Bystander Effect

We were at Ikea today on the busiest day in the history of my visit there. Ikeans were practically walking shoulder to shoulder, almost zombielike. It was so crowded, I found myself several times separated from Mr Khan by the mob of Ikeans walking along the store route. I honestly never thought that was even possible. There were even repeated announcements made by Ikea requesting for a medical doctor available in the crowd. Mr Khan said that the photo I took above reminded him of the Safa and Marwa walk. Now that I've illustrated to you how crowded New Year at Ikea was, let me get back to my point.

After we exited Ikea empty-handed (7 our of 10 times we do haha), we walked towards Ikano to escape the crowd. We went to use the praying room there which was sparse when I entered it. By the time I finished ablution, there was suddenly a flash of people herding the room, some with young kids. I found a cramped spot for myself between prostrating women and by the time I was done, a little girl and her younger brother were sitting behind me with the boy playing some iPad game with the music on.

It wasn't annoying loud, but it was obviously loud enough to distract the congregation from focusing on their prayer. The women looked on but said nothing. I looked around and couldn't see an older guardian with them, assuming that she could be praying on taking ablution. So I gently told them to keep the volume down, and his sister quickly lowered the volume for him. Suddenly he went ballistic at the sister for doing so and eventually made a scene by the time I was walking out of the room.

I related the whole incident to Mr Khan, who chided me for "sticking my nose where it shouldn't be". I told him the women were distracted by the noise from the game and he asked me, "Did anyone else say anything?" I told him no, because I already did. They were looking at the kids, so obviously they were distracted. He kept saying, no one said anything, and it wasn't my place to say anything.

I was disturbed by his stance. I related to him the story of Kitty Genovese, whose murder was an early example of a social psychological phenomenon called the bystander effect. Of course, in my situation, there was no murder. There was no crime or any life being at risk at all. But it is all the same situation, where a group of people know that something has to be said or done about what's going on, but refuse to take the responsibility of being the one to initiate any reaction or to point it out.

Mr Khan eventually agreed that someone had to say something, and decided that their mother, instead of me, should be the one to speak to them. From there, we moved from discussing diffusion of responsibility to the lack of responsibility at all among today's parents. Oh well, the conversation was rather interesting, I must admit. But it only makes me realise that it takes more than just a competitive sperm and a fertile egg to be parents. And perhaps, by not allowing us to produce kids together, we are being saved from the impending risk of becoming incompetent parents.

I can dwell on and on about this parenting option thingy, but I shall save that in yet another mundane post.

Teehee.

Malam Jabba

Catch me
As I tease the snow-covered ground
With shoeprints
From the leather khussa you bought me yesterday
As I whirl and swirl and twirl
Around the pine trees
Whose majesty holds the falling snow
From befalling me.
Find me there
Behind the docile rocks on the hills
That meekly sits, giggling at me
At my merriment
At my anticipation
Awaiting you to defeat me.
But if you won't, then
Will you just hold me tight under the blue winter sky
Before the hopeful snow melt away?

dedicated to Mr Khan who's allergic to PDA haha

K2: The Love Junkie

This is K2. The cat, not the peak, although their ego levels are highly comparable. There is a wonderful joy in the way he sashays toward his destination, be it his bowl of kibbles or the teasing frills on the edges of my praying mat. I always thought that the proverbial "catwalk" is an indication that all cats walk the same way. In fact I still do, which is why I believe K2 is uber special.

When we were first naming him, I thought we should choose a simple name. My first cat was ceremoniously named Knight Noam Chomsky and the second, who passed away last year and whose passing kept me mum about it for six months, was christened Joey Benito. I wanted K2 to be mononymous. Like Madonna, ya know. Though not in the way you would imagine. I asked Mr Khan what "cat" is in their language, so based on that, I named the boy Pisho. But Mr Khan wasn't keen on calling him "Cat", the same reason it is odd for many to name their dog "Dog". We ended up calling him Kitty, a name so generic; and, if you could witness what an awfully adorable little thing he was, you would most likely concur. Mr Khan, however, added a twist. Instead of calling him Kitty, he called the boy Kittoo, so for the sake of avoiding misspelling when we take him to the vet, I named him K2.

So he's K2, in Madonna kinda way. But never in the way she sexes up her thang, no. K2 is no where near sexy. But his cuteness is epic. He is so curious and unguarded and bordering on crazy, if you could just see the way he picks on the older Knight. He never gives up, relentlessly bugs the latter, even after I flick his ears in punishment. He knows no rules or boundaries. Almost zombielike, particularly as he repeatedly and unrelentingly bites any parts of Knight that he can grab. Knight will push him, hiss at him, bite him back, but K2 never backs up. Never.

I love him dearly, a love stemming from the joy he brings simply by being stubborn or stupid, or adorable. But I suspect Mr Khan loves him more than I do. You see, where he's coming from, they don't really have pets. They don't treat animals like a member of their family. They probably have farm animals that they eventually come to love, but not in the way we love our pet cats or dogs. They probably won't have any huge problem detaching themselves from an adorable sheep they named Bob, right before they slaughter it. But day after day living with K2, I see my coarse husband evolving into a loving father towards the kitten we adopted since he was barely a wiggly two-month- old baby. It's beautiful. I never thought I would ever witness anything just as beautiful.

Right at this moment as I type this, he walks past me towards his bowl of water. He lays himself down as if he was going to sleep and dip his head into the bowl. And this is how my kitten drinks. While lying down. Have you seen anything so lazy? I have, but other than myself, no. He balloons from 1.2 kg at two months old to 2.6 kg at 4 months old, a week ago, officially beating any record I might have made currently or in the past. Now looking at the way he drinks, I am not surprised.

I'm actually trying to read Barthelme's Sixty Stories. I can't find some of the required short stories for my American Literature essay online, so I end up writing an analysis on my kitten. No offense to K2, but this isn't very healthy.