The Express Tribune hi five - September 23

Ms SEPTEMBER 23, 2012 ISSUE NO. 14

Tropical Inspirations Going funky with colour

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Miscarriage - when the worst happens

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inside Section In Charge: Batool Zehra Send your feedback to women@tribune.com.pk

domestic goddess

mother superior

what she said

written in the stars

Sometimes the old do what the young can’t

Don’t let him throw you off balance

Since it’s all about ‘Barfi’ these days

Your parenting dilemmas solved

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Ms

the buzz

A flicker of life THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

According to WebMD as many as 15% of all pregnancies end in a miscarriage and a loss early in the pregnancy has few physical ramifications. But the grief that the woman experiences far exceeds her physical pain and may last a long time.

Here, three women share their experience of having miscarried in the first trimester.

The thoughts and emotions of a woman on the day she miscarried

by Maham Hussain*

One moment, there was still hope — the secret joy that I was continually hugging to myself, smiling over and dreaming about. The next — the bubble had burst. I had passed it out without any effort, almost without any pain — a little blob of bean-shaped flesh, slick with blood.

I cried a little without knowing why exactly, an ache blossoming endlessly in my heart, more potent than the persistent pricks of pain in my abdomen. I had ignored for so many days this strange, uneven pain.

What could it have been? Muscular ache?

The routine inconvenience of motherhood? But I had been determined to sail through this — knowledgeable, competent, heroic and, most of all, self-sufficient.

Only half-realising what had happened, I called Mohsin* and told him, knowing it was no use telling him — he could hardly be expected to know what to do.

And even while willing myself not to, I broke down into sobs at the sound of his voice and endured, for this lapse, his platitudes and jokes, failed attempts to lift my spirits.

Uncertainly, carefully, I changed out of my stained clothes. Then I lay on the bed, calling the hospital, reading, Googling up ‘miscarriage’ on my laptop.

Finally, I summoned the will to clean up the mess. I picked the foetal matter off my clothes and transferred it to a clean jar to take to the hospital. As I carefully peeled it off the fabric of my pajamas, I detachedly recalled that only a few days ago, I had been wondering if it might be a girl.

Then, armed with medical records, I set off for the hospital. As I sat in the waiting area, a strange tranquility came over me and I found myself smiling at a three-year-old girl who was skipping around the hospital. Her heavily pregnant mother reprimanded her sharply but the little girl remained blithely unaffected, cheerily continuing on her little adventures and accepting snacks from strangers in lieu of her charming smiles.

It was a long wait. I had shown up without an appointment and I sat for many hours as pain pulsed through me, feeling weaker

and weaker, periodically shivering. To kill time, I flipped through parenting magazines, reading with stupid, absorbed interest heroic accounts of women giving birth on the road, pregnancy advice and articles on baby shopping.

The last time I had visited my gynaecologist, it was to make sure that I was in optimal health to conceive a baby. She turned to face me: “So are you pregnant now?” she asked.

“Well, not anymore,” I replied coolly, holding aloft my prized jar of foetal matter. She was momentarily taken aback — I suppose not many people take the trouble to collect the pregnancy material their bodies have just expelled and bring it dutifully to the doctor for inspection. The nurse used a plastic instrument shaped rather like airplane cutlery to scrape it out of the jar and in the formaldehyde, it expanded and became plump once more and I felt certain that the whole thing had, in fact, come out.

Of course, there was the agony of a physical examination, which never gets any less embarrassing, no matter how many times you’re subjected to it. Then I was advised an ultrasound to make sure that nothing remained inside that could cause an infection.

As I waited for the radiologist to roll the probe over my tummy, she asked when the abortion had taken place. “11 am,” I told her, at which she asked if I had ‘gotten it done’, a question so unexpected that my eyes popped out, and she fumbled to justify her query. It was a spontaneous abortion, I clarified, using the technical term that had been the fruit of an hour’s worth of Googling.

It was a day of endless waiting, of running from one doctor to the next, explaining all that had gone on before, a slow accretion of information — ultrasound, lab test, physical examination (yet again) — which amounted only to what I had known since that morning. I had it and then I lost it.

I was prescribed a course of antibiotics and misoprostol, to be followed by another ultrasound. Back at home, I lay on my bed, shivering as the light, mocking pain fluttered through me, trying to make sense of what had happened. And I kept looking at my son, my big, miraculous son, rolling out his play dough and cutting out shapes with capable hands, appraising my condition with dark intelligent eyes, and as I looked at him, my gratitude kept pace with my sadness.

I waited for my husband to come back, straining to hear the click of the door, eager to see him despite knowing that we could never really talk about this, that he could never fully understand. And so it was. Each stilted sentence dropped like a brick between us, building a wall there was no breaching.

And when finally the day ended, I was left with a tiny vacuum, a little bit of heartache. But these things happen, I told myself. They happen all the time.

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

A woman who miscarried talks about her loss It had been a total of two days since Somia Ghani* had sat anxiously in front of a home pregnancy test and discovered she was pregnant, exactly one day since she had gotten a blood test done to confirm that she was in her first trimester — something she had been suspecting for the last week — and in these 48 hours she had passed through every emotion in the spectrum. From bitter sadness for all the plans she’d have to eventually let go to debiliating anxiety about motherhood and whether she was mature enough to handle this change. And finally all these feelings were replaced by a more permanent state — that of a rollercoaster-like exhilaration for the little bundle of joy to come, and excitement about telling her mother and grandparents.

But all those dreams of finding perfect names and buying adorable little clothes were cut short when a pain reminiscent of severe menstrual cramps started. At first, Somia smiled to herself, thinking this was one of the normal lows of pregnancy. But once they became too hard to bear, she called her mother. The cramps gave way to clotted bleeding. And right then, she knew, her dream was over.

From that moment on, she says, everything was a horrid blur of long hospital visits, cold, expressionless faces of the doctors and every other person telling her: “This isn’t a big deal; it happens all the time.” Somia thought, it must happen all the time, it probably does, but it still is a big deal for me.

She went to one of the best hospitals in the city, but none of the gynaecologists or fertility doctors recommended psychological counselling. It was such a routine thing to them — it didn’t even require a D&C. Her husband was shaken up too, but not by the loss as much as by Somia’s sad eyes. She wanted him to feel the real loss, not just her sadness — but he simply couldn’t.

For a long time, Somia could not wash off the feeling that God thought she didn’t deserve this baby. Was this a punishment for her wild youth? A sign of divine anger? She abstained from trying again, unable to come to terms with her loss. Perhaps it was because she would have made a bad mother that God gave her a glimpse of that dream and then took it away from her. But now, three years on, Somia says she’s completely ready. She’s more positive than before, and the fear of it not working out won’t get the best of her.

Recalling how the experience changed her — permanently

by Mariam Ahmed*

It wasn’t the ideal time for me to get pregnant. My daughter was barely a year old, and I was a mere 23, eager to have fun and go out with my husband. As a conscientious mother I found that caring for a small child took up most of my time; the last thing I wanted was to be overwhelmed with another infant. The discovery that I was expecting again, then, came as a shock.

Thoughts of dreary days when the chores just don’t end, sleepless nights spent nursing a colicky baby and late night visits to the Emergency Room came rushing to me. But after a few days spent fretting, I settled down with the idea of my pregnancy.

It was the 8th week of my pregnancy, and I was on a routine doctor’s visit, commenting on how well I felt when my gynaecologist told me that I had miscarried. There was no foetal heartbeat and the pregnancy had terminated.

My first thought was: “I shouldn’t have done yoga.” I had been exercising at the time and immediately, I figured that the light aerobics and yoga were to blame.

These thoughts were soon followed by intense guilt. Perhaps God had punished me for not wanting another child so soon.

Even though my doctor took pains to explain that the miscarriage was not caused by anything I had done or neglected to do, for many weeks, all I did was browse the internet for hours, researching the causes of a miscarriage, going to each and every website and discussion forum that addressed the issue. Mentally, I’d go through everything that I’d been doing prior to the miscarriage that could conceivably have caused the pregnancy to end.

At that time, I was paranoid, wondering if I had indeed miscarried, mistrusting my gynaecologist’s judgment and advice. She told me that I needed a D&C but I didn’t trust her. What if she was wrong? What if the foetus was alive? I was young, naïve, and extremely confused. But I was also fortunate as far as my doctor was concerned; she gave me a shoulder to cry on and her emotional support and understanding were crucial in helping me come to terms with what had happened. When I said that I was reluctant to get the D&C, she told me to take it easy. There was a wedding coming up in the family and she advised me to attend it with an unfettered mind: “Enjoy yourself, wear high heels and dress up,” she said. “We’ll take care of that D&C later.”

For 10 days between miscarrying and actually going for the surgical procedure, I carried a foetus that was already dead but those days were crucial in allowing me to face my doubts and fears.

As news of my miscarriage became gossip, every other woman in the extended family came to share her own tale of miscarrying. Far from giving me strength, these stories belittled my own loss and grief and made me feel even more confused. One constant refrain that I heard was that since it had all happened so early in the pregnancy, it made little difference. At that time, what gave me strength was the fact that my own mother felt the emotional loss almost as keenly as I did.

My emotional trauma was great but difficult to communicate.

My husband was young and we already had a child, so the loss of this pregnancy made little difference to him. For the most part, he was immune to what I was going through and could not share my grief. In fact, sometimes I felt as if he too blamed me for what had happened — after all, the baby had been inside me and was affected by what I had been doing — eating, drinking, exercising.

When the night of my cousin’s shaadi rolled around, I got dressed, taking my time to get ready, putting on make up. As I put on my high heels, I had a fleeting thought that they might harm the baby, if it was still living. Then I shook it off. At the shaadi, people would come up to congratulate me, thinking that I was still pregnant. Then I’d grit my teeth and tell them that the pregnancy had terminated and I would soon be having a procedure to remove whatever was left in the uterus. I must have recounted that explanation twenty times that night.

The procedure itself turned out to be quite painful. Though the D&C was performed under anesthesia, prior to it, the doctor gave me medicines that led to intense pain resembling labour pains. I vomited and bled through the night but once it was over, I felt relaxed — almost as if nothing had happened.

Harrowing as a miscarriage is, perhaps the most stressful part of the experience was getting pregnant again. My doctor advised me to refrain from trying to conceive for at least the next four months but I felt as if I simply couldn’t wait to have another go. I became sad and fearful, mistrustful of the future. People would tell me, “Aur ho jayein gay” but I used to fear that the same thing would happen to them all.

In the meanwhile, I joined a pre-school as a teacher. I used to look at the little children longingly, becoming more emotionally attached to them than was prudent. I also became paranoid about my daughter and would lavish attention on her.

One long-term effect of the miscarriage has been that I simply can’t exercise anymore. Every time I start doing aerobics, I wonder if I might be pregnant and if the exercise would harm the baby. Even today, if I try to do bends and stretches, I just freeze with fear in the middle.

But in some ways, I have become a better person for that experience. For one thing, I am more loving towards children — whether mine or someone else’s — and whenever I see an angelic little face I feel an urge to smile at the little one and contribute to the happiness and love in his/her life. Because of my miscarriage, I began to value from an early age the pure love that children both demand and give, and thought nothing of sacrificing personal enjoyment, shopping sprees and relaxation to spend time with kids.

My sad experience was followed by a very happy one three years later when I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. *Names have been changed to protect privacy

What the

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doctors say

Signs that you are having a miscarriage: According to the pregnancy Bible, What To Expect When You’re Expecting, the following symptoms may indicate a miscarriage: bleeding with cramps or pain in the centre of the lower abdomen or back; persistent pain for 24 hours without bleeding; heavy bleeding without pain; persistent light staining that continues for three days or more. Clots or grayish matter may be passed. If the doctor finds that membranes around the foetus are broken, a miscarriage is in progress.

What to do when it happens: If you suspect that a miscarriage is in progress, immediately contact your doctor. If possible, save the foetal and placental material passed in a clean jar and take to the hospital. In case of repeat miscarriages (which are rare), this may be useful in analysing why it took place. Most miscarriages occur because of a defect in the embryo and can’t be prevented. According to Dr Sadiah, who practices at the OMI hospital in Karachi, “There is no substantial evidence of any treatment, medicine or injection working to prevent a miscarriage. This is nature’s way of ensuring survival of the fittest.”

Treatment: Your doctor may prescribe you medicine to expel the remnants of the pregnancy from the uterus and antibiotics to prevent infection. You may also ask for pain medication. A D&C is required when the miscarriage occurs but is not complete or if the foetus is not alive but has not yet passed out of the mother’s body. In such cases, the foetal and placental tissue is scraped out in a procedure known as Dilation and Curettage (D&C).

Remember it is not your fault: Miscarriages are caused mostly by chromosomal and other genetic abnormalities in the embryo. In a normal pregnancy they are NOT caused by exercise, having sex, working hard, lifting heavy objects. People may tell you that your miscarriage occurred because you were wearing long heels, climbing stairs, going to your mom’s house, eating something, not eating something, or even because of a lunar or solar eclipse. There is NO medical evidence for these assertions. Dr Azra Ahsan, a practicing gynaecologist and technical consultant for the National Committee for Maternal and Neonatal Health, says: “I have patients who pointedly and repeatedly ask me in front of their husbands and mothers-in-law if the miscarriage was caused by something they did. They are probably getting blamed for what happened at home.” “This is the height of jahaalat,” says Dr Sadiah. There is no need to compound your misery by feeling guilt for what happened. A woman’s miscarriage is not caused by anything that she did or did not do.

There is no ‘normal’ grieving period: You are likely to experience feelings of intense grief and loss after a miscarriage. The time you take to get over this trauma depends on you; each person is unique and has her own way of dealing with these emotions. “Some take it in their stride. Others seem to be coping well but are hurting inside,” says Dr Sadiah. According to Dr Azra, “If it’s a wanted pregnancy, it may even feel like the death of a close one.” Your husband may be as upset as you are or he may be more saddened by your feelings of grief.

Seek help: Psychological counselling is hard to come by in Pakistan since doctors are busy trying to save lives and dealing with the physical aspects of medical problems. Hook up with an online support group or make sure you share your grief with friends who’ve undergone similar experiences “No one can share the grief of a woman as well as another woman who has undergone the same experience,” says Dr Azra.

You are likely to have a successful pregnancy next time: Doctors believe that early miscarriages occur in as many as 40% to 65% of conceptions. More than half occur so early that they pass for a normal or heavier period. Your miscarriage is likely to be a random, one off event and you are likely to have a successful pregnancy in the future.

What you CAN do to prevent a miscarriage: Environmental factors that may play a role in miscarriages are poor nutrition, infection, smoking and alcohol. To ensure a healthy pregnancy, check thyroid levels, use iodised salt, get chronic conditions under control before conception, avoid excessive physical stress such as heavy exercise and lifting extremely heavy objects. One crucial factor in a Pakistani context is cousin marriages which cause the gene pool to shrink. “Because of inbreeding the chromosomal material is not viable,” says Dr Sadiah. “Do not keep marrying generation after generation in the same family.”

It is important not to rush into another pregnancy after a miscarriage: Your body needs time to recover. You might be facing immense pressure from your in-laws to get pregnant again as soon as possible. Dr. Sadiah says, “Pointed questions are asked about the woman’s period which suddenly becomes public knowledge. Even the father-in-law has to know about it!”

However, if you want a happy conclusion for your next pregnancy, resist this pressure and wait at least six months before trying to conceive again.

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Ms

mother superior

Parenting Guide

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

All the tips and tricks you need to stay on top From teeth-grinding to time management

ways to get toddlers to help with household chores

How can I get more “me time” with an infant?

The consensus is clear: Having a little time to yourself means you’ll have a clearer head and feel refreshed, which will make you a better mom. But with a baby requiring frequent feeding and nappy changes how are you supposed to get that alone time you so desperately need?

-Let your in-laws finally get their grandbaby alone. While they spoil him rotten, you can catch up on some extra sleep, or plan a date night with hubby to finally watch that movie you’ve been dying to see.

-Convince your sister-in-law to swap “me time” afternoons. Take all the kids and play with them while she goes out for lunch with her friends, and have her return the favour the following week.

-Follow the age old advice: sleep when the baby sleeps. Forget the state of disrepair that your house is in — simply ask the maid to stay a bit later, compensating her financially of course.

-Take one night off from cooking every week. Have daddy order in a pizza, or call for some take out. With the extra time you could indulge in something you haven’t had the time for, like a pedicure.

-Hide. Let daddy play with baby while you spend an extra 20 minutes in the bathroom reading the last chapter of that book you couldn’t stop thinking about. If he asks what you were doing, just lie. “Gosh, my stomach was so upset!”

How to stop kids from:

Grinding their teeth

There’s nothing quite as disconcerting as the sound of your baby grinding his teeth h while sleeping.

The facts: Many babies grind their teeth when they’re first teething. It’s unlikely y that your child is doing any real damage to his teeth and he will probably outgrow w the habit himself. Consult your doctor when your child complains of having dif-ficulty chewing. The doctor might suspect a pinworm infection. Pinworms are a parasite easily transmitted from person to person that cause itching, particularly y at night.

How to solve the problem You can check for adult pinworms (they’ll look like white threads) when you’re e changing your baby’s diaper, or do a quick and easy scotch-tape test: Press the sticky y side to your baby’s bottom. Your doctor can check the tape under a microscope forr pinworm eggs later. d Talk to your pediatrician about a night guard—a special mouthpiece, moulded to your child’s teeth.

Check with your dentist. She can check his teeth for wear, and any problems like e cavities, fractures, and pulp exposure.

These little chores might not seem like much but they go a long way towards ingraining a habit of neatness and responsibility in kids — which is very useful for parents in the long run!

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Make them pick up after themselves. All toddlers love to empty out the play-bins, so make putting everything back as fun as taking things out.

Encourage them to help with laundry. Whether it’s folding their pajamas, or putting their dirty underwear in the hamper, make them take responsibility for their clothes.

Get them into a routine. Designate a clear “cleanup” time, during which all activity stops and cleanup begins. Feel free to pull a Barney rendition out on command.

Give them a paper towel and tell them to wipe up the messes they make during meals. Make accidents fun for both of you!

domestic goddess 5 recipe

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

Pistachio & Lemon Sea Salt Barfi Sumayya Jamil is a lawyerturned-food writer and cookery teacher in London, who is on a mission to promote the love of Pakistani food in the UK. She blogs at pukkapaki.com

There is something so comforting about a barfi. These sweet delights come in many variations but nut barfi’s are my favourite and here is a contemporary twist on pista barfi. The addition of lemon zest and crunchy sea salt flakes cuts through the sweetness and nuttiness to create a very Moorish sweet to enjoy at the end of a meal.

Preparation time: 20 minutes plus setting time of 30 minutes Cooking time: 15 minutes Makes: about 10-12 small barfi balls, depending on size

method 1. In a wok-like pan heat the ghee and fry 1 1/2 cup of pistachio powder. Keep stirring to prevent the powder from turning brown. Turn off the heat once you can smell the slightly cooked nutty smell, and add the cardamom and milk powder.

2. In a saucepan, heat the water and add the sugar to make a thin single thread consistency sugar syrup — what is called ‘Ekk taar’ 3. Now add the pistachio to the sugar syrup and stir until it is all combined. Once it has cooled (approx. 6-8 minutes), place on a clean surface and knead into a firm workable dough. Cover with cling film to prevent the dough from drying out.

4. Pull off about 1 1/2 tsp of the dough and form golf-size balls (or smaller) and set them on a greased plate.

5. Mix the 1/2 cup of ground pistachio left with lemon zest and sea salt in a shallow plate. Roll each ball in this and set on a clean plate.

6. Allow to set for about 30 minutes to an hour before eating.

This keeps well covered for up to a week in the fridge or outside for 5 days.

ingredients Ground pistachios 1-1/2 cup Water 1/2 cup Caster sugar 3/4 cup Cream milk powder 4 tbsp Cardamom powder 1/2 tsp Sea salt flakes 1/2 tsp Lemon zest 1/2 tsp Ghee 2 tsp

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Ms

en vogue

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

Fine Feathers

Tropical birds provide the inspiration for this kaleidoscopic look. Take a palette of the boldest hues and go all out with the experimentation — just remember, prismatic colour on the eyes calls for toned down lips. These looks from Munna Mushtaq Studio show you how to go funky without looking outlandish.

Coordination: Umer Mushtaq taq Styling: Fahad Yaqoob Hair & makeup : Basit Ali unna Photography: Rohail @ Munna Mushtaq Studio Model: Maha

what she said 7

Shaking things Up THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

Anam is a film-maker, educator, yoga instructor, and “itwar bazaar” enthusiast, searching for adventure in the city that always sleeps

by Anam Abbas

Style has never been about following the herd and these creative women are taking a stance against sameness While it is expected that the young and beautiful will delight in dressing up and making fashion statements, rarely is the same assumed for older women. But recently I came across the trailer of an intriguing documentary, Advanced Style, in which the film-makers showcase the fashion of regular New Yorkers, in the manner of the website The Sartorialist. But here is the catch — all the fashion stars of this film are ‘senior citizens’.

The film forays into the wardrobes and dressing rituals of its subjects, but does not simply stop at interviews, choosing instead to encourage the women to model. And the characters it showcases are inspiring: Ilona, a 90-year-old lady with a mop of fiery hair and matching fake eyelashes and Lynn Dell, “the countess of glamour” whose hat collection would make Lady Gaga jealous.

But advanced style is not just about celebrating older women and bold fashion choices, it also urges us to reconsider the way we think about age. This is not fashion for grannies. Whether the advanced fashionista is decked in designerwear or is a thrift store queen, whether her style is classic and austere or a flamboyant confluence of glamour, these women have refined their particular mode of dressing to a fine art.

Their panache reminds me of the Marchesa Casati, a fashion icon of the 20s, who famously claimed, “I want to be a living work of art.” While the marchesa went to great lengths to make her costumes theatrical, (becoming the demon faeryqueen of the circus that was French society then), these women embody the goal in a comparatively more restrained manner. Quoting from the film, “You dont want to look crazy — you want to be as chic as possible. But the average person on the street would NEVER wear it.” These women are both muse and painter, putting together their costumes with reference to decades of literature, music, art and love. They are the scholars of aesthetics, the advance guard of style and the texture of their aged skin complements this style to create what the Marchesa desired: a thing of beauty, a work of art.

We have a lesson to learn from these ladies of New York.

In Pakistan, fashion teeters on the edges of conservatism at best. Young women are expected to wear cheerful — but not, God forbid, garish — colours. As women age the only socially acceptable way to dress is somberly and the only frippery middle-aged Pakistani women allow themselves is hairdye — lots of it. Meanwhile divorcees seem to be permanently wrapped in the shroud of the social faux-pas of a failed marriage and refuse to let even the faintest hint of exhibitionism kiss their unpainted cheeks.

My own grandmother wore only pastels, a single gold bangle on her slender wrist, and fragile gold hoops in her drooping earlobes. But her hair, I remember, came down to her hips.

Usually she kept it done in a severe plait, but when she would open her tresses to comb them out, I would be mesmerised by

In Pakistan, fashion teeters on the edges of conservatism at best.

Young women are expected to wear cheerful — but not, God forbid, garish — colours. As women age the only socially acceptable way to dress is somberly the overwhelming femininity of the act. Without the ruses of sexuality — which is always for another’s gaze — she became complete in her femininity, in her self-absorption, an old woman and her long, long hair.

That, I think, is the ultimate charm of ‘advanced style’.

These older women are dressing now only for themselves.

They have had years of experimentation and shopping, and have seen decades of changing fashion which now informs their style of abandon.

While we in Pakistan are living in a new culture of ready-towear, slowly scrapping the culture of personal darzis, let’s stop ourselves from falling into more sameness. Our insistence on the appropriate length of the kameez in any particular year is reminiscent of the strictly-enforced skirt length in a more conservative west. Quoting from the film, “Everyone wants to look like everyone else but everyone also absolutely insists that they are individuals.”

Where are the revolutionaries of style? If fashion is just to protect our fragile social standing, creativity will soon leach out of it. Let us desist from pleasing others, as women are so likely to do, and shift our attention to self-expression. Let vanity be a plaything, not a parent. In Advanced Style, the beauty of the film’s subjects is the expression of inner confidence, playfulness, joie de vivre, a vibrant creative urge and a great sense of humor.

While we usually insist that the young generation must lead change in any social aspect that we deplore, I would say in this case that the opposite is true. Let there be aunties and ammis who dare to challenge the stare, matriarchs beside whom I can walk with my head up, swelling with selfconfidence, assured of the value of my difference. Celebrate your life every morning by enjoying the construction of your daily armour. Would that I could walk down the street and be inspired by a mere glance at another! Our communities, our cities are the stuff of our existential and emotional education. Let us then express to each other freedom, creativity and joy in what we wear, young or old, as a step towards a more inspired society.

written in the stars 8

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

Loving

Match made in heaven

the

Libra man — Gemini woman A Gemini and Libra in a relationship are like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt — so perfect for each other that you want to throw knives with your eyes each time they complete each other’s sentence or display some PDA serendipitously right out of The Notebook.

September eptember 24 — October 23

In love with a Libra? Ms. T has the inside on what makes this sign unique, how to make him yours and what not to do to drive him away.

d a e h s ’ a r b i L e h t e Insid

a tree, imb it, plant cl ill w e h , st termined ount Evere from atop M hand. He’s de in se d ro e a is u m yo ro p t to ge as what he e Libra man he actually h n e h w If you ask th rn tu s of every w, and only re pros and con e th s te a wait for it gro lu ans to a fault.

Libra man eva nce. This me g e la in a th rk b , o n ct g e -w si rf rd e is a p and h to be ing at that represent th e kind of man y before arriv “scales” that th it e t m o th n re e ’s xt e lik e h st s, ch Ju ssing ea nce he doe is head, asse y move. But o n a g n ki a situation in h m y in re ight even sta n times befo m te e ks h t in a th . th e rd h ch o t tha on his w ship so mu rds or go back g in a relation in e b t o n s te flaky afterwa and ha at monogamist He’s a serial em, even if th th t e g to g . in al one op at noth a dysfunction life and will st in s g in th d o go He loves the family life. mising on his ro p m co s n a me

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How to tip his scales in your favour Learn to bear with his chronic indecisiveness — from where to go for dinner to whether you’re the girl he wants to have dinner with for the rest of his life, he will stay confused for a very long time.

DON’T even think about it

Libra man — Cancer woman

Libras can’t stand extremes — and when the Cancer’s mood goes from euphoric highs to depressing lows within a few hours, it can seriously put off the Libra man. So the Libra will only retreat and retract making the Cancer even crabbier.

Celebrity Libra

Trends don’t necessarily get his attention. However, he appreciates elegance, classy statements and crisp and clean cuts. Translation = he’ll run from a Lady Gaga!

Always reciprocate his love. He’s not the kind of person who can pine for years or waste time on unrequited love.

What throws him off balance

He just can’t stand any kind of extreme behaviour. So whether you have an Amish way of life or a tattoo on your butt, the Libra man will judge you either way.

Like his Air sign, the Libra man always remains a bit detached and wayward.

So if you push him too hard to be more present and open himself completely to you right away; he might just call it an early night and never call you again.

Usher Raymond Hugh Jackman Bruce Springsteen