innerself

It’s no use running away from yourself. One day, your inner self is going to catch you or at least catch up with you. No use lying, ducking behind excuses, hiding behind unimportant stuff and small talk, no use telling yourself you can go around your problems, no use playing hide and seek, no use covering your face every day with fake emotions, trying to bury the real ones underneath the skin, no use trying to get used to compromises that are infact not compromises at all, utterly painful conformities, no use thinking things should be left the way they are, no use pitying yourself to the extent that you start feeling good about the pain, the problems. Its all futile. In the end, you’ll be sitting back trying to relax but won’t be able to. That’s when you’ll realize that the mistake you made all through has taken so much of yourself away, your faith, your trust in yourself. You’ll realize what you’re going to do now should’ve been done ages ago, should’ve been done from the start.

But its never too late to take a look in the mirror. Its never too late to befriend yourself. Its one of the easiest things to do as well if you realize.

Of children and men.

The world seems meaningless to a bunch of twelve year olds, jumping about their set of marbles, watching them go east west north south on the earthen floor. Their clear and hazy bottle greens sharp contrasts to the pale earth, making it easy to spot their slightest move. As one sits and powers a Finger-slingshot, aiming at another kid's marble, the other children watch in anxiety, one of them in fear. If it hits, the aiming kid gets up and rejoices, the owner of the hit marble clenches his fists at his luck, but the effect is cancelled out. In a second or too, all glee all gloom turns to concentration for another round of marbles, and emotions.




Seven or eight white scalped men take their chairs in the southern corner of the park, chatting incessantly, unfazed by hundreds of people walking and jogging about them. They sit down in a ring, call the waiter out for a round of tea and then shut the world out of their minds. For them, the world consists of 60 year old retired men, and women. One of them begins narrating an experience, another one joins in, another cuts it out, another diverts it to another more engrossing experience, subjects change, its like shuffling through a deck of cards, no one knows the next topic. For a moment or two, one or two of the old men get into a heated arguement, the rest donot wish to stop them, for two reasons. First maybe this heated arguement reminds them all of younger times and secondly, they all know that thanks to bad short term memories, this arguement would remain an arguement, and the very next moment, life would be normal. The waiter distributes the tea and leaves, the ambience not the least altered. Its like the whole scenario is taking place in a bottle, the cover of which can only be removed from the inside.




A kid from the marble playing group and an old man from the tea sipping gang are walking down the small street. While neither talks about their little worlds, they connect. They walk hand in hand. The grandfather knows the boy wont understand what they talk about all day, because he's yet to see most of it. And the kid knows that his grandfather won't understand his love for marbles and would scold him, maybe because its been a long time he hasn't powered a finger-slingshot!

TO OUR LOVE

70 gruelling minutes, and it has come down to this. The score 0-0. Chances missed will be regretted. A match that challenges the physical strength of each one of the players, each one giving the match their everything, heart, body and soul.

Players and spectators line up for the penalty shoot out. What an unjust end to one of the best matches, leaving it all to chance. What a cruel way to end it.

The last penalty kick, team mechanical has already missed one. One kick of the ball separates tears and hope. If shamsu scores, electrical wins. The somalian coolly taps the ball to the right of the keeper. The players in blue erupt in celebration, those in red, hang their heads.

I quickly turn around, and walk back to where my clothes lay and start dressing up.

What a match...this is why we love football, its the most emotional game of the world, it takes you to another world. Whether you win or lose, with every match, every pass, every moment you love increases. Skills, become meaningless. Your determination, love and passion is what gives you wings.

This goes out to the greatest game in the world, and every player who lives the spirit of football.

Feel good inc.

He crosses the road, with one thing in mind. To be one with the one thing he loves the most. He steps ahead, takes strides, worries, shrugs and does everything to dispel any memory of his past. The darkness adds to the mystery of the moment, to the pleasure of oblivion. The mountains stand tall behind him, the oceans vast and deep infront. The salty smell of asphalt punctures the otherwise numb nerves, giving him a reminder about some of the good things about life. About where does the road lead to? Goes into one big road? Which goes into another big one and another and another? Until it becomes one great road. Does it really have an end? As he steps back and forth about the place he's standing on, he tries to retrace the steps of another person, who perhaps has never been there. But if its one great road, maybe somewhere else in the world, maybe on a road just like this.
His eyes search for an unlikely mirage, for any kind of illusion. Hallucinations, he doesn't like. A dark shadow, leaps at him slowly blotting his heart out until the heart's ready to produce shadows of its own. To haunt other people like him to surrender one day, give up hope, and cry to the music of memories.
This isn't the life he dreamt of. Its better or worse? Noone knows.its just a question with an insignificant answer, so why bother? Every day is different from every dream.

Anoinkyalylylom

Do we all need an anchor point in our lives? Right now, i really feel i need something to hold on to, something to be my anchor point. I dont know what that exactly means but the word Anchor describes the thing i'm searching for at this point of time. But what exactly is it?
I tried to find it out from Mahru. She said, get married. Then she said, make yourself your own anchor point, i didn't understand both the ideas. How that'll bring a centre of gravity into my life. I know she prolly was kidding about both the ideas, but i wasn't. I've always loved change. But change without a centre of gravity goes on to lead one astray probably. Maybe.

Goatee

My goatee, my goatee, my goatee has finally finally grown to the point of no return, yes, no stopping from here on inshaAllah...i might post a picture sometime soon inshaAllah, right now i'm getting conflicting comments from everyone. People hate it, and people like it...but i accept it makes me look a little scary, coz its gone pretty long!

Lahore, Pakistan.

The more i want to write about what's happening around me, the more it seems i've lost the ability to write. Such heavy is the air in my country. Such dark are the times.
We, who got this country as a gift from Allah, who rewarded our forefathers for their sacrifices, have failed to keep its flag up high. We've shamed it in the world in every way possible.
We begged.
We killed our own people.
We cut our own country apart.
We fed on it every single day.
We pulled eachother's legs.
We desecrated our judiciary.
We dishonoured our parliament.
We forgave people who ruined this nation.
We gave the reins of our country into the hands of the most corrupt people.
We defamed our greats, our legends, our saviours.
We shunned popular opinion.
We crushed our poor.
We fed our filthy rich.
We promoted racism, class boundaries, prejudices.
We lost all our morals.
We let go of our legacies.
We discarded our culture.
We transformed our country into sheer mockery.
We did all we could to insult it.
We let go of our forefathers.
We forgot our history.

But alas, we couldn't stop at that,
WE ATTACKED OUR GUESTS! we couldn't provide them with security...we pakistanis who took pride in calling ourselves the most hospitable nation, we deemed it more appropriate to give our governor more security than our very honourable guests from SriLanka. What a shame.

We are sorry. We apologise to the entire SriLankan nation for hurting their trust. Our policemen were martyred trying to save you, maybe that'll show the purity of intent we have.
But think about us, at this moment. We as a nation have been destroying ourselves, with help from outside.

To Mahela Jayawerdene and his men,
we really are a hospitable nation, but we are victims of terrorism. Our friends are their enemies. Whoever these culprits are, they've been making us walk the plank everyday every night. We're sorry you had to go through the trauma, we'd have given as many people as needed to save our guests the slightest bit of discomfort, but sometimes a mixture of badluck and ignorant rulers makes that impossible.
The entire pakistani nation loves you for saying that you'll be back to pakistan. Even if you never come back, saying that is enough.





"ye jo wakt hai mere shehr par,
isse izn day k safar karay,
isse hukam day k chal paray,
meray aasmaan se dur ho,
kisi maujzay ka zahoor ho"


bun to gaya tha Pakistan.
Ab uth k rahay ga pakistan.
Pakistan Zindabad.

Mera mulk, may hukamraan, may shatir.

Ye jo beess crore hain,
jehl ka nichore hain,
tareekion may doobay huay,
dil b inke chor hain,

inko tu daba k rakh,
neend ka jaam pila k rakh,
uthay to sehla dijiyo,
khauf tu inmay basa k rakh,

ba shaoor jo in may uthay to,
zehr pyar se pilao to,
khamosh wo b ho gya,
jabar, agar phir uthay wo to,

ye jo tera mulk hai,
ye teri hi to milk hai,
karachi lahore teri zameen,
tere khel ka maidaan to hai,

ye jo sab ghareeb hain,
inke kya naseeb hain,
zindagi maut maut zindgi,
ek dairay may muheet hain,
to inko tu pisaey ja,
mustaqbil ko inke khaeya ja,
khoon sab nichore lay,
khazanay apne bnaey ja,

ke ye jo tere log hain,
kuch in may bas tere log hain,
pait or niyyat bharta ja,
paisay k sab ye log hain,

tjh ko bura bolain to ye,
keh day tu inse datt k ye,
beess crore ko sula dia,
kya kumm hai mera kamaal ye?

(inspired by habib jalib's main ne us se ye kaha)