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