moharram in music: the seraiki maaru

In some remote enclaves of the Seraiki belt, the venerable tradition of the 'Maaru' lives on; the use of the dirgelike melodies of the flute (sharnah, in seraiki) and the doleful beat of the war-drum (naghara) to gather together the mourners of Imam Hussain in the first ten days of Moharram. The particular subject of this post was recorded on the intervening night of the 8th and 9th of Moharram at Shujatpur, the ancestral village of the Langah Khans on the banks of the Sutlej at the southernmost tip of the district Multan. As is age-old convention in this exclusive hamlet of Azadars (mourners), the Maaru is played in the evenings of the 1st through to the 7th of Moharram to bring the community together for 'Maatam'. Maatam is organized chest-beating to the tune of a 'Nauha', elegiac poetry sung by a chorus of 5 to 6 Nauhakhwans, commemorating one episode or the other from the events of Karbala. On the nights of the 8th and 9th of Moharram, the Maaru announces the commencement of the 'Majlis', a gathering in which the 'Zakir' (speaker) employs the magic of words to bring alive the tragedy of Karbala in the imagination of the listeners. The final Maaru of Moharram is played in the deep afternoon of the 10th of Moharram, roughly corresponding with the time of the Asr prayer, the time of Hussain's martyrdom 14 centuries ago. This Maaru is different from all those played on the previous days. It has an eerie warlike rhythm to it as one would imagine playing in the background of medieval infantry going on the attack. The steady thud-thudding of the drum and the piercing defiance of the flute accompanies the 'Zanjeer-zani' (self-flagellation), the Azadars' tribute in blood to the fallen Imam.

The recording in question is the most elaborate specimen of the regular Maaru played in the first nine days of Moharram. The Maaru ensemble laid out beneath a tree at the Imambargah's gate includes the sharnah-maestro Ustad Ghulam Haider Mirzada at the primary flute, Bidani Mirasi with the supporting flute and Bachu at the drums. Through the length of the Maaru, Ghulam Haider plays the tunes of three different Seraiki Nauhas in the flute. He starts off with the theme of 'Aa Qasim tekoon mehndi laavan, tedi maut de sagan suhavan' (Let me henna your hands, O Qasim, for you must now wed death). An increasing volume of human voices can be discerned in the background. Azadars drawn to the music are beginning to gather around the trio of instrumentalists, chanting 'Haye Hussain, Shah Hussain' (O Hussain, our persecuted King) while doing symbolic Maatam. In the 6th minute, Ghulam Haider moves to 'Mekoon loago Hussain ahdin, maen laash Akber di chaee aandan' (I am Hussain, O people, and I bear my murdered Akber on my shoulders). Akber was the Imam's 18-year old son who is believed to be a spitting image of the Prophet of Islam. He was killed in the battle of Karbala by a javelin through the heart. Those who are familiar with the lyrics of this Nauha break into tears when the flute intones: 'Musafir han Madine da, maen te itni ghareebi hay, kafan bajhoon maen Akber koon, bunn de vich sumhai aandan' (I am a traveler, far from home; and so abject am I that I leave him unshrouded on the burning sand). In the 10th minute of play, the maestro picks up the tune of 'Zalim ve, mekoon Shaam di taraf na torr' (O cruel fate, do not take me in chains towards Shaam). The seamless transitions through the three Nauhas speaks volumes of the flutist's mastery. The lyrics of this third Nauha are even more moving, but in the 11th minute, a quick flick of the Langah Sardar's hand brings the Maaru to an abrupt end. The chant of 'Haye Hussain, Shah Hussain' builds to a crescendo as all those who had been silently relishing the beauty of the Maaru join in. At its peak, the chant ends as the crowd cries out in unison, 'Haq pak fazl e Panjtan, Ya Ali; Ya Allah, Ya Mohammad, Ya Ali!' The Azadars flock into the hall of the Imambargah for the Majlis to formally commence. The Maaru has served its purpose one more time. In 11 minutes, a sleepy hollow of scattered mud-houses, disparate clans and uneasy neighbors has been galvanized into a single-minded whole in the love of Hussain Al-Shaheed Al-Mazloom.

Asr e Ashur

han woh Hussain, tishna o majrooh o natavan
saaqit khara hua thha jo laashon k darmian
sunta raha sakoon se woh pir e neem jan
Akber se naujawan ki jawani ki siskiyan
haye haye ki aa rahee thhi sada kainaat se
phir bhi qadam hataye na paye sabaat se

- Josh Malihabadi

birthday '12

You plunge down the road, from home to home, and all you want to do is have some sense of purpose, some small achievement to show, if only to beat the encroaching night. The sky is overcast, the horizons, starless and bleak. The ominous gray of the right and the shrinking pink of the left conspire to make sure every oncoming gaze reduces you to innumerable flights of terror. Your resolve is shaken; you veer off the path into doubts unspoken, dangers untold. But only momentarily. Mild westerly’s kick up a heady breeze, easing the stuffiness inside. With the wind comes the phantasmal dust, dancing across the spectrum of vision, concealing that which is near, accentuating that which is far away. Across the dust’s erratic screen, alien eyes project surreal images, living silhouettes of objects lifeless and bound. It gets in your eyes, the insidious dust. You rub and there is aggravation. You don’t and you are blind. Rain begins to pour; fuses with the dust. Your perceptions become a murky pool and you wade through them in fits and starts. Your mad dash is now a snail’s pace; your purpose is defeated; your achievements, flimsy. Inertia carries you forward; frailty slows you down. Passing familiarity becomes a ray of hope. You latch onto it like space-junk at the end of a comet’s tail. It takes you deep through the realms of scorched clay. Colossal mud cannon point mutedly at the sky, belching acrid black fumes, as though they just fired at god and now await reprisal. You deviate into abstruse inquiry and all familiarity is lost. The darkness you had set out to conquer overwhelms you. You are home perhaps, confined and suffocating; home, from where there is no going away. And resurrection, it feels like such a distant promise.

vehshat e shab

raat se raat ka yoon fasana kehna
jaise apne hee halaat ko begana kehna

rudad e wasl ki rahat moasar hai k yoon
pehlu e yaar, shab e purkhar ka tarana kehna

wajh e zuhd apni hee ghilazat ka wuzu
wajh e wuzu pevasta e zamana rehna

deen o dil k tasadum se barh ker hai kathin
aatish a nafs ka ausaan se yarana sehna

muztarib dil kahan thhera hai bina e tauqeer
nazr e darya karo ye farsooda, purana gehna

shab e zulmat bhi hai, hosh o havas ki mehfil bhi
fana ka kaisa haseen rung hai anjana rehna

hazaar ma'ani e dauran pe gawara hai mujhe
ishq e Hussain ibn e Ali mein deevana rehna

chamak raha hai qamar badosh e shams e zuha
ain e fitrat hai issi noor ko yagana kehna

despairing whispers

It speaks to me of a barren soul
of withered minds, rotten whole

of gravel red with worthless blood
and dignity writhing in the mud,

of ravenous hate worn on the sleeves
of eternal want, the joy of thieves

of darkness shrouding the desolate land,
night and day, harsh in its stand

of lies and truths, hawked on the street
of triumphant lust, of love’s defeat

but then it strays to faraway lands
to dancing waves and golden sands

where reaching out to the pure azure
spirits freely, merrily soar

sparkling red and glittering gold
seductive sirens from days of old

where love is easy and happiness right
time stops to serve the senses’ delight

the soul, unburdened, unhindered, set free
looks to nothing but that moment of glee

and yet, in the throes of temporary bliss
something’s vaguely but surely amiss

for in that haze, as life is blurred
firmly, sullenly, it says not a word

back in the darkness, the misery, the gloom
the season of whispers remains in bloom

for in this firmament, starless and bleak
the mystic heart deigns to speak.

Gilani: The Prodigal Son

So, Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani has bit the dust of the political arena, his four and a quarter years at the helm of this country coming to an abrupt, screeching, and apparently, ignominious end. His administration, according to popular discourse, was marred by endemic corruption, gross ineptitude and a seemingly vast chasm between the needs and aspirations of the people and the goals and mindsets of the leaders. Hence, a clearly audible breath of relief right across the country.  However, the Gilani phenomenon is far from over, least of all in the politics of Multan.

Yousaf Raza Gilani is a scion of the grand old Gilani family of Pak Gate, Multan, and the singular individual who has taken his clan to the greatest heights since their illustrious progenitor, Syed Musa Pak Shaheed, rode into the city in 1592 AD, as myth would have it, holding aloft his own severed head and escorting his harem to safety. Thus began the infamous Qureshi-Gilani spiritual rivalry that continues to shape the flavor of Multani politics to this day. Yousaf Raza, despite having been born into the elite Makhdoom family of the Gilanis, had relatively humble beginnings in terms of wealth and landed property. He did inherit a political legacy, however, and the way he wrested political leadership from his father’s aristocratic cousin, Hamid Raza Gilani, is the stuff of legend. He defeated the formidable Hamid Saeen in the 1988 national elections through a sheer groundswell of popular support rendering obsolete the latter’s patrician methods of politicking, and breathed new life into tottering Gilani political fortunes. But, like any man starting from the absolute grassroots, Yousaf Raza had his sights set high.

Cut to March 2008: Yousaf Raza Gilani is not really a national statesman at this point. He is, however, a prime mover and shaker in Multan, and a trusted member of the PPP old guard. BB is no more. Zardari needs a Prime Minister who is both loyal and pliant and least capable of hijacking the party from under him. The egoistic Shah Mahmood and that wily old insider, Amin Fahim, just wouldn’t do. The placid Yousaf Raza is the man of the hour, slated from the very beginning to play second fiddle to Zardari’s main theme. Multan’s pride takes center-stage.

Now politics in our land of the pure is hardly a pure business. Merit and/or fair-play have little to do with it. Political power is ultimately the control on the distribution of state patronage and resources. In Pakistan, that power has traditionally been exercised by democrats, bureaucrats or the boys in khaki, to enrich themselves and a select few. It is a vicious pattern of circular favors and not one of the numerous actors on our political stage can claim to be free of it. Stories of overnight rags-to-riches abound in the Pakistani political dream. In this paradigm, I cannot even think of attempting to refute the claims that Gilani and his ilk have made illegal billions. They may very well have, and in that typically clumsy, undisguised manner of the parvenu that has left them open to such public vilification.

However, as a politician with a fundamentally local predisposition, Gilani does not seem to have dealt his constituency a bad hand. Multan district’s gleaming new roads and flyovers are testament to that. In fact, development projects at such a wide scale have been undertaken for the first time across the Seraiki belt, galvanizing the region’s recognition of its historic deprivation. Unlike many of the erstwhile political luminaries from the region, Gilani has operated as somewhat of a Seraiki icon, strengthening and promoting the identity. For the first time in two decades, cotton farmers have gotten good prices. Many a hapless youth has been given employment, perhaps violating the precept of merit, but deeply appreciated on the home-turf. Furthermore, the Gilanis have done well to shield their voters from the oppression of the Patwari and the SHO, a factor that matters more in rural politics than any power crises or corruption. And soon, Multan will begin to miss the exceptional treatment it received in power outages throughout the Gilani tenure.

Come July 19, one of Gilani’s own will easily rise on his vacated seat. A by-election in rural Pakistan, however, is seldom any measure of political popularity as the people are generally canny enough to see their advantage in voting for the party in power. Elections-2013 will prove what the home-boy really means to Multan, brutally interrupted as his ascendancy has been, winning him martyr status with the sentimental rural voter. With two sons and one brother still in assemblies, and an unparalleled standing in the PPP, the party closest to the Seraiki soul, Gilani remains a force to be reckoned with. Bets are off on whether even Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi can win back his ancestral seat from Gilani’s PPP in Multan.

phoenix rising!

in this moment
there is nothing

the moon
nor the sun
the dark of night
nor the glow of dawn

no veiled beauty behind the drapes of the eyes
no muted pain in the folds of the heart

on the boughs of fantasy's luscious tree
no dreams may now make nest

was it an illusion? or perhaps, too real
that fading sound of familiar footsteps

no hate, no affection
no bond, no relation

no one yours to have
and no one mine to lose

this is a cruel moment, a desolate one
yet, my timid heart
'tis but a moment
take courage
a lifetime awaits.

- a translation of Faiz's 'Iss Waqt Toh Yoon Lagta Hai...'

ten years

Ten years to this day, Chacha fell prey to the greatest depravity human villainy is capable of. The murder, blind as they call it, devastated the family, powerless rage and agony manifest in the heartrending wails of the women and the deathly silence of the men. For me, it provoked some sort of a revolution within the self. It caused me to begin questioning many givens, both in life and beyond, and to unconsciously start forming my own, independent frames of thought. I got my first actual taste of depression as bitterness crept in, and I shunned company for the solitude of my own imaginary world, which increasingly resembled some bizarre Stanley Kubrick direction. Much of what I am today, greatly different from what I was all those years ago, owes to that single soul-crushing tragedy. But what was once raging, all-consuming pain is now just a dull pang in some corner of the heart. Some solace comes from the strapping young men both his sons have grown into; upbeat, eager for life, independent to the extent that even us older ones often find ourselves looking up to them in life’s tougher situations. They are those unyielding saplings that have weathered nature’s every caprice to become tall, sturdy trees. That, however, is a bigger reflection on the character of the gardener, their caretaker, that blind old man, bent with age, grief and worries, tenaciously protecting them from the scorching sun of the summers and the icy gale of the winters. It is his courage from which they have partaken, and it is his spirit which makes them reach for the sky.

And ten years on, grief, valid as it still is, gives in to awe, to sheer wonderment at the immense reserves of courage and forbearance my grandfather has, to be able not only to deal with the unnatural loss of a son, but to be able to pick up the pieces and give some measure of a new life to his orphaned grandsons, even as their mother left them to find herself a ‘mard’. Dada Jan was 76 in 2002. He is 86 now. This is no age for responsibility. And yet, he somehow managed. If his isn’t a tale of overcoming immeasurable suffering in a mammoth effort to reclaim life, whose could ever be? Fatima, cousin, childhood friend, miscarried in the seventh month of pregnancy last year. One can’t even begin to fathom what a blow that would have been to a mother’s heart. And yet, she defeated the pain to give life another chance. Take a look around. You will see that as Michael Stipe proclaims in his rather doleful monotone, “Everybody Hurts”, even the ones who are ostensibly happy, or in the perpetual pursuit of happiness. Everybody suffers. Real suffering! Not the shallow id and libido related melodrama that I have so shamelessly reeked of till quite recently. Since a spoilt brat like myself, born with a silver spoon up his arse, has never really known actual, personal suffering, he creates a web of lies around himself just so to pretend to be cool in his own head. And here, I must apologize to this blog as well. What started seven years ago purely as a medium for conversations with the self, was whored out as a petty means for pandering to false egos and miserably projecting self-delusions and half-truths. No more.

This blinking cursor, it still dares me, challenges me, to write like the olden days, in flowery metaphor and euphemism, to create images through words in attempts to blow my wife’s very-visual mind away. And I think to myself, later perhaps. Right now, she must be content with the sonorous melodies of my all-too-frequent burping. As it is, this blinker is a lot like the current state of my memory: there one moment, gone the next. Even as my air-headedness constantly amuses my wife, one thing I have learned of late is never to trust fleeting things again.

In 2007, I put up a blog-post on the anniversary of Chacha’s passing, and it has become something of an annual tradition since. This year, however, a very unusual feeling pervades me; as though everything in the world is at peace, that it is time to erase the soreness of gloom and regret with hope and determination. I realize this must sound a tad out-of-tune with the times since 2011 was supposedly one of the most turbulent years ever in human history, and a whole lot corny. But what is a conversation with the self if it can’t get just a little corny and selfish? So, I can’t really say if I will be blogging this time 2013. Let 2012 set the mood for 2013. And what with that Mayan Apocalypse hanging over our heads in the last week of ’12, who is to say that this time next year, we won’t all be ingloriously deceased? Or, better still, suffering a fate worse than death?

salut!

Rakht-e-dil by RrJ

Faiz Ahmed Faiz in a progressive rock rendition: A tribute to Salmaan Taseer

Birthday '11

the PI apologizes...

PI? Now what in the name of Jesus H. Christ’s controversial Dad could that be? Could it be that dratted π = 22/7 that appears in every mathematical identity, and whose point Archimedes himself could not explain? Or does it stand for something? Private(s) Investigator like that Magnum PI character we used to watch on NTM every week for lack of satellite or cable TV, the one who all the women used to drool over, and who, I still maintain, looks more like a gay pornstar than a ladykiller? Or perhaps, it means Poop Inquirer, or, wait wait, Pube Inspector! Now, in the latter case, one would have to apologize at so many different levels, it would simply cease to be funny! One would need to start apologizing from God Himself to one’s parents for never having the requisite credentials to merit a better job description to the subject of inspection itself. In the rare event, however, that the subject in question is a pube exhibitionist, taking great pride in the dimensions of his or her bush, as the case may be, the need for an apology would stand waived. In this case, the PI would deserve some token of appreciation, although self-obsessed subjects have seldom been known to give any.

No, my gentle, and by now I hope, sufficiently appalled readers, PI, for the purpose of this piece, means none of the scandalous options listed above. It merely stands for ‘pseudo-intellectual.’ My friends from the college days would remember me as one of those morons who would go on and on, ad nauseum, ad absurdum, about everything that had anything to do with politics, local or international, philosophy, religion, economics, society and culture. In fact, I used to be, and I state this most emphatically, an expert on every science that did not involve mathematics. This was more than just a tad ironic because I had A’s in both my O- and A-level Math, and was studying for a major in computer sciences with a minor in math. Be that as it may, I had an opinion about almost everything under the sun, and the disdainful certainty with which I propounded my opinions and rejected everybody else’s, makes me want to puke now. To me, God was a fictional character, I was the embodiment of all good with all the love for the poor and the downtrodden in my heart while everybody else lived selfishly and inhumanly, the true axis of evil was Bush and Musharraf, the maulvi, mullah, maulana, allama, ayatollah were all demons in sub-human form, communism rocked, the Seraiki people were all absolutely oppressed, the Punjabis all remorseless oppressors, hence, ¡Viva la revolución!, Marx’s words were nothing less than ‘hadith’, Che was the superhero, Adam Smith was a plagiarizing idiot, Mill an insufferable fart, democracy was a total farce and capitalism was evil, along with the entire white race. These are a few choice nuggets I remember out of an entire buffet of high wisdom from the days I fancied myself an intellectual. And now, just the firmness of my convictions amuses me.

Thing is, my nonexistent audience, as life rolled on, I realized that one does not really need to refer to high-sounding philosophies and ‘-isms’ to make sense of it all. One can pretty much make head and tail of most life-phenomena, if one views life as a perpetual game of conflicting and aligning interests. ‘Interest’ is what makes the world go round, the basis of all economic and politics. It is what governs human behavior at every level, from individual to the highest levels of social organization: socioeconomic classes, political parties, means and mechanisms of government etc. All history and religion fall into place. We find every political and economic theory speaking to or of one interest or another. I don’t intend to delve deeper than this, nor am I trying to prove any point. All that I am trying to say is, if one makes an unbiased assessment of one’s own existence, it is hard to find any action that is not motivated by narrow self-interest. Far be it for me to make crass generalizations, but barring even the overtly interest and greed-centered capitalistic world system, isn’t charity often done with the ultimate end of paradise in mind; point-scoring with the G-Man? Are all the proponents of Marxist revolution above taking it as a bid for gaining power? Journalists and social workers may be committed to the ideals of truth and social justice, but can all of them say that the motive of self-projection, fame and influence-garnering does not lurk somewhere in the background? Couldn’t academics and intellectuals be driven by the same? But let’s return to the individual level. In our limited spheres of existence, do we not do everything in our power using all the breathing space that life affords us to remove any obstacles in the path of our desires or ambitions, justifiable and otherwise, often letting go of even the last shreds of decency along the way: lying, making false promises, creating a whole lot of hurt and acrimony? And having done that all day, we go online, watch the 8 o’ clock talk shows and rant and rave about how Zardari is worst thing to have happened to Adam since Kane, the PPP has picked the country’s corpse down to the skeleton, the MQM are all bloodthirsty ethno-linguistic zealots, Nawaz Sharif is an elitist stooge, the Army is the root of all evil, Amreeka is an exploitative global hegemon etc. After all, aren’t all of them using all the space they have, the power they wield, to protect, preserve and project their own interests, the way they define and understand their interests, the same as us? Even if we think they are all thieves and murderers, don’t thieves and murderers organize to look after their own interest, just like we do? Who is the hypocrite here? Who gives me the right to sit in judgment on all these macro evils when I am just as evil at the micro level? It is at the micro level that people first perfect the unscrupulous exercise of self-interest into an art-form before they go on and execute it to a tee at the macro level. So, where is the big fucking difference?

In the final months of Nana Jan’s life, he was once having his nightcap when I went to spend some time with him. One of those 8 o’ clock shows came on and a bunch of politicians, intellectuals, media-persons, experts got together to opine on the political situation of the country, in sagely tones and self-righteous airs. I expressed a desire to be one such person one day, someone who is listened to, who can influence the way people think, who has a voice, someone who is not just a someone but a somebody. My dying nana spoke priceless words that night: ‘baba, ay sab barey bhenr de chud hin. channel change ker. Madhuri da dance gole.’ Literally translated, it means: ‘my dear boy, these are all sister-fuckers of the highest order. Change the channel. Find the channel where madhuri is dancing.’ This nanaismo is now the only ‘-ism’ I subscribe to, the only philosophy that makes sense in this life which is just a jumble of a thousand different complicating interests. Now, where to find my madhuri is the question?! And how?! Because the real one is now beyond even the MILF stage!

I have a feeling this piece has gotten a bit too dense for something that started out as an attempt at humor. I think I am still as big a PI I ever was. And I leave the definition of it to you this time, kind imaginary reader. The point is mankind would need to find a higher driving force than interest to be able to get in touch with its own humanity. Plato spoke of the need of a philosopher-king to set society right, not a sales-king, not a corporate-king, not any democratic dictatorship, not an absolute monarch nor a Machiavellian prince. A philosopher king! But hey, wait a minute, wasn’t he a philosopher himself?! O brother, it looks like even Plato had his own agenda; he is announcing his own candidacy for the top job, making his own sugar-coated grab for power for himself and his ilk. The bastard!

Musings VIII

tedi chashm siyah da a'ashiq hum

tedi mast nigah sab koor aahi

hun vaal teday meday sir di chhaan

bas mehak siwa sab koor aahi

teda shauq ta teday vas da nai

teday jism di bhha sab koor aahi

teday hij'r ich oon ta mar giya hum

ay maut langah, sab koor aahi

- Hasni Khan

the Ides of March III

thak gaya hoon

bohat thak gaya hoon mayn

ussi ik rah pe chaltey

girtey

sambhaltey

dhool khaatey

aur phir girtey

bohat thak gaya hoon mayn

safar zindagi ka talkh hee hai hamesha se

umeedon k saharey kat-ta bhi nahi

ma'aloom hai mujh ko

per tum aaye

aur lamhon mein

ka'ee se khwab bunn bethay

ka'ee sawalon k kitne rangeen jawab chun bethay

machal utha dil ye bhi

nakaam o nakara

barson baad mila iss ko

jeenay ka koi chara

per ye woh dil hai jo zindagi bhi

mer mer k jeeta hai

zindagi ki her ramak se

der der k jeeta hai

bolay tum meray be-chayn dil pe haath yoon rakh k

huns k, madhosh ho k, mast nazrein chaar ker k:

'sab theek hoye ga'

uth para mayn bhi phir safar ki tayari mein

dikhne laga rung, khuda, khushbu

tumhari yaari mein

ab aaye koi bhi toofan, dekha jaye ga

girey sir pe chahay aasman, dekha jaye ga

ma'aloom kya thha k tumhare saans ki mehak

tumhare honton ka ras

baney ga woh zehr e qaatil jis se

issi nadar musafir ka jigar chaak ho ga

woh khwab jo basaye tum ne meri aankhon mein

bikhar jayein ge raahon mein

raiza raiza ho k

kaanch ki kirchion ki tarah

khoon-khwar kaanton ki tarah

ab inhi raahon mein din raat kata kartey hain

tamasha dekhne waley

ji bhar k mujh pe hanstey hain

chalta hai yoonhi nok e sina be-bas saans ka raqs

khoon behta hai magar aisey k dikhta bhi nahi

dil woh hai k kisi tor bhi bikta hee nahi

bas yahee aag ka safar hai,

aur tanha mein

apni bejaan umangon k laashey gintey

dil k veeraney ko jazbat ki dafan-gah kartey

thak gaya hoon

bohat thak gaya hoon mayn.

the Ides of March II

'Justuju Jis Ki Thhi' from the film Umrao Jan Ada, 1981

the Ides of March I

after my death came one and placed a lighted lamp upon my grave,

ah, the hem of a passing breath snuffed it before the evening was gone.

when you have laid me in my grave, go say to her, 'O Angel face,

he who loved thee frenziedly is now the dust beneath thy feet.'

- anonymous

la'whore!

lahore, lahore

my screws have gone loose, have had it today

used to be a part of it - lahore, lahore

now my old worn-out shoes, are dying to get away

right out of this house of shit - lahore, lahore

why be in a city that doesnt let me sleep?

where it's all downhill, a stinkin' dung heap

my lil town blues, i'd take any day

i'm sick of making new starts of it - in cold lahore

i can't make it anywhere, especially not here

and its all because of you - lahore, lahore

lahore, lahore

why wake up in a city that gives me the creeps?

and find i'm a number none, bottom of the list, run of the mill

a number none

my lil town blues, please take me away

i can't make no new starts of it - in cold lahore

'cause i just can't make it here, i can't make it anywhere

it's all b'cause of you - lahore, lahore

lahore!

Sung to the tune of Frank Sinatra's 'New York, New York'

100: A Political Statement

The content of this post has been deleted by the author for purely non-political reasons. What was posted here before was a base attempt at currying favor with a vile and vulgar individual. The author retracts the previous statement in its entirety!

nine years

kab thehrey ga dard aye dil, kab raat basar ho gi
suntey thhey woh aayein ge, suntey thhey sehr ho gi

kab jaan lahu ho gi, kab ashk gohar ho ga
kis din teri shunwa'i aye deeda e tar ho gi

kab mehke gi fasl e gul, kab behke ga maikhana
kab subh e sukhan ho gi, kab shaam e nazar ho gi

wa'ez hai na zahid hai, naaseh hai na qaatil hai
ab shehr mein yaaron ki kis tarh basar ho gi?

kab tak abhi raah dekhein aye qaamat e jana'na
kab hashr mo'ayeeyan hai tujh ko toh khabar ho gi

- faiz

two-second admissions

jan zatan burdi wa darjani hunooz,
dard-ha daadi wa darmani hunooz.

aashkara seen-e am bashugaafti,
hamchunan dar seen-e pinhani hunooz.

ma za girya chun namak bagudakhtim,
tu bakhunda shukr afshani hunooz.

- Amir Khusrau

you left me lifeless, and yet, you are my life
pain you gave me aplenty, and yet, you are the only cure

shamelessly you pierced my chest and ripped out the heart
but within its darkest depths, you still somewhere hide

why should I cry if you grind salt into my wounds?
for such attention, my master, my king, I am forever grateful

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