Gonnu Rewind 2

June 20, 2007.

The Aftermath!

(Or This Too Shall Pass!)

Continuing from the same theme of last week of ‘When The Storms Came In!’ – Gonnu hit Oman on June 6th 2010.

My cynical skeptical friend had always insisted in the past to get a copy of my articles in my column. In actual fact, I remember at one time when I was just writing that he had wanted me to send to him my articles before they were published in my column every Wednesday! This I categorically and affirmatively refused to entertain! I asked him why he wanted to do this, he just replied ‘so I can give you my personal frank and honest views and feedbacks before you send in the article formally’! So I told him a straight NO, unless you are working for the esteemed paper in ‘private position’.

This seemed to work and rub him badly, and I could see he was desperately struggling to remain courteous and polite to me and in questioning my sanity and integrity in asking me such a question to him! So we agreed in default for me to send him my article, though I did rub it in too by the mere fact that he could afford to buy the paper at least on a Wednesday. Then he retorted to me – I am forwarding these articles of yours to prominent and high profile personalities and actually I am doing a great honour and privilege to you – sad you do not realize it! I did not know how but as I did not want to delve into details, I decided it was better to go quiet and just leave it at that!

Normally my good friend never comments on my articles – unless as he cynically and sarcastically said to me (I seem to have this great affect on him, I do not know why?) – he said to me – unless I have something to comment – either good positive or just bad negative! If I have nothing to send in it means that your articles are ‘just that okay or as normal your stuff’. A reliable friend of mine tells him that person is actually all praises and complimentary for your articles – but that is beyond your earshot. He says ding thinks if you ‘hear the praises, it will go into your head, and it will spoil things’. Or as he says complimenting the Chef too much, and then he looses his touch and all the praised dishes come out all wrong in one form or the other!

So last week being still away from the country and with limited access to the Internet, I was doubly surprised to find his irate and aggressive note that I had missed sending him my article ‘When The Storms Came In’! He got a copy forwarded to him from someone else, and that seemed to anger and annoy him the more. The more he said because the article was very good, and it did a great deed in consoling and comforting those who were adversely affected by the storm! As he was ‘one of the victims’, he wanted to know direct and straight from me why I had missed him out in the circulation list. Actually, I had deleted many from this list, including some still unconvinced adversaries amongst friends and relatives. He had thought that he was now in the shortened list – and this seemed to work him up all the more!

I usually give my good reliable friend a day or two to cool down, and when I send him my replies he seems to be more receptive and positive. But this time this too had failed, where in the past it had worked out somehow and eventually. So I sent him my answers to his questions and queries with what he said Readers might want to know (or his excuse for him wanting to know?). So I did the necessary thing, and sending him the answers!

* * *

Out of the two brothers’ graves, one was marked out and well maintained – with an inscription of the death the poor man had died. His late son and my late father had told me – my father had died in hospital, I think I will go the same way. And he did! I thought it was running in the family when it was my turn to be admitted in the hospital, but it seemed this time I was let go free, perhaps till another time? The other grave was all shrubs, the farm where the grave was had been sold off to a local, and he did not care about a graveyard that did not belong to him, especially from Arabs from another land!

So I had asked the new owners if they would not mind me paying for the place to look decent, and they had replied affirmatively to go ahead and do this! This was the other brother who did not want to stay in the smaller barren island, but as fate and destiny would have it, it was the same place that both had been buried and the first place they had both seen first after leaving the shores of Quriyaat (Hail Al Ghaaf) in Oman.

My friend wanted to know if I had a premonition of disaster, and what he was reading between the lines in my articles – especially the few weeks before the storms and all the rumours circulating at the time on the in-coming dangers, and peoples had just written them off – only to come true in another format? I assured him I was as naïve and ignorant as he probably was! But I must admit that the visits and prayers at the ancestral burial grounds and the next day having a very bad dream of my angry ancestors that ‘we forgot them here’ did shake me up badly due to their coincidences, if nothing else. Peoples who left their country in dark days of history to look for a better life else where, and to be buried and forgotten in foreign lands, and reversal of history with the enlightment and renaissance for their offsprings to return to the Motherland with the heeding of the call to return.

History had made its mark with all that went good and bad with it. Together with fate and destiny that went along with it. It was all and still our duty to realize and remember, as we pass it on to our children and grandchildren – and great grandchildren to generations to come. It is our duty to keep them informed, and to preserve our beloved nation in its great history. Its heritage, culture, customs and traditions and to preserve all these, whilst we move forward in the global village with all its modernity and advancement – and we copy and emulate only those parts that are good and decent and avoid all others not needed and unnecessary!

This for the benefit of the nation and the future generations. For the storms now – This too shall pass and as time is a great healer! Allah Protect and Preserve us all – Amin (Amen).

By

Majid Said Nasser Al Suleimany

God Help Preserve and Protect Our Beloved Land – Amin Amen!