Birthday '10: Addendum

I can write the saddest lines tonight.

Write for example: ‘The night is fractured
and they shiver, blue, those stars, in the distance’

The night wind turns in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest lines tonight.
I loved her, sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like these I held her in my arms.
I kissed her greatly under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could I not have loved her huge, still eyes.

I can write the saddest lines tonight.
To think I don’t have her, to feel I have lost her.

Hear the vast night, vaster without her.
Lines fall on the soul like dew on the grass.

What does it matter that I couldn’t keep her.
The night is fractured and she is not with me.

That is all. Someone sings far off. Far off,
my soul is not content to have lost her.

As though to reach her, my sight looks for her.
My heart looks for her: she is not with me

The same night whitens, in the same branches.
We, from that time, we are not the same.

I don’t love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the breeze to reach her.

Another’s kisses on her, like my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body, infinite eyes.

I don’t love her, that’s certain, but perhaps I love her.
Love is brief: forgetting lasts so long.

Since, on these nights, I held her in my arms,
my soul is not content to have lost her.

Though this is the last pain she will make me suffer,
and these are the last lines I will write for her.

- Pablo Neruda

Birthday '10

So, it’s that time of the year again, the day when I must fulfill the tradition I started five years ago. Not that I ever thought much of this day. As far as my memory goes, I don’t remember coming into my parents’ dreams and asking them to copulate so as to bring me into this House of Wonders that is this world. Nor do I remember filing a request with Allah Saeen, if he has anything to do with such biological matters i.e., to have my soul descend into this fetid mess that he calls his magnum opus. Goddamnit, must all creativity be cooked in a bit of looniness with a hint of self-delusion? Anyway, long before November 17, 2005, I had, painfully, I must add, been compelled to learn that the only certainty associated with a date of birth is a date of death. Again, that’s just how the Supreme Dude has laid out his version of a Star Plus soap. But around 17-11-05, I had been confronted with the grief of simply existing so starkly that I began to wonder whether such days which people generally take as celebrations of life are actually much more, or less, or even nothing at all. So, I vent what I feel every year on my birthday; and these are grotesque feelings, for which I am regularly accused of having a penchant, as opposed to being happy and feeling special just on account of the fact that the particular accident of my birth happened on this day.

What, then, is so special about a birthday? What makes us strut about the face of the earth on this particular day, expecting special treatment from everybody? Do we think that our existence is such a blessing upon all creation that everybody ought to bow down in thanks for it, and sing accolades to our greatness? Or, is it because our lives are so worthless that we leap at this 24-hour opportunity to actually dupe ourselves into thinking that we matter? Of course, parents make us feel as though we matter. But is it more about us or about celebrating their own success since we technically represent fruits of their labor? And friends and family, they just want to fulfill a social norm, wish you a ‘happy birthday and many more to come’ so as to continue having cordial relations with you. After all, getting along with people is what makes one move along in life. But, even in our limited social context, what about the ones we have hurt, the ones we have let down, the ones we have dropped by the wayside as our life-priorities shift and we evolve into newer, fuller human beings? The ones we have fooled with false words and promises, forced to accept our viewpoint as regards life, and conveniently discarded once they have been fully converted while we move on to bigger and greater things, without even a look back at what we may have done to them, without a strand of remorse for not taking responsibility for our own word or deed? Why should they be happy, or thankful? And even if they are, hopelessly devoted as some fools tend to be despite all repudiation, why should they behave and express it in a way that is only acceptable to us? Expecting them to would be a lot like a torturer of the Spanish Inquisition releasing his victims from the death-vices, iron maidens, crowns of barbed wire, swinging razor pendulums etc only to sing him a birthday cheer. After all, the torture is for their own benefit, their souls are being cleansed, their demons exorcized, their wayward and ‘self-destructive’ beliefs corrected. Throughout history, the oppressor has told the oppressed: ‘this is for your own good.’ Such is the way of things.

Anyway, before I get carried away, birthdays are not special if we ourselves insist on them being so. They are special if people we know, whose lives we have touched in one way or the other, feel it in their hearts that the incident of our birth is worthy of celebration. Dada Jaan does not even know the date of his birth, and yet, everyday, people quietly pray for his long life and health in solitude, and recognize his existence as essential for the continued well-being of not just the family, but of a large number of people outside of the haveli walls as well. Perhaps, that makes every day his birthday. Nano was born on March 1, 1928. But the fact that this family celebrates her life everyday even three generations down perhaps indicates that she has transcended the need to feel special for just one day of the year. These are two people who have taken responsibility for their lot in life, taken pains in the pursuit of its fulfillment, suffered for people, with people, and have had glory as their reward. In complete contrast is the much-cherished individualistic ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’ creed of our times, where we are all so desperate to stand out, ‘notice me, notice me, I am different, I am special,’ that we all end up clawing at one another’s faces and being miserably the same. Special, in our case, can only be taken to mean retarded.

I turn 28 today, a day that coincides with the great ritualized slaughter that is a prized tenet of our glorious religion of peace. Leaves an impertinent idiot like me to question whether in the BC’s the G-Man was a groupie to Baal’s cult of blood and gore. Today I will gorge myself on mutton and not even think about what an abusive, leech-like, take-all-give-nothing relationship I have with life. And for all that I have got to show for my 28 years, I might as well have been 82 today, a dying geriatric in an old-home with savings multiplying by themselves in some bank account or a fluid-sustained vegetable in a hospital bed, or just plain dead, and it wouldn’t have mattered one bit.

N-bombing the netherworld!

This place is a graveyard, a barren expanse pervaded by death’s unapologetic fragrance. In shallow unmarked pits lie rotting many hopes, many dreams, many voiceless desires, all unfulfilled, incomplete, merging into one another, shaping death’s forlorn face. Night and day they waste away; the stench of their decay spreads far and wide, carrying death on its sprawling wings, withering every sign of life in its path. Life in this desolation is only known through the touch of death. Then comes the night of death’s helpless retreat; one night in a long chain of putrid nights and days, the ephemeral night of the ivory moon. And she sings, this gentle moon with celestial lips, the melancholy stars her willing chorus. She sings, this magical moon with honey voice, a balmy serenade, stirring all that is dead and decaying, singing them out of their shallow unmarked pits, separating them one by one from the morbid mass of death. They emerge, these many hopes, dreams, unvoiced desires, ghosts of what they used to be, reveling, banshee-like, in an unbridled frenzy, calling out for the moon, reaching for it, yet remaining unfulfilled, incomplete. For as sure as the miracle night is fleeting and the life-breathing song brief, the solemn, uncaring sun climbs up into the colorless horizon. With the easy conceit of the eternal monarch, he blots out the dreamy moon in his harsh, all-encompassing glare, beginning another seemingly endless chain of death-infused nights and days. And all hopes, dreams, unspoken desires withdraw, scorched, blinded, into their shallow unmarked pits, into the impenetrable folds of death’s shameless odor, unfulfilled, incomplete, awaiting the night of transitory life, the night of the ivory moon. For this place is a graveyard, the unending wasteland of my soul.

where pessimism is not just masochistic self-indulgence!

tekoon yaad hosi mein aakhya hum
dildar mittha
tu chhor veysein

wal wal quran te hath na rakh
na qasman cha
tu chhor veysein

kujh soch samijh te faisla ker
na josh dikha
tu chhor veysein

ker shakir ku barbaad sajanr
bas loag khila
tu chhor veysein

- Shakir Shujabadi

fana o baqa

chup chaap rahey dekhte tumhari janab mein
ghairon pe nazr e kar'm rahi lutf e shabab mein

safaid o syah ki bheer mein utthi yeh ik sada
koi toh ho jo rung bharey dil ki kitab mein

gar zindagi k taar ulajh jayein bhi toh kya
likh do tamam uljhanein meray hisaab mein

aayeenay ka aks fareb o makar na ho
kabhi rung apna dekh aks e sharaab mein

keh ker k haal e dil woh muntazir rahey
k hum bhi kahein unhi ka qaseeda jawab mein

Ghalib ki pairvi mein hoon shaida e yaar e dost
mashghool e haq hoon bandagi e Bu Turab mein

eight years

meray dil, meray musafir
hua phir se hukm saadir
keh watan-badar hon hum tum
deyn gali gali sadayein
karein rukh nagar nagar ka
keh suragh koi payein
kisi yaar e nama-ber ka
herr ik ajnabi se poochein
jo pata thha apney ghar ka
sir e koo e nashanayan,
hamein din se raat karna
kabhi iss se baat karna
kabhi uss se baat karna
tumhein kya kahoon keh kya hai
shab e gham buri bala hai
hamein yeh bhi thha ghaneemat
jo koi shumaar hota,
hamein kya bura thha marna
agar aik baar hota?!

- faiz

Birthday '09

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

- The Donkey by G.K. Chesterton

You!

if I know,
my life’s breath, o friend of my heart

if I know
the weariness of your heart
the sadness of your eyes
the desolate burning in your bosom
words of tender love
may erase

if my words of solace be the salve with which
your ravished soul, your withered mind
comes alive
your forehead is cleansed
of all marks of shame
your diseased youth
is forever cured

only if I know,
my soul’s whisper, o friend of my heart

night and day,
dawn to dusk,
I’ll balm your wounds
serenade your soul
with song, soft and sweet

songs of waterfalls
and spring
and lush meadows across a stream

songs of the light of dawn
and the moon
and far off stars, as if in a dream

and I’ll sing you tales of beauty and love
of how the icy bodies of unfeeling nymphs
tremble
stir
melt
at the caress of a warm hand

of how the unchanging look of a face familiar
changes beyond all knowing
in the flash of an eye

and the crystal glass of the lover’s cheek
rushes to burn up with a wine
a magical red rye

and how to the reaper of all its worth
the rosebush gaily does itself present
filling the night-chamber with a blissful scent

so, I’ll sing songs
just for you
sit by you,
create verse and song,
just for you

but my song, ‘tis not the cure you seek
may it be a soothing strain
soul penetrating it can not be
may it be a restful balm
a lance to your woes it can not be

your cure is naught
but a bayonet sharp,
a lance unto your woes

and its wielder
its whimsical, unflinching, merciless wielder
is not mine to own
nor anybody else’s among creation,
but yours
only yours
and yours alone.

- An attempt at translating Faiz's 'Meray Hamdam, Meray Dost'

the way I wrote it

I am writing in response to ‘Division of Punjab opposed’ which was carried on September 9, and endorsed an earlier letter ‘No parochial provinces, please’. The gist of the letter of September 9 was that the federating units of Pakistan should not be restructured along ‘parochial’ lines, and that any such restructuring will be harmful to the federation of Pakistan itself. I find it to be quite a contradiction that the author of such a treatise speaking of the larger interests of the federation of Pakistan is writing from a platform as parochial as the ‘Punjabi’ National Conference.

The letter speaks of a Punjabi motherland, its historical significance, and the threat posed to it by the creation of a Seraiki province. The foundation of this so-called Punjabi motherland commenced at the sword of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1818 when he captured the Muslim state of Multan, which had always been an independent province in all the Muslim empires of the subcontinent, and had encompassed the entire Seraiki region. In fact, Multan was a state more ancient than Lahore testimony to which are the words of Data Ganj Bakhsh. When this saint set up his abode in the current precincts of Lahore, he wrote ‘we dwell in the outskirts of Multan.’ After the Sikh era, the British gave shape to this motherland with their conquests of 1848, and afterwards with the partition of India in 1947. Finally, the Punjab gained its final shape with the forced annexation of the Bahawalpur state in the mid-1950’s. These 200 years do not even take a candle to the glorious history of the Seraiki area all the way from the Indus Valley Civilization, and, therefore, cannot buttress claims as to the current province of Punjab being the Punjabi motherland. What history does show, however, is that the Seraiki regions have been deprived of the right to determine their own destiny since 1818.

Geographically, the Seraiki region is the valley of the Upper Indus and comprises all of southwestern Punjab from Rahim Yaar Khan in the south to Khushab and Mianwali in the North, and the D.I. Khan, Bannu and Tank districts of the NWFP. It is, in fact, what connects the Punjabi speaking Central Punjab to the rest of the provinces. It is also one of the most neglected and under-developed regions in the country. Pakistan, for most of its existence, has suffered a misfortune not unusual for ex-colonies: direct and indirect rule by a nexus of the civil and military establishments, rather than by democratic forces. And the amount of sanctioned representation of the Punjab in the civil and military services is no secret to anyone. Within the province, though, the dynamics are more complex. The Northern and Central parts of the province have had a greater trend towards western education from colonial times, an important contributing factor towards which was the famed loyalty of the Punjabi elite towards the British. Thus, certain regions of the province got a lot more than their fair share of representation in the federal and provincial bureaucracies, and the armed forces, and the fruits of development and official favor were distributed accordingly, further compounded by the unabashed exercise of nepotism and favoritism, as was demanded by the complex code of biradri and socio-religious linkages, and other such sociological compulsions. The letter in question is correct in saying that the creation of a Seraiki province would take away from the population and the area of the Punjab. What it fails to mention, and which is a great apprehension among the establishment, is that a new province would also take away the opportunities of one region or one set of the population, to capitalize upon the ignorance and backwardness of the other.

Feudalism is blamed for the woes of the Seraiki people. One must concede that decadent, myopic and ultra-conservative feudal mindsets that persist are a great hindrance to progress. But look closely and you will see that the back of feudalism is effectively broken in the Seraiki belt. Barring a few notable exceptions, through generations of inheritance, and at least one successful round of land reforms in the first military era, landholding has dwindled to an average of 250-500 acres for the biggest landlords. This is peanuts by any feudal standard, and even though they may retain the airs of their ancestors, even the greatest feudals these days are nothing but large-scale farmers. Landlessness is almost unheard of in these times. Going forth, the feudal is as much tied to the land as a peasant who owns 1 acre of land. They both bear the vagaries of the climate, the whims of nature and the unpredictable convulsions of the market. This strengthens the centuries-old familiarity, and the affinity that is borne out if it, that exists between them as denizens of the same village, and partners in language and culture. There is a reason why the much-maligned jirga system refuses to go extinct even in times as these where no one man has lordship over many others as in the old feudal days. The poor people of the Seraiki belt still trust the village Zamindar or Sardar to dispense greater and cheaper justice to them than the police stationed in the nearby town. For the latter in common perception, far away as they are from their homes mostly in Central Punjab, will only make justice serve those who can line their pockets better. Such exploitation is a daily affair in the police stations of rural southwestern Punjab. Furthermore, when the industrialists, mill-owners and businessmen band together to skew the market in their favor, both the feudal and the peasant down south feel cheated out of the fruits of their agricultural produce, and the bond is strengthened. There is little wonder then that the same people get elected over and over again. To understand why they often fail to deliver then requires a more systemic analysis of the method of executive government in Pakistan. One proposed solution is to have a new province so that the elected representatives would stay closer to home, and thus, be more accountable to their constituencies, rather than merely using the masses’ vote as a means towards plush, elitist living in Lahore. One cannot deny the ancestral roots landowners have among the people. One can wager, though, as to whether this system is actually more evil than the ascendancy of fluid capital and the whimsical free market in the Central Punjab over the past 30 years, the sociopolitical and socioeconomic fallout of which is yet to be witnessed by history.

The letter in question alludes to the debacle of 1971 in arguing that the Pakistani federation is inept at handling provinces, and therefore, new provinces should be avoided. It is less a question of a geographical existence of a province than one of the very real suppression of rights. The Bengalis felt cheated out of their rightful political and cultural share in Pakistan especially given that they were the majority province in terms of population. And the ‘federation’ failed to address, much less redress, their grievances. It is a global fact that it is not the recognition and promotion of ethno-linguistic and sociocultural groups that leads to strife but the suppression of them. Rwanda and Pakistan in 1971 are actually examples that favor this fact. But if the author of the letter feels that such cultural and ethnic distinctions need to be suppressed, or sacrificed, to form a greater national identity in the peculiar case of Pakistan, the fact that he is sticking so fast to his Punjabi identity is more than just a tad confounding. Or shall we continue to grudge others, what we cherish for ourselves? If Pakistan needs to restructure itself into newer federating units to actually recognize its ethno-linguistic composition and work to take everybody along rather than drag them by their hands and feet, is it not about time? Our neighbor to the East massively redesigned its provincial compositions right after independence, and now we must grudgingly admit the vibrancy of their democracy. Why is the status quo the only thing not taboo to speak about in the Punjab? In the present-day, all smaller provinces, Balochistan being the most candid instance are complaining of a similar suppression of rights at varying levels. The federation seems to be coming apart at the seams for there are widespread insurgencies in at least two provinces. The seraiki question notwithstanding, are these signs of a strong and contented federation? The letter refers to the federation as if it were an alien force, a third party. It fails to include in its analysis that the federation, the federal government, springs from the provinces, and it has been delineated earlier in this piece, which part of the country has always had the controlling share in it.

A major problem with Pakistan has always been internal imperialism. Sindh and Balochistan have always lamented the exploitation of their natural and human resources. The ancient Seraiki civilization of the Upper Indus does not even have a platform to voice its grievances effectively; to postulate a fundamental moral and ethical principle that the first right to any river goes to its immediate drainage basin, its valley; likewise for all natural and mineral resources. The Upper Indus belongs to the Seraiki belt and to Sindh. It is between these two regions that the question of any dam-construction must be addressed. The far-off plains of Central Punjab have no right to the Indus, or to protest its loss. The drying up of the southern rivers of Sutlej, Ravi and Beas as a consequence of the Indus Water Treaty signed by the powers that were in1962 has already left the eastern half of the Seraiki belt on the verge of acute water shortage and complete desolation. Damming the Indus and creating a canal system out of it at Kalabagh solely for the benefit of northern Punjab will sound the death knell, not only for the lower Seraiki regions but also Sindh. Therefore, any such decision should rest with the immediate effectees, and nobody else.

The letter stops short of condemning the cause for a Seraiki province as sedition. It rails against imperialism and warns against conspiracies to break up the country on the basis of cultural and linguistic groupings. All cultural identities, except for the Punjabi identity, are presented as dangers to the existence of Pakistan with the full potential of becoming ‘permanent exploiters and blackmailers’. Of course, any new exploiters and blackmailers appearing on the scene would be a certain threat to the interests of the already established exploiters and blackmailers. It is interesting to note though that it contains within itself elements of cultural imperialism. It proposes that Punjabi be made the standard medium of instruction all across the Punjab, knowing full well that half the people of the province do not speak that language. Seraiki is written in the Sindhi script. It has more letters in its alphabet than Punjabi, which has the same script as Urdu. Spoken Seraiki has more sounds and syllables than either Urdu or Punjabi. Linguistic experts hold Seraiki and Punjabi to be distinct languages in their structure and form. Would not the imposition of a standardized form of Punjabi in the entire province of Punjab virtually kill an entire language, the development of which, like all other human languages, has taken millennia? Does not the death of language mean the death of culture? Do Punjabi and Seraiki both not already suffer enough out of the fact that they are not taught in schools at all? Such bigoted demagoguery and displays of cultural arrogance and imperialism, an instance of which is evidenced in this letter of September 9 will only serve to give fresher impetus to the cause for new provinces and greater provincial autonomy. Such is the arrogance which pushes even moderate people towards extremism. We need to respect, appreciate and find beauty in one another’s cultural differences, rather than aim to suppress, negate and eliminate them. Only when such an attitude of inclusiveness and acceptance is attained can we be sure of being safe against all the disasters that the letter has so ominously forewarned against.

Hasnain Haider Langah
Farmer
Shujatpur, Jalalpur Pirwala
Multan

extra! extra!

dampened eyes and running tears
are signs of pain and sorrow

the anguish is for all to see
and from it, some do borrow

but what of shriveled shameless eyes
and cheeks that have no traces?

and hearts that bleed but fail to make
trusty mirrors of their faces?

nothing!

and it was all yellow!

So, I am sitting here on my monstrous butt; monstrous, stretch-mark free butt might I add, the latter attribute, I am told, being proof that I have an extra ounce or two of celestial matter in my creation. Wonder then whether the loose hanging flesh that surrounds my posterior is the halo that is supposed to mark my divinity. I kid you not! After the first conjectures regarding the rather esoteric relationship between my bottom and saintliness were made, I decided to strip myself in front of a man-sized mirror and put my backside through a rigorous examination. The person in the mirror cut a very sorry figure: tenderly fondling his own bottom and craning his neck backwards to see with a highly sheepish grimace on his mug. At that moment, a million, ‘mildly’ philosophical questions invaded my head, a lighter one among them the one about the halo. Another nastier one was what if God had made this, the rear end, the functional end of a human being? As in, what if people ate and spoke through this end, and its present functions were assigned to other parts of the body? Hahah…now we say ‘she is so soft-spoken, uss k toh muun se phool jhartey hain!’ What would we say in the other case? ‘Uss ki g**** se phool jhartey hain’? Haahaha. But it wouldn’t really have mattered, I say. Human civilization would have evolved around that anatomy and everything would have been just as it is. ‘Ass’inine, such line of reasoning, I chide myself, the reserve of fools and no-good do-littles like me. So, I sit here on that which may very well have been something else compelling all of us to very literally put our asses where our mouth is, thinking about what to write in the way of a ‘decent’ blog-post.

Poor, long-suffering Michael Jackson kicked the bucket yesterday after 50 years of a life that changed color often, both in body and in spirit. Made me especially sad, his departing. I still remember my first ever exposure to western music was with the video of MJ’s ‘beat it’ back in the summer of ’88 in Okara. I watched it at my Mamu’s place with my cousins, and the machismo the moon-walking, break-dancing black singer was displaying in it had me completely bowled over. I asked for the tape to be rewound and replayed so many times, my older cousins finally got sick of me and deposited me with my mother for an afternoon siesta. But, at that time I mistook the ‘beat it’ in the song to be ‘peethay’, ‘peeth’ being the term used in my family for a child’s bottom. (With such an ass-centered beginning, doubt this post is going to be able to free itself from the yoke of the anus….blecch! this just keeps getting dirtier and dirtier). Anyway, I still remember asking ‘Mallo baji! Yeh peethay peethay kyun keh raha hai?!’. Still remember the laugh that went around the room. God it felt good to be funny as a child. And, another, closer in time Michael Jackson memory. It was my first year at college, a Monday morning, and an Uncle at whose place I had spent the weekend was to drop me off at my college. Now, as I was having breakfast while watching MTV, ‘In the closet’ started showing with Naomi Campbell’s sinuous figure gyrating all over the TV screen and MJ having the time of his life fooling around with her. Now, obviously, it caused a rumble in my underpants! And in the middle of all of that, Uncle came and said ‘lets go’. I managed a measly 'Ji!', while not budging an inch from the sofa I was planted on. He looked at me confused, then saw the TV and said smilingly ‘Ready when you are, Hasni Mian!’ That was one embarrassing moment. Yet, after that, I downloaded the video and now have every second of it burnt in my memory. So, MJ, you made for some good times. May your soul rest in peace!

On the personal front, I have been down with the sickness for more than a week now; a mild case of Hepatitis-A. The pupils of my eyes are dilated as if at some unseen horror, and seem to be floating around in two pools of yellow muck. And, as is the theme of this post, my ass-hole seems to have lost control over what it’s supposed to hold in, and at the most inopportune times, solid, liquid and gaseous emissions come gushing forth to strike the fear of God in my heart at even the tiniest commotion in my belly. An hour ago, my mother made me have three-fourths of a kilo of jaaman; jammu, in seraiki, for those like me more used to the desi name of it. Its fibrous insides are supposed to be very good for clearing one’s intestines of all sorts of filth. And I think its beginning to work. So, I better get going before I soil my shorts just sitting here. Wonder why I started this piece and why I am ending it?! Hope though, that this post is easier on your sensibilities than the previous one.

love, disowned!

I drank
by her hand
greedily, lustily

and in between unapologetic quaffs
I prayed, ‘give me that,
which in your cellar abounds;
for if I taste a vintage rare,
tomorrow, my thirst
all the oases of this wilderness
shall quench, nor sate’.

and she,
in whispers,
cautious and carefree
diffident and bold
expectant and aloof,
spoke:

‘yesterday this day's madness did prepare;
tomorrow’s silence, triumph, or despair:
drink! for you not know whence you came, nor why:
drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.’1

by her fancy,
I drank.

when my rapture
I could not contain
I cried, ‘No more’,
And, meant it not.

she put her burning lips to my ear,
and poured in the nectar of an otherworldly allure:

‘blossoming verse underneath the bough,
a bowl of wine, some bread, and thou,
beside me singing in the wilderness,
oh, wilderness were paradise now!’2

on her shoulder, my stupor did rest
without a thought, a care or regret;

and when I woke
there was naught;
just the scorching sun
to mock my lot.

my face I held in my hands
and through baffled tears
I wondered,
could it be just a dream?
a mirage?
or some unearthly game?

treacherous trickery!

thence,
however, it must be told
to my approach runs dry
every oasis
in this barren
irredeemable
godforsaken
zone.

and I waste away,
thirsty, forlorn
sans that which by her hand
I drank.

--------------------------------------

1 Omar Khayyam. Ruba’i 74.
2 Omar Khayyam. Ruba’i 6.

late last night

sit up with a start. eyes staring glassily at the muted TV screen lose focus for the first time in two hours. 'go to bed. go to bed! can't u see what time it is? go to bed this very instant!' what the hell for, dipshit?! 'it's a weeknight, asshole. you want to sleep through the precious hours of the morning? you want life, shackled and constrained, to wait for you while you get done with your beauty sleep? get up off your monstrous butt right now and go to bed.' oh. haha. jackass! nothing awaits me in the morning. nothing! neither life, nor death. just gaping nothingness. get lost, and leave me in peace. let me at least adorn this vaccuum with dreams of how it would be like to live, for real. fuck off! and don't u dare disturb my reverie again tonight, you paranoid fuck!

the God complex

By writing what I am about to write, I do not presume to conjecture upon the existence of an almighty God. Far be it for me, an infinitesimal speck on the limitless expanse of creation, to be vain enough to put forth hypothetical claims and opinions as regards the existence of an Omnipotent being, the Prime Mover Unmoved, Yahweh, God, Allah. All I mean to do is to talk about certain thoughts that are befuddling my thinking process after a very interesting exchange I had with a friend on the subject of god and his manifestation in terms of nature and life on earth. Although, if I am honest to myself, I think I am actually more motivated by what this other friend said. He told me that my blog seems to be drying up and perhaps I am losing the ability to write; nothing like an affront to what one secretly holds very dear to prod one into action. So, if nothing else, this post provides occasion to play Victor Frankenstein to the lifeless monster that is my blog. Hope that by the end of this piece, I can gleefully announce: ‘it’s alive!’ Here goes, then.

Life, as we experience it, and by ‘we’ I mean every living thing on the planet Earth and not just human beings, is cyclical. The concept was first introduced to me by Mufasa from The Lion King; the great circle of life. It’s an elaborate system in which species prey on other species just to survive in a never-ending game that engages all of life’s basic faculties and instincts: greed, opportunism, stealth, strength, brute force, hunger, desperation, hope, and most importantly, just the pure will to survive. Intense intellectual debate still abounds as regards the origins of this system. Some believe that this natural scheme of things evolved over millennia through rigorous processes of natural selection and the application of Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest in which millions of species existed and then went extinct to reach the face of life on earth as we know it today. Others speak of a divinely ordained intellectual design whereby this system was set in motion by the Lord Himself, persists because He wills it to, and will come to an end at a time of His choosing. In this carefully constructed divine system, God has given power to some species over others to do with as they please, and Man, being the best of all His creations, stands at the top of this power structure.

Now, let me start with the circle of life itself. Mufasa had us believe that although the lion eats the antelope, when the lion dies his body turns to grass, and the antelope eats the grass; a radical, new perspective for any 13-year old Disney enthusiast. At the age of 26 though, Mufasa’s philosophy seems to have broken down as I perceive a definite break in the circle. The circle is more like a triangular pyramid to me where all of the earth’s natural resources tend towards Man because of his intellectual and material superiority over all other species, while Man himself contributes minimally to the balance of nature. Deforestation, extinction of animal species and hazardous climate changes are all instances of Man’s arrogant ascendancy over the planet. The funny bit is that even when he dies, he is disposed off in manners that ensure that the earth does not benefit much from it either in terms of nutrients or as food source for lesser species.

Having said all of the above, it is universal belief that God is an Absolute being. He is One and cannot be compared to any other. His omniscience is unquestionable, and He exists in totality, and not in relation to any other object or being. Life on earth, on the other hand, is relativism incarnated. Man, by depending on his relative strengths upon other beasts and his ability to subjugate them to be used as beasts of burden or as items on the dinner menu, guarantees his own survival and dominance over all else. Lower down the food chain, all species are competing against each other as per their relative strengths and weaknesses in the struggle to survive. The Alaskan Grizzly knows that at this certain time of year, hundreds of thousands of salmon would try and come upstream to breed. And consequently, the salmon have to run a gauntlet of merciless claws and teeth just to be able to perpetuate their kind. It’s a system all right; a system where the strong takes down the weak and all is fair in the battle for survival. It’s a system that works; has worked for millennia, much before any conception of God or religion came about. Notwithstanding the question as to why a Being existing in totality would want to create anything in the first place, does such a system of relativity that we see on the earth seem like the handiwork of an Absolute God? Is a God whose creations are beset with such levels and gradations and relative strengths and weaknesses even absolute? And if an Absolute, Omnipotent God did create the world and gave life to it was this so-called circle of life with all its Darwinist trappings of cutthroat competition and survival of the fittest the only scheme in His Infinite Wisdom to sustain life? Or is one to believe that since Man is created in God’s own image, like Man, God Himself is callous and whimsical in the exercise of His Infinite Power, and has initiated this Great Game of life just to keep Himself entertained as the Lord and King of all in a very human-like conception of Kingdom and Lordship? How is this all to be understood in juxtaposition to the concept of the Absolute God?

Also, we are told since childhood that God is the Supreme Artist, and that He is Absolute Love. Every creation of His is like a work of art, and He loves each of His masterpieces; with a love that is absolute. Yet, he has subordinated some of his creations to others; to be utilized and dealt with according to the latter’s wishes, to be eaten or mistreated or simply killed just for fun. The Absolute Lover loves some of his creations much more than others such that He has made the former the arbiter of the latter’s lives and destinies. So much so that He commands His most favorite creation, Man, to sacrifice the lives of countless goats and sheep and oxen to Him at a given day in the year. Does a bleating goat feel no pain as its throat is slit? Does it not feel the life slowly draining out of it? Are those last-minute spasms and blood spurts signs of joy to be sacrificed to the Eternal One? Or is it just what it is, the macabre dance of death? Is such a bloodlust befitting to the One who professes Absolute Love? What difference then remains between Him and those minor deities he uprooted not too long ago; Baal, with his cult of human sacrifice, and all the gods and goddesses of Greece, Babylon and Egypt? Does either God (as we understand Him) or Man realize that life granted by an Absolute God to any being is an Absolute Reality and that, in principle, taking that life is an Absolute Crime? If Love is Sympathy, can God feel the pain of the dying animal, or is this sympathy overwhelmed by His Love for Man as he merrily takes life and then proceeds to feast on it? Why is human life alone sacred and all other life subject to the will of Man, when all life to all creation is granted by the Absolute God, and He alone should be the arbiter of fates? What is Man but the only beast that requires artificial skin on top of his own to even brave the weather? What is Man but a beast with all the basic instincts and desires of all other living creatures, but just the extra capacity for more efficient execution of all that his animal nature demands?

And what of the Supreme Artist? Why does He prefer a vertical ladder in the arrangement of His works of art, and not a horizontal shelf? From an entirely human, and therefore, probably irrelevant, perspective, would a Creator-Lover ever have His creations do to one another what life does to itself on the planet Earth?

By now, I am certain that any webspace pilgrim who has chanced upon this page has branded my line of thought a fine specimen of utmost stupidity. And it may very well be that. This is one reason I write over here where I am certain not many people will stumble upon it, at least not many of those who can actually get me strung up for such blasphemy, as it would appear to most. My weirdness stays in my own space. However, after many years of empty philosophizing, I have led myself to believe that the notion of God that we humans subscribe to is nothing but solace for our own tormented minds against the vagaries of that very system of life that He Himself is supposed to have created and set in motion, even if its current form has been shaped by human beings themselves over the centuries; a form in which the utility of a Divine Being guiding the hands of destiny stands visibly reduced. And after having observed this system, I can only hope that if there does exist an Absolute God, who is the Absolute Master of all Time and Space, let Him bring about a Day of Absolute Justice, so all would know what it was really all about.

on being cynical

Although I like to believe I am beyond the days when I actually cared about what adjectives people apply to me, I have often been dubbed cynical by my nearest and dearest ones at times when I least expected it. Sometimes it has been because the words ‘sarcastic’ and ‘cynical’ are used interchangeably in colloquial expression; at other times, I admit I may have displayed cynical tendencies. The purpose of this piece of writing at this ungodly hour (for an early sleeper like me) is to, however, discuss two hypotheses: that I am not more cynical than the next guy and that the general understanding of cynicism is somewhat awry.

Cynicism, as explained by an online dictionary, is ‘an attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others’. Fair enough. I shall begin with an example from daily life. You go to the market to get something as simple as a turnip and a bagful of potatoes. Why do you haggle and holler with the salesman over the prices? Is it because in some abstract, unreachable corner of your mind, you are convinced that the other person’s foremost purpose is to rip you off, and the least you can do is try and minimize the damage he is going to cause to your wallet? On the other hand, why is the shopkeeper selling his vegetables at bloated prices, if that truly is the case? Perhaps he thinks that if it were up to you, you would never pay him his product’s worth. Hence, the way out for him is to set the initial price higher than the actual so that after all the demeaning haggling, whatever profit he’s making is not compromised. And if you are the rare, not-bargaining kind, he makes an extra buck or two, and you get what you deserve for being naive in the ways of the market. Take this model to a higher level. Why are all corporate deals, all transactions between big businesses, so painstakingly negotiated with attention to every little detail and precautions against all possible loopholes, with all legalities and paperwork in place? The same principle is at work: it’s up to you to save your own ass, because, if given the chance, the other guy will pound it without remorse. It’s the economics of distrust; distrust, the middle finger of the invisible hand that eluded the contemplations of poor old Adam Smith. What we experience everyday then, in the name of laissez-faire, is cynical economics; and we participate in it fully, by choice or by necessity.

Politics, however, is a game more ostensibly cynical in its machinations. Anybody who has grown up in Pakistan would invariably attest to that. As it is, the subject is expansive enough to be fit for a thousand doctoral theses. A half-baked intellectual’s nighttime ranting could hardly do it justice. Therefore, sidestepping any theoretical discourse, I will keep the following Machiavellian proposition as the basic benchmark for my conception of politics: politics, in any shape or form, is the exercise for the attainment of absolute power, and the exercise of such power over the longest possible period of time. Now, in the wake of a lot of kite-flying related deaths in Lahore over recent years, the government took a very noble step; ‘basant’ was banned. The consequent controversy was huge; an entire industry had been destroyed, it was a big blow to tourism and culture, a very cheap and effective means of public entertainment had been lost, etc. In the opinion of a bleeding-heart humanist like me, it was the right thing to do; human life ought never to be the cost of a bit of fun. Along came the long march, a perceivable threat to the power of the people in charge. Now, inevitably, clever functionaries of state put their heads together to think up means to ebb the tide rising towards Islamabad. And the first light bulb that went on in somebody’s head was for the retraction of the ban on basant on the eve of the march on the capital. It would kill countless birds with one stone. The earlier acrimony among the lahoris would die down, and the support for the march in the Punjabi heartland would be checked for people would be more interested in a night of partying and kite-flying than preparing to march for a cause, the ultimate fruit of which remains questionable and distant, for all intents and purposes. Within twelve hours of the lifting of the ban, there have been two deaths, guys in their twenties, throats slit by wayward twine descending from the sky; a macabre exercise in the politics of cynicism. The powers that be had an end to attain. The means they chose for it they knew would be too irresistible for the general public, placing their bets on a national attitude of acting first and thinking later. These two deaths are collateral damage in what war, I fail to understand. If his writings are any estimation of the man himself, Machiavelli must have been one tough guy. Wonder if this made him turn in his grave.

At a more personal level, how often have you been genuinely nice to someone without getting the ‘hope he doesn’t collect too heavily on this one’ look in return? How often have you earnestly sought a friend’s opinion and gotten vigorous affirmation of your own opinion in return, only to be told later that since you only needed corroboration of your own ideas, it was provided in good faith? At the workplace, aren’t all your words and actions first weighed by your coworkers as potentialities by which they could be harmed or, at least, their interests put in jeopardy? Why are there incessant office power plays when everybody’s got their heart in the right place? Life, it seems, is brimming to the full with subtle cynicisms. The catch, however, is that if you live by these contradictions, you are a normal human being, a person striving to make his way in the world, a person having the right to live. If, by some odd chance, you start pointing out the inherent cynicism of life, and choose to have nothing to do with it, wanting rather to lose yourself in the simple pleasures of the dhol, and the shehnai, and love, and an occasional ghazal, you are, surprise surprise, a Cynic, a sociopath, a disparager of all that is good and the upholder of all that is evil. And from here, the circle runs in reverse till you’re the one convinced that you’ve got it all wrong in your head.

the way it is...

tussan malik saadi dil de ho
jadan khwab vichaley mildey ho
janbaz dassan kya haal thheenday?
mein ronda han, tussan khildey ho

- Janbaz Jatoi

ennui?

It comes upon him in the dead of night; an insidious specter, delighting in joining in the melancholic games of solitude the dark is playing on him, yet wary of his cornered spirit, his troubled mind. ‘What do you fear?’ it murmurs, mimicking the breathless tone of a lover about to bestow love's first kiss. ‘My vacillating faith’ he replies, sullenly, resignedly, not showing any interest in being wooed. The stillness of the dark is, for a moment, ruffled. ‘What is there to be afraid of?’ it asks in a manner of gentle bemusement. ‘I do not want to lose it again’ he answers after a long, empty pause. The dark gets denser around him, heavier. ‘And how do you fear losing it?’ it inquires, woefully, as if knowing what is to follow. ‘It’s a cruel, selfish world which does not comprehend the value of trust. When trust is shattered, all faith is shattered, all else is lost. I will not be able to survive any of that anymore’ he speaks wearily, half-expecting to be understood, half-imagining a ray of light in the unrelenting dark. ‘Sanctimonious liar’, it hisses, ‘you yourself are the thief, the desecrator of trust. And your only fear is that you may be avenged of your sin. You fear that which you deserve, and long for that which you do not. Be damned!’ ‘Amen’, he sighs. The dark closes in.

seven years

Chacha Saeen

Ay raat jehri k sirf tuhadi yaad di raat hay te jeendi sik ich meda poora saal langhdey, aj traye baldyein angaryein di veil vaindi payee hay jehray dozakh di aakhri chund toon unchithay meday utey un dhatthin aur meda cheta itna ral gaye k mekoon na apna hosh reh na dunya o mafeeha da. Bus itna pata hay jo medi saari raat hunr tarapdyein guzarsi.

Tuhakoon andaza kaini saeen jo mein kitna sharminda han. Aur kitna mayoos vi kyunke mekoon nazarda pe jo mein een hik saal ich kitna khud-gharz te aapni haqeeqat toon kitna andha thhee giyan. Lekin, aye mein apney naal ehd karendan jo jay agley saal tayeen jeenda reehum, tan vala een raat koon khaali kaina vanjanr desaan. Te je mar giyum tan een kanu behtar biya kya thhee sagdey?

Bus, eeho kujh aahda hum. Kash bala das te phera marendi hovay ha. Kash tuhadi ja mein hovan ha.

Hasni.

haal e dil

aik bhooli bisri muddat k baad
iss be-jaan dil ka koi anjan kona
zindagi ki aik bekhauf lehr se thharra raha hai

jaisey
koi khud-dar shama
her simt k toofanon k beech
machley
per bujhey nahi

jaisey
kisi khar-dar payr ka koi badmast phool
apne ander mehak basane ki saazish ker le
aur kaanton ki baat na ban paaye

lekin
woh shama
yeh phool
muntazir hain tumhare
keh tum aao
inn kaanton se laro
unn toofanon ka rukh badal daalo
aur zindagi ko jila do

per dekho
aa ker agar
tumhare qadam larkharaye
ya in berehm dushmanon ko tum
dekh hee na paaye
toh samajh lena
keh zindagi phir haar gayee
aur iss baar uss ka maseeha
koi na ho ga.

Birthday '08

26. People have families of their own to care for by that age. People have careers, and money, and success, and promising futures, and burgeoning social lives that work to integrate them fully as responsible adults in the larger fabric of society, by the time they are 26. There are even a few who have lived lives so fully that beyond 25 is past their prime for them.

And then, there are others, who are hiding from life, and more so with every passing year. People who don't have what it takes to look life in the eye, and to take from it all that ought to be taken as the rightful prerequisite to happiness and the maintenance of it; people for whom it is nothing but one painfully slow tick-tock to the final hour of emancipation. Among these sorts are the kind who turn off their cellphones on their birthdays just because people wishing them well embarasses them; the kind who are yelling 'leave me alone', but the sound never really makes it past their larynx in the form of anything but polite chuckles and exclamations. And yet, some of these misanthropes dream big dreams, and nurture warm fantasies of happily-ever-afters in some secluded corners of their hearts, without having the decency to admit to themselves that what they crave can never truly reach fulfilment in the suffocatingly narrow conditions of self-confinement that they have created around themselves. What it takes though is a rare courageous fool to be able to mock his own naiveté and capacity for self-delusion.

In any case, 26 down. How many more to go, only the Master Accountant upstairs can tell, or His celestial minion in-charge of The Slate.

and she's gone

before yesterday

'get out of my room'. heh. 'turn down the music. are you deaf or what?' hahah. 'what are u? a pig? can't you just shower and not bathe my entire room with you?'. teehee. 'what is all your stuff doing lying around here all over my room? what in hell is your own room for? just sin?' ouch. 'this is MY computer. I got it out of the ONLY paycheck I ever got. and you act as if you own it! get lost!' heheheheh. 'i swear to God I will retrieve all the porn hidden in this thing and show it to ammi. You have another thing coming if you think im kidding.' bring it on. 'what is my faiz doing by the flush again? do you wanna flush it down the toilet just as you did my dewan-e-ghalib? do you have no respect for anything?' hahahahah. 'I will have as many lights on in my room as I want. I don't care if they're burning your doped eyes. You should thank god i'm not telling ammi baba. Wonder what I did to deserve a leech like you.' snigger. 'You are the equivalent of a middle-aged, parisitic spinster, you know that? Wish I had grown up with some real men around me!' snort.

tonight

I have it all to myself. And yet, unwanted, emasculating tears roll down my face. My head is against this screen that has seldom shown me anything but lies, and I want to smash it in. but what truly is the strangest and the scariest bit is that, tomorrow, life is supposed to go on.

shab-e-firaq: the sublime

raat yoon dil mein teri khhoee hu'ee yaad aayi
jaisey veeraney mein chupkey se bahar aa ja'ye
jaisey sehra'on mein haulay se challey baad-e-naseem
jaisey bemaar ko be-wajah qarar aa ja'ye

- Faiz

shab-e-firaq: the meek

mohsin hijjar di raat koon hanj di zakat dey
ay be-suhag raat azal di ghareeb hey

- Mohsin Naqvi

shab-e-firaq: the overwhelming

stay by me
my tormentor, my heart’s keeper
stay by me

at the hour, the night spreads
intoxicated on the crimson of the heavens
the dark night spreads,
wielding soothing salves of musk,
and agony that pierces every pore

chanting merrily a dirge of sorrow
it comes
rattling wildly the rattle of death
it comes

at the hour
when hearts sink deeper,
looking to hands held hostage in sleeves,
in futile hope

and the sound of wine,
pouring out
as if sobs of a frightened child
in restlessness, implacable, wretched

when no words form a sentence
when no sentence forms meaning

at the hour, the night spreads
at the hour, the grieving, desolate, dark night spreads

stay by me
my tormentor, my heart’s keeper
stay by me

- A transliteration of Faiz's 'Paas Raho'

breathing

[the setting]

late dusk; the marble terrace besides the lawn. the old man sits reclined against his favorite cushion on a charpoy, puffing away majestically at his hookah and humming an old tune. a few of his progeny sit on cane chairs surrounding the charpoy, conversing amongst themselves, and occasionally breaking into raucous laughter. a light westerly breeze makes for a very pleasant evening in the outdoors.

a boy-child, not more than two and a half in years, sneaks up to the charpoy from behind the chairs and stands staring at the old man with a playful look in his eyes. the old man focuses his weak eyes on the child and smiles upon recognizing the moon-face.

[the exchange]

the old man: is that you, asghar?
the child: tee-hee
the old man: come, khan saeen, come. give us a hug. come, o badmash.

the child begins to scramble away but the old man hauls him up onto his chest, and kisses him on the cheeks.

the child: dada?
the old man: your dada’s baba, sardar sahib. you remind me of my Asghar when he was your age.
the child [feigning seriousness]: I want to go to my ammi.
the old man [laughing]: go then, you trickster.

the boy jumps off the charpoy and scampers off to play with the other children in the lawn. the old man’s eyes stare wistfully at the departing child for a long moment.

the old man: may u have the life of Khizr, my child. for your parents, for your children, for your children’s children. may u never know any suffering, nor hardship. may no man’s child ever suffer like I have.

[the remains]

tears

silence

Musings VII

alam-e-khwab mein jo paa'ee ik roz haseena hum ne
aarzoo machal gayee, dil bhi be-taab hua
aur toh kucch na bunn para uss ghari hum se
haalat-e-shauq mein bus bister hee kharab hua

- Hasni Khan

serenading yesterday's jalfrezi

You rip at my entrails like a banshee on fire
Like a rocket at go-time, like a rat in a cage
Like a storm in the pj’s, like a dirty brown motion
You fill up my bedsheets, don’t do that again

Come let me lose you, let me give my all to you
Let me drown you in sewage, let me shake off your charms
Let me wash up beside you, give me one last look at you
Come let me flush you, there you go again.

(sung to the tune of Annie's Song)

buffer post #1

See, the post below this one is beautiful poetry, imbued with profound spirituality and philosophical poignancy; Iqbal at his best (which is rare), artistically postulating what brings sublime joy to many hearts that beat as if war-drums, testifying to the absolute truth of love. Also, these few lines from Iqbal’s works in Farsi hold special meaning for me since I first heard them from my Nana many, many years ago. The post that will follow this one, on the other hand, is crass, nay, outright disgusting. Allowing it to impinge upon the dignified beauty of the previous one by putting it in the latter’s direct neighborhood would be utterly irreverent of someone even the likes of me. Therefore, I follow one of humanity's grandest old traditions, compartmentalization, whereby incompatible phenomena are kept apart, and life made invariably simpler, because then there is neither any need to explore the dynamics of such incompatibility, nor any cause for discarding something that might have caught one’s fancy at any level; hence, this buffer. Do I wish that the two aforementioned posts were not even on the same page? Yes. But there is not much I can do about it. I just hope the universe appreciates what great flip-flops people can be.

Nana Jan's tribute

Mariyam az yak nisbat-e-Isa aziz
Az seh nisbat Hazrat-e-Zehra aziz
Noor e chashm e Rehmatul-il-Alameen
Aan Imam e Awwaleen o Akhireen
Bano e aan Tajdar e hal atta
Murtaza, mushkil kusha, sher e Khuda
Maader e aan Nuqta e parkaar e Ishq
Maader e aan Qafila Salaar e Ishq

- Iqbal

nightlife

Wake up with a cold sweat from the agitated slumber which replaces the long, peaceful hours of sleep of the old days. Creep up to each of three bedsides and pierce the darkness with burning eyes to be certain that every breath that is inhaled is exhaled, mumbling a word of gratitude for that. Climb up to the roof and spread out on the hard, heat-radiating terrace. Stare into the dusty skies, caught between thoughts and notions, hopes and memories, all innately contradictory, all demanding big leaps of faith. Sob, as men do in solitude, and wait for the call to prayer to sound above the lifeless. For then, as the world awakens, sleep overwhelms all consciousness of it. Telle est la vie dans l'obscurité.

deathly still

kucch hameen ko nahi ehsaan utthaney ka demagh
woh toh jab aatey hain ma'yel ba karam aatey hain
aur kucch der na guzrey shab-e-furqat se kaho
dil bhee kam dukhta hai, woh yaad bhee kam aatey hain

- faiz

fiat justitia ruat caelum

As much as I disdain to soil my blog with an opinion piece on temporal matters, the times are such that even the most phlegmatic of bystanders goes like ‘what the hell is going on?’ It has been well over a year that the proverbial shit hit the proverbial fan, even though there is nothing proverbial about the ever-increasing stench, and the dark stains of humiliation upon the nation’s face. On the 9th of March, 2007, a dictator, drunk on eight years of unchecked power, and deluded by some notion of his personal indispensability to Pakistan, threw a gauntlet that has since become a massive, nationwide struggle, underscoring disgrace and defeat for some, individual glory and public accolades for others, and a noble contest between right and wrong, justice and injustice, for yet many more. However, as of today, what remains at stake? The restoration of some 60-odd judges of the superior judiciary who were gallant enough to resist the dictators’ PCO and bore the vagaries of the state’s heavy-handedness, all starting from the Chief Justice’s resounding ‘No’ sending shockwaves throughout the country, the first time the commando ordered him to get packing. The questions that have been plaguing my mind, however, are at a bit of a tangent from the larger issue. I do not intend to doubt the rightfulness of the cause for restoration. True to my lethargic self, all I am trying to figure out is whether this entire ruckus is worth all the attention it gets or all the energy that has been expended thus far.

An independent, not free, judiciary, as an institution, is generally seen as the cornerstone of a fair and a just society. The idea of an independent judiciary springs from the theory of separation of powers articulated initially by Baron de Montesquieu in the early eighteenth century, and is said to be successfully implemented in the constitution of the United States, and is also thought to be effectively practiced in the United Kingdom and in other developed countries of the West. This theory attempts to bring about a balance of power between the three pillars of state, the legislative, executive and judicial, such that a check is maintained on the power of one by the collective and simultaneous powers of the other two, ensuring that neither branch has freedom enough to infringe beyond what is sanctioned by law on the rights and freedoms of its citizens. In this we see the raw skeleton of a social contract the likes of which every third world country in the postcolonial era is expected to emulate along with some form of democratic government, presidential, parliamentary etc. This emulation is necessary for survival in the new world order as much foreign aid and international acceptance depends on it. In this blind emulation of these systems that seem to be working quite well in the First World, both the exporters and the importers of such political philosophies forget that for such types of organized and institution-oriented governments and states to succeed, there needs to be a strong socio-economic base, and not vice versa. Domestic stability is the key. Let us examine the stellar examples we have. The United States gained that stability by an extremely vicious process of internal colonialism, that was irreversible, gradually eliminating an entire people, and by its policies of politico-economic imperialism in recent times. The United Kingdom achieved domestic stability through the 400 year long era of colonialism, in which the British Empire was built on the blood and corpses of peoples from the Americas to Australia. In the postcolonial stage, it maintains that stability by being the foremost client of the world’s strongest power, and everything looks to be hunky-dory for sometime to come. Unfortunately, third world countries, newly released from the shackles of colonialism, have no opportunities for similar glory, and are caught in the dilemma of building institutions on the Western pattern, without the requisite objective conditions. Just looking at ourselves, in a polity so fragmented, divided in a million ways, having multiple identities within one state, how is the simple concept of ‘majority rule’ supposed to work? On the other hand, the assumption on the part of the West that since they succeeded with a certain model of governance, it has to work in the rest of the world too is arrogant to say the least. Does the US forget its own bloody civil war over the question of ‘states rights’, which is now cleverly disguised as a righteous struggle against an evil as uncouth as slavery? Or was it that slavery did not pose as big a moral question, as it did an economic and political one. Be that as it may, like they say in Punjabi, ‘jeday ghar daaney, oday kamley vi siyaney’. The situation that countries like Pakistan face is rife with institutional failures. Pakistan, specifically, is currently experiencing one of the worst times of its history.

Our history as a nation-state is short and, therefore, easy to take a bird’s eye view of. In this short history, the history of the judiciary as an institution is way less than glorious. It has been the most honorable judges of the highest courts in the country that have provided judicial cover all sorts of upheavals, military, bureaucratic, democratic, beginning from the first articulation of the ‘doctrine of necessity’ by Justice Munir in 1953. The judiciary has been up for grabs for various players in the power game, facilitating, or shall I say, taking wholehearted part in such acts as the judicial murder of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, or the recognition of martial coups through eclectic interpretations of the various constitutions we have had. This is not surprising to me at least. Was it not out of the Quran that the tyrannies of sultans and shehnshahs justified by over-zealous qazis and mullahs? Was it not that after having raped and pillaged entire populations, proud Muslim generals stood tall and quoted from the Quran, saying ‘And He disgraces those that He desires!’ In this context, the misinterpretation of a man-made constitution sounds almost trivial. Needless to say then that the judiciary, when compelled to choose between justice and political expediency, has often opted for the latter; it has shirked its responsibilities. And this has been primarily because judges have owed their high offices to generals and politicians, and have done exactly what they were supposed to do in a system of never-ending favors and a vicious cycle of ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.’ Most of the 60 judges in question accepted Musharraf’s coup of 1999 by taking oath under the 2001 PCO. Senior Supreme Court judges were superseded for the appointment of Mr. Iftikhar Chaudary as the Chief Justice by none other than Musharraf himself. Is it possible that at that time, a campaigner as weathered as Mr. Chaudary did not realize that there could be strings attached? That the favor that had been bestowed upon him would never be called? Did he actually think that being handpicked by a dictator for such an important post would allow him to function independently, and that all he needed to do was get there via the dictator’s favor, and that the end would justify the means? And when he started showing some signs of independence by striking down prime projects of the regime, did he not expect his benefactor to feel wronged, and do what dictators do best: summary execution? In my opinion, the events of the 9th of March were careerism gone wrong for the CJ. If Mr. Chaudary was concerned about justice and fairplay, he would not have postured and lobbied to get the highest judicial post in the country through the good offices of the President-General in the first place.

This brings me to the next, bigger question. Are these judges, for whose reinstatement such a movement is in action, wedded to the ideals of justice and upholding the law and the constitution, or are they, like the average professional that we see around us, and ourselves are, believe in doing the 9 to 5 routine and heading back home to enjoy all the perks that come with their positions? The cars, the mansions, the butlers etc? For if they are just time-servers like the rest of us, and only come to work a day at the office, i.e. if that is their psychology, the only difference between them and the judges that have taken the oath under November’s PCO is that of names. For if these latter ones are beholden to Musharraf, the former ones, if reinstated, will owe a debt of gratitude to one Mr. Nawaz Sharif. And anyone who was alive in the late 80’s and the 90’s in Pakistan knows that that cannot really be a good thing. Nawaz Sharif is being hailed all around for taking a principled stand on everything, from the judiciary to democracy, which is one factor that has given his party unanticipated electoral success in urban Punjab earlier in the year. I personally know people who flew all the way from Karachi to their hometowns in the Punjab to vote for Mian Sb. Notwithstanding the question as to whether he really is firm on principles this time around, or is just finding it politically beneficial to go with the general mood of the people for the time being, Nawaz Sharif and his cronies are children of the establishment, through and through. In fact, they’re children of the worst military regime in Pakistan’s history, that of the humble Momin, Zia-ul-Haq. They are people who came into the political mainstream on the backs of military intelligence and ISI, and continue to truly represent only a certain segment of Pakistani society, the industrial-business elite, insofar as their party structure is concerned. Nawaz Sharif himself is beset with an upstart industrialist mentality which dictates gauging every action in the narrow prism of profit and loss. Is his commitment to democracy and an independent judiciary only a part of his personal vendetta against Musharraf for overthrowing his government? Will his resolve to work towards institution building only remain strong till the time the General’s ousted? These are questions only time will answer because his history does not support any such hopes. I have to hand it to the Pakistani public though. Even after all the disappointments of the past, their faces had this strange gleam of hope on the morning of the 19th of February. It made a cynic like me wonder if such undying optimism ought to be celebrated or lamented. What I do lament, however, is our collective short memory, and inability to learn from experience.

Our civil society, which is just a more ‘civil’ term for the upper and upper-middle classes, seems to have decided that capitalistic democracy is the panacea for all our ills. However, this strata of society, which includes myself, seems to be more confused than anything else. A friend of mine, a successful corporate banker, and quite active in the movement for the restoration of judges as a part of the Direct Action Committee, attending rallies, shouting slogans, distributing propaganda material, praised the principled stand of the judges and of Mian Sb’s party in their fight against the dictator. Five minutes later, he spewed some pearls of wisdom on corporate success, saying that the first principle of survival in this world is, and I quote, ‘to screw the other before he gets a chance to screw u’. And the first thing that came to my mind was, isn’t that what Musharraf tried to do? Anyway, it’s been more than a month since that happened and I’m still pondering on the apparent dichotomy of principles, and how it plagues our class and my generation. In this respect, though, the media has had a very significant role to play. Like the clergy of medieval Europe, it is the fourth pillar of the state today. I draw such a comparison because the potential for demagoguery appears equally enormous in both cases. In Musharraf’s economic boom, besides banking and telecom, media is the only industry that has proliferated. And now, as is natural, it does not know what it ought to do with itself, since quantity has effectively inundated quality. So, in between the Indian style soaps to pander to the tastes of the wider market, rather than restricting itself to keeping the public informed of facts so that it could draw its own conclusions from them, it has taken to opinion-forming. There is a ‘breaking news’ and every channel has a different story as to the actual happening. Old-timers sit together in talk shows and analysis programs and tell the public exactly what they ought to be thinking. And that’s what the public is doing. Everybody believes in the righteousness of the lawyers’ movement because some droning journalist on TV said so. Nobody seems to be thinking out loud on national TV that if these judges are restored would the lawyers, and especially the frontline leaders in the lawyer community, never try to capitalize on their blood and sweat? Will that not leave the superior judiciary in the same sort of fix that it always has been in? Earlier it used to do the bidding of generals and bureaucrats. Now, it will owe a lot to bar councils and senior lawyers, and you never know what new direction that may lead us into. Everybody believes in the sacrosanct nature of the freedom of speech, not realizing that that also gives a natural edge to the one who can shout the loudest.

Finally, let me bring forth what little I know of the justice system in Pakistan. I will restrict myself to the rural areas since I have little knowledge of how stuff gets done in the cities. This in itself is saying a lot since 70% of Pakistan is still supposed to be rural. To the rural poor, the first adjudicator, or dare I say, the scribe of their destinies, is the Thana incharge. Whatever he writes in his FIR is the basis of all litigation afterwards. Therefore, this man wields tremendous power, and consequently, enjoys tremendous opportunity for making money. This is where the poor soul who got himself involved in such a messy business as seeking justice is bled for the first time. If he gets lucky, he’ll only get away with paying a few thousand bucks in bribes. Else, if the SHO likes his daughter, he might have to offer her up to make sure that the cattle that are his livelihood are returned safely from the robbers who took them. Also, if he is on bad terms with a local influential who is on good terms with the police, or the offending party, he might end up getting charged for a crime himself and might find himself tasting the hospitality of a rural interrogation office. There are a million possible combinations wherein a poor man seeking justice may have to sacrifice his belongings, dignity or honor and I could possibly not list them all. Let’s just say, to get the process moving effectively, u need to have money, contacts, guile and zero self-respect. From here, the process moves into the courts. Here the baser things are truly not en vogue, since judges are educated, refined types, and only work for money, or the right person calling them up. This is where property disputes can take more than a decade to sort out, and where murderers and rapists are let free based on how well they are connected. Although, it must be granted that the level of corruption decreases as you move up from the district courts to the provincial high courts and then on to the supreme court, isn’t the corruption at the lower end, the end closest to the civilian, the deadliest? Because it is here that lives are made or broken. A poor man, whose son’s murderer is acquitted in a district court, may not have the resources or the will or the physical strength to take the case to a higher court. He may just do what people in our parts have been doing for centuries: leave it to God’s ultimate judgment. All the 60 honorable judges have passed through this very system. I do not attempt to associate any sort of corruption or malpractice with them and I am very sure that they are all men of great integrity and moral fortitude. But all of them have passed through this system. All of them know what goes on in the peripheries and at the lower levels. In this entire 14-month struggle, has there been a single cry for reform? For actually taking any steps towards changing a system in which justice is bought and sold like a common whore? Will this system where the SHO of a thana somewhere in some long-forgotten tehsil of a district in the middle of nowhere earns at par with any corporate fatcat, profiting on the misery of the poor, be allowed to persist after everything is ‘set right’? Has any leading lawyer raised a voice of protest against this system in his speeches on freeing this country from the clutches of dictatorship? Or do they assume that with Musharraf gone, everything will correct itself from top to bottom? I am very sorry but people assumed the same about Ayub and Yahya and Zia, and nothing happened. And it is actually sad to say that it feels to me as if this entire struggle has become a battle of egos centered around the basic notion: ‘give them their jobs back’ and ‘I want my job back!’ Hell, at the risk of sounding repetitive, if you’re only going to do what you did before you were kicked out, and what the PCO judges are doing now, might as well stay out. Most I can do is condole with you over loss of perk and privilege. For I feel that we have had enough of a top-down approach in this country. It’s time that we started bottom-up, towards a system in which everyone matters, where justice is just blind, not deaf. Laws that are not uniformly applied at every level of society encompassing the entire body politic of the nation are not worth the paper they’re written on. And all well-suited gentleman who like to fancy themselves the custodians of law and its actual spirit, should also have the courage to fully understand what is truly engendered in such grand titles, and that it actually means a lot of responsibility to each and every citizen of a country in much need of justice, not just posturing to effect a favorable balance of power at the top. And suffice it to say that the top, from the perspective of the people, is way out of reach. Everyone in this country aspiring to do great things at the top, the politicians, the lawyers, the generals, the media, all of them have had their fair share of trying to win the hearts and minds of people. And even when the people have demonstrated vigorous willingness to be won over, they have been let down. Now would be the perfect time for a revolution of hearts and minds, a complete change in mindsets and attitudes, and in deference to an old national habit, it would be much better if that transpires top down.

To keep on repeating ‘how dare a dictator do that?’ is like oversimplifying the issue because then one would have to make an honest inquiry into why the dictator is there in the first place, and soon enough, not much of our ‘civil’ society or the civilized world, will be able to avoid blame. Remove the dictator by all means, but also make sure that the restoration of the judiciary does not simply equate to professional reinstatement. For I feel that justice, rather than any institution that claims to administer it, is the solid base upon which the edifice of state and society ought to be erected. But it will continue to remain an illusory ideal till we can effect a change in mentalities. I believe that that is what our brightest minds should be working on. The nation has had enough of protracted wars of wits and egos, even if the realization of that has not yet dawned fully.

from on high

Snakes, bright and glittering, slithering along, atom by atom, side by side, on intersecting pathways of light, straight and unending, through a jungle of an unearthly aura, alive, breathing, lost in its own consciousness, forbidding to any callous adventurer. A dense jungle; every leaf, a vibrant sign of life, a sparkling dot of color, a thousand different colors intermixed, stretched out till where the eye can see, shaming the stars in their monochromatic night sky. Is this my Garden of Eden?

The Day Before, Act I

He woke early, feet cold as ice on an otherwise temperate spring morning. He had a crick in the nick and a dull ache in the back; the bunk’s nocturnal hospitality. Why was he still there? When he ought to be someplace else? Yelling, screaming or kicking up a fuss was not his method, even if he willed it to be. Patience, a thankless virtue, remained the only logical course of action.

Why had they caged him so? Such that what he had tasted in the days before, he could not savor again, on that day; nor could he nurture thoughts of a distant refuge, faraway but within reach. As his head slowly recovered from the drowsy effects of an unsatisfactory night, a struggle between needs and wants gripped him, the former hard realities, the latter cherished dreams. But where needs and wants clashed invariably amongst themselves, so did wants against desire, and needs against necessity. What was a man, already thus constrained, to do?

Word came from every direction, as if upon angel wings, clearing his immediate path if not allaying the turmoil inside. He hastened himself through the motions of presentability, and rushed out to grapple with the forces of destiny one more time. Life whizzed past him in its raging monotony and he cared not to notice; nor did he think much of the patches of shadowy darkness that peppered his brightly lit way.

The dilemmas of the early hours still plagued him, making him breathe uneasily. As he approached that which he desired, the ubiquitous need to distinguish between right and wrong asserted itself. Amidst the chaos, a voice spoke into his ear. Deliverance was around the corner. An ephemeral flash of color beyond the first, almost ineffectual, barrier released him from the stranglehold of uncertainties. With the first gasp for air, all the warring wants and needs fused instantly into a single amalgam, focused and unerring in their singular intention. He allowed himself a smile knowing that when he turned around, peace, albeit momentary, had come forth to permeate his being.

to the Savior

chaudvan Mustapha Aal-e-Imran da

thheevo Ka’abe te aa jalwagar hay
aye qudrat-numa muntazar hay

aye Mohammad makeen waadi Khazra
chhoro waadi te aa kholo dar hay
dekhoon wasda Mohammad da ghar hay

aye zamanay da moojib baqa’a ay
tussan sa’yel nai khaali valaa’ey
jehray jehray keeta dar gadaa’ey
baab rahmat toon ho’ee attaa’ey
herr mohib dee eeho iltijaa’ey
fulk-e-asmat te hovay sahar hay
aye Shams-uz-Zuha’a, wal ubhar hay

aye Shahnshah ha mulk-e-villa da
aye nusairi de Rab da Shehzadah
aye muhafiz deen Khuda da
deen khaa gya'ey baani hus’bunna da
deen mohtaj tedi zi’ya da
sunr Panah Deen da aye pisar hay
tedi raah te Maseeh di nazar hay

chaudvan Mustapha…

- Ghulam Abbas Shah Bohriyen Wala, Shujatpur, 1975

six years

utth
dekh
keh woh khaak jo rangeen huyee
teray khoon se uss bhayanak lamhey
nahi rahi
bik gayee

aur woh mitti
keh jis ka rizq bana tera badan
saakit hai,
ik afsurdah khwahish liye
ik murdah khwab liye

aur goonj rahi hain falak-bos aahein,
khamoshi se
kayee pardon mein
teri yaad ka nauha kehtay

aur aansoo
jo keh khushk hain kayee barson se
beh parrey hain achanak
kayee sawal liye

per dekh,
ay bujhey huye dil,
teri raggon ka lahu
daur raha hai kis dhaj se
unn jismon mein,
aur wohi payrh
keh jiss ki chhaoon talley
teri jawani ko kaisa haseen urooj milla
jhukka diya hai ussi ko teri furqat ne
kerta hai wohi teri yaad ki rakhwali
keh khud jo muddat se kayee mausamon ki zad mein hai

khuda karey keh yeh saya sada salamat ho
luttey naseeb mein chalo itna toh manzoor rahey
aur kucch nahi chahiye hai qismet se
rahatein millein na millein
ammaan manzoor rahey

Alas! 2007

In trying to talk about the recent turn of events I am moved simply to confront my own insignificance, my helplessness. As I look in the mirror, my eyes mock me: 'kya piddi aur kya piddi ka shorbah?' I am compelled, and heart-wrenchingly so, to see the pointlessness of having a heart for this blood-soaked land of ours. And the only words that I can get past this stubborn, three-day old lump in my throat are:

kal bhee bhutto zindah thaa
aur aaj bhee bhutto zindah hai...

And even though I wonder if desensitising one's self is not prerequisite to survival in the current scheme of things, here is something that has moved me to tears for the nth time since the 27th:

http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=11951

Bas!

disillusioned?!

Disillusionment, n., freedom from illusion.
Illusion, n., deceptive appearance, false conception, a false sense-impression of reality.

How is it that whenever there's talk of somebody being disillusioned, there are eyebrows raised, in concern, or in pity, or in sheer disdain? Hasn't shedding all that is false for all that is true always been mankind's stated objective? Or is this notion an illusion in itself? Who's to say?

Birthday '07

izzat-e-takht-e-khilafat kuja, sharaab kuja
hasool-e-sharf-e-nayabat kuja, ashab kuja
chara layeen na shavand ghasiban-e-haq-e-Batool
sawal-e-Zehra kuja, talkhiye jawab kuja

- Mir Usman Ali, Last Nizam of Hyderabad Deccan

listening, aphrodite?

when you were not nigh
all was such as it is
the limitless horizon, limitless
the unending road, unending
the empty goblet, empty

and now
the goblet, the road, the color of the sky
is the color of my heart before it bleeds to death

crystal, the color of sweet reunion
and the gray of a desolate moment;
the color of autumn leaves, of a thorny desert
and the flaming red of a rosery in bloom
the color of death
the color of blood
the color of a moonless night

the horizon, the road, the goblet
a story of a thousand tears
of throbbing pain;
a reflection in the mirror
treacherous, deviant, changing every instant

now
that you are come
stay
so that some color, some mood, something
gains permanence
and once again
everything is as it is
the limitless horizon, limitless
the unending road, unending
the empty goblet, empty

- A transliteration of Faiz Ahmed Faiz's 'Rung Hai Dil Ka Meray'

first principle

I
inebriated, repudiated, perforated
resembling that wretched rag-doll
the one the dog hated;
faded,
jaded,
infuriated
but perhaps, as time unfolds,
emancipated?

then again,
whose to say how,
or which way,
things are fated;
at the end,
will only the vow of silence stand consummated?

silence, so vocal, more than the maddening crowd,
silence, so opaque, more than a funeral shroud,
silence, so harsh, so loud,
commanding me,
compelling me,

I, so justly adjudicated,
I, so appreciably depreciated,

to break out, break free
of the bounds,
the suffocating confines,
of me,
myself
and I.

the conundrum

Lately, all my life has been is one big 'I don't wanna!' but with foolproof reasoning behind not wanting to do that which I am not doing. So, here's the deal. I don't want to hit the books for the civil services exam because they just seem so boring to me now. After all, haven't I attained some sort of Confuscian wisdom that really needs no more intellectual augmentation? I don't want to continue with my job at the bank because its too meaningless (as if I have a clue as to what 'meaning' means)! I don't want to socialise or even get out of the house because all humanity is evil (and i'm a reincarnation of the Lord Buddha, albeit a bit farther away from nirvana). I don't want to express my feelings lest they cause long-term hurt and acrimony all around(and there is sufficient precedent for me to be convinced of that). I don't want to let people close, to have them take a peek into my soul lest this pseudo-philosophical facade I have is compromised and I am unmasked for the shallow fool I undoubtedly am. I don't want to be nice to my folks because they haven't been nice to me, but through no fault of their own or mine. I don't want to be not nice with my folks because they're my folks after all. I don't want to believe in God because I have evolution all figured out. I don't want to believe in evolution because them looney scientists change theories faster than I change underwears. I don't want to embrace the world because it is wicked and oppressive. I don't want to embrace the weak and the oppressed because I don't even know where to find them. Do they really exist? I don't want friends because they're all just selfish bastards in the end. But then, I don't want to be alone because that plays with my head, trumps up my insecurities and those childhood complexes of being unclean and unworthy that are beginning to resurface after quite a few years of dormancy. I don't want to view everything in my life through the prism of my own selfish interest because that's just plain unethical. And then, when I am unethical, I don't want to blame myself because it is all about what one wants for one's self ultimately; survival, the most selfish of human instincts. I don't want to pray because what good are prayers that are never answered, what good is faith that does not fulfil its basic purpose, spiritual satisfaction for the believer? I don't want to forsake religion though because the individual is not even as significant as a speck in the greater scheme of things. What if there really is a Hand giving motion to the 'circles of the heavens and the earth'? I don't want to laugh lest they think I'm too expressive in joy. I don't want to cry lest they think I'm too expressive in pain. With all of this going on, should I really be surprised when I guffaw for no obvious reason staring at the walls, or break into tears just like that, or close the door to the bathroom and scream at the top of my lungs, or give my head small, abrupt jerks in the hope that that would return some sanity to it? Should I really be worried about me going crazy? Nonetheless, I am open to all sorts of suggestions for things I might want to do in this mortal existence. Although, it would only be ethical of me to state beforehand that only those ideas will be entertained that are backed up with reasonings as sound as the ones I have presented for my actions, or lack thereof.

Moses speaks

"Said (He), 'O my Nurturer!
Broaden me my heart
Ease my task for me
And loosen the knot of my tongue
So they may understand what I say'"

The Qura'an, Ta'ha: 25-28

Of flights and airports

In times long past there was a child who had known nothing but love, uncomplicated and pure, restricted to people who to him were the embodiment of all goodness. He was loved and he knew how to love back, because love in those days was easy. It could be found in chasing jumbo jets with his Grandpa, betting on what’ll happen first, the airplane landing or them reaching the airport. It could be found in a mysterious wall-cabinet which opened like the sesame to reveal treasures that only a child could appreciate. And the first glimpse of the exquisite bottle which held that burgundy-colored medicine his grandpa took every night and his utter confusion at the elaborate lengths the old man went into to explain that that medicine was only for grownups and that too to help with chest congestion. Such unconditional love lasted its course, changing in form as the child matured. In the final days, it included watching a sexy siren gyrate on screen while the old man took his daily medicine with the steam-machine on and the child listening to anecdotes that flowed more merrily with every sip; eighty-two years of a life lived like a king, like a fearless lion who liked to take life by the scruff of the neck and point it in the direction of choice, with no regrets and the quiet realization that it would all end in not too long. This love was immortal, even as those between whom it was felt were not.

Now, as that child has grown to what would have surely been a disgrace in his Grandfather’s eyes, the memories flood him often, mostly reducing him into a lump of helpless, sobbing mass. While making his way to the airport after many years roughly at the same time of the day as he had done with his Grandfather, he looks up again and again into the sky to try and see any signs of the plane. He wants to beat it to the airport again just like he had done in his foggy memories. Instead, all he gets is eyes foggy with tears. He stands at the airport terminal only to amuse by-standers with the most lost expression on his face, turning around again and again to see the stall from where his grandfather had gotten him crisps and juice many years ago. If only it were proper for a fully-bearded man to break down and cry like an infant. And again, he is reminded of how things have changed, irreversibly. Is his life not the perfect analogy for an airport terminal? People come and go, nobody stays. All relationships are viewed in terms of gains and losses, advantages and disadvantages, in the twisted kaleidoscope of this new age. Where is the love he had known? And without it, are his aching gasps for breath even worth the trouble?

Upon achieving success...

A great man: 'I came, I saw, I conquered'

A determined rat-racer: 'I saw, I came, I conquered'

A loser who gets lucky: 'I conquered, I saw, I came'

ishq-o-masti

jamal-e-ishq-o-masti nainawazi
jalal-e-ishq-o-masti be-niazi
kamal-e-ishq-o-masti zarf-e-Haider
zawal-e-ishq-o-masti harf-e-Ra'azi

- Iqbal

scriptural humor

"You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." (John, 8:32)

Who in hell does He think He's kidding?

I dance...

nami danam keh aakhir choon dam-e-deedar mi raqsam
magar nazm ba een zoqey keh pesh-e-yaar mi raqsam

keh ishq-e-doost her sa’at duroon-e-naar mi raqsam
gahey ber khaak mi ghaltam, gahey ber khaar mi raqsam

beya jana tamasha kun keh der amboh-e-jaan bazaan
basad saman-e-ruswai sar-e-bazaar mi raqsam

khusha rindi keh pamalash kunam sad parsai ra
zahey taqwa keh mun ba jubba o dastar mi raqsam

tawan qatil keh az bahr-e-tamasha khoon-e-man rezi
manam bismil keh zer-e-khanjar-e-khoon-khwar mi raqsam

manam Usman-e-Marwandi o yaar-e-Sheikh-e-Mansoor-am
malamat mi kunad khalqey o man bar daar mi raqsam


- Sheikh Usman Marwandi (Lal Shahbaz Qalandar)


How is it that at mere sight I am enraptured?
But it is only proper; it is for love I dance

And it is love that in eternal hellfire I am ecstatic
In dust I bathe, on thorns I dance

O life, see me amidst hordes of your fearless lovers
Shouldering my shame before their eyes, I dance

Blessed insolence that I grind to dust a hundred virtues
For piety is when in clerical robes, I dance

Such display may cause my killer to lust for my blood
And meek under the thirsty blade, I dance

For I am Usman of Marwand, apostle of Mansoor the Wise
Creation chides and condemns, and on the gallows, I dance.

rebel cry

Ghalib hai rutba fehm o tasawwur se kucch parey
hai ijz-e-bandagi jo Ali ko khuda kahoon

- Ghalib

an ode to despair

What time is it?
How many hours till that hour
When I lie down, rest these aching legs and feet,
These weary, swollen, bleeding feet?

When I close my bloodshot eyes
Will it go away?
That feeling that I am roped
To three hundred and sixty thoroughbreds
Tall, sturdy, impatient thoroughbreds
Facing in three hundred and sixty directions
Each direction a degree apart from the next

The ropes are agonizingly taut
The animals rearing to go
What if they do
Will each take a piece of me with it?

When all I want to do
Is stay
In one piece
In one place
Silent, motionless, at peace.

the sanctuary

He enters. The silence is deafening. He wonders if this truly is a refuge from the screaming chaos that is outside, chaos that is bent upon breaking in. At least, he tells himself, he has learned some methods to deaden his wits against the relentless attacks of the uncertainty and the confusion that is outside. This hush, however, is pitiless. He looks around. In the bright light a few faces are visible like apparitions from a long-forgotten past, hardly recognizable, distant, uncommunicative. Its nothing like the bustle that used to be in this place not too long ago. All for the best, he mutters under his breath. How would they who are not even worth acknowledging understand the demons and how they plague him? Hell, has he even shut them out properly or have they followed him in? He stares blankly into the light hoping for a miracle to take form from within it. The hope makes him wait, foolishly, quietly, stubbornly. Faces pop in and out, more familiar faces, faces that he wants to touch so as to make his presence felt. But they are in a hurry like always. Cursory engagement and they are out. He is amazed at how they do not seem to need asylum from the outside like he does. Are they stronger than him? Or is it just his perception of things that is jaded? But now it is obvious that the vaccuum around him is widening; just more empty spaces for the demons to inhabit. The wait continues. Every passing moment is heavier than the last. The noise from the outside begins to breach the walls of his sanctuary. He realises that his time is up. Reluctantly, he gets up to leave. As darkness abruptly consumes the light he knows it will not be long before he is back. It is just the wait that he has given up, not the hope.

five years

wasl ki shab thee toh kis darja subak guzri thee
hijr ki shab hai toh kya sakht garaan thehri hai
ik dafa bikhri toh hath aayee hai kab mauj-e-shamim
dil se nikli hai toh kya lab pe fughan thehri hai?

- Faiz

istighasa

qibla-e-deen madadi, ka'aba-e-iman madadi
ya Hussein ibn-e-Ali, rooh-e-ghareeban madadi

sales pitch

Ladies and Gents. Tonight we bring you the ultimate offer in slumberous delight: Sleeping on your left side. At the mere cost of a dull ache in your left arm, you can avoid laying on your back all night. Breathing will be easier and your butt and back will get out of the feeling that they have turned to stone. What more, you'ld be able to curl up your legs whichever way you like. Now what's lying there straight as a plank compared to such nocturnal bliss? However, we do not guarantee against flow of phlegm towards the left. In that case, you might experience heightened pain in your left ear and tonsil. But isn't that a small price to pay for such luxurious comfort? And, ladies and gentlemen, those selling the right side are nothing but absolute bastards!

Birthday '06

Is it true solitude when in teeming multitudes of humankind, utterly silent, with a hush as grave as death upon them, walking down a road with no known destination, you are the only one who can hear yourself screaming? Then, is it any wonder that among the vast crowds, those few faces that could have soothed your troubled mind with a mere glint of recognition, unvoiced but real, remain as cold and expressionless as the rest?

muted rage

ghar mein tha kya keh tera gham jisse ghaarat karta
woh jo rakhte thhey ik hasrat-e-taameer, so hai...

- Ghalib