Hey boy, do you want me to fast with you?

Boy gets excited look in eyes, for his face, unfortunately never registers emotion - eyes look as if boy is set to jump around hyper excitedly, and goes - 'sure. ok. yes'

And so I am doing the fast thing with him over the weekends.

And I couldn't have asked for a more bonding experience. As we were getting stuff together for the Iftar (the breaking of the fast meal), he talked about his parents and how when he was in college, he couldn't wait for the fast to break to run to the mosque because that's the only time & place his friends and he could smoke and so many more stories

he made Jhaal Muri, which is kind of a bangla version of bhel puri and lovely chicken spring rolls and lemon juice and dates and various others

In the past, whenever he did the fast thingy, I never even offered to do it with him.

That's the weird thing about being married. It kind of has seeped out the religious competitiveness off me.

I mean, before I was always fighting with the passive boy over religion.
like, I would do the whole 'are you kidding me??? Jesus is so much more mightier' thing.
and the whole,
'I'll see you in hell, ... you know, 'cause you don't believe in Jesus'
It was so juvenile.
And the boy would go - ok! good for you.

And now, its like even though we are joined, I recognise that we are separate entities.
I don't think that recognition came about because we have a legal document.
But I guess, the whole process of last year - planing the wedding, being disappointed over postponed one, working through that and finally getting off the ground.
I never thought I would ever say that there was a purpose for last year but I am beginning to see that all that waiting around on each other, and working through the terrible times did teach us lots about each other and showed us oh, so many things.

so, now I feel comfortable in doing the fast thingy And the boy, most willingly and gladly, like he always did, comes to the church with me, even to the greek orthodox church - which for all your syrian orthodox out there, is like going for our neeverrr endddddddddddding service, only in greek!

The AD and I were discussing this last night.
How glad am i that all my bestest friends are married to peeps of different religions?
V.v.v.Glad!!!
We are our own support group!
And the AD and I came to conclusion that pre-marriage, even in the living together stage, you are testing the boundaries and seeing how much elasticity the other person has, vis-a-vis issues like religion, etc
Post-marriage, you know the limits of endurance and you know that even, if you break that elasticity or limit, there's a safe net to catch you both in.

Nice!!!

So when we had peeps over for game night, we were talking about the whole fasting thingy, and one of his peeps said something ditzy,

"So how many times in a year do you have to do the Ramadan"

And she's desi Indian as opposed to an ABD. and it surprises the heck out of me.

I was talking to AD about it and she was surprised the Indian born chick didn't know it. Maybe its because AD and I grew up in the Gulf, where Muslim culture was so ingrained in everyday life,
but nooo....
if you went to an Indian school with Indian syllabus, you would know basic stuff like
the symbols of Sikhism being the Kara and the Kirpan and I forget, the hair, etc
And you would know about Easter and Christmas
and significance of Diwali, the Buddhist principles, Jains, Zoroastrians etc, etc

I have always felt the best thing about Indian schools was the all round secularism and how it taught you the basics of different religions.

And its not the only thing Ms. Ditz has asked me that makes me go - WTF, which planet did she grow up on??

Like, before the wedding, she asked me if we were going to do the Phere, the going around the fire thingy.

And I was like - HEELLLOOOOO, I am christian and he's Muslim, what the heck would we want to do the Phere for??????

And she was - oh, ok so you are not going to do the Phere?

It was like meeting an Indian version of a Westerner going 'Oh you guys don't celebrate Thanksgiving, why ever not?' which I admit hasn't happened lots - almost always, Westerners tend to ask 'oH, you've been in this country for so little time, and yet know who Bryan Adams is'.

In other news, my desi blog has been taken over by new somebody and I feel no pain, its like the passing of the guard or something.

I am also seriously considering opening up a word press account because all the new ones i see are sooo v.pretty.