Closing Pandora's Box

Giaus	I have no choice. I’m sorry Gwen.
Gwen	In life you always have a choice. Sometimes it’s easier to think you don’t.
Giaus	Well then, my choice is to leave.

We make choices every day of our lives, every hour of our days, every minute of our hours and every second of our minutes. Our lives are replete with decisions and many of these choices we make consciously, spending minutes, hours, days, weeks and even months on them. Others are made in a split second, things we say in conversations, things said when high on the drug of happiness or low due to a lack of it.
There are some instances when due to circumstances we choose not to choose. But is it not paradoxical that when a person has a decision to make and does not make it, that in itself is a choice? And why do we do that? In such situations where we feel we have no choice and thus are indirectly forced to do something, we do it to protect ourselves or those really close to us. In doing so we may trample on others, the truth and much more to make sure we are safe. Blinded by our fear and that of the consequences we make ourselves believe what we are doing to be right. But is it ever right?
One way of defining a person is by their choices. People are commonly described as being reckless, driven by passion, logical (and the opposite), sharp-mined in regards to the choices they make. A person can be sweet to the core, full of goodness for others, mentally strong etcetera and yes those things do matter, but unless those internal qualities are expressed externally, no-one will be able to appreciate them or experience them. Never a judge a person on what he can or can’t do, but by what he does or doesn’t do. We all have ability, maybe not the same but ability nonetheless and some people choose to use that ability whereas others choose not to. Humans have been given free will, thus each and every day we can choose to bring light to the lives of others or take it away from them. We choose whether our actions do good or evil. It is that which raises you in the eyes of others, or condemns you to the scum of society.
Our choices shape our lives and subsequently our ourselves. This process only ends with our last breath. We are free to make choices, but we are not free to decide the consequences of our actions which may reverberate for many many years to come. Our choices are ultimately our own responsibility. Many of us have seen how sometimes we make detailed plans for our lives but our choices burn them to ashes. After all life is nothing but the sum of our choices; some good and some bad. A person learns to make good decisions after having experienced the consequences of bad ones previously made. Though none of us have the ability to see into the future, we have been given understanding which is especially important when making decisions. Until we take responsibility and accountability for our actions, we will never make worthwhile choices. ”We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them,” (Khalil Gibran).
All animals choose. It is our ability to consciously think and understand before we decide something that makes us different from animals and other organisms. But choosing to be a good human is one of the hardest choices to make. A wise person once said, “You (always) have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. To be or not to be.”
What do you choose?
Title: Anyway – Martina McBride

A few days ago my dad brought home a lot of cherries. He shouldn’t have bought a lot because it turns out that only mum and I eat them. Though I passed a cursory glance over each of them before sticking them into my mouth, I realised that what we see can be deceiving.

It looked succulent, a deep purpley red colour and so I gave it a pass in my short quality check test. Just as I popped it into my mouth and bit into it, squishing juice everywhere, I realised I had made a mistake. It tasted horrendous, as if someone had injected mud into the centre (Yes I know what mud tastes like. I had a fun childhood). I was speaking to Rosaline about it, and she said something that dragged me down memory lane. Rewind to..

Primary School Assembly, Year 3

I always enjoyed assemblies in which a class gave a presentation or a teacher did something interesting. I remember once Mr Bristol was going to be taking the assembly. After the announcements were read out and the general business dealt with, he walked onto stage and began talking.

“I know it is against the rules to eat in assembly, but the head teacher here has said I can. Just this once.”

We were all curious. I sat there stuffing my face with polos.

The head teacher walked over to him, a tin and fork in hand. She opened the tin, stuck the fork inside and fed whatever it was to Mr Bristol. Those children who were sitting at the front, and so had a better view, let out noises of disgust. “Ewwwww!”

“What is he doing?”

“That’s so disgusting!”

“She’s feeding him dog food!”

“I’m going to be sick, how can he eat that stuff?”

As news spread to the back of the hall, the disgust and a fair share of disbelief got louder and louder and louder. The head teacher continued feeding the other teacher. As the contents of the tin were about to finish, he began talking again.

“If any of you would also like to eat some, please come to the front.” He was replied by silence. Not a single child spoke. He pointed to a girl sitting at the front. “Do you think what I was eating is nice?”

“No! I would never eat it,” the girl replied.

He pointed at a boy, “Would you ever eat it?”

The boy replied as the girl had done, “No. I’d not even touch dog food!”

The teacher smiled. “Many of you think that the tin I was eating from contained dog food in it. It didn’t.” He proceeded to remove the label off the tin and revealed another label below that showed it was actually pineapple. Everyone gasped. We had been fooled completely. It wasn’t even April yet. “The lesson I want you all to take away from today’s assembly is that we should never judge anything or anyone on what it or they look like.”

*****

Each and everyone of us portrays a certain image. We all hide behind masks so that others don’t take advantage of us, or know what really goes on beneath our skins. It is usually a protective measure. Only very few people see us with our masks off and barriers down, but even then some of them may not see our naked skin. We are quick to judge. A person that doesn’t conform to the norms, or doesn’t look good is left out, marginalised and the last one to be picked. But the surface is never really real as we only see that which our eyes are capable of seeing. People cover themselves up with make-up to hide the cracks, others distract attention from their sorrow-filled eyes by their beautiful smiles and some people walk tall even when they are broken.

I’d like to end this post with another incident from the past. Back in high school, year 10, the first year of GCSEs a guy dramatically changed. I wasn’t really friends with him at the time, but he was in my maths class and so we occasionally spoke. He was known as being a social, easy to get-along-with type of person, but as time went on he became less and less so. His friends started falling out with him because he no longer took part in their past-times and no longer shared their interests. At lunch times he would sit in the school library immersed in a book or would walk aimlessly around the school building lost in his own mind. “Neek” they called him, “they’re just stupid exams and still 2 years  away. Why is he being like this?” He became quieter and quieter and quieter. No-one knew why, and so people used it as an excuse to spread rumours and taunt him. He wouldn’t reply. One day we discovered his mother had been involved in a serious car accident and was in intensive care. The penny had finally dropped. “Oh s**t, I didn’t know.” A bit late for saying sorry don’t you think?

Unless you’ve crawled inside the other person’s skin, taken a look around, seen the world from their eyes and have some sort of idea about them, the real them and not the mask they wear, be careful of what you say or do. You will never know. Just like they don’t know about you.

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Title: You’re a better man than I – The Yardbirds
Picture of cherries Dee taken from here
Picture of pineapple taken from here
Picture regarding masks was one sent to me by a friend. I do not have a link for it.

As my drought for words continues, I asked another of my lovely friends to write something for me. This time it was Max. After reading what she had written I’ve decided the ‘write whatever you want policy’ is not going to work. You’ve probably heard a lot about me in the last few posts and will hear more in the next part of the interview. So next time, there will be no writing about me. Anyway, without further ado, let me share with you Max’s piece:

*****

Dee Dee (My name for Nas) asked me to write a blog post about anything I wanted. I’m not much of a writer; I find it hard enough to write essays. The only “writing” that I probably do is texting (LOL) and rambling in my diary. But anyway, I said I would do it for him so here I go.

Firstly, I want to tell you why I call Nas ‘Dee De’. It all started when we met, about 5 years ago (crikey) through the world of MySpace. His screen name on msn was ‘Red Devil’, so I began calling him ‘Devil’ for ages. That is until I got really lazy of saying and typing Devil so it got cut down to a single letter, ‘D’. One day we were talking about Dexter the cartoon, and I wanted to name Nas after ‘Dee Dee’- Dexter’s sister! =P. And thus Nas came to be known as Dee Dee.

When Dee Dee said that I could write about ANYTHING, only one thing came into mind; the time when he helped me through the hardest part of my life. In my darkest hour, he was the only one I could turn to. Even though he was in the opposite side of the country, every word he said made such a big difference. I was ready to give up, give up on life, give up on the future that I now have and give up on everything for the sake of others. But Dee Dee showed me that I would never be happy and in turn the happiness of others would fade fast too. I was so low that the only solution I could think of was to disappear. Literally, disappear from this world. But he made me realise that would be selfish and made me think about the ones most dear to me, like my little brother and sister, my best friends but most importantly, ME. He made me love life again, find my happiness and gave me strength to stand up for myself. He pushed me to strive and pursue my future goals. He reminded me of who I should be, not who I could be if I gave up.

I owe Dee Dee my life. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here today. Even though we are yet to meet in person, it does not make a difference to how true the friendship is. He is one of the few people who I would call a true, real, honest and genuine best friend. There have been ups and downs, but without the downs, it wouldn’t be real or honest. Having problems only helps to make you stronger as a person and gives a chance for you to learn and strive; just how Dee Dee once said to me.

If you are one of the few who have met and or know Dee Dee, you are as lucky as I am. He is one to love, cherish and keep close to your hearts.

I would like to finish by sharing a story with you that I read a few years ago, which has become tattooed onto my mind. I hope those of you that read it are able to learn something from it and also enjoy it:

The Emperor Moth & the Struggle

The emperor moth is the most majestic species among all the moths. It has wide wings spanning out majestically when it flies. Before it can become a full grown moth, it has to be a pupa in a cocoon. Now, the interesting fact about the moth’s cocoon is that the neck of the cocoon is very narrow. In order that that it becomes a moth, the pupa of the moth must squeeze its way out of the narrow neck.

One day a man found a cocoon of an emperor moth. He took it home so that he could watch the moth come out of the cocoon. He sat and watched the moth struggling to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no further. It just seemed to be stuck.

Then the man, in his perceived kindness decided to help the moth. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The moth was then able to emerge easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shrivelled wings. He expected that the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the little moth spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shrivelled wings. It was never able to fly. A few days later, it died.

What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the moth to get through the tiny opening was the way of forcing fluid from the body of the moth into its wings so that it could be ready for flight, once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. Freedom and flight would only come after the struggle. By depriving the moth of a struggle, he deprived the emperor moth of health.

You see, the struggles of life, heartaches and pains are necessary if you want to be great. Instead of cursing them, understand them while you are experiencing them. They are part of the making of a man / woman.

*****

I’d like to thank Max for the extremely kind words, but more importantly for sharing such a beautiful and inspiring story from which we can all benefit. There are times when we all feel like the emperor moth, helpless, unable to breathe  and trapped with no way out, but with perseverance, struggle, and continued effort we can break free from our bondages and learn to fly. The last paragraph of the story sums it up rather nicely.

[This is a scheduled post]

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Title: Hey there Delilah – Plain White T’s
Picture of Dexter and Dee Dee taken from here
Story of the Emperor Moth taken from here

[The Interview - Part 1]

General	Hello everyone, this is the realities forgotten blog…
Me	The blog is called Closing Pandora’s Box you twillop.
General	Haha okay, my bad. I am the guest interviewer, the General. Today I shall be asking Nas some questions to discover who he really is. So Nas, why are you called the Red Devil, as illustrated by your msn screen name?
Me	Okay. Well. When I was young, pre 14 years old, I used to be a menace. A bit like Dennis the menace but the Asian version. ‘Sharaarti’ was my middle name. I would play pranks on people, my attitude was carefree, and thus people would call me ‘shaytaan’, a devil. I remember once when I was 11 I stuck a spider in my teacher’s coffee because she was picking on me. Classic moment! Red was my favourite colour and hence I became known as the red devil.
General	What does ‘sharaarti’ mean for our non Urdu speakers?
Me	Ummm.. mischievous I think?
General	Would you describe yourself as being a menace to society still?
Me	Nah, I think I’m past those days.
General	Okay so how would you describe yourself now?
Me	I don’t even know.
General	Everyone knows dude. It’s like when you’re writing your CV. Just describe yourself in a sentence.
Me	Ugh. I dislike you for asking such difficult questions!
General	No problem. Difficult is my middle name.
Me	You have so many middle names you could be Sri Lankan.
General	For all the Sri Lankans reading this, Nas is not trying to be offensive. He is just telling the truth as always. Now back to the question…
Me	Haha. Okay. I like to think I’m nice, pretty good smelling and have awesome eye lashes.
General	I concur. Please describe your strengths and your flaws but not in a job interview mode, but like a raw onion.
Me	Raw onion?!
General	Yes raw onion. Like kalunji with emotion man.
Me	My strengths include that I’m clever but my weakness is that I don’t take advantage of it. I try hard at being a good friend, a good person to all, and pride myself on that. But at the same time in doing so, I become attached to people and that is a weakness.
General	Nicely said. Now, who was your first crush?
Me	I was thinking about it a few days ago and realised my first crushing happened in year 4. No I didn’t physically crush anyone. Anyway, I used to have a HUGE crush on the teacher of the other year 4 class. It lasted about a week because she went and married another teacher. I even remember her name. Well after she got married, I was heartbroken which also lasted about a week because I got occupied with other things and totally forgot about her.
General	Oh that is so sweet. Did you ever go back and see that teacher again?
Me	Well I stayed in that school till the end of year 5 till we moved house, so I did walk into her here and there. But she fell in my eyes after she got married.
General	Who or what was your first love?
Me	One love, one United. Manchester United. Though I don’t believe in love at first sight, that was a case of ‘head-over-chappals-at-first-sight’. *sighs*
General	Haha. Now lets get ready to business.
Me	You mean down?
General	Yep I meant down. What are the characteristics that turn you on in person, be they male or female. I meant that in a non-sexual way.
Me	I like people that are honest. Who have only have one face and are not like a coin with two. I like people with humour, who can make jokes and take jokes. I like people with opinions and beliefs and so the strength to stand up for their beliefs and opinions. I like people that are different and random. Oh and I also like people who give me cookies.
General	Haha! I hope cookies that have not been a part of a contest.
Me	I’m not even gonna comment on that. You filthy, disgusting, cookie ruining boy.
General	So what characteristics would you like in your ideal partner and why do you think you would make a good husband?
Me	My wife. I would like her to have at least half a brain. That is to say she must have some knowledge. She must be religious. She must be a good cook but doesn’t have to be perfect. If she can make haleem and biryani that would be a 1000 point bonus. I’d love to bake with her and make cakes and cookies with her and help her with the cooking too. She has to be understanding of my love of football and it would be an infinite point bonus if she also liked it!
General	This is like an advert for shaadi dot com, but in the General style.
Me	As for  being a good husband, I was thinking about this in the bath this morning.
General	And what would be your answer? Apart from the great love life.
Me	I think being the nice person I am, don’t cough…
General	*coughs*
Me	As I was saying. I’d be willing to compromise. I understand that people from different backgrounds will have different upbringing and standards. Just because she’s a village girl it may mean her habits, her way of living will be different to say a city girl. So, I’d understand that and also everyone has shortcomings because none of us are perfect. But I’ll never lay a hand on her. You know you hear about husbands who after a week or so of ‘be-nice-time’ go all narky and get the danda out? I would never forgive myself if I happened to hit her. I wouldn’t make her do or force her into doing anything she didn’t want to. If she made a mistake or was doing something wrong, I’d try and teach her, and I hope she would be able to teach me too. I’d also help around the house as much as I can.
General	That is spoken like a true gentleman.
Me	*does that thing with the tie people do when others are praising them*
General	So let’s move onto blogging itself. Why did you begin to blog?
Me	Well it was Supz who forced me into blogging. After Charley passed away I started writing my thoughts about the whole thing. You may remember the title was ‘For Your Story’, which I got from the pen you all gave me for my birthday that year with those words engraved on it. Well Supz saw some of those ‘reflections’ and said that I should blog about them so that other people could read and share.
General	I see. What inspired your writing style?
Me	I don’t think I have a set style to be honest. Some posts are written factually, others with the odd bit of humour, others are chatty and some are just conversations.
General	Why do you write so good?
Me	I don’t believe myself to be a good writer and therefore cannot answer that question.
General	You are too modest dude. Also why is it called Closing Pandora’s Box?
Me	Not modest, just honest. When I first made the blog, the hardest thing was the name. I just didn’t know what to call it. I wanted it to be clever and not something standard like ‘through Nas’s eyes’ or ‘Nas’s narrations’. I wanted it to be different. I remember reading through my brother’s history text book and came across the story of Pandora, and the box she was given by gods and told not to open. But her curiosity got the better of her and she did. And that is how suffering came into the world. And that is also where the name of the blog originated.
General	What is your most favourite quote?
Me	That’s really tough, I have diaries full of favourite quotes, but the first that comes to mind is one that Charley told me many many years ago. “If you cry because the sun has left your life, your tears will stop you from seeing the stars”. I don’t know who it’s by though.
General	That’s a sweet quote. What’s the most important thing in your life? Is that a hard question?
Me	All your questions are hard! I think apart from faith and all that, people. Especially my family which God chose for me and the family that I chose for myself, my few really close friends.
General	You didn’t even mention football. Ah I feel quite emotional now.
Me	Dude! You can’t have a breakdown!
General	I know, it will ruin my mascara.
Me	Haha! As you have all just heard, the General wears makeup.

There’ll be more questions going up soon, The General wasn’t going to let me off so easily! Have YOU ever wanted to ask me anything? If so, this is your chance. You can ask me any question you like (yes just the one) in a comment or email and I promise to answer it honestly, if I can, in the next interview post.

And with that I say Au Revior  and wish you all a very happy weekend.

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Title: Who are you – The Who

I’ve been wanting to write a long, thought-provoking and interesting post for quite some time and though I have many ideas swishing around in my head, I just can’t seem to get them out onto paper in a coherent manner. So I thought I’d request someone to guest blog for me.

Many of you have heard of The General. He is a very good friend of mine from university. Last week I asked him to do a guest post. “You can write about anything,” I said. “As long as it’s appropriate. And I promise to publish it.” Of all the topics in the world he could have chosen, he chose to write about me. This is what he had to say:

*****

This is how I think Nas’ Homunculus (a place in the brain that provides a picture of the body) interprets him. But ET is missing the curly eyelashes though.

This is my first ever blog post so sorry if my English is a bit rusty. In this I plan to describe Nas in the most honest way. Our friendship started…actually I can’t really remember exactly when it happened. From what I can recollect however, it all started when I forced myself onto a table in the university library where Nas, my first BMW hubby (supposedly), Dum & Dummer and a few other friends were sitting. Despite me only recognising Nas by face and not knowing him on a personal level, his warmth and personality drew me towards him; just like a magnet. For those that personally know me, I had a fair bit of bad luck in initially finding friends because my personality and that of my previous friends was as similar as the South and North Pole (total opposites).

The first year of university went past like a breeze and I made a lot of discoveries about Nas. The first discovery was that Nas is like an onion, as he is capable of making you cry (this relates to my proposed love interest) and also that he has many layers; the deepest and innermost of which are the hardest to penetrate. But fortunately our exclusive interview should resolve that issue. The second thing is that Nas is one of those people that you can’t find anything bad about; maybe it’s down to his nature of just being a nice guy. I would describe him as the Piped piper but he hasn’t led anyone astray, especially me, despite what other people think (inside comment). He has just made me realise what to focus in life, by making sure I was the number one priority in my life. He is the type of dude that will say it straight, and I mean straight with so much raw emotion you don’t know whether to find his phrases poetic or offensive. But that is the nature of him; a person that appears to be complex from the outside, but actually once you get to know his simple and out of this world nature you’d be blown away. In a good way, just like a L'Oreal hair advert.

This is an image from Tiny Tempeh's ‘Pass out’ video. Despite it being a stereo with water droplets vibrating down to the music being played full blast, it could also represent the up and downs of life. Sometimes you are totally clueless and ignore/neglect things/people closest to you when you shouldn’t, or sometimes you attempt to deal with the problem head on. Nas always preaches the latter and I respect him for it even though sometimes I don’t take his advice when I clearly should. He is always there for me and always a phone call or text away when I get bad news or even when I have good news. He is like my rock, and is one of the few people that I can classify as being a stable aspect in my life. I know he can be a bit weird at times, and maybe a bit annoying (to be honest I am describing myself but deflecting my insecurities onto him lol), but I like his attitude in which peoples negative opinions, despite being irritating, do not appear to affect him even a tiny bit. I know this sounds a bit cheesy but ‘I would walk a thousand miles if I could just see you’ (Vanessa Carlton) and even if he decided to go back to his homeland, I would drop everything and still go to visit him. I could describe Mr Nas by writing pages and pages, illustrating how awesome he is, but in order to be short and concise, I just wish our friendship lasts for as long as it can and withstands the monsoon floods and erosion that the previously known ‘East Pakistan’ is so used to. This may be the first and last blog post that I write so I hope this gives you guys an insight into how truly great Nas really is.

*****

I’d like to thank The General for these extremely kind words that I now have to live up to. As for the interview, we have had 2 sessions of questions and you shall be able to read all about it in the next post.

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Title: ET – Katy Perry
Picture 1 showing ET taken from here
Picture 2 showing water droplets on a stereo taken from here