An anecdote

by Zorina Shah

One day in early February 2010 Father Michel de Verteuil surprised me.
Several years before he had collapsed in a bookstore in Toronto and remained in a coma for maybe three weeks. He suffered severe memory loss from a stroke, following a mass at Paramin later the same year.
On this day in February he remembered my first name. He remembered the name of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. He remembered that Germaine Scott had given him a copy of Bhutto's autobiography. He remembered that Bhutto's marriage had been arranged but that she fell in love with her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, (he didn't remember that name) afterwards.
I had gone to his apartment at the priest's residence, top floor of Fatima College to tell him that I was going to Guyana for a few months.
"You will need something to read," he said as he plucked the book off the shelf. I tried to convince him that he should keep the book and read it especially as I had already taken the Anne Murray CD, a gift from the same Germaine Scott. He tried equally hard to convince me that he didn't need to read it again.
I sat at his computer, a trusty Mac G4 ibook, checking to make sure his email was working, his online newspapers were loading and that he would have no computer problems for those few months. After about 20 minutes of total silence (he was peeved) and out of nowhere he asked "What is Sura (something or the other)". The pronunciation of the second word had me stumped for a long, long time. Then he explained it. While Benazir was in prison she recited this prayer 49 times every night he told me. I checked every chapter where Bhutto was in prison and came across the reference. The prayer is very short and when translated into English says:

In The Name Of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful

Say: He, Allah, is One.

Allah is He on Whom all depend.

He begets not, nor is He begotten.

And none is like Him. Father had read the book.

2013 – The Year that was
Ariti Jankie shares her thoughts

A moment of truth flashes past me from the mirror with every bathroom call.
I must do something to help that woman. I’m so fond of her. Why doesn’t she pause to look into her eyes, to fix what’s broken?
If the truth be known, she fears loneliness for she has had a lot of it.
During Christmas of 2012, she was alone. Families celebrated all around. Husband gone, the children abroad, she desired a family and six months into 2013, she found her family. And she is happy but the loneliness is ever present.
There is another mirror as one year ends and another begins; the mirror of hope, a chance to start all over again.
And this woman, this year understands that loneliness is different from “alone-ness”. Loneliness is not having someone to share the things that matter most while alone-ness gives her an almost perfect life. She warms her coffee with the morning sun and music is her almost constant companion. She touches hands with hundreds like her in the social media with just the right amount of knowing you and rejoices knowing that she knows how to reach you.
This year, she migrated to Houston, Texas. It’s like one of her former home towns: New Delhi. The summer was scorching hot and I know yet what the winter is like. I came at the end of June and planted hot peppers (what’s it with Trinis and hot pepper?), bigan, bodi and caraille. The machan went up for the carailli and just as it was about to bear, the weather changed.  Bigan died up with all the flowers. The bodi was harvested.

Long time ago in Trinidad, almost every yard had a fine-flower on a hard tall flowers tree called MYRTLE. (Alyou remember?) Many colours of the Myrtle were all over the place here in Houston while other plants dried down. Now the Myrtle lost her leaves and the roses are all over….My first fall…at first the changing colour of the leaves from green to yellow was pretty but now I am impatient to plant back my garden.
Houston has history, culture………and I am just getting to know her.
I have been working on a collection of short stories which you will all enjoy, you can be sure of that because it is Trinidad and each one defines us, as a people.  I am calling it “WHISPERING HOPE” but the name might change.
A friend of mine is leaving Trinidad for India to spend a year and I want to document her journey right here. More on that at another time as I hope to keep on writing this blog. Is Ok if I write from here?

Lots of Love. 30/12/13.

Editor's Note: The plants in paragraph 6 are all vegetables grown in Trinidad. Carailli grows on a vine and the machan is a stand built for the vine to run.