole. Yes, we do have a little animal cemetery in the Ruskin garden to bury all of Cookie’s victims. DH and I usually have a little ceremony to bury those little creatures. Poor them.

So when he refused to spent time out of the house, stay under the bed and get extremely nervous with the sounds of passing cars (our new place is on a street and not by a river!), we thought he is thought he is acclimatising.Cookie is a country cat after all, so we let him run for cover under the bed anytime he wants. It is his ‘safe house’.

Little did I know that cats can get depressed. You know the same way how humans need serotonin from the sunshine to feel happy (which explains why there are so many suicide cases in the West in winter due to lack of sunlight), cats apparently suffer from it too. Cookie has been depressed and what’s worst – it took a toll on his animal brain.

It started on Wednesday. We can hear him growl and seemed annoyed with his tail. We thought he was just chasing after an insect, but he wasn’t. His growls became a full-blown psychosis, and the once cheerful and jolly and very playful Cookie literally became a monster. Think the horror movie Child’s Play and that little doll Chucky.

His episodes became more common, and he was so scary it freaked me out. He behaved like a cat possessed, growling, hissing, and biting his own tail!. The last straw was when he jumped in bed with us to sleep, and the he suddenly got an episode and started biting his tail so hard it bled. Of course our very virginal white comforter did not look so white any more.

We took him to the vet on Saturday. She found a deep wound on his tail due to his actions and the whole thing reminds me of Edward Norton in Fight Club. The doctor treated the wound, and he now has a bandage around the tail and he has to wear an Elizabethan collar cone to prevent further licking or biting. We read about all his symptoms and knew he was depressed. Some vets would recommned Prozac – but we both were adamant against that. Drugs for animals? Are you kidding!

When he returned from the vet yesterday, he looked funny with his Elizabethan collar cone and a bandaged tail. But I still speak to him, and he seems tired and was meowing for attention. We both spent time playing with him quite a bit yesterday, and we bought him new toys, catnip sprays and special food treats to keep him happy. We both also know that animals are intuitive, and a lot of their intuition comes from the will of God. So we prayed a lot for God to heal the little Cookie, so we don’t have to end up having to give him Prozac.

Cookie is now out in the garden, all on his own. This is is his 1st day being outside alone after 3 weeks, and it has been 2 hours and counting ! I guess his Creator answered our call.

Never underestimate the power of du’a. Even with animals.

I am willing to bet my last dollar that one of the biggest hurdle of emigrating is the fear that one day, you will get that weird 3 am phone call from your family back home, with a family emergency.
When Mak Ngah passed on last year 3 days after I arrived for production purposes, I knew God knows me better. He knows that long 18 hour journey home would be too long for me to take, calmly.

A very good friend of mine here in Vancouver, one of my first few closest buds since I emigrated – had to go through the very thing I feared. She lost her mum. She rushed back to South Africa on the same day we had planned a tea party in my new garden to celebrate my move. After all, she lives only 10 mins away. I was planning to get DH to set the Wii, so her teenage boys can play while DH and her hubby can chit chat. We girls – well, we will just sit pretty in the patio with teacups and scones in hand.

When SJ returned from South Africa a few days ago, we sat on a swing at her balcony. We chat, and I offered whatever I could to ease her pain. I can only empathise, but I do believe you will know the depths of pain only when you are in it. I have not lost my mum, but one day I know I will. Or perhaps she may lose me first. Both ways, it cuts deep.

Then SJ shared somethings that actually threw light on her depths of grief. She showed me pictures of her mother, a very beautiful woman. She also shared writings of her brother, ZM who penned his feelings about losing his mum best. This is, one of the most beautiful pieces I have ever read. Perhaps it is because it is about a friend’s mother, but perhaps too – it shadows a fear I have.

In Memory of My Mother
(and in dedication to all our mothers)
ZMY 30 September 1933 – 1 June 2007

“After a long painful illness, my mother passed away this Friday at around 19h30. It was soon after I landed in Durban from Cape Town, and 15 minutes short of me seeing her alive again after three months. She had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease about 20 years ago and in the last seven years it was terrible for her, and for her extended family, who loved her very much, to see her suffer so greatly. In Parkinson you become a prisoner of your body, lucid in your mind as your body slowly shuts down. In the last years as my mum lay unable to walk, eat or really talk (except at some very rare points and with extreme difficulty), she was in constant prayer, her lips always moving in Zikar. Islam says that extreme illness wipes away all sin. For us she is now in a better place, not just because she is free from her body, which became a prison, because she prepared herself for the next world. I have not been a terribly religious person much of my life, but I do know (and many remarked on it) that as her body lay in our lounge, after it had been washed as per tradition and as my family and her friends sat around praying and weeping, there was a very beautiful and peaceful calm in the home, a light radiated from her body. My sister, NM, from Pretoria sat throughout the night watching her body and praying, another sister, SJ, in Canada got onto a plane to make the long journey here. Relatives from our close and interrelated family came from Nelspruit, Barberton, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Trichardt. The relatives in Durban were amazing, they did so much, organised everything for the funeral, which, as per tradition again, took place the next morning. Just before her body was taken to the graveyard, my cousin’s husband, Yusuf, read a beautiful prayer for her, for a brief moment it seemed we were all united together as one in her memory and with God.

I rode with her in the hearse with the driver to the small graveyard which is a short distance away, behind the mosque which I most often attended Jummah (Friday midday prayers), Taraweh (special prayers during Ramadaan) and is the mosque where I was married. I wept throughout the ride, it was a route my mother and I travelled a lot to the Pick ‘n Pay for grocery shopping, the mosque being next door to the shops. As we past the old post office, now a depot of some sorts, I remembered the first time I became politicised, as a very young child not even 5 years old. I first experienced petty apartheid then, when my mother took me into the dingy back section of the post office with its single post attendant and long line of people, while we passed the front section, which was clean and sparkly, had three attendants and one white customer. As a young child the fact that my beautiful middle class mother was forced into a situation of symbolic indignity was the beginning of a consciousness about oppression and a desire to make some difference.

As her body lay in the mosque, which she had never entered and where I had come so many times for important moments in my life, we performed the prayer for the dead. We carried her body to the very peaceful and small graveyard behind the mosque, two cousins and I entered the grave and lay her light wrapped body in the earth (Muslims don’t use coffins). We covered her with sand, I remembered that she loved to garden and that this was such a green graveyard, Yusuf again read a beautiful prayer with my family around, I recognised then (a fact I sometimes forget) the importance of family, of community, of land and belonging, of spirituality and of love. Over the next few days as we received so many phone calls and visits, and as we sat for hours and spoke to cousins, aunts, uncles and others, I realised more and more my mother had not left us, but that she had left a little bit of her in every person who gave condolences – a loving exchange, a cooking tip (she was a great cook), kind words, a home to stay in, advice when asked, support in times of need. I only appreciated then how big in stature this small, quiet and beautiful woman really was. I feel her within and around me still, more so then ever before, wishing me to be the best person I could possibly be. If you read this, please give a prayer (in a way that is right for you) to my mother and to yours. Parents are one of the few people who can give us, to the best of their abilities, unconditional love. ZD

Many of those who left the TV fest on the mountains this week would be thinking – TV is dead. At least for those who also attended another event on digital content a few days before. I find myself scouring my brains every night thinking of various ways to make a TV show multi-platform, and itched to get back to Vancouver to run my ideas to my trusty supergeek husband. DH is usually the best person to criticise my ideas anyway (and he does it mercilessly!) and takes me through the methodical aspects of their practicality.

Anyway, I was bowled over by 2 projects that have been kicking ass in the US right now. CurrentTV and LonelyGirl15.

If you are not in the US, chances are you won’t know that there is a riot going on about the above two. CurrentTV is an online aggregator of shows made by users, for users. It is like a professional youtube with an editorial mandate. It is citizen journalism in the digital age. The site even provides tutorials in their online studio on how to edit what you shot, and had roaring success with users shooting commercials for various sponsors. You cannot get more exciting than that when it comes to handing power to the people. The users are also paid for their content.

LonelyGirl15 is a phenomena on its own – it is about a girl who vlog on youtube about her ‘life’, except that she is an actress. There is an entire storyline to her life – she is running away from a cult, an evil order and her entire life is semi-dictated by other online youtube viewers who also try to solve puzzles for her. This, mind you, include the users attending live events where the entire story premise is lived out as if it is real. How’s that for interactivity?

It is uncanny that one of my last few posts was about how digital Hollywood, and compared to the above two – my theory is so outdated.

Is going online, dictating story lines and acting out stories the future of entertainment? I don’t know. But I am damn excited.