“Yeah, man, it’s normal.” He assured me.

“Good.” I took a deep breath. It didn’t help. By the time we reached the venue, I was nervous as hell. And by the time I reached the hall’s sofa, I was looking like a giant butterfly, thanks to the generous number of rose garlands around my neck. “Take them off” was the duh-ish suggestion by a friend when I complained to him about the huge amount of roses on me.

As the bride’s vakeels went off to get the nikah-nama signed by her, the nikah-khwan turned towards me. “What will you say when I shall ask you?” He inquired.

“What will you ask?” I blinked.

He must have said “duh” to himself as he stared at me. “کیا آپ نے قبول کیا؟”

Oh. “جی میں نے قبول کیا۔”

I had expected that my signature will be different on each copy of the nikah-nama. Surprisingly, they all turned out to be nice and quite identical. Perhaps because I had stopped feeling nervous.

On our way back to home, my elder bro’s wife whispered to my wife, “Okay dear, now stop crying. The groom starts to develop a strong sense of guilt if the bride keeps on weeping like this.” I couldn’t have agreed more.

I later found out that same words were said to bhabi by my bro on the occasion of their marriage. Bhabi had not understood at that time…

It’s been almost a month now, and life is good. Except, you know, that I can’t make a mess in my room anymore, and that Wifey has a tendency of acting as an excited alarm clock, but tell you what? It’s just super.

Alhamdulillah.

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“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Some might agree, others might not. I just thought that quoting Shakespeare in the start would be a good way of answering this tag passed to me by Dinky Mind.

I mentioned at the end of the previous post (which was a response to another tag) that this one has a better potential for narcissism. Now that I am typing these lines, I am wondering how loud a trumpet one can blow while describing one’s nicknames. Specially if the list of nicknames is really short.

Let’s see then:

• Saadi (سعدی). That’s kinda the default nickname for anyone who has the roots of his or her name in ‘Saad’. Sometimes, for me, Saadi is often suffixed with other things, like Saadi baba (not BABA, but baba. My Nana ji used to call me Saadi baba, and my parents still do occasionally); Saadi bhai (most commonly used by my younger siblings and cousins); and Saadi kay bachay (used by people when I am being annoying).
• Man. Another default nickname used by my closest friends, but more frequently used by my elder brother.
• Chief/Chiefi. Azam calls me that. He also called me “Bennet” for some time after watching the first season of Heroes.
• Manto (منٹو). Yes, Manto. This was my nickname in the second year of FSc when, after studying a short story written by Saadat Hasan Manto in our Urdu textbook, my classfellows started calling me that. And no, this had nothing to do with my writing abilities (which were pretty pathetic back then, and haven’t improved much anyway).
• Buddy boy/Motu. Gifts from Aapi!

And that’s it. Told you it was a short list.

But… it doesn’t mean that I am stopping here. While posting and reading comments at Dinky Mind’s original tag-post, I just thought that maybe I could add all those mispronunciations of my name as well to the list of nicknames. Listening to distorted versions of my name used to annoy me once, then it started amusing me, and now I just sigh and keep on repeating my name until the other person gets it right.

• Saadaat (سادات). The most common mispronunciation of my name, specially if the mispronouncer (is that a word?) is reading it from its English form. New teachers specially used to pronounce my name this way during the roll call.
• Sadiq (صادق). This one is popular among shop attendants. They ask my name while filling out a receipt and then write down Sadiq. I even posted a receipt here on Ulta Seedha, and I again challenge everyone to try and find a “Saadat sahab” written on that piece of paper.
• Saad. Some people find it convenient to shorten my name like this. Maybe I need to put more emphasis on the “at” part of my name.
• Sajid (ساجد)/Sajad (ساجَد). I have no idea how they come up with these. Specially “Sajad”.
• Shahadat (شہادت). This one happened in the 1st Dawn Lifestyles exhibition, where a so-called talent hunt was organized on one of the stalls, and an enthusiastic compere was inviting people on the stage for some singing. I told him my name in that proper, ‘ain-conscious tone, and he in turn screamed into the mike, “Wow! Shahadat!” Luckily for me, he calmed down (though somewhat disappointingly) when I spelled my name in Urdu alphabets for him.

Unlike others, I don’t have any nickname(s) that I wish to keep secret. I guess I have been lucky to have harmless nicknames.

And, yes, feel free to tag yourselves!

In fact, this is first of the two tags I have received in this week. This tag was passed to me by No One. Dinky sister, your tag is coming in the next post.

I had stated somewhere in an old tag (this one, to be precise) that some tags give a superb opportunity for being narcissistic. This tag is one of them; it asks to write down 8 peculiar/random things about me. Now before you proceed, let me warn you: my definition of peculiar/random may differ from yours (just like my definition of weird in the aforementioned tag was not weird at all for some readers).

Anyway, so here we go.

1. I have never worn a sherwani.
2. When I was a child, I used to have a fear of sitting in a movie theater. My parents tell me that I developed this phobia after watching King Kong in the cinema. (They don’t remember which King Kong movie it was.)
3. I sometimes think I had a great potential for being ambidextrous, though that potential is almost gone now. I am right-handed, but on the rare occasions when I play cricket, I bat left-handed while bowl with my right hand. Also, in my ayyam-e-javani when I used to practise sanshou, my left side kick was always stronger than my right one. One could argue that that was because I could balance my body on my right leg better than I could do on my left leg. Still, being able to use both hands and legs with equal efficiency would have been  quite fun.
4. I had once memorised the whole screenplay of A Few Good Men. I still remember my most favourite parts.
5. I have been using the same mobile phone for the last 3 years. No, I don’t have any emotional affiliation with it.
6. I feel uncomfortable to sleep in pitch black darkness.
7. I haven’t driven a motorbike since we moved to Islamabad in 2004, and I miss it. The only time in these four years when I drove a motorbike was last year when a classfellow was feeling too sick to drive his Honda CD 70.
8. Excluding Pagalon Ki Anjuman and Laash Gaati Rahi, I have read and currently own all novels in Ibn-e-Safi‘s Imran Series. (The Wikipedia articles I have linked to need some serious editing, but I thought to link to them anyway.)

Feel free to tag yourselves. (Yes, I know, it’s pretty mean to be narcissistic and then not explicitly give any of you a chance for it. But tagging others have always been a hard part for me. Also, there’s another tag post coming up shortly — which has a much better potential for narcissism — so you might want to tag yourself with that one if not with this one.)

The interesting thing about tags is that sometimes they provide you with a very good excuse for being narcissistic. Probably that’s one of the reasons why I regret not answering a couple of them in the past. (My humble apologies for that.) Other reasons for not answering them include procrastination and, well, procrastination. This tag, however, may or may not fall in the category of narcissism. After all, how self-loving one can be while describing seven weird things about oneself?

So, as tagged by No One, here are seven weird things about me. (At least, these are what I think that are weird. Feel free to disagree.)

1. I feel thirsty after brushing my teeth.
2. I have some t-shirts in my wardrobe that I bought with great enthusiasm, but I have never worn them.
3. I have labelled each step of the staircase in my home as either a “right-foot-step” or a “left-foot step” (in my mind, of course), and I rarely put my left foot on a right-foot-step, and vice versa.
4. I have a tendency to get confused when I see a “pull” or “push” sign on doors.
5. I like to eat dishes “derived” from meat (like kofta, kabab, etc.) but I don’t like to eat meat in its “unaltered” form (like a simple korma.) Chicken is an exception, and so is goat’s liver — yes, Eid just passed!
6. While writing with a pen, I don’t like to place its cap on its butt. I either keep the cap in my other hand, or put it somewhere nearby.
7. I can roll my tongue!

I tag Stray Angel.

Some two weeks ago, my younger bro had brought this photograph to me. He was just going through some “old stuff” while cleaning his cupboards, and out of the junk that his cupboard produced came my picture. He was chuckling when he was giving it to me, stating, “hey, it’s you!”, and I couldn’t really blame him — I did look kind of funny. (Maybe that’s why I am not posting it here too!) But if I allow myself to be honest, almost all of my old photographs make me chuckle. Perhaps, I’ll always find my younger self to be funny (even though my present self might be a lot funnier, and pathetic).

I remember sliding that photograph under my keyboard, then sliding it back out and then flipping it. Every day I used to slide the keyboard tray out, find the photograph lying there upside down, pick it up, look at it, chuckle, shake my head, and then put it down again. Sometimes I played with its position on the tray, sliding it across the wooden texture as if trying to find some suitable coordinates for it, but in the end it was always the random positioning. Like, when I would slide the tray out, the resulting jerk would slide the picture by some certain force and angle according to all respective laws of physics. Similar was the case when I would slide the tray in.

If I remember correctly, I had that photograph taken so that it could be pasted on that form which we had to fill when appearing for the FSc’s 1st year exam. That would make the me on that photograph 17 years and some months old. I was wearing a simple shalwar qameez suit when I went to the photography studio, and borrowed one of the ties, which were present there for customers just like me. When I looked at the photograph for the first time, I marvelled how that tie flawlessly matched my qameez. Looking at the photograph after so many years, I marvelled again. And, of course, I chuckled too.

One thing that I can’t understand, and probably will never understand, is the younger me’s obsession over large glasses. Don’t get me wrong, this picture that I am talking about, I have a decent pair of glasses in it (although they are larger too than what I wear now), but if you look at some really old pictures of me, then there’s no way you can suppress the guffaw that is bound to escape your throat. An old friend of mine once admitted to me that when he first saw me, the first thing he noticed were my large glasses. And, just like I can’t blame my younger bro for chuckling, I can’t blame that friend of mine either: that big, plastic frame is still somewhere in the junk of my cupboards. I am completely satisfied with my current frame of glasses though. I think they add quite some pseudo-intellectual depth to my facial features.

Today I was looking at that photograph when suddenly I started comparing my present self with it. I have certainly lost that innocent, almost childish look that is there in the photograph. That is not to say that I have transformed into some kharraant scoundrel, but just that I have grown up. My hair have thinned (gasp!), my complexion has tanned, but I have learnt how to smile better while posing for a passport sized photograph.

But most of all, I miss having that sparkle in my eyes. And everything that that sparkle stood for.

Nah, I need to snap out of it. I am still too young to think like that.

“Aren’t you going to change?” I asked him.

“Nope,” he shook his head.

“Good,” I nodded, “I used to do the same.”

When I was in Matric, there was this teacher whose tuition academy I used to go to. The timings were such that I just got an hour or so after school to reach his place. Fortunately, my school was just a 10 minutes walk away from my home, so I used to dash towards home after the chhutti, stuff my mouth with whatever meal Ammi ji had cooked, throw the school tie and sweater away (well, not really away, but on my bed), put on a black leather jacket, and then dash my way to that tuition academy. After my return from there, I would just hang around in the same school shirt and trousers, giving everybody the impression that this kid (that is to say, me) is such a hardworking student that he doesn’t even have time to change into different clothes. And tell you what, most people really used to think like that.

Except for that one time when a cheerful fellow in my street asked if I was being lazy.

In my FSc days, things were almost the same. In summer, though, I used to change my shirt. (Those gray school trousers were such beautiful pieces of clothes that they got along with most of my other shirts smoothly.) In winters, there was again the throwing away of the college sweater (no tie, then) and the wearing of leather jacket. And considering that I used to have enough time after college to change into ‘civilian’ clothes, most people then started to suspect that I was being a lazy giraffe. (I only agreed with the giraffe part.)

The one person who was most irritated by this dress code of mine was my Ammi ji. You see, she is quite a perfectionist. Whenever she steps into my room, she takes a look around, gasps with horror, and then in a whispered tone says to me, “Saadat! What have you done to your room?” Needless to say, I almost always reply with no verbal answer but with an angelic, innocent look on my face, trying to convince Ammi ji that this room is highly organized if Saadat’s Laws of Organization could be considered. Needless to say again, Saadat’s Laws of Organization are always promptly rejected.

I don’t know if I miss wearing a school uniform. According to an ex-class fellow of mine, a uniform keeps your honour (izzat) because if you have to wear specific clothes everyday, and everyone else around is dressed in the same clothes, then this saves you the shame of wearing the same pair of jeans for the whole week. (Yes, he was that self-conscious.) To some extent, I agree with him. But if you consider Saadat’s Laws of Garments, then they state somewhere in their clauses that if you are wearing the same pair of jeans for the whole week, they become your personal uniform. Thus, you are then going to have all the benefits of wearing a school/college uniform by wearing that very favourite pair of jeans.

Now, where’s my favourite pair of jeans…?

They should be on my bed, according to Saadat’s Laws of Organization, but apparently these laws do have some flaws in themselves.

Hmm.

To prove her point, she narrates this incident when I once accompanied her on a visit to her dentist. The dentist, a cheerful lady, was almost the same age as my Ammi ji’s and when she came out to see my Ammi ji off, I “didn’t bother to greet her” (as my Ammi ji’s version goes). After receiving a stern look from my Ammi ji, I managed to say Assalam-o-Alaikum to the dentist. Afterwards, Ammi ji gave one of the most historic compliments I have ever received. She had said, “Tumhein tou batana parrta hai ke kis ko salam karna hai.” (You need to be told that who is to be greeted).

I would agree, to some extent, that I am ill-mannered. I have almost always no clue about what to say on certain occasions, and even if I would try to follow the crowd, I would miserably fail. I, thus, find it better to keep my mouth shut, and even that can be regarded by some as a demonstration of how much of a discourteous brat I am. Also, to my disadvantage, I am known as a chirpy fellow at some places, and a cold and reserved man at some other places. Therefore, people find it strange when I decide to keep quiet, or when I try to say some words relating to the happy or sad occasion, and they ultimately conclude that I have no sense at all.

So why am I writing all this?

I recently came to know that this blog/diary/journal has been mentioned in Spider‘s December issue. My first reaction was like, what? Ulta Seedha is mentioned in Spider? Then I read that article and felt honoured. Among all the blogs mentioned were some I admire myself, and seeing my own among them was great and strange at the same time. But on the whole, I was excited. And when I checked the stats for this random corner of mine, I was amazed by the amount of traffic it was getting. All due to some words written in Spider.

Then came the question of what-to-do-next. Keeping in view my past record of poor reactions and responses, I guess I would, yet again, just remain quiet. But for once, I am feeling that that’s not the way it should be. Even if it sounds crazy on my part, I guess I should go and say some words which would show my appreciation.

So, Spider! Thank you very much! You have made my day!

And just a little note, this time my Ammi ji didn’t need to tell me anything.