Pakistan Two-Child Policy?

Have any of you ever heard of Pakistan implementing a two-child policy similar to China's one-child policy? A friend recently had a conversation with a young Pakistani who mentioned it the friend asked me about it today. 

My response? Never heard of it, and neither has M. In fact, M is one of four siblings, and I can't think of any example in M's family or social circle of a Pakistani family with less than three children (except those of us who are still in the babymaking stage of our lives.) Even the few families I know who belong to the very rich, higher class strata of Pakistani society still have more than 2 kids. 

(Of course, I know there are plenty of Pakistani families with less than three kids - I'm just saying that *I* personally don't know any, which is true.)

So is this something any of you have heard about? Is it new? No amount of googling has produced anything. Is it hogwash?

All Buffet-ed Out

It was great :)

Our Indian Buffet

When M graduated, he got a job and moved to his new city. We said our tearful goodbyes and had no plans to see each other again. We hadn't even discussed the possibility of visiting each other, although neither or us had discussed breaking up either.

Two days later I bought a place ticket and four days later I was on my way. I got there while he was still at work and he had to pay for my cab from the airport because my poor student budget was stretched beyond all means by the ticket. Then he took us out to dinner at a restaurant near the hotel he was staying in. We just drove around for two or three minutes and settled on the first Indian buffet we saw. M was excited to eat at a desi restaurant in this new area he lived in because it was well known for its large desi population and availability of desi food. Where we had lived before there were two desi restaurants - across the street from each other.

We ate our buffet dinner and we both thought it was fantastic. Over the course of the next four months we would eat there everything weekend I came to visit. Then we got married, and later moved to M's state, and we ate there almost every weekend for the first year of our marriage. 

Then we found out that we actually lived much closer to other stores and restaurants and we'd been driving in the opposite direction of our closest urban centers to get to this restaurant. We thought that the closest Costco/grocery store/restaurant areas had been there, but it turns out if we'd ventured just a little further north we could have found plenty of Indian buffets only minutes from us rather than half an hour away. So we stopped going.

This morning, in a fit of nostalgia, we're going back to our very first favorite Indian buffet. I'm hoping to each so much we won't have to eat again today. We're paying in cash since the cash price is different from the credit price. And I'm bringing home some jalebi with me.

Talking About Religion

M and I, standing in front of the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, Pakistan in December 2004.

Talking about religion. If there's one realm of life that I have the most difficulty with in my interactions with Pakistani and Pakistani culture  it is religion. Which is surprising considering I am a Muslim convert and Pakistan is a Muslim country. But it just is. And I know why.

I try to never talk about religion. I certainly can't talk for ALL America or anything, but in my experience, people in America just don't talk about religion! It's not something that should be discussed in mixed company, and as a result of this being the norm my entire life, I think of religion as a very personal, private thing. 

That's something I haven't been able to shake. And I don't really want to either. Religious discussions can be difficult to have and exclusionary in mixed company. "Mixed company" is difficult to define, too, because not all Muslims think alike. (Shocker!) And they can be uncomfortable for any of the parties involved, too - listener or speaker. Not everyone is comfortable asking about, being asked, or listening to religious discussions. 

But of course, some people are. I am one of those people that was never comfortable with this topic, either before I converted or now. It's the reason I find it difficult to include "Alhumdulillah" and "MashaAllah" in my conversations. And it's still there even when I'm in an all Muslim group. It's also the reason I go into a bedroom or downstairs to make prayers by myself even when everyone else is praying openly in the living room. 

I always do this, even recently at a dinner party when all the men went downstairs to make the sunset prayer as a group while the ladies made it individually in the living room. I tended to the baby and waited until the men were done and then went downstairs by myself to pray. I didn't want to be the only woman joining the men, and I didn't want the other ladies watching me pray either. I didn't want to be a spectacle and I surely wouldn't have been able to concentrate on my prayers, so I opted to wait until I could have a little privacy. I do this at home too, with everyone except M. M and I often pray together, but when my MIL was here, I would always excuse myself to pray - even though we've prayed beside each other in mosques here.

I just don't feel comfortable talking or openly displaying my religion. And I don't know that I ever will.

Perhaps The Worst One Yet

My Terrible Urdu, Volume 3!

What I said: Hum teen blender kharab ho jayegi.

What I meant to say: We've broken three blenders!

What I actually said: We will become three bad blenders.

(Catch up! Here's Vol. 1 and Vol. 2!)

Eid Mubarak!

The day after Ramadan is called Eid, and it was on Sunday. It's pronounced like "eed". Eid-al-Fitr, to be exact - one of two Islamic holidays during the year. It lasts three days, although most of the celebration is front-loaded and lessens in intensity after the first day.

The Eid day always starts out with an early morning congregational prayer. Usually this would mean going to the mosque very early in the morning, but where we live our Mosque is located in a residential neighborhood and it's not large enough to accommodate all the people who come for Eid prayers. The crowd is exponentially larger at Eid prayers than at any other prayer during the year - much like Christmas and Easter in churches. So our Eid prayers are held in local convention centers. Our prayer was especially nice this year because while our Mosque offered 20 different Eid prayer sessions in 5 different locations in the area, we managed to pick the one where my absolute favorite speaker was giving the lecture and leading the prayers. AND he talked about the importance of gratitude and said one of my favorite quotes.

Almost as soon as we left the prayer, the phone started ringing. Eid is the time to call, and be called, by every long-lost and distance relative and friend that you know. So M fielded call after call after call and still only made a dent in his address book. It was too early to call the Pacific Coast contigent but there were a few hours of prime Pakistan calling time, so he got a lot of calls from there. I should say WE got a lot of calls from there, because many people specifically asked to talk to me as well. 

Every person I talked to asked what I was wearing - which is a weird question to ask of the phone according to most Americans! Not so with Pakistanis - especially on Eid. All Pakistanis muslims I know celebrate Eid with new clothes. The Eid outfits are a big deal and are usually picked out way in advance. Ammi usually ships ours to us, but since she was here she just brought them with her back in June. Actually, the baby and M wore matching red waistcoats with lots of little mirrors sewn into them - we'd bought those back in 2007 during our trip to Pakistan. 

The boys in their matching coatees, getting ready to leave for prayers.

After new clothes and early morning prayers, the next step in the Eid plans is FOOD! In M's family, they don't eat any breakfast before the Eid prayer, just some dates cut into slices and floating in milk. Ammi uses dried dates, but I think there must be some difference between what "dried dates" means in Pakistan and what it means here, because here they never soften up in the milk or are appetizing AT ALL on Eid morning. So this year I used regular dates and they were fantastic. 

We'd also prepared a lot of food the night before because we were hosting an Eid celebration - a backyard barbeque - for all our friends. We usually hold some kind of Eid brunch (or dinner, when it's been on a workday in years past) but this one was especially nice. Friends from far away attended, and some even stopped by for just a few minutes in between all their other social commitments. It really had a nice, Eid-ish feeling to it. Plus, barbeque was a fantastic choice because on the invitation I was able to write that people should show up early to help man the grill, and I wasn't expected to do all or even most of the work! Everyone who came was extremely helpful with food prep, set-up, outdoor furniture cleaning and arrangement - even clean up! It was really a fun day.

One of my favorite things about Eid is the Eidi. In M's family, kids run around all the various family functions on the day of Eid demanding money from their parents, uncles, grandparents, and even elder cousins. Every gives kids a little bit of money as an Eid gift. I know a couple of American born muslims who consider Eidi to be any kind of Eid gift, not just money. In our house, it's still money, and up until this year, I got Eidi too! I think I STILL should be getting Eidi because this is only my 6th year celebrating Eid and M surely got Eidi well past 6 years old. Am I right! Come on! Where's my Eidi?!?! (Well, actually I get to take the baby's Eidi until he's old enough to know the difference. This year he only got Eidi from US, and all he did was ask who was the guy on it. M didn't know and just called him the Eidi walla admi, or The Eidi Man. Then the baby put the $5 bill in my back pocket. What a sweet boy!)

Anyway, even without the Eidi is was a fantastic Eid. In the evening we played games and watched movies, all while snacking a nibbling on all the various sweet things in the house. The baby ran around almost unsupervised all day long and had a lunch consisting of no less than 9 slices of watermelon - and nothing else. M spent a solid hour running in a triangle of two different barbeque grills and his own plate of quickly-getting-cold food. We served Bihari kabob, some chicken curry my MIL calls Khushk Murgi, or "Dry Chicken" and some potato bhaji with traditional Pakistani pickling spices as well as an appetizer of cholay chaat. Some friends brought boneless chicken kabobs, dahi barray (veggie fritters floating in yogurt-ish kind of snack food).

And it wouldn't be Eid without the sweets and dessert, so we made some Kheer and Sawaiya - rice pudding and a similar kind of thing made with roasted fine rice noodles. My mother in law is well know for her cooking, and I think her sawaiya is one of the BEST things she makes, so as an Eid gift to you, here's her recipe. (It's not the easiest recipe, because she never gives me firm quantity measures, but it doesn't have to be exact anyway and you can always add more spices or sugar later if you think it needs more.)

1. Heat some ghee, oil or butter in a pan. (I prefer butter because it will start to turn a light brown color, helping the dish to be brownish in the end. I use about a half a stick.) 

2. Add 3-4 whole little ilaechi and little bit of cinnamon stick, about an inch, broken into a few pieces. (I usually double the spices because more is always better!) 

3. Add vermicelli (It has to be the roasted stuff from a Desi store) and cook 1/4 of the packet, stirring and coating all the pieces in the oil/butter/ghee and roasting it until it's "fragrant" whatever that means?

4. Add enough water to cover the vermicelli. 

5. Add a lot of sugar (a whole tea cup full) 

6. Add some raisins and chopped coconut (optional) and cook for about an hour 

7. Stir occasionally and dry water until it becomes the thickness you like (it's supposed to be like a really thick soup, but it will absorb more water as it cools so make sure there's enough or it will absorb ALL the water and turn into a solid brick. Trust me, I speak from experience.) 

8. Garnish with pistachio and almond (let them sit in water for an hour to make them easy to chop, then cut into long pieces, removing any peel. make sure you're not using salted pistachio/almond.)

Weighty Issues

My mother-in-law left Friday night. It was an emotional goodbye. Those get harder after grand babies are born, I think. But the real trial came the night BEFORE the departure.

The Packing.

Everyone who visits Pakistan frequently, or who has had in-laws visit from Pakistan or the like knows exactly what I'm talking about: The Weight Limits

When you travel internationally, your luggage is subject to weight restrictions. I think each air carrier might be different, but for us this weekend, the weight limit for the bags was 23 kgs. That's only 51 pounds per bag. And the 1 carry-on piece was limited to 7 kgs - 15 pounds.

What's the big deal, you ask? Every airline has weight limits for the bags. Yes, but not every passenger is stuffing their bags to the absolute limit with gifts and American products to take back home. This luggage situation is so bad that everyone I know tests the check-in counter worker's patience by packing way over the limit and then trying to sneak, scam, or charm their way into not having to pay overweight baggage charges. Friends and family members try to take advantage of the opportunity to send things even thought they KNOW that every ounce is precious. 

The first time we went to Pakistan, the limits were higher. Back then you could pack 70 pound per bag, and since each person could bring 2 bags, that meant we could take 280 pounds of stuff with us. Not even 1/2 of the first bag was our own things - the rest was all gifts. One family member sent 23 pounds of stuff for us to take for them. A friend of M's who is still in Pakistan had his cousin in American ship things to us so we could take them with us too. And we'd over-bought in the months leading up to our trip as well. All in all we headed off to the airport with more than 100 extra pounds of stuff. Eight pounds extra in each bag ("Eight is fine. They won't make a big deal over just eight pounds. It's not like it's 10!") and both of our 15 pound carry-on bags weighed more than 45 pounds! 

On the way back it was even worse. We'd overpacked even worse because it had worked so well on the way out. But the guy at the counter couldn't be charmed. He made us open our bags - on the floor of the Karachi airport - to take stuff out. I had to find all the little jade souvenirs and all the other heavy items I could think of that we'd bought and stick them in my coat pockets. We were still overweight, but eventually he let our bags through with a scowl. But then on the way to the gate an official asked to see my carry-on and that was so overweight he made us go BACK to the check-in counter where they called our bags BACK from wherever the conveyor belt had taken them so we could distribute our contraband into the regular luggage. Plus more scowling.

Suffice it to say that the luggage thing was a source of stress for me during our first trip and I vowed never to do that again. The second time we visited, our bags were not one pound over limit, and it was lovely not to have to stress out about it at all. On the way home we paid overweight baggage fees in advance so we could be similarly stress-free even though we were bringing too much stuff.

We'd even convinced my mother-in-law of the beauty of traveling stress-free like that. Well, mostly. The bags were only 2 pounds over limit, so close enough. Enough that I wasn't at all stressed out about it, at least. 

The night of packing was still a little stressful though, because we had to argue about what to take and what to leave. M is the kind of person who wants to take out 1/2 of the candy from the bag right away while he's arranging the first bag because he's so sure it's going to be overweight and we're going to have to take out half anyway. I'm the kind of person that wants to at least get everything into the bags the first time - THEN weigh them and make the decisions about what stays and what goes. We always end up doing something halfway between - he takes some stuff out, I argue to keep some stuff in, and then after we weigh them and they're still overweight, we still have to go back through anyway. (Which is my whole point - if you have to go back through it anyway, why not just weigh it first anyway and THEN do the decision making? But I digress...)

So come Friday morning the bags were packed. Everything was on-track for a stress-free departure. And then a family friend drops by - literally a few hours before the flight - with a few pounds of stuff she wanted my MIL to take with her. 

Ugh.

Possible Personal Growth

On Thursday night, M and I went to the baby's school for Back To School Parent's night. That's where we sit in the little chairs and his teacher tells us all about his day. It was really informative. Even though he's been in daycare for more than two year now, this is different - this is the Real Deal. He has a curriculum. A daily schedule. He uses the bathroom there by himself. (Well, some of the time at least.)

On Thursday night, I was supposed to be paying attention to his teacher tell me about all the new skills my son will be learning. And I was, for the most part. But then sometimes I was sneaking looks out of the corner of my eye at another set of parents there. The desi parents. I didn't catch the mother's name, but I clearly heard the teacher call the dad "Raja."

After the tiny-chair-circle-time was over, something unprecedented happened. As M and I walked past these parents on our way out, there was some kind of exchanged look and M and I.....just sort of.....stopped. 

In front of these desi parents. 

A handshake was exchanged. And we all started chatting. 

This does not normally happen. Usually I stare and wonder and fret about how I could ever introduce myself and talk with the desis I see in my everyday life. It's never easy. It's the reason I came up with the henna trick. But this was seamless, totally not awkward, as if I'm experiencing some kind of personal growth or something. 

But then I said how lovely it would be that my son would have another language partner to practice his Urdu with. The father said "Oh, we're from South India, we speak a different language." Turns out they're from Chennai and speak Tamil. 

Oh well, you can't win 'em all, I guess.

It's Not Just Monkeys

Like I said before, LOTS of people come knocking on your door in Pakistan. When we visited for the first time in 2004, one day this guy came knocking: 

  

Well, not that guy exactly. But his charmer.

It was just like you'd see in the movies. He had a shehnai, he played it, and the snake came rising out of his basket. It was all very surreal and as I stood there in the alley right outside my in-law's home, I suddenly thought "Is this really my life? How did I end up here?"

Poor snake charmer. Little did he know who he was dealing with. Most people probably just let the guy do his job; knock on doors, charm his snake, take some cash on the way out. Not my father in law! He's a big fan of reptiles and he just came right over a picked up the snake with his bare hands! 

And then I realized: Even a snake charmer coming to the door is too normal - in my life, even that strange occurrence has to be extra-strange. I mean, come on, how many of you have seen your in-laws charm the snake charmer's snake? 

We Call It All School

I went to a dinner party over the weekend, and spoke with a girl there about where she was pursuing her Master's. She's a very recent implant to America, having only arrived here a week or so ago, and I asked her "What school are you going to?"

Her face scrunched up in distaste and said to me "It's not school - it's Uni!" 

This has happened before, too, with a cousin of M's. I asked the same question and she quickly corrected me and then said "I'm 22, you know!"

It's something I still haven't learned. In Pakistan, the different levels of school are called different things. I'm not sure on the exact details, but from what I understand, "school" means something like elementary and middle school - or at least pre- high school. After that is Matric - (I think grades 18-10?) and College (I think grades 11-12?) and then University, or "Uni."

That's not the big difference, though. In America we also call the different levels of school different things too. There's Elementary school, which is grades K-5 (sometimes K-6) and the Middle school for grades 7-8 (sometimes 6-8 or 7-9) and then High School up to grade 12. After that is college. Even higher levels of education can be called college, or graduate school. 

The big difference is that it's ALL called school most of the time. It wouldn't matter if you were asking a six year old or a thirty six year old, you would still say "What school are you going to?" No one would think that you were incorrect about their age, or insinuating that they were at a lower grade level than they actually were. It can all be school.

I really have to get that Metric/College/Uni thing down so I can stop offending people.

A Depressing Long Weekend

I had three disappointments this weekend.

Friday the First: 

("My Terrible Urdu" 2nd Edition)

What I meant to say: The Baby was asking for some grapes.

What I said: Bacha angoor se poocha tha.

What I actually said: The baby was questioned the grapes.

Saturday the Second:

(at a dinner party)

Hostess: Are you fasting?

Me: Yes.

Hostess: (increduously) Will you fasting the WHOLE month?

Me: (with a strained, mean tension in my voice that I instantly regretted) Yeeessssss..... And I have been for seven years now.

Monday the Third: 

(this evening with M, after watching this video)

Me: How do you think my Urdu compares to his?

M: It doesn't.

Me: No really, what percentage of his Urdu do you think I have?

M: Zero.

Me: (Looking hurt)

M: Maybe five percent?

Weird In Other Ways, Too

I married this guy and there's this weird thing about him. It's something a relatively small percentage of the population even knows about - a kind of counter culture that coexists right along side with regular life. It has its own customs and rituals, sects and groups, and one has to learn a LOT to try and belong.

No, I'm not talking about Pakistan. I'm talking about motorcycles. 

Surprisingly, there are a lot of ties between the two topics. There are A LOT of motorcycles in Pakistan - and in much of the developing world. I think it's mostly because its the cheapest, most efficient means of transportation available. So in Pakistan, all of the families I know have at least one motorcycle. And you'd be surprised, sometimes an entire family will have only a single 50cc motorcycle as its only means of transportation. It is not uncommon to see and entire family of five sitting on one motorcycle. Women hold onto babies and ride on the back of a motorcycle with the baby in their arms. In fact, M remembers his that his entire family - Ammi, Abbu and their FOUR CHILDREN - would ride on Abbu's Honda 5o together until they got a car when he was older.

Transportation for the whole family!

So M has a long history with motorcycles, and he says he's always wanted a motorcycle of his own. In fact, he was so crazy about getting a motorcycle that he saved up every spare dollar of his tiny graduate student's stipend and was able to buy a motorcycle within two years. Unfortunately he decided to buy a motorcycle even though he didn't own a car. Unfortunately for me because we lived more than an hour apart, so after we started dating guess who ended up doing all the long-distance more-than-two-hour-roundtrip drives? 

It's always surprised me that you don't meet more desis with motorcycles though. I mean, it's not like there's much diversity in the biker scene in America anyway, but I always thought that since motorcycles are so widespread in South Asia, there'd be more desis like M who would want to own motorcycles in America when they come here. But I only know one other friend of M who also bought himself a motorcycle and every time we've attended any biker rally, we've never seen another desi among the crowd.

There is one guy though, who I've seen on the road and I hope to catch up to one day. I've driven past him twice before. I didn't notice what kind of bike he had or the color of his skin. It was his motorcycle jacket that caught my eye both times. A black leather jacket with a phrase embroidered on the back: "Lahori Badshah" - King of Lahore. 

Maybe they can all band together one day and form a desi biker gang. Just have to think of a badass name for 'em first!

Oh yeah, and women ride sideways mostly.

Sleeping Arrangements

Recently, M's family has been arranging mass family gatherings. With more and more of his family coming to live in or visit America, there's a lot more people to accommodate at these big family gatherings. And since often people tend to pick one relative's house that everyone stays overnight at, the topic of sleeping arrangements will indefinitely arise. Usually this means that someone will direct M to sleep with the guys and me to sleep with the ladies. 

People. That is weird to me. I'm not knocking it, if it works for you more power to you. But I cannot imagine sleeping in a room with my mother-in-law, M's aunties and female cousins - with M nowhere around. Heck, I can't even imagine sharing a bed with just my mother in law. That would make me very, very uncomfortable. First, sleeping is an intimate thing. Second, I've heard some of these ladies snore louder than their husbands. Third - I'm a cuddler! I might end up spooning an elderly woman! 

In my family's gatherings, guests don't break up beyond the nuclear family unit. It's just expected that each family will get their own room or else they'll know there's not enough room at that place and get themselves a hotel room. But in M's family, getting a hotel room could offend the family - "Why didn't you stay with us!"

In any event, M and I have always refused to be split up. We've had to struggle and argue with people about it, and M has even been made fun of for not being able to leave his wife's side (no one has ever made fun of me about it, though.) We've even slept on the floor of a living room once even though it meant that everyone would be traipsing through our "bedroom" at sunrise just because the alternative would have been to sleep in separate rooms with other people. 

Your Advice Needed: Meeting The 'Rents

A reader recently emailed me asking for advice. She's dating a Pakistani guy whose mother has come to the U.S. for a visit. The boyfriend has arranged a meeting between his girlfriend and his Pakistani mother. She was specifically concerned about "how do I dress/greet/bring a gift?" but also mentioned being nervous about possibly offending his family and that the mother speaks only Urdu and the boyfriend will be translating. 

My advice so far has been that first and foremost, she should be herself. Her outfit should be fairly conservative out of respect, I think - nothing tight fitting or low cut - but no use donning a burqa for one night. Give these people an opportunity to get to know the real you, and don't give yourself any future problems that arise when they find out how you deceived them. 

As for a gift, I thought a gift for the mother would be nice. The basic red roses/cake/nice bottle of lotion, or perhaps a box of nice chocolates or a pretty scarf. But then again, I'm not always the best gift giver.

For the greeting, a simple "hello" or a heartfelt "It's a pleasure to meet you" is perfectly fine. You could say "Salam" (Peace) which is the typical greeting among Pakistanis, or you could ask your boyfriend to teach you how to say something in Urdu - this could show a willingness to learn more about Pakistan and/or Urdu - if that's something you wish to convey. For your own greeting, I would call his parents "Auntie" and "Uncle" because some Pakistanis get offended about be called Mr. or Mrs. (It's too formal, as if you're strangers.)

A few miscellaneous tips I thought might be helpful: look around to see if others are wearing shoes in the house, you might be expected to take them off at the door. She might pat your head when she greets you, and that would be a good sign. Try not to eat with your left hand, most Pakistanis I know NOTICE that and think it's gross. But really, none of these are major things and I can't think of anything that one could do that would actually offend.

To help with conversation and ease discomfort, I recommend asking a lot of question - maybe even writing down a list of questions to ask in advance so that you've already thought through a few different avenues of conversation (just don't whip out the list during the evening like a newspaper reporter or something) - anything you can think about your boyfriend you'd like to know. Did you excel in school? Was he a difficult child? Was he good at sports? Does she remember what it was like when he left home as an adult? Or ask questions about her. Is she enjoying her visit? How often does she visit America? What's her favorite thing to do while here? If you're meeting at a family member's house, you might even ask if they have any family pictures to browse through. I've found this to be a great way to keep conversations going, to get to know new people better and bond with them. Plus the mother will be happy you're so interesting in hearing about her son & family.

But here's where you come in, dear readers - what advice do you have to our possible future fellow non-desi wife? What about the dress/greet/bring a gift? What about accepting her own gifts graciously? Any tips for making the meeting go smoothly? Any other tips you can think of, land mines to avoid?