birthday '23

I am up. I am up, but I don’t want to get up. I will lie here, without budging an inch, eyes tightly shut. I don’t want that single ray of light breaking through that crack in the curtains hurting my eyes, ravaging my mind; that one ray of light whose sole purpose is to wake me up, get me up, dress me up, fuck me up.

So no, I don’t want to get up, this day, or any other day. Why should I get up anyway? What does this day have to offer? As soon as it begins, I will need to take a deep-dive into abject servility. Every person that I meet will try and educate me on which end is up. And I will only be left loathing myself for allowing every dipshit into my mind, to play with the monsters that lurk in all its dark recesses. Every moment of the day will be filled with dread, of a phone call or a message or an email portending imminent doom. The mourning for my lack of a spine will begin early, as will the realization of how little I know of the world, and how easy it is for even the most superficially clever to run circles around me.

I will be overwhelmed way before the day is out. I will seek emotional support from those who ought to be looking towards me instead. And when I see the fear and the confusion and the incapacity in their eyes, my inadequacies will begin their naked dance of reproof. I will writhe and ferment and despair in my own head until I can take it no more. All because of that one sneaky, unwelcome ray of light. Where is my ray of light? That can blind me to my own miserable self; that can lift me up from oblivion and give me a fleeting sense of being alive?

Go away, stealthy, slinky ray from an unwanted sun. I am not getting up, not until my eyes refuse to stay shut any longer; or my bladder bursts.

a hospice for bruised souls

Walls

that keep out

the world's incessant need

to interfere,

and doors

that only let in love. 

A quiet solitude

for the ministrations

that bring the half-dead

back to life,

that exorcize 

the demons carried over

from normality,

and windows

that admit

just the right amounts of sun

as catalyst

to the process,

a balm

to festering sores. 

A peace

undisturbed

by the moans

of the suffering 

as their suffering

melts away,

and a salubrious bliss

settles in,

fleeting

or permanent,

who is to say? 

An aura

that tempers 

the heat

of body & mind,

and interprets anew

all meanings

of tenderness,

of passion,

of care. 

This is a hospice

for bruised souls

birthday '22: The Big 40

Trustee old device;
here I sit
one more time,
contemplating your dirty screen,
forcing through
verse and rhyme.

For I can’t write.

Not since
my nasty wound is healed,
my sinister scars
beneath fresh skin
concealed.

Not since
my mornings
of the most cynical taint,
see me wake up
without slightest complaint;

Or my days
in the grip of fate,
keep giving me a reason
to hope
and wait.

I can’t write.

What if it’s time
to bid you adieu?
Because
until my days
regain their familiar
desolate
hue;
and body
and soul
are lacerated
anew,

I can’t write.

a nightmare in '93

It is just past sundown. He is fast asleep with no desire to wake up until way past sunup. But, his eyes are forced open as he feels something wet slide between his thighs. He groggily takes in a lurid face bent over him; red, reptilian eyes, a slight moustache, clipped, oiled, and a thick shock of hair, middle-parted, combed according to the fashion for youth. In the dim night-light, he can see that the man has the fall of his own kameez underneath his chin, an erect penis jutting out from under, and the man’s knees straddle his yet half-awake form. He can also feel his own nakedness from the waist down, the man having pulled down his night pajamas while he was in deep slumber.

The man sees his opening eyes and says with an obscene leer, “well then, here I am”, while spitting on the fingers of his own left hand, and attempting to rub it between the buttocks of the body underneath. “What the fuck are you doing, you son of a whore? Get away from me,” he retorts in what is at best a loud whisper, while straightening himself from the half-prostrate position the man had placed his sleeping body in. “Shh, shh, you don’t want them to find out, do you? We are friends, aren’t we? You know this is not going to hurt. It never hurts. Please. You have eluded me far too long,” the man says, half-reassuringly, half menacingly, but frozen in place. “Get off me, get off my bed, you filthy motherfucker!” he whispers aggressively again, kicking the man in the stomach with all his might. The man, now resigned, clambers off the bed, ties up his shalwar, the erect penis still sticking out underneath the fabric, and mouths, “you will regret this; you will pay for this; we were supposed to be friends.” As soon as the man is off of him, he jumps up off the bed, pulls up his pajama, and rushes to the bathroom to wash off the man’s saliva.

Upon returning from his frenetic self-purification, which never worked, because he only ever felt dirty, he sees the man perched on the first-floor sill, trying to figure out how to climb down to the ground. “Why don’t you go through the door and down the stairs, you fucking bastard?” he mocks, mustering all of his unseasoned sarcasm. The man only scowls back. In that moment, epiphany strikes. All he needs to do is to push the man sitting on his haunches at the sill, and he could be rid of him forever. He is tempted to dash towards the man, hurling him headlong two floors down. ‘But no. They might find out. They should never find out. I will never be able to explain myself.’ The man finds a foothold against a drainage pipe, and in a split-second, is gone.

He lies back down on his bed, more angry than scared or hurt. There are tears in his eyes, nonetheless, although, he doesn’t wail or sob. “Please help me, god” is the last thing he thinks before drifting off again, not waking up until long past sunup.

the dying Sutlej valley!!

I give my two cents on how the Sutlej basin is facing a water catastrophe because of flawed water policy from the get-go on a vlog with NayaDaur. 

اس سال گرمی پہلے سے زیادہ پڑرہی ہے جس نے فصلوں کا بہت نقصان کیا ہے بارش بلکل نہیں ہوئی ریگستانی علاقوں میں پانی کی کمی کی وجہ بارش کا نہ ہونا بھی ہے۔ ریگستان میں زیر زمین پانی کی کوالٹی کبھی بھی اچھی نہیں رہی، حسنین حیدرhttps://t.co/90bJvRxtvg pic.twitter.com/CBl5SBsaEU

— NayaDaur Urdu (@nayadaurpk_urdu) May 13, 2022

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/rQd9xjetYdg 

If the people of the Seraiki belt are underprivileged in this country, within the Seraiki belt the people of Rohi have it the worst. They are politically dominated by canal colony settlers who hold them in a political and economic stranglehold. They themselves are mainly nomads, herders and small farmers with absolutely no one to speak for them. 

birthday '21

I lie

as a vehicle for growth

I lie

as a means to survive,

to get what I want;

and lately,

I've witnessed myself lying

by pure force of habit.

But today,

I lie sick in bed,

contemplating all the times

that I've lied to myself.

I've lied myself into believing

that there are ideals loftier

than the pursuit of self-interests,

that there are cut & dried notions

of right and wrong,

that there is something noble

in doing what others expect you to,

want you to,

to walk a course others chart for you.

While the truth is,

there is nothing larger than the self;

all else is the means,

the self is the end. 

Everything must serve

the gratification of the self,

the projection of the self,

the fulfillment of the self.

At 39, it's probably too late 

for a chronic people-pleaser,

a spineless pushover

like me

to fully embrace

this hard reality.

But, heaven help me,

I will make

selfish pricks

out of my kids.

And I hope

other parents of my generation

are doing the same,

for the good

can't exist

without the bad;

altruism only makes sense

when juxtaposed with

selfishness.

And in so doing,

if we hasten the end of humanity,

so be it.

shaazi

What had been fermenting for two years and a half is finally out! "Shaazi" got published at The Aleph Review today. Really hope it packs a punch. Any resemblance to characters, living or dead, is purely coincidental!

https://www.thealephreview.com/post/spotlight-hasnain-haider

Owe a debt of gratitude to The Aleph Review team who were extremely patient with me and my schedules through the editorial process.