Sunday morning, we are sitting in a cafe staring at breakfast (black coffee, fruit-and-muesli, eggs) - when someone outside stops the traffic and three trucks pass by, to loud jumbled up percussion. The trucks contain people: crowds of them crammed together in ceremonial whites - and I look up for a moment then just keep crunching my granola, half asleep.
What?
This is when I am having the following thought: here, now, everything is normal to me. It is the only possible world.. A year ago today, in Pakistan, things were also normal, no: more than normal: they were only way they could be.
But put the two worlds together and you see how barmy the whole lot truly is - well, let's! Why not? What can happen?
Bali: muesli with coconut shavings and tropical fruit. Three yoga teachers having breakfast, two women and a man. They wear sun-faded, minimal clothing and talk about their parents’ new lovers. They sit in a half-lotus position and use words like 'chakra', 'spiritual' and ‘being in a good place'. The man has long hair, a ponytail, sand in his beard.
In my deranged morning moment, I kidnap them from their green-gloop power smoothies and beam them to a courtyard in the Punjab, which is after all under the same relentless sun. There I dump them in a gathering of bearded men sweating in their shalwar kameez. Goats, a cow, a camel even, are held to the ground, an imam is praying over their heaving flanks. Long knives catch the sunlight and burn into flesh.
Is that the beasts screaming, or the yoga teachers?
What?
This is when I am having the following thought: here, now, everything is normal to me. It is the only possible world.. A year ago today, in Pakistan, things were also normal, no: more than normal: they were only way they could be.
But put the two worlds together and you see how barmy the whole lot truly is - well, let's! Why not? What can happen?
In Pakistan, the third day of Eid: the slaughter of sacrificial animals continues. Placid goats tethered to trees, panicked bleating from the back yard, blood in the
dust.
Bali: muesli with coconut shavings and tropical fruit. Three yoga teachers having breakfast, two women and a man. They wear sun-faded, minimal clothing and talk about their parents’ new lovers. They sit in a half-lotus position and use words like 'chakra', 'spiritual' and ‘being in a good place'. The man has long hair, a ponytail, sand in his beard.
In my deranged morning moment, I kidnap them from their green-gloop power smoothies and beam them to a courtyard in the Punjab, which is after all under the same relentless sun. There I dump them in a gathering of bearded men sweating in their shalwar kameez. Goats, a cow, a camel even, are held to the ground, an imam is praying over their heaving flanks. Long knives catch the sunlight and burn into flesh.
Is that the beasts screaming, or the yoga teachers?
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