My friends; my diary and my pen.

My diary has been my best friend, I can share everything and anything with her
without being interrupted, corrected, grammared, spelled, criticized, upset or
praised. Every human must express his joy, sadness and the emotions; it
releases him or her and restores tranquility.

I went to the storage today, and saw my old fountain pen, pleasantly lying in a
box and smiling at me… damn it, I am so happy to see her. It is ridiculous that
a pen can make you so happy! She is my old friend; she wrote my happy moments
and my sad moments and brought calmness to me and restored my tranquility each
time I was off. She is my friend, my best friend.

I dedicate this note to my friends Vanja Krupa and Yoshua Budin, whose comments
on my facebook wall inspired me to put this note together.

Yoshua wrote, “that one day I rewrite it all and turn it into a real
book….Sometimes I look back in these diaries. But not for long. It feels like
lingering in the past. And I look forward.

Vanja shared, ” Used to write dairy as well, to keep all the impressions,
on paper to memorise and reread ‘one day’ …but I like to have all these Dairies
and letters saved in large dusty boxes, for the next generation to read,”

Indeed, I am blessed with 5000 friends on facebook plus 2000 subscribers and
additional 2000 in another group on facebook.. I write thank you notes,
birthday wishes to almost all… except when my computer has crashed… can you
do it? Yes, you can. Just have the will and commitment. I do that every
morning.

Yoshua and Vanja’s notes reminded me of my own habits. I used to write diaries
since I was in college. My friend Jameel gave me an appointment book, the size
of a book with 365 pages in it, I wrote so much that, I doubled it to nearly
700 pages by adding two to three pages and gluing it in the book, and I had so
much to write including life, family and interfaith. That was early in 1970’s…
I wrote every year after that. Finally, I burned all my diaries, the last one
in the mid-nineties.

I always had fountain pens, and I wrote letters to my mother in Urdu, and
prided in taking time to write to her, wrote as beautiful as I can – and when
she said, I have the beautiful handwriting, it made my day. With her passing
away, and phone calls becoming economical, I stopped writing in Urdu and there
goes the fountain pen with it.

I used to write letters in Urdu to my sister when she got married and left
home, I kept writing all the way through the nineties. Oddly I wrote a few
letters to my brother Kaleem in Hindi, he was better in Hindi than Urdu. I am
regaining my writing skills all over now including Kannada language.

Two years ago, Sada Cumber, the former Ambassador to OIC, gifted me a box of
fountain pens… then the old-me woke up and start writing again in the fountain
pen. I write everything, reminders to my daily lists, to my 3×5 cards to
poetry, then take a picture from my i-pad and keep it for follow up. Odd, but I
love it.

When I walked into public life in the early Nineties, I did not think I would
have anything private. I was wrong, everyone has things that they don’t want to
share – they may be silly things, or even idiotic or bad things. They stay
within you and get buried with you. Except a few emotions and reactions here
and there, much of my life is an open book. It is all encapsulated in my blogs,
my forums, facebook and writings.

Is it the same with you?

Thanks to aol – my 18 years of notes, writings etc were saved in the form of
files, and thank to some genius who hacked into my account – all of my work is
gone, aol restored some emails, but much of all is gone, 18 years of emails and
writings… was I angry? yes I was. Did I cry? No, I felt relief… thought of
suing AOL, they guarantee storage, but did not deliver. Any attorney wants to
take it up? If you win the big battle, the money will go towards pluralism
education; my life commitment. I also have a full manuscript for a book, “The
one minute accountant” on my old McIntosh, don’t know how to extract it either…
let go man!

What is humbling?

If I croak, meaning die, of course, I will die, that is, if I die within a
year… all my writings and books will be meaningless to my wife and my kids… why
should they have to go through the pain of deciding what to keep, and what to
give away (trashing)? I am glad it disappeared on the net – it frees me and
frees them. I have over 5,000 pictures of the Dallas community… if I have the
time, I will do an open house – come and get yours.

What about you, what will happen to your stuff should something happen to you?
Why do we need to collect it in the first place?

Writing is relaxing… If you wish to receive a post card from me, send me your
name and address to [email protected], and I will handwrite your
address and mail it to you, that’s a promise – Insha Allah. That is if God kept
me alive.

A few more pictures:

Thank you.

Mike Ghouse is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers pluralistic
solutions on issues of the day. He is a professional speaker, thinker and a
writer on pluralism, politics, civic affairs, Islam, India, Israel, peace and
justice. Mike is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a
commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas
Faith Column at Dallas Morning News and regularly at Huffington post, and
several other periodicals across the world. The blog www.TheGhousediary.com is
updated daily.