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Author: Zavair

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Writing this much later than I’d originally anticipated. Remember when I told you that the coming Monday would most likely be the last day for wrapping everything up? Well, something came up yesterday and really threw a spanner in the works and the assumed deadline etc. It troubles me more whenever we do have an issue because pretty much the entire system is running on a unique mix of algorithms that on one hand gets the job done but on the other hand is also prone to having holes in it and consequently exploitation. The only silver lining is that the more issues we encounter before the public launch, the better it’s bound to perform eventually. I am working on it and hopefully it’ll all be alright in the end inshaAllah :) I’m never usually anxious with any of my work, mostly cuz I’m cautiously optimistic that I’ve dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s as they say but working with financial products specially decentralised finance takes it to a whole different level. It is, as the name suggests “de-central-ised” i.e. The whole USP is built around the fact that it’s trustless and doesn’t require a central authority to govern/run/manage it. They call it programmable money because it essentially doesn’t require an intermediary or a middle man like traditional banking and fiat money. Technology built on blockchain to facilitate decentralised finance basically relies on the ‘soundness’ and the safety of its underlying logic and the algorithms it’s built on. Or in other words, the buck literally does stop with the dude who comes up with a new consensus mechanism or proposes an algorithm that promises better speed or cheap transactionality etc etc. Anyway, I don’t wanna belabour the point and give you excuses… specially because regardless of whatever is riding on it, my mind is still always pre-occupied with just YOU :D It also doesn’t help now that Mimi knows about you too… and every few hours I get a call or a msg from her asking me about you… The whole thing started when I was talking to her the other day and she got really emotional over the phone. You know just being the sister and seeing that she’s always been the closest one to me, she couldn’t hold it in… and this has been a recurring theme for the past few years now… where she starts off by asking how I am and how I’m doing and she’d talk about fasts and how ramadan is shaping up etc etc.. and then one way or another the conversation always gets steered into the mandatory section of “Life” and “settling down” and well… her feeling like she isn’t doing enough as a sister to get me to “live a normal life” loll So she was on that typical subject and at one point literally started to sound really upset about the whole thing.

I remember just a few years ago, when mimi was visiting me on her own. I think Akheel bhai (Mimi’s husband) had some work engagements and kids were busy with school etc. So one evening while we sat down to eat something, Mimi was again in form to go down the same rabbit hole yet again… Any chance she gets, she makes sure to talk about how important it is to be settled down in our lives and that how incomplete our lives can start to seem sooner or later if we don’t have someone to live and love and share the experiences with etc etc.. I kept nodding along, like I always do loll and just tried to power through the meal as soon as I could…. Luckily, while she was still harping on about love and marriage… Akheel bhai called and mimi started talking to him over phone… It was the usual husband/wife/daily life talk and catching up etc… Mimi was telling him or trying to remind him of a bunch of things regarding the kids and the school/college and whatever else they get up to usually. Anyway, their conversation went on for a little while and then they said bye to each other and she hung up. I looked at her and started smiling…. She said what’s up? I said… So basically, “This” (alluding to the phone conversation she just had with her husband) is what you think or believe is the missing piece of the puzzle for a “complete” life?? Loll Something about the parents meeting at school, and something about tupperware or crockery from the neighbours… and how, for crying out loud Akheel bhai shouldn’t just hand them back empty to the neighbours who had brought some Biryani and sweets to mark a family occasion … You know just the most tedious, bordering on dull series of exchanges as a phone conversation. I still remember vividly, she said something weird that stuck with me… She started talking about how underneath all the layers of monotonous humdrum-ness of everyday life, there exists a beautiful grace to things they know as predictable. She told me of a weird little happy feeling she gets when she sees a glass jar … whenever she is putting away the grocery shopping at home loll She said the glass jar - be it for pickle, or gherkins or whatever the hell’s in it — just made her happy in anticipation as she couldn’t wait for Akheel bhai to get home from work so she could ask him to help her open that glass jar loll.. She thought she could swear that Akheel probably knows that if she wanted to… she would actually have no problem with opening said glass jar but she still liked asking him for it. And even if Akheel bhai knows that she’s more than capable of opening stubborn jars, he still loves offering to help and be the jar opening saviour for her loll I am not gonna lie… I’ve thought of that little anecdote she told me many a times and wondered… why she chose to tell me about opening jars instead of… something, anything… more grander perhaps or something that signified the proclamation of the “eternal love” shared between a husband and wife lolll… But I think that would’ve missed the point entirely I guess… And what she was trying to tell me was that the life they shared was something they appreciated not because of how 24/7 exciting it was. I think what she was trying to tell me was that the love they share far exceeds the temporary madness of being in love itself. It’s rarely dramatic or full of noise and energy. It actually dawns on us once the initial sparks and excitement of love subsides. Cuz when it does subside, you have to make a decision… whether you can see yourself living with that person for the rest of your life in the monotone glory of its mundane-ness loll She was trying to tell me that the love shared between a husband and a wife is unlike the usual love. Kind of like a promulgation of love in a way. To them, love is not breathlessness, or excitement… to them love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away. It transcends the usual being in love… that any fool can do. To them marriage and love are symbolic and freely interchangeable in essence. And I think what she meant when she said that I should settle down and be with someone… basically meant finding someone that I could foresee being comfortable with and being together in silence with through all of life’s dull and grounded in reality moments and years. Feeling comfortable knowing that, that life goes beyond the pitfalls of passion…. and beyond any false hopes or the phantoms of disillusion: beyond love itself. It’s about finding that one person in the world that excites u for the prospects of having lived together long enough to know that love is… always love, constant and mundane; anytime and anyplace.

I digress… just as always loll Anyway… like I said… I’ve had these conversations with her before… It’s happened quite a few times actually… but this time over the phone it sounded a lot more than just the normal emotional blackmailing lolll I tried to say all the right sounding things just to placate her… I know the drill by now lolll but then she threw me a curveball by saying that one of her friend’s friend’s distant relative or some other obscure relation has a family in UK and that I should promise to pay them a visit asap or when she’s down here…. I already knew by that point where the conversation was heading and that I couldn’t just dodge it specially seeing that this time around albeit over phone, she really did sound upset… so I just had to be upfront with her and tell her that I’ve met someone and… eeeshhh Did I instantly wonder if I had just opened up a pandora’s box becauseeee boy oh boy!!! I kid u not… the amount of questions and the speed with which she started to talk - I could hear the excitement building up in her voice. In all the bewilderment and wondering where to begin/explain and more importantly avoid any more prodding I thought it best to simply tell her what I knew or hoped would answer all her questions in one go. And so I did just that. I simply told her that I can see myself happily spending the rest of my life opening stubborn jars for you… any time - any place.

Cue the loud exultations... then I hung up the phone loll