something new
13 years ago
Sitting in front of the monitor, scared shitless, staring at the blank screen as if just by sheer force of my will the words will appear, trying to make my frozen fingers press the keys and blacken the page, willing my numb mind to help me cross this barrier but nothing happens. I am still sitting here staring at the blank screen with frozen fingers and a numb mind. Whenever my fingers move towards the keys my mind scuttles back in its shell as fear shows its terrible face. So, here I am still in the same position trying to come to terms with life but taking two steps back with ever hesitant venture forward. The words still don't come even though the thoughts pollute my mind. The fingers tremble over the keys but don't press them. Still I am sitting here, trying to work out my life, myself, and my destiny. Fear has control over my body more than my mind. He rules me and tortures me; mocks me and laughs at me. Whenever i try to stand up he pushes me back into the muck of my complexes and thus, starts the struggle again. The struggle to free myself of that quagmire of slow poison. The vines of uncertainty slowly creeps up my legs and then twist its self around my chest slowly moving towards my neck and squeezing me tightly all the way up. The quicksand of insecurity slowly sucks me into its murky depths and grinds me within its churning horror. I struggle to free myself: pulling at the vines here and kicking up the mud there but the more i struggle the more quickly it subdues my foolish efforts to escape. exhausted i finally give in and let Fear torture me with its powers. Little did I know that my surrender was infact my victory. For as i lay there bound by the little devils of my own making, I decide to be truthful to myself one last time and be myself just for once before my doom engulfs me. And the honesty broke away all my binds and freed me from the confines of my own gilded prison.
When you have spent your silvered days in flight
And taken measure of the flowing tide,
When you have climbed the distant unguessed height,
And found the beckoning sky not too wide.
When you have known the sting of foreign wind
And crossed an ancient threshold with no door,
And longed to read a stranger’s tongue and mind,
But unread travelled to a further shore.
There is a star, the sailors call it true,
Hung fixed above this planet through its night.
By day unseen, but to the heart in view,
Like love unsaid, until the need for light.
Think on it when you turn your face away,
Look back, my love, and share with me one day.
But know there is a shore where I, too, walk
Along a wild and darkly beckoning sea,
Wind-tossed, and body bared in secret flight,
From hedge-row’d days and night’s numbed custody.
Henrietta Roundtree April 1899
Issues of life which might seem so insurmountable right now, appear to be so very petty in the face of the last conqueror...when Death conquers all. All these issues, hopes, aspirations, dissappointments, and other emotions which we humans are so fond of identifying ourselves with to evoke sympathy for our cruel plight. All the dreams, the expectations and the desires and needs are washed up on the shores of Death and there they dry up and shrivel, of use to none, until they rot and fall to dust just like our sacred bodies. Then nothing is left to identify us with only a tombstone etched with our identity in this world and a few memories left with our dear and close and even those fade after a while when our dear and closed ones get engrossed in their lives, 'trying' to forget us and succeeding all too well. No offence to the living relatives they have hell to go through when they realise that the person they have lived a part and in some cases entire lives with is no more. I admit anything can bring me to tears quite easily, even advertisement commercials so my coming to tears is not that big a news but when you witness the despair in those loved ones as they say their final goodbye to the lost soul, the anguish in their eyes when they realise that who was, was to be no more with them in their lives, the dejection, the depression, the hopelessness, the desolation but most of all the isolation and the grief can breakdown any human capable of feeling emotions. Even now my tears are falling for the family of that blessed soul who went through ten days of torture on this world and i have to remind myself yet again that her next life is going to be a better one. Consoling myself is easy, consoling them is impossible. I can never realise the extent of their loss and selfishly enough i don't even want to. I've lost enough of my loved ones to not want to experience that pain again.
I try not to think about it, not to associate myself with them and act like all the others do - pat them on the back, give them a hug, hold their hand, shed a few tears and say everything is going to be just fine. But i cant...no matter how much i try no matter how hard i find myself being drawn into their world of grief and misery and once there sharing their loss and crying my soul out with them. I do not know if this is what they mean when they say being with them in their dark hours, but i cannot stop the waves of their grief and anguish crashing over me...the depression that follows this deluge of tears might seem a good sign to some but infact is heart-wrenching. To others it appears that the affectees have finally accepted the fact that she is no more but in all honesty, acceptance is as far away for them as she is. Man finally redeems himself in the eyes of his fellows as he picks himself up from the unconsolable bawling baby phase to the being a man phase and letting go of all the bad times and taking life as it comes. But all this is once again pretence; a mask for the society not to condemn us. In fact we live with this continuous black hole inside us which in time might stop consuming us but it still makes its presence felt.
Its strange how even happy memories can make you cry and the sad ones can make you miss the departed souls even more. All those fights and harsh words arise clearly in your mind and you deem yourslef as the most cruellest of men to have said all those things. All those laughs and scoldings and joyous moments come second to those self accusatory times. new regrets are born and at that time more than anytime else man wants to turn back time; to go back in those memories just once to erase the hurt look from her eyes, to wipe off the angry frown from her forehead, to crease the face into a lil more smile, to hug her just one more time, to feel her love and her acceptance of whatever we are and all her kisses and goodnight stories and all her lectures and jokes, all her pamperings and comfortings and all her embarrasing stories about our childhood in which we appear to have run around the entire neighbourhood naked all the time. What we are left with are just memories of those times. We look into the kitchen and see her making dinner and telling us just what a horrible day she had just because we forgot to clean up our room. We come back home from our university just to see her standing at the door, arms open wide, embracing us with all the love that only a mother possesses and in a split secong moving from the Ever-Loving Mom to a why-the-hell-didn't-you-reply-to-my-letters Mom.
I Love You Soooo Much Mom and i hope that i never have to see you walking out of my life never to come back!!!
P.S. A very close aunty of mine died after suffering from a debilitating disease for the past 14 years...i started writing this in mind of her kids and what her death made me feel...but somehow it went on to moms and then to my mom... Please pray for the person we've lost...
This post was written on 19th January in the memory of a close relative who passed away.
Just Another Stupid Love Story
Almost all the women in my life have one thing in common; they fall in love with my wrists. The part of wrist, which specifically attracts their attention, is called Carpus. That is a spot where the dial of one's wristwatch usually rests. Women show varying degrees of interest in my wrists and they manifest it differently. While some of them become obsessed, others just exhibit it by a change in the tone of their voice and yet others show it by an ephemeral change in the color of their faces. Take, for example, my mom; whenever she feels affectionate she kisses me at two places, the corner of my left eye and my wrist. My little sister was a prankster. She would, usually, sneak up on me from behind, whenever she found me immersed in a book, clutch my wrist in both of her hands and twist them in opposite direction. The burning sensation would bring tears in my eyes and when I'd try to grab her hair she'd run away screaming at the top of her lungs "Mom!!!!! Sami is beating me again". Then from a safe distance she would look at me with her mischievous eyes and sing Noor Jehan’s song, “chad meri weenee nah marorr, kach diaN wangaN nah tarorr (Let go of my wrist, you're breaking my bangles).” But this story is not about my mother and sister.
From a very early age I had realized that I was 'gifted'. Now I know very well what interests women about me. So over the years I have turned into a little exhibitionist pervert. Most of the time I wear long-sleeved T-shirts and keep pulling my sleeves up to expose my wrists just when the moment is right. I know exactly how a woman feels when someone's silent gaze appreciates her cleavage.
Not all of the women have good intentions about my wrists, though. One of them is this girl whom I call a 'traffic hazard'. Whenever, she sits next to me in my car while I am helplessly tied up with seatbelt, she bites on my wrist. She is impetuous like a wildcat and her teeth are sharp like one. When she is close to me I try to keep my hands inside my pockets, but she always finds a way to catch me off guard. Sometimes she bites so hard that it makes tiny little blood drops to appear. Then I yell at her, “You know that you are crazy?”
“Yep, crazy about you.” she replies. “Just one of these days I am gonna make a sandwich out of your hands and eat ‘em”. I can see the determination in her eyes and I know that she means it. I shudder with a near-orgasmic anticipation. But this story is not about her either.
My fellow fifth grader Fozia was the first who made me aware of my 'gift'. On one hot summer day, I was waiting in line at the water cooler during recess, rubbing and polishing a new cricket ball when Fozia touched my hand at the Carpus and said, “your hands are all red”. Although there were more important things on my mind at that time, like how would I replace Imran Khan, I liked her comment. From that day on, as long as we remained classmates, she could not take her eyes off of my wrists, whether I was taking dictation in the classroom or playing cricket, she was always watching. But this story is not about her either.
You must be thinking by now that the woman whom I fell in love with must be a beauty queen. No. She was just another typical Punjaban; a Punjaban not from the southern fertile plains but from up here in North, the Potohar Plateau, where life is still as difficult as its terrain. But, here, the captivating and awesome beauty of its landscape, its multihued rocks, its humbling gorges, snaking creeks, and the breathtaking magnificence of sand dunes are compounded by the beauty of its inhabitants. Whether it is the splendor of springing gazelles, dancing peacocks, and flocks of pelicans and alabasters migrating from Russia to the great lakes in Sindh, or the sturdy men and gorgeous women of this land, the nature's benevolence is copious.
The women in this part of Punjab are a proof positive of the truth of Hindu mythology "Panchakannaya". According to this mythology women are made of five elements hence they are referred to as Elemental Women. “They are refreshing and vital as the air, graceful and tender as sparkling water, lustrous and consuming as flames of fire, generous and enveloping as space and stable and deep as the earth….you elemental women are perfect beauty itself”. Whoever wrote this must have a Punjabi woman in his mind.
She was just another one of these Elemental Women. But she must had something that made her stand out in the crowd. Why else would, a guy like me, attempt on her husband's life, make a pact with the devil, beat the crap out of his friends, bear his mother's wrath and break some very loving hearts. I have no idea why did I fall in love with her. Sometimes I wonder if a tiny little blue vein on her transparent neck had something to do with it; or may be it was the way she used to press her lips slightly with pride, whenever she'd find men scanning her; or may be it was the way she'd try to pretend that she wasn’t noticing their appreciation. May be it was not her appearance. May be it was the way she held my hand and helped me draw a circle with a compass, on her first day at school. Yep! She was my fifth grade teacher.
I think it is unfair to blame it on the hormones in case of a fifth grader. Probably, love is not Chemistry; and if age can't restrict it then it is not Physics either. If people fall in love despite the risk of getting their hearts broken it is not Statistics. One thing is for sure that it is not simple math to figure out what love is. An affection that has lasted over years cannot be infatuation. Probably it is genetic. May be we inherited it from Adam. It must be the innocent love that Adam felt when he first saw Eve, long before touching the forbidden fruit.
Fozia was the first to cast my feelings in the molds of words. “You are in love with Miss Rabia, aren't you?" She asked me one day.
I didn’t say anything; just shrugged my shoulders. Sometimes it is better not to put your feelings in words because if you do, your words become a mission statement. These words then confine you and they become your liability. Liability is a dungeon where your conscience whips you like a slave driver and compels you to stand by your words. My ‘freedom’ was also short lived.
“Are you gonna marry her when you grow up?” asked Fozia, looking at my face anticipating a ‘no’.
“Yes” I said; and my slave driver whipped me the very first time.
Miss Rabia got married during the summer brake of that year.
“Now what’re you gonna do?” Fozia dropped the bombshell on the first day after summer break.
I looked into her starry eyes and shrugged “I'll marry her too when I'll grow up”.
Obviously, I was too naïve to understand the concept of marriage. But I felt hurt. The pain was strange. It was like the pain of betrayal when someone who is trusted and close to you betrays you unknowingly, innocently and unintentionally. Deep down inside you feel like punishing your betrayer but you can’t. You find yourself not only tied down but gagged as well. And no one else does it to you but you.
As the days went by I was increasingly drawn to her. This attraction was insentience and excruciating. I wanted her to acknowledge and accept my existence. I was striving hard to impress her by being a model student, by doing my homework in the best possible way. I even brought her roses from my moms little garden. Now I think that it is not the feeling of love that makes you do things, which you would never do in ‘normal mode’. It happens only when expectations piggyback themselves on the vehicle of love. And for expectations to come into existence you got to have a mission statement and so as to keep you right on track you got to have a slave driver; and I had two. One of them was my conscience and the other one was Fozia; and I used to get whipped by both of them. Fozia’s slave driver was crueler than mine was. In an attempt to come close to me she had to piggyback her expectations on my sentiments towards Miss Rabia. Fozia and me would talk about her for hours. We three were like a perfect solar system; where I was circling around Miss Rabia and Fozia was my satellite. We could never come close nor we could escape from each other. Sometimes I used to feel bad when Fozia managed to eclipse my feelings towards Miss Rabia. But that used to be as momentary and brief as any eclipse. While I used to wonder what would take Miss Rabia to take my notice, I was unmindful that everyone else was noticing me.
One day we were dissecting a cockroach in our lab when I was called in to the staff room. I saw my mom sitting there with Miss Rabia and few other teachers. My mom was asking them how I was doing in studies when one of the teachers said "Your sahibzada has given up on studies-bus ishq farmatay haiN in say" pointing at her. All the teachers laughed. My mom grabbed my ear and twirled it.
“Gadhay, Is that right?” She had shot me first and then she was asking questions.
I felt that someone had just thrown a fist full of sand in my eyes. The utter feeling of shame and insult made my heart stifle my throat. I wanted to cry but couldn’t, in front of her. I looked at her solemn face and saw empathy in her eyes. That was good enough for me. Now if they had put me in a meat grinder even then I wouldn’t have cried.
Speaking of the meat grinder, I found myself in one, when, one day, I overheard two kids talking, “Miss Rabia kay bachcha honay wala hay”.
It took the wind out of my sails. The shock then turned into anger. First I beat both of them up and then went to see her. That was true. I saw a bulging tummy. It felt like she had betrayed me again while I was mired in her enticing smile. I was furious.
“Bitch", "Gashti” I spewed my venom in my thoughts. I wanted to ask her why she was carrying some snake's offspring, but I couldn't. Being a sixth grader really sucks sometimes.
I had matured a bit more than the last year, so my indignation changed its course towards her husband. Later, on that day I saw him buying oranges from a street vendor. He was a lecturer at the local college and he was popularly known in the city as Ganja Master; thanks to his students. I was on my BMX bike and the moment I saw him I got only one thought on my mind, "Ganja must die". Soon I felt that a whole choir of demons was chanting those words in the empty chamber of my brain. That echoing cacophony turned into a war cry. I ground my teeth and cried "Die, Ganjay die". I aimed my bike at him and started hitting the paddles vigorously to muster up all the speed that I could. Unfortunately, I missed him and hit the vendor's cart. My nose started bleeding and Rari-wala began yelling at me with anger because half of his oranges rolled into the gutters. Ganja Master was an acquaintance of my father, so he knew me too. He gave some money to the vendor and took me to the nearby clinic.
She didn't come back to school when she went on her pregnancy leave, until after we were in grade seven. I always wonder what makes first time mothers so beautiful. Is it the love that they feel for a part of their body or is it the sense of accomplishment and perfection that makes their faces glow. Probably it is the feeling of self-assurance of fecundity and the power of creation that casts an aurora of magnetism around them. She was charming than ever and I was crazier than ever.
Once again I started striving my best to be visible to her. She liked watching students play. So I started taking part in sports. She was also in charge of library and I started borrowing books more often and tried to read them too because she would always ask me about the book and I desperately wanted to sound intelligent. I was ready to do anything that would help me win her approval. And 'anything' really meant 'anything', even selling my soul to the devil.
We were in grade viii then. One day she was teaching us trigonometry and drawing curves and lines on the board. There was a pin-drop silence in the class. I was in a state of trance looking at her back where the bra straps were making embossed curves under her shirt. The geometry defined by those curves had taken my breath away. For the very first time in my life I was being cognizant of a strange nebulous feeling. That feeling was spellbinding yet it felt so wrong. I might have remained lost in the stupor of that tantalizing moment forever when I felt a tickle at my Carpus. It was Fozia trying to pass a note to me. I almost fell down from my seat when I saw the note. The message said, "I love you".
'She must be joking' I thought. Well, she knew that my heart belonged to another. How could she? I wrote back, "I don’t, ehmuq larki". I saw her face turning red and then pale. After a while she wrote back "You know Miss Rabia is our new in-charge of Speech Club?"
That was new information to me. The only problem was that I knew nothing about Public Speaking. That was something that I had to do at all costs. So I made a pact with the ‘devil’.
The devil that I am talking about was known around the town as ‘Qazi Murghi Chor’. Most of the people had long forgotten his real name. The legend has it that he used to be a successful advocate a few years ago. He was not only successful but also one of the most learned people in the town. And then one day just out of the blue he claimed prophet-hood. He quit his practice and went on a preaching spree. At first people didn’t take him seriously then they started avoiding him and he became a social outcast. After a while children started lampooning him; they used to hound him in groups and throw pebbles and rotten vegetables at him. He did not take that rejection well and became grouchy, bad-tempered and cranky.
One day I was coming back from school when I accidentally ran into him. He looked at me with his red bulging eyes and grabbed me from my ear.
“Chalo uthak-baithak karo”, he growled.
I almost peed in my pants and started doing sit-stand as diligently as I could. A couple of girls from a rooftop saw this commotion and started laughing at my misery. The prophet looked up where the laughter was coming from and when he saw those girls he raised his finger and said “Hoorain aa gayeeN!, Hoorain aa gayeeN!”
I found an opportunity to escape and ran like hell. As I turned around the street corner an idea hit me. I came back and started following Qazi. When he entered his home I stood outside his door for a while and then knocked. He opened the door and when he saw me he was rendered speechless.
“Can you teach me how to make a speech?” I asked with all hope.
Probably it was the first time in Qazi’s life, after his claims of prophet-hood, that someone had actually recognized his genius. He found in me the most gung ho pupil that he could never have. So not only did he pull all the stops he literally moved heaven and earth and relentlessly bellowed the crucible that was shaping me. When my parents came to know that I was a regular visitor to Qazi's home they became furious. Even my friends chided me “abay Qazi bara londay baaz hay, bach kar rehna.”
I won the speech contest when I saw her smiling, while I was receiving my prize at the podium.
Winning and losing always take turns. They are like two sides of a coin tossed in the air and you never know which side is going to turn up. Sometimes I wonder if people are like tossed coins too. Everybody has two sides and you never know which side are you going to see next. Babar, my best friend since kindergarten, my neighbor, and buddy was no exception.
After the prize distribution ceremony we were all exiting the school gate. Babar was walking right in front of me with one of our classmates. He and I had a fight, a day ago, because I had cheated on cricket scores. I was walking right behind him to find an opportunity to apologize for my dishonesty. I saw Miss Rabia walking towards her husband who was waiting for her, as usual, on his motorcycle. That is when I overheard Babar saying to the other boy, “Hey! Did you see her tits?”
That was a kick in the teeth. Unbelievable. My own bosom buddy was such a snake? I yelled at the top of my lungs “Babar! what the hell did you just say”.
Babar turned back and venomously said, “I said your Rabia's tits are so big, Boy!”
The next thing I know we were in a fistfight, growling, snarling and cursing each other. Physically, Babar was bigger and stronger than me and other kids used to avoid fighting with him. Though I was an average yet I used to be known as 'Sami Jhalla (Mad Sami)' just because of my fearlessness. I had never backed down from a fistfight probably because of greater threshold for the tolerance of pain. When other boys separated us I found my nose bleeding and my shirt was sanguineous in front. He was bleeding too. I was still sneering at him and struggling hard to get out of the grips of other boys who were holding me back. He wiped blood from his gums with the cuff of his shirt while I was still gnashing my teeth. Finding myself helpless in the grips of other boys I uttered in a fit of blinding rage, “Behan Chod, Mirzai”
Babar looked into my eyes unbelievingly.
My thought “That oughta do it”, was immediately followed by another thought, “Oh! Fuck, What have I done!”
I started getting ready for some more punishment from him and hardened my muscles. Although I was sneering at him with all the contempt in my heart with a stone cold face yet I thought that my eyes were sending him a message that I was sorry. Strangely, enough he walked away with a grayest face that I had ever seen. I couldn’t believe it. But deep down in my heart I knew that I had lost him forever. I wanted him to say something back to me; say something bad about my mother but that son of a bitch never did. He just walked away as if I didn’t exist or my existence meant nothing to him. God! No one had ever denied me like that in my life before. It hurt. It hurt more as the hours passed by on that day. I was overwhelmed by a sense of grief and utter loss. That was the saddest day of my life.
By the evening when my heart was about to explode, I went to see Fozia. She was standing in front of her gate like everyday. I saw her Doberman tied on the driveway. Even he didn’t try to jump on me that day.
"Why?" That was the only word she uttered when I came close to her.
"'Cause I love her" I knew that if I hadn’t said those words right then, my heart would have crumbled into pieces and one of the veins in my brain would've exploded. She looked into my eyes. I could tell by the stern expression on her face that she was having trouble finding anything in the bottom of that abyss. Then All of a sudden she kicked me right on my shin as forcefully as she could. The shock was severer than the pain. Without saying a word she just turned back and walked inside. For a moment I just stood there, stunned beyond my belief. I looked inside. She was untying her Doberman. That wasn't good so I took off limping.
Babar never spoke to me again and neither did Fozia. Both of them left the school after the final exams. That is so typical when you grow up on Airbases. Friendships don’t last more than three years because people are always moving. At school everybody knew why I had a fight with Babar but Miss Rabia never indicated that she knew. Sometimes she and her husband used to come to our house to meet my parents. And I used to watch her through the peepholes. I was freed from the confines and relentless whipping of my slave driver by a divine intervention the next year when I was sent to a cadet college in another city. As the days turned into weeks, and weeks into month without seeing her, her memory started to fade away too.
Last year, I celebrated Eid in Toronto. After Eid prayers, I was hugging my friends, in front of the mosque, when I realized that I was being watched. I was not surprised because there were so many girls there; but it was more than that. Someone was "really" watching me. So I looked around and it didn't take me long to find out that the beholder was a woman in dark oversized glasses, a red scarf and with a very anxious face. Soon a bald guy approached her and held her hand. I could read their lips saying Eid Mubarak to each other. A girl and a boy emerged from the crowd and joined them. They looked like a very happy family. The woman nodded her head and pointed at me. The bald guy straightened his glasses. He seemed to have recognized me, whereas I was a little perplexed. This bewilderment faded away as soon as this guy started walking and then almost running, towards me. His arms were extended and he was shouting "Oyay khinzeer too itna bara ho gaya hay?" His voice refreshed my memory. Probably, you might have guessed it too; she was Miss Rabia and bald guy was of course Ganja Master.
After they had shouted enough and embarrassed their kids and me in front of the crowd they invited me on the dinner.
I was reluctant; “I gotta catch a plane back to Detroit at 9:00”.
She raised her eyebrows “Gadhay, maar to nahinN khaani?”
“Ok, we will let you go at 8:00; Airport is just 10 minutes away from where we live.” said Ganja.
“Some other Pakistani families are also invited; you know, it is always better to make new contacts here” she advised.
Whom were they kidding? I couldn’t miss that invitation for anything in the world. But sometimes it feels good to show reluctance.
I showed up at their apartment by 7:00. I was not surprised to see that no other guest had shown up at that time. Well who goes to a dinner at 7:00 on Eid day anyway? I guessed that they had excited their kids a lot before I got there because they seemed very anxious to know more about me. Dinner was served around 7:30. Her 15 year old daughter and 12 year old son laughed their heads off when she told them about the pranks I used to pull in school. I had no idea that she would remember me after all those years. She was so nice to me and was offering me everything on the table, "baytay yeh lo", "baytay yeh bhi khao".
Soon after the dinner was over she started taking the dishes away to the kitchen.
“I better call a cab for you” Ganja excused himself.
I continued my conversation with her daughter, who was extremely interested in knowing everything about me; especially about my new hi-tech Casio. I adjusted the dial on my Carpus and started telling her about its features. I could see Miss Rabia working in the kitchen. From time to time she kept on talking to us from there.
I was telling her daughter about the altimeter in my watch when for a millionth of a second I went back in time. I felt myself imbibed in the same feeling that I used to have when I was her student in fifth grade and I‘d look at her face for hours. In that same millionth of a second Miss Rabia looked back into my eyes, while drying a dish with a washcloth, and read my mind. Suddenly, her tone of voice changed, and the repetitious cleaning and putting away of dishes turned into a supple ballet. She started looking more ecstatic, vivacious and rhapsodic than ever. The stars in her eyes rekindled in that millionth of a second. May be she had realized that her idolater had kept the flame burning all those years. God! If that was it, what a feeling! Wouldn't it take away years from your age, wrinkles from your face and give you that slight smile which shows on a face that has a deeply content heart. Well! I am pretty sure that she had experienced that moment of truth in that tiny interval of time.
Unfortunately, this story doesn't end here. There was someone else who read our minds also. Yes the daughter. She had also intercepted a part of that mental signal within that millionth of a second. Suddenly she lost interest in the conversation and started looking detached. I pulled up my sleeves but the power of magic was lost. She looked frustrated because she was not able to decipher that signal. Probably she will never understand what happened to her. But I am pretty sure I will never be on her favorites-list anymore.
After a while, her daughter said "Abbu Ji! Hang up the phone I wanna check my e-mail". She got up from the dining table and excused herself to her bedroom. As soon as her father hung up the phone, it rang again.
“Sami your cab has arrived”.
I stood up and said Khuda Hafiz with a heavy heart.
“Come again eh!”
“Sure”
“Agar nah ayay to Detroit aa kar kaan khainchooN gee”
I grinned. As I turned the door handle, it knocked. I opened the door and saw a very handsome couple standing at the doorstep. It didn’t take me more than a split second to recognize them; they were Babar and Fozia.
From a very early age I had realized that I was 'gifted'. Now I know very well what interests women about me. So over the years I have turned into a little exhibitionist pervert. Most of the time I wear long-sleeved T-shirts and keep pulling my sleeves up to expose my wrists just when the moment is right. I know exactly how a woman feels when someone's silent gaze appreciates her cleavage.
Not all of the women have good intentions about my wrists, though. One of them is this girl whom I call a 'traffic hazard'. Whenever, she sits next to me in my car while I am helplessly tied up with seatbelt, she bites on my wrist. She is impetuous like a wildcat and her teeth are sharp like one. When she is close to me I try to keep my hands inside my pockets, but she always finds a way to catch me off guard. Sometimes she bites so hard that it makes tiny little blood drops to appear. Then I yell at her, “You know that you are crazy?”
“Yep, crazy about you.” she replies. “Just one of these days I am gonna make a sandwich out of your hands and eat ‘em”. I can see the determination in her eyes and I know that she means it. I shudder with a near-orgasmic anticipation. But this story is not about her either.
My fellow fifth grader Fozia was the first who made me aware of my 'gift'. On one hot summer day, I was waiting in line at the water cooler during recess, rubbing and polishing a new cricket ball when Fozia touched my hand at the Carpus and said, “your hands are all red”. Although there were more important things on my mind at that time, like how would I replace Imran Khan, I liked her comment. From that day on, as long as we remained classmates, she could not take her eyes off of my wrists, whether I was taking dictation in the classroom or playing cricket, she was always watching. But this story is not about her either.
You must be thinking by now that the woman whom I fell in love with must be a beauty queen. No. She was just another typical Punjaban; a Punjaban not from the southern fertile plains but from up here in North, the Potohar Plateau, where life is still as difficult as its terrain. But, here, the captivating and awesome beauty of its landscape, its multihued rocks, its humbling gorges, snaking creeks, and the breathtaking magnificence of sand dunes are compounded by the beauty of its inhabitants. Whether it is the splendor of springing gazelles, dancing peacocks, and flocks of pelicans and alabasters migrating from Russia to the great lakes in Sindh, or the sturdy men and gorgeous women of this land, the nature's benevolence is copious.
The women in this part of Punjab are a proof positive of the truth of Hindu mythology "Panchakannaya". According to this mythology women are made of five elements hence they are referred to as Elemental Women. “They are refreshing and vital as the air, graceful and tender as sparkling water, lustrous and consuming as flames of fire, generous and enveloping as space and stable and deep as the earth….you elemental women are perfect beauty itself”. Whoever wrote this must have a Punjabi woman in his mind.
She was just another one of these Elemental Women. But she must had something that made her stand out in the crowd. Why else would, a guy like me, attempt on her husband's life, make a pact with the devil, beat the crap out of his friends, bear his mother's wrath and break some very loving hearts. I have no idea why did I fall in love with her. Sometimes I wonder if a tiny little blue vein on her transparent neck had something to do with it; or may be it was the way she used to press her lips slightly with pride, whenever she'd find men scanning her; or may be it was the way she'd try to pretend that she wasn’t noticing their appreciation. May be it was not her appearance. May be it was the way she held my hand and helped me draw a circle with a compass, on her first day at school. Yep! She was my fifth grade teacher.
I think it is unfair to blame it on the hormones in case of a fifth grader. Probably, love is not Chemistry; and if age can't restrict it then it is not Physics either. If people fall in love despite the risk of getting their hearts broken it is not Statistics. One thing is for sure that it is not simple math to figure out what love is. An affection that has lasted over years cannot be infatuation. Probably it is genetic. May be we inherited it from Adam. It must be the innocent love that Adam felt when he first saw Eve, long before touching the forbidden fruit.
Fozia was the first to cast my feelings in the molds of words. “You are in love with Miss Rabia, aren't you?" She asked me one day.
I didn’t say anything; just shrugged my shoulders. Sometimes it is better not to put your feelings in words because if you do, your words become a mission statement. These words then confine you and they become your liability. Liability is a dungeon where your conscience whips you like a slave driver and compels you to stand by your words. My ‘freedom’ was also short lived.
“Are you gonna marry her when you grow up?” asked Fozia, looking at my face anticipating a ‘no’.
“Yes” I said; and my slave driver whipped me the very first time.
Miss Rabia got married during the summer brake of that year.
“Now what’re you gonna do?” Fozia dropped the bombshell on the first day after summer break.
I looked into her starry eyes and shrugged “I'll marry her too when I'll grow up”.
Obviously, I was too naïve to understand the concept of marriage. But I felt hurt. The pain was strange. It was like the pain of betrayal when someone who is trusted and close to you betrays you unknowingly, innocently and unintentionally. Deep down inside you feel like punishing your betrayer but you can’t. You find yourself not only tied down but gagged as well. And no one else does it to you but you.
As the days went by I was increasingly drawn to her. This attraction was insentience and excruciating. I wanted her to acknowledge and accept my existence. I was striving hard to impress her by being a model student, by doing my homework in the best possible way. I even brought her roses from my moms little garden. Now I think that it is not the feeling of love that makes you do things, which you would never do in ‘normal mode’. It happens only when expectations piggyback themselves on the vehicle of love. And for expectations to come into existence you got to have a mission statement and so as to keep you right on track you got to have a slave driver; and I had two. One of them was my conscience and the other one was Fozia; and I used to get whipped by both of them. Fozia’s slave driver was crueler than mine was. In an attempt to come close to me she had to piggyback her expectations on my sentiments towards Miss Rabia. Fozia and me would talk about her for hours. We three were like a perfect solar system; where I was circling around Miss Rabia and Fozia was my satellite. We could never come close nor we could escape from each other. Sometimes I used to feel bad when Fozia managed to eclipse my feelings towards Miss Rabia. But that used to be as momentary and brief as any eclipse. While I used to wonder what would take Miss Rabia to take my notice, I was unmindful that everyone else was noticing me.
One day we were dissecting a cockroach in our lab when I was called in to the staff room. I saw my mom sitting there with Miss Rabia and few other teachers. My mom was asking them how I was doing in studies when one of the teachers said "Your sahibzada has given up on studies-bus ishq farmatay haiN in say" pointing at her. All the teachers laughed. My mom grabbed my ear and twirled it.
“Gadhay, Is that right?” She had shot me first and then she was asking questions.
I felt that someone had just thrown a fist full of sand in my eyes. The utter feeling of shame and insult made my heart stifle my throat. I wanted to cry but couldn’t, in front of her. I looked at her solemn face and saw empathy in her eyes. That was good enough for me. Now if they had put me in a meat grinder even then I wouldn’t have cried.
Speaking of the meat grinder, I found myself in one, when, one day, I overheard two kids talking, “Miss Rabia kay bachcha honay wala hay”.
It took the wind out of my sails. The shock then turned into anger. First I beat both of them up and then went to see her. That was true. I saw a bulging tummy. It felt like she had betrayed me again while I was mired in her enticing smile. I was furious.
“Bitch", "Gashti” I spewed my venom in my thoughts. I wanted to ask her why she was carrying some snake's offspring, but I couldn't. Being a sixth grader really sucks sometimes.
I had matured a bit more than the last year, so my indignation changed its course towards her husband. Later, on that day I saw him buying oranges from a street vendor. He was a lecturer at the local college and he was popularly known in the city as Ganja Master; thanks to his students. I was on my BMX bike and the moment I saw him I got only one thought on my mind, "Ganja must die". Soon I felt that a whole choir of demons was chanting those words in the empty chamber of my brain. That echoing cacophony turned into a war cry. I ground my teeth and cried "Die, Ganjay die". I aimed my bike at him and started hitting the paddles vigorously to muster up all the speed that I could. Unfortunately, I missed him and hit the vendor's cart. My nose started bleeding and Rari-wala began yelling at me with anger because half of his oranges rolled into the gutters. Ganja Master was an acquaintance of my father, so he knew me too. He gave some money to the vendor and took me to the nearby clinic.
She didn't come back to school when she went on her pregnancy leave, until after we were in grade seven. I always wonder what makes first time mothers so beautiful. Is it the love that they feel for a part of their body or is it the sense of accomplishment and perfection that makes their faces glow. Probably it is the feeling of self-assurance of fecundity and the power of creation that casts an aurora of magnetism around them. She was charming than ever and I was crazier than ever.
Once again I started striving my best to be visible to her. She liked watching students play. So I started taking part in sports. She was also in charge of library and I started borrowing books more often and tried to read them too because she would always ask me about the book and I desperately wanted to sound intelligent. I was ready to do anything that would help me win her approval. And 'anything' really meant 'anything', even selling my soul to the devil.
We were in grade viii then. One day she was teaching us trigonometry and drawing curves and lines on the board. There was a pin-drop silence in the class. I was in a state of trance looking at her back where the bra straps were making embossed curves under her shirt. The geometry defined by those curves had taken my breath away. For the very first time in my life I was being cognizant of a strange nebulous feeling. That feeling was spellbinding yet it felt so wrong. I might have remained lost in the stupor of that tantalizing moment forever when I felt a tickle at my Carpus. It was Fozia trying to pass a note to me. I almost fell down from my seat when I saw the note. The message said, "I love you".
'She must be joking' I thought. Well, she knew that my heart belonged to another. How could she? I wrote back, "I don’t, ehmuq larki". I saw her face turning red and then pale. After a while she wrote back "You know Miss Rabia is our new in-charge of Speech Club?"
That was new information to me. The only problem was that I knew nothing about Public Speaking. That was something that I had to do at all costs. So I made a pact with the ‘devil’.
The devil that I am talking about was known around the town as ‘Qazi Murghi Chor’. Most of the people had long forgotten his real name. The legend has it that he used to be a successful advocate a few years ago. He was not only successful but also one of the most learned people in the town. And then one day just out of the blue he claimed prophet-hood. He quit his practice and went on a preaching spree. At first people didn’t take him seriously then they started avoiding him and he became a social outcast. After a while children started lampooning him; they used to hound him in groups and throw pebbles and rotten vegetables at him. He did not take that rejection well and became grouchy, bad-tempered and cranky.
One day I was coming back from school when I accidentally ran into him. He looked at me with his red bulging eyes and grabbed me from my ear.
“Chalo uthak-baithak karo”, he growled.
I almost peed in my pants and started doing sit-stand as diligently as I could. A couple of girls from a rooftop saw this commotion and started laughing at my misery. The prophet looked up where the laughter was coming from and when he saw those girls he raised his finger and said “Hoorain aa gayeeN!, Hoorain aa gayeeN!”
I found an opportunity to escape and ran like hell. As I turned around the street corner an idea hit me. I came back and started following Qazi. When he entered his home I stood outside his door for a while and then knocked. He opened the door and when he saw me he was rendered speechless.
“Can you teach me how to make a speech?” I asked with all hope.
Probably it was the first time in Qazi’s life, after his claims of prophet-hood, that someone had actually recognized his genius. He found in me the most gung ho pupil that he could never have. So not only did he pull all the stops he literally moved heaven and earth and relentlessly bellowed the crucible that was shaping me. When my parents came to know that I was a regular visitor to Qazi's home they became furious. Even my friends chided me “abay Qazi bara londay baaz hay, bach kar rehna.”
I won the speech contest when I saw her smiling, while I was receiving my prize at the podium.
Winning and losing always take turns. They are like two sides of a coin tossed in the air and you never know which side is going to turn up. Sometimes I wonder if people are like tossed coins too. Everybody has two sides and you never know which side are you going to see next. Babar, my best friend since kindergarten, my neighbor, and buddy was no exception.
After the prize distribution ceremony we were all exiting the school gate. Babar was walking right in front of me with one of our classmates. He and I had a fight, a day ago, because I had cheated on cricket scores. I was walking right behind him to find an opportunity to apologize for my dishonesty. I saw Miss Rabia walking towards her husband who was waiting for her, as usual, on his motorcycle. That is when I overheard Babar saying to the other boy, “Hey! Did you see her tits?”
That was a kick in the teeth. Unbelievable. My own bosom buddy was such a snake? I yelled at the top of my lungs “Babar! what the hell did you just say”.
Babar turned back and venomously said, “I said your Rabia's tits are so big, Boy!”
The next thing I know we were in a fistfight, growling, snarling and cursing each other. Physically, Babar was bigger and stronger than me and other kids used to avoid fighting with him. Though I was an average yet I used to be known as 'Sami Jhalla (Mad Sami)' just because of my fearlessness. I had never backed down from a fistfight probably because of greater threshold for the tolerance of pain. When other boys separated us I found my nose bleeding and my shirt was sanguineous in front. He was bleeding too. I was still sneering at him and struggling hard to get out of the grips of other boys who were holding me back. He wiped blood from his gums with the cuff of his shirt while I was still gnashing my teeth. Finding myself helpless in the grips of other boys I uttered in a fit of blinding rage, “Behan Chod, Mirzai”
Babar looked into my eyes unbelievingly.
My thought “That oughta do it”, was immediately followed by another thought, “Oh! Fuck, What have I done!”
I started getting ready for some more punishment from him and hardened my muscles. Although I was sneering at him with all the contempt in my heart with a stone cold face yet I thought that my eyes were sending him a message that I was sorry. Strangely, enough he walked away with a grayest face that I had ever seen. I couldn’t believe it. But deep down in my heart I knew that I had lost him forever. I wanted him to say something back to me; say something bad about my mother but that son of a bitch never did. He just walked away as if I didn’t exist or my existence meant nothing to him. God! No one had ever denied me like that in my life before. It hurt. It hurt more as the hours passed by on that day. I was overwhelmed by a sense of grief and utter loss. That was the saddest day of my life.
By the evening when my heart was about to explode, I went to see Fozia. She was standing in front of her gate like everyday. I saw her Doberman tied on the driveway. Even he didn’t try to jump on me that day.
"Why?" That was the only word she uttered when I came close to her.
"'Cause I love her" I knew that if I hadn’t said those words right then, my heart would have crumbled into pieces and one of the veins in my brain would've exploded. She looked into my eyes. I could tell by the stern expression on her face that she was having trouble finding anything in the bottom of that abyss. Then All of a sudden she kicked me right on my shin as forcefully as she could. The shock was severer than the pain. Without saying a word she just turned back and walked inside. For a moment I just stood there, stunned beyond my belief. I looked inside. She was untying her Doberman. That wasn't good so I took off limping.
Babar never spoke to me again and neither did Fozia. Both of them left the school after the final exams. That is so typical when you grow up on Airbases. Friendships don’t last more than three years because people are always moving. At school everybody knew why I had a fight with Babar but Miss Rabia never indicated that she knew. Sometimes she and her husband used to come to our house to meet my parents. And I used to watch her through the peepholes. I was freed from the confines and relentless whipping of my slave driver by a divine intervention the next year when I was sent to a cadet college in another city. As the days turned into weeks, and weeks into month without seeing her, her memory started to fade away too.
Last year, I celebrated Eid in Toronto. After Eid prayers, I was hugging my friends, in front of the mosque, when I realized that I was being watched. I was not surprised because there were so many girls there; but it was more than that. Someone was "really" watching me. So I looked around and it didn't take me long to find out that the beholder was a woman in dark oversized glasses, a red scarf and with a very anxious face. Soon a bald guy approached her and held her hand. I could read their lips saying Eid Mubarak to each other. A girl and a boy emerged from the crowd and joined them. They looked like a very happy family. The woman nodded her head and pointed at me. The bald guy straightened his glasses. He seemed to have recognized me, whereas I was a little perplexed. This bewilderment faded away as soon as this guy started walking and then almost running, towards me. His arms were extended and he was shouting "Oyay khinzeer too itna bara ho gaya hay?" His voice refreshed my memory. Probably, you might have guessed it too; she was Miss Rabia and bald guy was of course Ganja Master.
After they had shouted enough and embarrassed their kids and me in front of the crowd they invited me on the dinner.
I was reluctant; “I gotta catch a plane back to Detroit at 9:00”.
She raised her eyebrows “Gadhay, maar to nahinN khaani?”
“Ok, we will let you go at 8:00; Airport is just 10 minutes away from where we live.” said Ganja.
“Some other Pakistani families are also invited; you know, it is always better to make new contacts here” she advised.
Whom were they kidding? I couldn’t miss that invitation for anything in the world. But sometimes it feels good to show reluctance.
I showed up at their apartment by 7:00. I was not surprised to see that no other guest had shown up at that time. Well who goes to a dinner at 7:00 on Eid day anyway? I guessed that they had excited their kids a lot before I got there because they seemed very anxious to know more about me. Dinner was served around 7:30. Her 15 year old daughter and 12 year old son laughed their heads off when she told them about the pranks I used to pull in school. I had no idea that she would remember me after all those years. She was so nice to me and was offering me everything on the table, "baytay yeh lo", "baytay yeh bhi khao".
Soon after the dinner was over she started taking the dishes away to the kitchen.
“I better call a cab for you” Ganja excused himself.
I continued my conversation with her daughter, who was extremely interested in knowing everything about me; especially about my new hi-tech Casio. I adjusted the dial on my Carpus and started telling her about its features. I could see Miss Rabia working in the kitchen. From time to time she kept on talking to us from there.
I was telling her daughter about the altimeter in my watch when for a millionth of a second I went back in time. I felt myself imbibed in the same feeling that I used to have when I was her student in fifth grade and I‘d look at her face for hours. In that same millionth of a second Miss Rabia looked back into my eyes, while drying a dish with a washcloth, and read my mind. Suddenly, her tone of voice changed, and the repetitious cleaning and putting away of dishes turned into a supple ballet. She started looking more ecstatic, vivacious and rhapsodic than ever. The stars in her eyes rekindled in that millionth of a second. May be she had realized that her idolater had kept the flame burning all those years. God! If that was it, what a feeling! Wouldn't it take away years from your age, wrinkles from your face and give you that slight smile which shows on a face that has a deeply content heart. Well! I am pretty sure that she had experienced that moment of truth in that tiny interval of time.
Unfortunately, this story doesn't end here. There was someone else who read our minds also. Yes the daughter. She had also intercepted a part of that mental signal within that millionth of a second. Suddenly she lost interest in the conversation and started looking detached. I pulled up my sleeves but the power of magic was lost. She looked frustrated because she was not able to decipher that signal. Probably she will never understand what happened to her. But I am pretty sure I will never be on her favorites-list anymore.
After a while, her daughter said "Abbu Ji! Hang up the phone I wanna check my e-mail". She got up from the dining table and excused herself to her bedroom. As soon as her father hung up the phone, it rang again.
“Sami your cab has arrived”.
I stood up and said Khuda Hafiz with a heavy heart.
“Come again eh!”
“Sure”
“Agar nah ayay to Detroit aa kar kaan khainchooN gee”
I grinned. As I turned the door handle, it knocked. I opened the door and saw a very handsome couple standing at the doorstep. It didn’t take me more than a split second to recognize them; they were Babar and Fozia.
I have taken this narrative from the website chowk.com, written by Urstruly.
"Your agony grows beyond my pain. My pain is your due; Yours is my grief."
The girl catatonically moved towards the mirror in the room. Raised her eyes and stared at the reflection. Tear-glistened eyes gazed past me. But I see the horror reflected in those eyes, the pain in those tears. The image brushes my mind and memory flashbacked. Wounds ripped open and agony let loose. The soul recoiled from the horrifying terror of the memory and the mind tries to scuttle back to ignorance but conscience pushes the thoughts back. I shut my eyes tight in a failed attempt to banish the images from my memory. So tight my eyes ache, so tight I see flashy-colored rings, so tight my eyes seemed to be pushed back to their socket. But still not enough to vanquish the painful horror of that one moment. Defeated, I open my dead eyes and look around seeing nothing. My glance flies around the room not resting on anything but still searching for something, anything that would distract me from facing the terror of that truth again. The memories rush back to the front and I desperately try to keep them at bay. They play themselves over and over again and force me to sink into the repulsive horror of those minutes. I close my eyes and the girl appears. Scared, I open my eyes and the girl becomes clearer. More ghosts emerge and echoes of that scene materialize in front of me. Then the faces turn towards me, they laugh at me and mock me for my mortal weakness. I try to shut them out but the charade continues in my mind. I try to run away but how can I escape from the madness of my mind. The voices grow louder; the laughter more mocking. I clap hands over my ears and force the laughter to fade away. I close my eyes again but the horror of those images engulf me again as the scene is superimposed on my mind. Finally my anguish finds an outlet. The rage inside builds into fury and the pain breaks down all the barriers. I let the waves of anger crash over me and carry me away in their drift. The wrath takes control and the mocking faces vanish. But as the anger subsides, helplessness and despair coupled with disgust and shock, reign over my mind. Disgust at what man will do to prove his ultimate power and control. Disgust at how he will misuse the power and authority in such repulsive ways. And helplessness that I can not do anything about it; that perhaps I will be as helpless as that poor victim in the same situation. Dread lingers. The tears stream down my face as I once more picture the screen of horrifying, terror-stricken memories and rememember my friend sitting on my side with her face in her hands, sobbing softly, as she too witnessed the stark horror of that time. The anathema of that evil act is embedded in my mind and with it the chilling terror remains... perhaps forever.
Today we saw a documentary made by the US soldiers in Iraq, and this part of the movie was filmed surreptiously by one of the soldiers. This post is in response to the horror we had to see of an Iraqi girl being raped by drunk soldiers.
Some say the glass is half empty...
Some say the glass is half full...
I say "are you gonna drink that?" :P
rukh: wat the hell is the matter with my friends who wudn't let me complain about my stupid classfellows on my blog...
mubi: because there are more important things to speculate on than just some ordinary 'intellectual' people, so why bother?
ami:''intellectual'' more like whore like ppl in our class!!!
rukh: yups amiz back in form...but still they cudve let me ask some really simple questions they were'nt gonna die right there if i asked them about some foreign ownership or cross ownership...
ami: yea...wat simple questions (sarcasm)
mubi: because they are all saddies in the making, dont you know that by now?
hina: mahrukh utho yeh tum ghar ja keh bhi ker sakti ho!
hina: mahrukh is going mad maaaaaaaaaadddd!!!
rukh: oh god i cant bear the thot of other saddies pottering around in this world making our lives hell...
mubi: as if its any better right now.
rukh: yea it is... we have only one saddie to deal with ryt now!!!
mubi: YEA but shes gona get married and you know thats even more dangerous!!! i mean u cant stop ppl from..
rukh: ...having little saddies!!!
rukh: yea u can they have invented contraceptives for that!!! i think tehy invented that esp keeping saddie and her future prospective kids in mind...
ami: YEAH !!! fernando torres scored a hatrick on sunday!
hina: UTHOOOOO (walks out)
rukh: scored in wat?
mubi: this place runs out of paper every other day and then its she in the back so its a goodbye :P
ami: if it aint paper the internet is a major pain in the backside!!!
rukh: now whos complaining??? anyways the net here is faster than mine at home ryt now!!!
hina: (from outside) yaaar bass kerooo!!!
ami: im hearing this this this and i wanna hear this (accompanied with nice hand gestures)...... THE WHORE CONVENTION address just got a mail frm me!!!
rukh: yea they are so lucky!!! now ami i wanna hear this!!!
The sunbeams play in a pattern on my eyes and i slowly force open my sleep deprived eyes and glare murder at the open curtains that are dancing to the music of the wind. Slowly the phtak phtak of a rickshaw and the blasting horns of cars penetrate my groggy mind and then a horrendous dheencho dheencho from the resident donkey beneath my window jerks me wide awake. i walk upto the window and stretch my arms in true bollywood heroine style. then i lean out to breathe in the fresh morning air and to contemplate the beauty of a brand new day. Ahhh!! a bright new day has dawned bringing forth a whole new day filled with happiness and laughter and oh my god look at the time...DAMN! i'm late for my class! Oh Fuckin Hell! where the hell are my clothes. Shit! only 10 mins left for my first class!! Throwing open my cupboard doors i dive into the muddle of clothes and try to find a matching suit. YES, FOUND IT! oh hell where are my socks now?? Fuck i banged my toe on the bed!!! Why do the fuckin bitches keep classes so early in the morning!! Senseless people! Fuck 5 mins left. i throw on my clothes and rush to the bathroom and emerge from it in record time. Cripes cant find the damn notebook!! where did i put it yesterday?? oh yeah under my bed!!! i grab my shoes a hairbrush sweater and shawl and stuff them in my bag. those things go on me in my second dressing room (my car). i open my door and spare my room a backward glance just because a guilty conscience prods me into imagining mom's shock when she walks into my room later on. The clothes are spilling out of the cupboard which is like an overfilled container. Papers litter the floor thanx to my search for my notebook and the mattress on the bed is half on the floor. My dressing table is littered with all the rubbish that fell outta my bag when i picked it up. In short my room resembles a hurricane hit zone when im leaving for college. another glance at my watch lends wings to my feet and i run down two flights of stairs, shout a hasty goodbye to my mom and dash to the car. What the fuckin hell!!! where the hell is the driver?? Holy Fuck the class has started!! Where is that stupid asshole of a driver of mine. I open my bag and start looking for my cell and realize its back in my room. Fuckin Crap! I'm gonne be sooo late!! i dash back upstairs and after a search of another precious 5 mins finally locate my cell in the laundry basket...hmmm now how did it get there?? forget it!! run back downstairs and call my driver up who has already turned up and the stupid idot still saw it fit to take my call even when he could see me running toward the car. dumbass!!! i get into the car and finally we're off and im as yet just 10 mins late. and ofcourse the fates just cant accpet that im only 10 mins late. they think it spoils my repo so i get stuck in a traffic jam. And its so damn ironic considering that my house is like a 5 mins drive to the college. sigh* after another 10 mins i finally arrive at my college. But before i can run upto the damn class my genius driver has to stop me to have a lengthy discourse on what time he will pick me up from college. Ignoring my repeatedly said "I will call you" he finally gets a brainwave and with a very superior smile on his face informs me that i should call him up as soon as i get free. The fea-infested braindead primate!!!UGHHH!!! (by the time i reach college i run out of my extensive vocabularly of expletives) I run into college and upto my class which on such days is always situated on the third floor. And just when i get to the class i get a brainwave that as i'm already late so wats the fuckin use of going in and off i go down and find someone or the other of my friends. Thus, starts my first period in uni - with a BUNK!!
The cocoon-to-butterfly theory only works on cocoons and butterflies. Period.
To make way for the future we have to let go of the past. But so many times we try to make a place for the past in our present and future not realizing that not only is that an impossible feat but also very destructive especially to our future. Even if somehow or the other the past does 'seem' to fit into our present, the reverberating consequences can be felt throughout our future.
As it goes, by saying these wise words or pearls of wisdom, the great men of olden times weren’t throwing a challenge to their future generations to try where they couldn’t succeed. But instead were just giving them advice that it is pointless to try to incorporate your past into your future and to not waste precious time in trying to accomplish the impossible. For not only does it harm your present it also destroys your future by wiping out all the happiness that was stored for you.
Everything is supposed to be in a specific order in this universe; life, death, everything. This has been proven by scientists’ world over that nothing happens randomly and everything has an order. That specific order also applies itself to our past, present and future. They all have their own place in the sequence of time and disturbing the order only disturbs your own well-being.
It is not that we should forget the lessons that our past has taught us or even forget the fun that we had but that we should move on with our life and should not wait for the past to catch up with out present for it never does. Time isn’t a full circle that has no start and no end; it is a straight line that keeps on moving. It very definitely has a start and an end. Our birth into this world is its start and our death marks an end to our life’s time.
All my experiences with time have only taught me that we should make the best of the time that we have today and then just move on to enjoy tomorrow as it comes. Reminiscing about yesterday is nostalgic and fun but stopping your life just to make yesterday come again never works. So live today, remember yesterday and anticipate tomorrow.
All day long you keep the hurt locked in...
But when you step inside the darkened room and slip into your empty bed, the pain bursts through its confines...
Your pretence falls away like a silky cloak, slipping from your soul and leaves you naked and vulnerable like a wounded animal caught in a trap...
Still you fight the hurt, and try to push the pain away...
But your willpower exhausts you and you finally succumb to the aches of your heart and soul...
The soul opens its stores of anguish...
You try to feel the pain only and not to cry...
Open your eyes wide to keep the tears from gathering...
Then blink them a thousand times to keep the tears at bay...
But you lose that battle as well...
And you close your eyes...
Shut them tight and squeeze out a tiny drop...
The tear meanders on your cheek running softly down your face...
You open your eyes again and the moisture shimmers in those crystal orbs...
Soon a small rivulet follows the first rebel and floods your cheek...
You helplessly look on as the tears fall like tiny little raindrops, onto your hands and your body...
Let them fall for they are reminders of your sufferance...
A whimper escapes the constrains of the throat...
And then the sobs rack the body...
Too soon it all stops...
The anguish subsides...
The tears dry up...
The sobs turn to hiccups...
And the soul returns to its search again...
The wind is so perfect its not cold at all…it feels like cool soothing silk as it caresses my skin… against a background of whispering leaves swishing together on the dancing branches as they sway in perfect harmony with the graceful wind as it flows thru them drawing them into further compliance with it…
They just seem to be one… I wish I could sway with the wind like that…feel its love in the way it touches my skin with a lovers caress, feel its wildness as it streams thru my hair, its anger as it hits me in my face, its freedom as it strips away my armour, its gentle ness as it dries my tears, its arrogance as it makes me realize who I am, and its power as it makes me forget myself…I wish I could fly with the wind in all its majestic glory as one…
The wind sweeps across my body dismissing it as just another object in its path but giving me the essence of life…it feels like I’m breathing again when I drink in its freshness as it fans my face…as if I’m waking up from a deep, deep sleep to the music of the dancing gale…
It swirls around my crouching figure… I close my eyes and give myself up to its soothing fingers a it lightly drifts across my arms; as gentle as a mothers touch, as passionate as a lovers caress, as innocent as a baby’s smile and as beautiful as magical love…
As the wind lovingly kisses my face it leaves behind an awestruck look and a feeling of contentment for all I craved was a gentle touch and some loving understanding words… the wind spoke to me far more than those words ever could… it whispered so many secrets, so many comforts so many wonders and so many miracles…
The moon frowns upon our midnight tryst, as the wind and I confide our passions and secrets, and sends the moonlight to seek us out but the clouds close across its frowning countenance obscuring its disapproving vision. The moonlight loses its way and frolics away to tease the darkness of the Night leaving us lovers in a beautiful moment born of the conspiracy of the dark night and the clouds...
I Carry Your Heart With Me
E.E. Cummings
E.E. Cummings
I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)
I am never without it (anywhere I go you go, my dear;
and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)
I am never without it (anywhere I go you go, my dear;
and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)
I fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)
I want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
I want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you.
Here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart.
I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)
i kind of miss yesterday...i don't really understand why...after all the things that i wrote about yesterday i should be glad its over....but surprisingly i missed it like anything...maybe because today i didn't have a single piece of work to do!!! God! i just wanted to run out of the place screaming i was soo bored... i have been bored a lot before but today beat the hell out of all the other ennui filled days...seriously, i don't think i have many words to describe how it was...it was boredom, boredom, BOREDOM big time...the only thing i was supposed to do was listen to the mindless chatter of my collegues who, not surprisingly, have the intellect of a dim-witted bird...so i think i can safely categorise them as having birdbrains...sometimes it makes me wonder as to how exactly did they get into this company...going back to the chatter, it really isn't difficult for me to compare them to birds as their continuous prattle sounded as irritating squawking of birds...not chirping because that kind of feels nice to one's ears...but useless, rubbish gossip and complaining...Thank God i have perfected my brilliant ability to tune out such senseless babble which was acquired at my family gatherings when all my silly cousins got together to "talk" senselessly about their so "happening" lives... but that is another story and not to be discussed in this post...but even still, as i discovered to my greatest consternation, my ability still lacked the level required to tune these people out for more than two hours at a stretch...I really really am desperate to hire the services of a tutor who could help me right now...anyone interested do contact me...finally God's benevolence was showered on me and i was given work...ohhhh it was bliss...by the way i got this work from another department because my extent of boredom had surpassed all bounds forcing me to go around the office begging for work....so u see i haven't been black mouthing my department for anything...and this will just show you how much was i on a loose end that i had to go begging for work from other departments...the work i got wasn't very intellectual or anything...i just had to feed some documents into the computer...but it was still work...and it did require my undivided attention as i had to correct the hopeless grammar of the texts...and it did save me from the mindless and unbearable chatter of my senseless colleagues...so no matter i had to stay overtime to complete the work and no matter the ache in my neck as i worked on the computer at a stretch for five hours and the headache that made me take notice of itself as soon as i shut down the computer...i am thankful to the angel who saved me today though i doubt she had such unselfish motives as i am bestowing her with but undoubtedly she saved me...and she has my undying gratitude for today...i am starting to question my beliefs that i will be able to learn something about the company while i am working in this comapny in any position...but i sure have learnt the extents of my patience and other such "appraisable attributes"...if i am lucky enough i will learn more as this is supposed to be a learning experience but not the hard way as i had to do today...let's hope for the best...sigh
This post was also written during my internship stint on 10th July, 2007.
GOD! it has been a terrible day so far...not terrible in the bad sense, terrible in the chaotic, panicky, monotonous, boring and dead sense. so much so that now i have completely no idea as to wat i am supposed to be doing...i think this place is for people to go mad...can you believe it...i had to write a hundred slogans before i was told what i was to write about...i cant believe that such an organisation will be like this...they arnt open to ideas or anything...nuthing that makes them go away from those traditional ideas...they just stick to whats been tried like a thousand times before and works everytime...they don't want to step out and take a risk...make themselves different...so far all my ideas have been rejected with an accompanying snotty look that deems me pitiable...and trust me soo far they havent disappointed me...;p...anyways hopefully i'll be able to change their way of thinking and move them into a positive direction away from their conventions...i just hope i won't get sucked in their quagmire of conventionality...on second thoughts ive resisted so far...i don't think these harmless old fools can hurt my intellectuality...;p lol
This post was written on 9th July, 2007 during my internship stint at an advertising company.
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