Noor Al-Fikhri was buried 

in a shallow grave under a fig 
tree ten minutes before noon, 
after her left ankle gave out in 
an attempt to hang her blue silk 
dress to dry while climbing the 
rusty, half-removed ladder that 
led to the roof. My 12 year old 
grandmother found her sister 
half-splayed, cats and flies lap-
ping at what little remained of 
the dried blood, her knees dis-
jointed and contorted in the 
special sort of way that could 
only be found on a dead woman. 
The women in their build-
ing wailed and cried for three 
nights and three days, her body 
on their kitchen floor as they 
partook in the Islamic ritual of 
ghusul every Muslim body must 
go through after death. My 
grandmother said their grief 
was so heavy and viscous that 
it crept across every hallway 
and corridor, trapping, toes and 
the balls of feet, so that even 
climbing one flight of stairs 
became the most arduous task. 
Noor was buried in an expert 
fashion, a ritual the three men 
of the graveyard had perfected 
over the years and years they 
had held the job, plowing into 
the thick and hardened dirt, 
angling the shovel up, and down, 
and everywhere in between. 
My grandmother tells me that 
the earth would not accept 
her that day, that the men got 
down on their hands and knees 
and scraped and clawed at the 
ground with their own hands, 
dousing it with water, and forc-
ing the land to open its bowels 
with pieces of rusted metal, in a 
furious and haphazard fashion, 
for there were five more women 

and men and children expected 
to be buried that day and they 
were expected at the mosque 
soon afterwards for late after-
noon prayers. 

Noor’s death became the sort 

of story only told as a caution-

ary tale to misbehaving boys, 
a sad anecdote so frequently 
told over a meal, that the mere 
mention of her name caused 
the tea to sour and the fruit to 
bloat. My grandmother tells me 
the landlord ordered the most 

expensive and sophisticated of 
cleaning supplies from France, 
squatting down on all fours in 
a pressed suit and the finest of 
leather shoes from Istanbul, to 
scrape and scour the splatter of 
blood that remained as the final 

indicator of Noor’s existence. 
The inhabitants of the building 
gathered around him in a big, 
unmoving mass, the men yelling 
that he must scrape the ground 
harder and the women remind-
ing him that he had missed a 

spot. Over the years my grand-
mother among many tried her 
hand at lifting the stain from 
the tile. Scrubbing and scrap-
ing, dabbing and praying and 
smoothing, and yet the stain 
never ceased to exist. 

The death of a blue silk dress

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
6 — Wednesday, November 18, 2020 

puzzle by sudokusnydictation.com

By Kurt Krauss
©2020 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
11/18/20

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

11/18/20

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2020

ACROSS

1 1978 Peace 

co-Nobelist

6 Officiates

10 Painter of limp 

watches

14 Spanish 

Olympian’s goal

15 Other, in 

Oaxaca

16 Turkey 

neighbor

17 *Mind reader’s 

obstacle, some 
believe

19 Expansive
20 Caddie’s bagful
21 Cruel
22 Trigger, for one
23 St. whose name 

is part of its 
capital’s name

24 *20th-century 

political symbol

26 Tattoo tool
28 Took a time out
29 They’re shifted 

often in cities

30 Vicinity
33 *Metaphor for a 

failure

38 Ages and ages
39 Italian fashion 

house

42 Port ENE of 

Cleveland, OH

47 Closed in on
48 *Symbol of 

inherited wealth

52 Coke alternatives
53 Jazz drummer 

Cozy and a king

54 Reasons
55 FDR’s dog
56 Business 

envelope abbr.

57 Rock genre ... 

and a hint to 
the starts of 
the answers to 
starred clues

59 Full of pizzazz
60 Alleviate
61 Dino’s love
62 Slow Churned ice 

cream brand

63 Seals, to sharks
64 Elements in 

playground 
banter

DOWN

1 Backdrop
2 Property 

recipient, in law

3 Fait accompli
4 Kennel sounds
5 Also
6 Loggers’ contest
7 Actor Hawke
8 Swiss capital
9 Lush

10 “Replace all 

__”: golf course 
reminder

11 Mount in Genesis
12 Heroic TV dog
13 Have in mind
18 ’50s Hungarian 

premier Nagy

22 Longtime Eur. 

realm

24 To whom Rick 

said, “We’ll always 
have Paris”

25 Caspian Sea 

feeder

27 Hip-hop Dr.
30 Blood-typing 

letters

31 Hightailed it
32 Over-the-street 

transports

34 Cherished
35 Inviting store 

window sign

36 U.K. singer Rita
37 Ishmael, in 

“Moby Dick”

40 Announce
41 Much of Google’s 

income

42 Break out
43 Ran amok
44 “Do your best” 

response

45 Decathlon’s 10
46 Latin foot
47 Like an 

eavesdropper, 
say

49 Talk a blue 

streak?

50 New moon, e.g.
51 Yiddish “Yikes!”
55 Disaster relief 

org.

57 Cool, once
58 Bonkers

SUDOKU

8

7

3
6

1
5

6

8

7

5

4
5

1
5

8

3
2

3
2

5

7

7

2

6
8

9
1

7

2

WHISPER

“Is it too early 
to watch holi-
day movies?”

“Of course 
not.”

11/12/20

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Hollywood” actor 

appointment to a 

10 Away from shore

29 Many a dad joke

expansive
Hamlet

Dil Chahta Hai (“What the 

Heart Wants”) is my favorite 
movie of all time. Ask any of 
my closest family members, 
and they will tell you of my 
persistent (annoying) love for 
this timeless movie. When-
ever there was a movie to 
be watched, everyone knew 
instinctively what my first 
choice would be, even before 
the words left my mouth. For-
tunately for my family, I out-
grew this fervent infatuation 
once I entered college, having 
less time to devote to Bolly-
wood movies.

However, to this day, Dil 

Chahta Hai is a film that stays 
close to my heart. The movie 
has not only stood the test of 
time for many South Asian 
audiences but was a trendset-
ter for the entirety of the Bol-
lywood industry at the time of 
its release in 2001. Back then, 
movies were largely focused on 
a single protagonist and their 
journey towards a cathartic 
resolution, whether it be find-
ing the perfect girl or finally 
robbing the bank. Instead, Dil 
Chahta Hai focused on the 
interconnectedness of three 
friends 
through 
raw 
emo-

tion and layered storytelling. 
With a debut director, Farhan 
Akhtar, and equally young cast 
members, the movie was often 
regarded as “fresh” and “origi-
nal.”

The narrative is told both 

as flashback and in real time 
in Bombay, India, when two of 
the main characters, Sid and 
Sameer, recall their first couple 
years out of college with their 
third friend, Akash. While Bol-
lywood movies often insist on 
portraying cheesy, over-the-
top scenes of friendship and 
romance, Dil Chahta Hai stood 
as a non-conformist, instead 
focusing on internal conflicts 
each character suffered from in 
response to societal standards. 
Every character has their own 
difficulties with what exactly 
their heart wants: love.

While Sameer believes there 

is only true love, Akash doesn’t 
believe in love at all, and Sid is 
convinced no one will under-
stand his definition of love. 
In the arc of the story, each 

character slowly draws away 
from their initial understand-
ings, finding that love is not 
so black-and-white. The char-
acter growth seen in the film 
is gradual and subtle, in stark 
contrast to the many Bolly-
wood movies that leave char-
acter growth solely in the last 
20 minutes. 

Additionally, film shots are 

often much longer than in 
regular Hindi movies, allow-
ing the actors to truly set 
their characters into their 
surrounding 
environments. 

While Sameer sleeps in a small, 
intimate bedroom meant to 
showcase his desires for emo-
tional connection, Sid stays in a 
reserved, upstairs loft with no 
windows, revealing his social 
timidity. Simply put, while 
many Bollywood movies are 
plot-driven, leaving the audi-
ence to guess what will hap-
pen next, Dil Chahta Hai is 
character-driven, inviting the 
audience to live alongside the 
characters themselves without 
the need for extravagant disas-
ters like car crashes or sudden 
deaths.

Equally important is the 

stark diversity in personalities 
that really allows the movie 
to be relatable so many years 
after its initial release. Each 
of the three main characters 
embody different levels of 
human nature. Akash epito-
mizes our desires for pleasure, 
often displayed via conduits of 
impulsivity, humor and action 
while Sid is the complete oppo-
site, someone who is cautious, 
rational 
and 
introspective. 

This leaves Sameer to con-
stantly mediate between his 
two best friends while trying to 
understand his own self in the 
process. Like them, many audi-
ences have been influenced to 
act based on certain emotions, 
making Dil Chahta Hai very 
engaging to various audiences.

Human nature is exempli-

fied by these rather normal 
characters in ways that tran-
scend what South Asian movies 
usually did at the time. While 
I can’t say you will love this 
movie, I think whoever is read-
ing this should take a shot and 
see what the best of Bollywood 
brings to them. Regardless, I 
know that Dil Chahta Hai will 
be one of the best movies I’ll 
ever watch.

What the heart wants

 AAKASH RAY

MiC Columnist

 SARAH AKAABOUNE

MiC Columnist

Graphic by Meghana Tummala

