Q: Kulsoom Nani, What are your thoughts when you're alone? What does really go on in your mind? I think this question is more like for the author. Does she have internal conflicts too like normal humans? What does it feel like to live so far away from the city? Damn I'm so curious about her current life! (Asked by Laibatool)

KULSOOM NANI:

*Huffs snootily*

Finally, someone around here cares about what I think! Hmmph. You girl, are going places.

I think about everything when I'm alone. I think about the days gone by, when I had what I don't have anymore. That includes a lot of things; health, better eye-sight, my husband, my friends, just to name a few...

When you've reached this age, where you've buried people you thought you could never live without...it puts a lot of things in perspective. It's a reflection of how things will never be the same again, how I will never be the same again. Some people fight this change of course. They dye their hair when the gray becomes too obvious. The get dentures when their own teeth give up on them...and now this odious "Buttocks" procedure that women with more money than sense are getting into...Ha! and people think I'm crazy!

Now don't go all surprised at my philosophical train of thoughts...I used to read Ghalib and Dard, back when I still had my eye-sight.

I live far from the city, because that's where I've lived my whole adult life. At my age, it isn't safe to move around too much. Usually inner city homes have the most ridiculous security systems....i.e. Nothing. No security guards, no Rottweilers patrolling the boundaries. Might as well hang a sign at the door saying, "Psychopaths Are Welcome On Wednesdays". I'm a National Treasure, sweetheart. I have more knowledge and experiences than most idiots who're running this country....now who wouldn't want to steal some of that? 

Just yesterday, my usual optometrist took a day off, and handed me over to his assistant. I was instantly on alert of course. The boy looked shady, from the top of his Henna-colored hair, to the bottom of his Loafers... Nowadays, there's no telling who's a spy. My son served in the armed forces, so there's no telling if RAW (Indian Intelligence Agency) agents are secretly stalking me to get to him. Paranoid? I think not!

You asked what I think about when I'm alone? I think about how people don't have time to be alone with their thoughts anymore. Everyone of my grandchildren, and even their parents, are addicted to these brain-eating devices, "Smartphones". Hmmph. Even when they're alone, they're not actually alone. Their minds are running at hundreds of miles in a minute. No peace. No solitude. I don't think this generation even has the patience, or the mental willpower to actually be alone with their thoughts. You try it sometime. Sit alone someplace. Without any sort of idiotic technological device beeping and booping it's heart out, no headphones blaring music in your ears.... You'll find some very interesting things about yourself in that moment of mental solitude.

Sometimes, I think about life after death.

Other times, I think about Imran Khan's family life, and how the poor kid obviously needs my matchmaking skills.

Then yet other times, I'm just trying to remember if Rukhsana (my husband's sister) invited me to her son's Ameen twenty-five years ago...because I certainly invited the entire family to all of my kids's Ameens, graduations, and weddings. Hmmph. She always was a bit of a cheapskate...

Author's Note:

Kulsoom Nani is a bit of a maverick for me. She is very bull-headed, with a dash of crazy. I think in her youth, she was a lot like Mina; eccentric, and a little on the wild side. Perhaps that's why she is so fond of Mina and her unfiltered mouth. She was definitely the more outgoing, and confident one in her marriage. Her husband was the more serious, and taciturn type. I think at the heart of her, is a person who wants to help people any way she can. She sees things, notices them before others, and she thinks ahead of them. If someone has spinach stuck in their teeth, or a case of body odor, You can count on Kulsoom Nani to show up with a tooth pick, and a bottle of Axe.

She might come of as intruding, or ridiculously insensitive, but we have to take into account the fact that she was born back in the 1940s or something. People back then (at least desi people) lived in huge families, together, where everything happening in one person's life was unequivocally, everybody else's business. Times were simpler. Things weren't so competitive...Our Kulsoom Nani is just trying to live in a time not meant for her...but she's doing it like a pro.

:)

Thank you for this question! I actually never thought too deeply about why Kulsoom Nani, is the way she is.