Tea, Coffee and the Barely-there Mustache

Tea-drinkers - "Coffee is the beverage for barbarians..."

A Cup of Flux
Last night I was pottering around the kitchen
When suddenly, a flux in time and space
Found myself walking with my head high up in the clouds,

And although I found the experience breath-taking
I could not see what my feet was doing,
And frankly, I was starting to get dizzy...

So I returned to my normal size
And happily, things are now
As they have always been…
As they ought to be,

And I am me once again,
Just a man, tired and sleepy,
Pottering in his kitchen
Making some tea.

…………………………………………

Everyone loves tea. Except for those who prefer coffee, like me. But I have a sneaky feeling that in the great working of the Universe, tea is up there for the elite and learned, while coffee is left for the barbarians and peasants like me. This may not be true, it is just a feeling, after all.

I am cool, learned and unbelievably good-looking.
I drink tea.

The Turks love tea so much that I recall Ihsan the Turk dabbing his one-month old son's lips with drops of tea. "Rafael will learn to like tea, brother." He explained to me. Well, if you do that, of course he will.

In honour of tea, I am in fact having iced milk tea right this very moment. Sitting with me are my neighbourhood street-sweepers who begin the day with breakfast at ALAI, an Indian Muslim restaurant near my house. They are a noisy cheerful lot, considering they are sweeping the streets and picking up litter and garbage all day. Why is it that Indian men like to keep mustaches? To be honest, I am myself trying to grow a mustache. I think a mustache would give my face 'character'. But jeepers, when I am surrounded by these guys with their great big thick black upper-lip hair... Well, I feel rather inadequate with my own thin sparse barely-there mustache.

Oh well.

Have a beautiful facial hair day, sunshine, if you are a man that is. If you are a woman, then have an ordinary beautiful day sans facial hair.

God bless.

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

Starbucks in Mecca - Umrah Pilgrimage Part 28

This sight of a not-so-busy entrance into the Masjidil Haram is a rare, rare scene.
Just 5 minutes walk from the nearest Starbucks. 

The Pilgrimage Journal continues...

Thusday, 31st March 2011 - Walked with Arjuna to Starbucks with my laptop to Starbucks only to find (to my great dismay) that there isn't any internet connection. And then late as usual, made our way past rows and rows of people praying in the ZamZam Tower, to reach the Masjidil Haram (Main Mosque in Mecca, in which resides the holy Kaaba), struggling against the flow of people who had just finished their afternoon prayers and were just exiting the mosque. I said "Hayy" to the Kaaba and had a rather lovely prayer.

Friday, 1st April - In the morning fate played a joke on me when I fell sprawled in the stairwell while lugging my morning coffee. Soaked my shirt in caffeine, so had to rush upstairs to my room for a change. But by the time I returned to the hotel's small cafeteria, found that the milk to make another cup of coffee was finished. Sigh. For Friday prayers, me and Arjuna (who was kindness personified) went to the Masjidil Haram again. I finished the prayers for all my family and friends (they gave me a long list), but in the last sujud (prostration during prayers), instead of asking for anything, I just said "Thank You, God... Thank You... Thank You..." I have no imagination sometimes.

A Shaykh. Returning from prayers we had a great lunch and shared a table with 3 Malaysians who were working on a government hospital project some 400km outside Mecca. They were in town for a break and to perform their umrah. One of them was a mureed (Student) of a Shaykh who I am informed is the 38th generation of the Prophet's family from the line of Hassan, one of the two grandson of the Prophet (The other being Hussein) through the marriage of Fatima az-Zahra (his daughter) and Ali (his cousin and 4th Caliph of Islam). Our new found friend invited us to join their evening (Maghrib) prayers where they will do tahlil and salawat (invocations of praise for the Prophet) with the Shaykh, something that is tolerated by the Saudi authorities, who generally considers such practices as bida'ah (innovation and heresy). Alas, we didn't manage to pay a visit to the famous Shaykh. Perhaps, next time.

On Friday night I went back to a shop near my hotel which sold me beautiful fairuz tasbihs (turquoise rosary beads) for a mere SR15 (Saudi Riyal) yesterday. But the shopkeeper insisted that it is worth SR35. I tried explaining to him, "But...but... you sold me these same tasbihs for SR15 yesterday!" but to no avail. Ah... the crazy, beautiful and wonderful people of Mecca.

A couple more postings, sunshine, and my extended journal on my pilgrimage in March-April 2011 shall be coming to an end. I recall that before I left for the pilgrimage, I had all sorts of preconceptions and some misgivings about the trip. But I just left it to God to lead me wherever God would. And in some way, He brought me back home, to a home I never even knew I had...

151. Footprints

What am I, but a stray pixel

From an inscrutable imagination,

A castaway

Of a heaven long forgotten.

Wandering the shores

Of time,

And finding strange footprints

Resembling my own,

Trailing out of some Untamed Sea.

Pax Taufiqa

Look Outside, God has not Forsaken You or Me... And I have coffee. Wanna join me?

Look Outside, God has not Forsaken You

I refuse to let life define me.

It is I who has defined

This life I live.

Good or bad,

Right or wrong,

It all belongs

To me.

And if bad things

Remain unchanged,

And good things

Are suppressed,

Who else do I have

To blame?

I weary of the

Poisonous tract

I read,

I weary of the pain

I see on TV,

Thus it is with

Some relief that

I turn away and look

Out of my window.
And what do I see?

I see that

The grass is still green,

And the sky that is

Still magnificently blue.

I am consoled that

God has not forsaken me

Nor has He forsaken you.

Ah, that is just about enough

Morning contemplation to get me up

And look for my morning coffee!

Wanna join me?

I love the caption on the coffee mug! I envy the guy/gal
who actually wrote it!

wa min Allah at-taufiq