Ninie Ahmad: Off her yoga mat.

I am not giving ANYONE any ideas (ok, my mom – maybe) but on my wedding day,

• I promise myself – there’d be vegetarian option at the every dinner table (God knows how I starve during weddings )

• I promise myself – I’d rock this short hair. No fake diamond crown, no 7-feet train, no blinding tiara.

But I can’t promise I won’t wear a bird

• I promise myself – I will look as if I’d be wearing NO make-up at all.

No purple eyeshadow & peacock lashes, thank you!

• I promise myself – my wedding dress will have no ‘manik kilau-kilau’ (any attempt in translating will lose its’ essence of tackiness)

This is my idea of MY wedding dress

• I promise myself – my groom will look this good

.   .   .

Now Til’ Kingdom Come and IF ONLY the concept of marriage makes sense to me..

I was given the honour to be her maid-of-honour when she got married.

She was the first person I thought of when they wanted to feature me with my best friend.

She was the first person I broke the news to when I was falling for Petrovsky.

She was the first friend I begged to see when I got back from my North America trip.

She is always the one I want to call / see / hug whenever I am have happy news.

.   .   .   .   .   .

And in prequel of what I shared yesterday, my bestfriend Juliana Ibrahim wrote this FROM MY HEART.

[ From Being Julia - my favourite blog even if she's not my bestfriend ]

today i gave her a call to find out when she’s leaving..

guess what.. she’s not..

i will leave it to her to tell you what her plans are, for i’m sure she will very soon.

my very first question was… “oh, but are you happy?” she said, “actually…. YES!”

i couldn’t imagine how she could be happy. i would think that if you didn’t get things your way, you would feel slightly disappointed… i would..

and then she explained….

and i realized something…

my story is about what i learned from my lovely friend.

i learned that you can choose to be happy and that happiness does not solely come from following your own desires.

i learned that even if you truly badly want something, you can control your body mind and soul to also not want it anymore.

i learned that with a big heart, you will love not only yourself but much more of others who matters most to you..

i learned that life greatest opportunities come in different sizes, packages, colours…

i learned that it is not always about what we want.

we live in a big world, surrounded by people we love and love us back..

sometimes we have to not take what we get, but give what we can….

sometimes we need to be open to ideas and new inventions…

but this is all more easier said than done…

i only know its possible because of my friend ninie ahmad who believes that ‘impossible is nothing’

and with a heart that loves … she really can

she goes on and on most times telling the world about this heart of mine. the one that loves hard and much…

all i know is that birds of a feather do flock together and that it takes one to know one ( and i mean this in a good way ).

may the path you have chosen leads you to the happiness you seek, and the wonders of joy that shakes the earth under your feet.

much heart and love from me.

“Do everything with so much love in your heart
that you would never want to do it any other way.”
~Yogi Desa

.   .   .   .   .   .

Thank you for listening, my lovely Julie.

At the end of the day, it’s all worth it when those who matter the most to you, see you through.

All of YOU matter the world to me.

.. if you can simply believe me when I say – I am at my happiest today

PEACE IS..

10 days without mobile phone.

INSULT IS..

the mechanic in my father’s hometown saying, “Haiyaaa, ini Mitsubishi ka? Dari tadi you hantar saya ingat Naza Citra woo!” while changing Batmobile’s brakepad.

GORGEOUS IS..

my best friend’s girls.

ADORABLE IS..

my French Canadian boyfriend’s SMS-es in Malay (e.g “Aku rindu awak”).

LOVE IS..

from Postsecret

putting LA on hold to not lose your family.

I don’t even know where and how to begin sharing what happened to me for the past seven days.

‘Go down to go up, in to go out, back to go forward’

To another seven days of delicious surprises.

From THE YOGA DORK July 13, 2010

With all these world record yoga events and baited sun breaths waiting for the Eat, Pray, Love merchandising avalanche, have we really forgotten about the Fatwa?

The wha? Hey, watch your language! No, really, at the end of 2008 and early ‘09 we had fatwas flying out from every direction. OK, mostly the east. To be specific, the Muslim regions of Indonesia and Malaysia. Just to bring us all up to speed, a Fatwa is otherwise recognized as a religious edict, a kibosh, or ban on things that are deemed ‘haram’ or harmful.

The Fatwa Councils of both Indonesia and Malaysia made news by slapping one of these fatwas on our beloved yoga, inciting outrage by practicing yogis who also practice Islam. In short, both cases saw retractions on the ban so that asana was eventually permitted so long as the freaky chanting and “mind body connection” remained absent. Turns out Indonesians didn’t care anyway. (Note the Bali Spirit Fest, formerly Yoga Fest, 2010 went off without a hitch).

We’d all but forgotten about the yoga ban in Malaysia until we heard from Ninie.

Ninie Ahmad is as close to a Malaysian yogi rock star as they come, her image gracing oodles of magazine covers, appearances on numerous TV shows and a role as an official Adidas ambassador. So why was her most recent moment in the spotlight cruelly edited in accordance with the F-word?

Via FreeMalaysia:

“(On Sunday, July 4) I was informed that Astro [Malaysian Satellite TV] will not air my episode of Project Alpha that is scheduled tonight because the Quality Control (QC) department said that under Fatwa law, they could not air a Malay person teaching yoga.”

For your reference, ‘Project Alpha’ is a reality show like ‘Top Chef’, but about bloggers! Sadly Ninie was denied her time to shine, because of yoga.

That’s ridic! some of you say. Is it yoga censorship?? But Malaysia isn’t devoid of yoga naysayers. So, fairly miffed and confused, Ninie has taken to twitter to defend herself from detractors in 140 characters or less:

We’re no scholars, but we are pretty sure yoga can be practiced in tandem with most religions, or with none at all. (though, due to the sensitivity of the matter might we suggest in our best publicist tone that Ms. Ninie reconsider her ‘about’ section where she mentions attending yoga “religiously” and her decision to “join the cult”… just sayin’)

Anyway, the physical practice is supposedly allowed, so why was yoga cut from programming? We think Astro at least owes an explanation! Dang it, anyhow. Besides, if the country of Malaysia is going to ban public displays of yoga,  how’re they going to make bank off this EPL-crazed tourism wave?

Stay strong Ninie. One love.

Earlier…

• Fatwa News: Yoga Ban Reversed! Malaysian Muslims Free to Practice Yoga, without Chant
• Malaysian King Not Cool with Ban; Still Hope for Muslim Yogis?
• Indonesian Muslims to Yoga Fatwa: Who Cares?
• Bikram Responds to Fatwa, ‘Yoga has absolutely nothing to do with religion’

.   .   .   .   .   .

Special thanks to Yoga Dork for the mention and online hugs from yogis all across the map.

The universe is working its magic, I can feel it!