More Than a Friend

It was one of those mind-numbing moments.
A blow to the gut, an impact you can hear reverberating in your head before you feel a fist actually connect with your pelvis. One of your ‘elusive’ league of people sharing a long overdue secret- over a cup of coffee- causing your breath to catch and not slush out.

You recall this girl clearly from your college days; she was always someone who intimidated you for her sheer, unadulterated ‘goodness’ and unlimited reserves of energy. You admitted to her later on that you were even a tad jealous of her ability to not hold a grudge, to be pure and un-scheming in every ounce of her being, even when she was trying to get back at the world she couldn’t help being well-intentioned about it. You were jealous, because you had to work at this ability, you read books, meditated and constantly checked yourself with every conversation you partook in… but she was a natural.

She changed over the years, she lost some of her painful naiveté but she still couldn’t manage to lose that wholesome goodness. She told you that she really tried to ‘get tough’, because the world was a shitty place and the only way to manage one’s shitty life was give back as good as you got… but she still couldn’t shake her skin. You realise now that even though you both always craved being more spontaneous and worldly, you also nurtured your idealism because you felt it made you special in some way. This is what connected you, that you were both outsiders looking into the lives of others while you were so busy dealing with your lack of one. Your lives always revolved around the people in them and much as you both craved making them ‘all about you’ even your efforts were misguided because you tried to find a version of ‘you’ that would please everyone and that was safe. You realised that you were immensely grateful to a God you aren’t sure you believe in, for the opportunity to keep her in your life.
There are not many people you keep. You are one of those beings who float through life with a suitcase in your heart, you fill the case with books and music and colour but very seldom with people. People tend to zap you of your originality, so you keep very few from your travels. You allow them to permeate your skin and your thoughts just as long as you have to and for as long as they are there. The moment they aren’t, you shed them. They are only a handful that you go back and carry with you and you don’t regret this. ‘Your’ people, few and far between as they may be, are yours - you trust them and they matter. They don’t just fill vacuums in your landscape, they are part of it. You love ‘your people’ and you didn’t realise until that moment that she was really one of them. She wasn’t just someone you bounced ideas off of and enjoyed for her soft company. Somewhere along the lines you had pocketed her in your travelling bag and now you were scared that it might be too late to tell her.
She is one of the few who inspires you, you seldom admit to that.

She tells you about the cloud that has been hanging over her head for years, of how the disease was a shadow that had kept her from living or being who she was. You recognise the sentiment and the emotion but not the practicality of it. You have lived under emotional shadows, you have lived under abuse, but not this kind. Huntington’s Chorea is like a ticking time bomb. Living without getting tested for years means that every conversation is followed by the ‘what if’ of a 50% chance of having it. You finally realise what makes her who she is, not the disease, but the fact that she had a problem to confront and she does it on a daily basis. You know this because you were at your strongest when you were actually battling your demons, as is she. You know very well what separates you from the people in your life: Your Life. Extreme lives make extreme individuals, the good, the bad and the ugly. You have been all three at some point. It isn’t a pity party, it just is. ‘Normal’ concerns, normal passions, normal emotions have never been something you could relate to, because your life was never normal. This has made you who you are and it defines you by how you have dealt with it. You now recognise her strength somewhat, but hers is immense because it isn’t just emotional – it is mental, and physical and spiritual. You got out and are healing, she is still figuring out if she even can heal.

You are not sure if you are envious or ecstatic about the other remarkable friend in her life who is showing her how to live, seemingly for the first time. Every day you see her try something new, she is wearing make-up now, new shoes, new clothes and a new outlook. She smiles for herself more, gone is the embarrassed half-smile she earlier used to placate others around her. She is finally becoming herself and it is thrilling to watch. You have been there, you remember that place - where colours were brighter and every day meant new possibilities, that blossoming phase and you are happier for her than you can conceive. You realise that you are grateful to her other friend, she is a miracle worker, your jealousy stems from the fact that you found yourself alone but she has help. Then again, you always choose to do things alone and crying over spilt milk is foolish.

She tells you that she has finally decided to get tested and no matter what the result she will finally live her life the way she wants to. You realise now that you are overjoyed that she got nominated for the scholarship you were rejected for, she deserves it for something you didn’t, and that earlier twinge of ‘but why not me’ that you felt when you got your letter has completely vanished.
You will both be starting over this year and you are sure of it this time.
It WILL HAPPEN.
It will happen because she has earned it, every day of her 29 years, she has earned it by simply being and you have by learning to ‘be’.

Atkins aftermath

Its oddly disconcerting, how I could ignore for so long that one of the most beautiful things in the world is bread. I always figured it was coke and literature and my perverse, masochistic notion of love.... but nope, its bread.

A week and a half into Atkins and nine pounds lighter there is nothing I miss more than the all-encompassing absence of bread. Glorious, sublime, sweet, oh-so-sweet bread. Yesterday, my masochism drove me to tune into BBC food for a good two hours, I watched the French Lady bake her majestic Blueberry Pie. I sat and watched in acute agony as she bathed it in peach sauce. I am in awe of my hitherto un-discovered inner strength. I have battled emotional demons-a-many, but this... THIS is my Everest.

Being weaned off of Bread.
I'd much rather be in rehab for meth.

The 'It's All About You' Song

“And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life, is life itself” – Milan Kundera

There comes a point where you begin to believe your illusions.

That precarious juncture where the world and all that is in it really does revolve solely around you. The few people you truly cannot avoid interacting with are no more than holograms floundering along your atmosphere, but temporarily seeking you out here... on 'your' turf. It is all yours. It isn’t necessarily isolation, rather a hyperbolic narcissism carved to help nurture your notion that you are indeed special, even if you choose not to acknowledge, advance or advertise the fact.
That this is your world, your dream, your delusion, your destiny and your dimension.
They are the phantoms, random ghosts floating on pavements and sidewalks, but ‘you’ are the story and if there is really a narrative being carved out, then it is all for you. The God-voice is directed at you, is about you and is for you.

Such highly cultivated neuroses can only come from pathological people-phobia.
Which is why you are beginning to doubt if it is you missing out on the social experience or society missing out on your experience?

You leave work early and as you are driving home, you realise you just want to drive somewhere that doesn’t lead to anything, so you let your play list drag you through an hour of extra traffic to a section of town that doesn’t interest you, save in the fact that the traffic is minimal and you stop at a department store to buy a coke and some narcissus posies from the kid standing outside without shoes. You look at the boys’ feet and give him a smile and an extra 30 rupees feeling that this ought to make you feel less guilty about the fact that you can’t summon up a suitable measure of guilt for his condition.
You park your car in a McDonald’s parking lot staring at groups of youngsters seemingly living 'a Life' in the midst of what is supposed to be ‘your’ floor show. You idly deliberate about what the real significance of extra’s on a film set is, perhaps they just make blank spaces look colourful. So you forgive them their irksome clique. You have finished your coke and wait for the next song to start your car and head home. You have no one to call, no one to see and no one to care about and you are not quite sure if it bothers you as much as it should or if you are denying your denial again. Someone said that home is like a naked person, you don’t really understand what that means but you figure it means a sense of completion and wholeness and comfort and the like. So you decide you aren’t really headed home, just to the roof over your head with everything a girl could want under it.
You wonder why you want more.
You wonder why you are so ungrateful.

You reach home to find that the power is out, so you discreetly creep up into your room and carry your computer out onto the terrace and compose this inane rambling run-on-sentence dedicated to your overwhelming belief that someday it will all make sense and a day after that it will all begin to matter.

You recall a Dylan biography you saw last night that mentions ‘Seven simple rules for life in hiding’:

1) Never trust a cop in a rain coat - You realise that you, like most of your countrymen and women, don’t trust cops on principal.

2) Beware of Enthusiasm and of Love, each is temporary and quick to sway – You are aware that you generally fake enthusiasm and are as terrified of love as you are of not getting it so you will always ‘beware’ of both sentiments.

3) When asked if you care about the worlds problems, look deep into the eyes of he who asks. He will not ask again – You do not really care enough that you really do care about the worlds problems but you remember, with a lingering sense of trepidation, that you are scared of looking people in the eyes.

4 & 5) Never give your real name and if ever told to look at yourself, NEVER look – You cultivate as many names as you do false impressions and whenever you try and look at yourself, you lose the battle to the illusions that seem to define you. You are completely safe from self-awareness.

6) Never say or do anything the person standing in front of you cannot understand – You never say or do anything of consequence in front of any person save yourselves.

7) Never ‘create’ anything. If it were misinterpreted it will chain you and follow you the rest of your life and never change – You have never created anything you have felt comfortable sharing and everything you create is misinterpreted in the process of its conception.

You wait till the power comes back to switch on some music and settle down in the middle of the floor in your ocean-print pyjamas with your paint brush in hand. You relish the acrid smell of turpentine and paint mixing with the rough gravelly strains of the folk-music strumming through your speakers. You dip the brush in blues for the Police man in a Raincoat; in pink for Enthusiasm, in red for Love, in a mauve haze for the World’s Problems; in yellow for Your Name and orange for your False Mirrors, in black for Not Understanding and you envelop it all in a green bottle for Creating Something.

And you cork the bottle in brown so that it doesn’t spill.

The Lost Prophets

It is becoming more and more distant with each passing day, the notion of a Self.

I currently reside somewhere in the periphery of my person, looking in and not particularly growing in any direction. I also find that I have begun to count the number of sentences that I start with this innocuous vowel, ‘I’. They are far too many, and yet they still fail to nurture that vague sketch of identity that I seek. A few days back an inane face book, 10-minute interview robbed me of an answer I think I should have had. The question was: ‘What is your centre?’
I find that I do not have one, I am flowing haphazardly, caught and thrashed intermittently in a wave of nostalgia, longing and whimsical irony. The waves are not progressive or regressive, but like most waves they are both and therefore neither. There is no centre. What good is an individual without a centre?
What good is an individual?
What is good?
What?

If there truly is a sea of translation, then we are all lost. The discovery that I am finding most of myself in this nonsense is oddly comforting. I like nonsense, no one tries to make sense of it and therefore it is perhaps the only notion left alone, intact and pure. Currently I am swimming deep in the lake of my Art and my anima; this always seems to happen when I listen to Dylan for a long stretch of time. Time loses its urgency to win races: ticking turns to tapping and tapping into swishing as all is lost. And all is found. That one elusive ‘End of the Year’ and ‘On to New Beginnings’ month rolls around and I spend my weeks tracing back every Dylan song I can find, which takes a lot of listening. Listening, which becomes easier to do when the talking is no longer yours to hear. It also drives a lost fantasy and lots of nonsense to the brim of what could be.
I like that.
I like that I am finally writing in pencil again, and not thinking about it at all.
I like that my writing, in retrospect, appears untidy and much resembles idle scribbling.
I like that my art is untidy again and that I am not trying to clean it up.
I like that I seem to be giving up on ‘cleaning up’ completely.
I like that I am beginning to like something about my ‘untidy’, ‘unruly’, ‘inconvenient’ nature enough to nurture it and let it breathe.
I like that I no longer find myself ugly.
I like many things again.
I like that most of all.

Recently I have been dwelling on some very beautiful blasphemy. An acquaintance asked why -since I was not religious- did I want to pursue my PhD in Comparative Religion? I thought about it and I am still caught in the web of transgressions that is currently thinking me.
I believe this is because I don’t want any proof anymore. I have spent altogether too much energy trying to disprove dogma and prove secularism. I wish to stop this by purely immersing myself in study for the sake of comprehension of the incomprehensible. To acknowledge and hopefully someday embrace the un-knowability of everything. Not to judge or defend, and I realise that this is the hardest part, but I want to see if I can manage it nonetheless. Truth be told, I have never really been able to stomach the glamour of religious mythology and/or history, this is ironic seeing as I sincerely covet mythology in every other shape and form.

The same person asked me what religion I followed. I tried to not fumble my explanation, seeing as it never really seems to hit home that I am sincere when I say that I truly feel that God, Faith and Religion are all simply the Muse, Art and Beauty. No matter how I say it, it always comes out corny and New-Ageish and that always makes it small. Alternate views are apparently unacceptable if they haven’t been allowed to marrow for 1400 years. So I changed tack and weaved him a whimsical tale about the Lost Prophets of Harmless Art. It was a very pretty story and I am quite sure I came off as intensely charming and fanciful in my naiveté. Even conventional people manage to dismiss art as something so pretty it couldn’t possibly be ‘THAT’ dangerous. We forgive the Sufi’s for downright heresy. We call them saints, why?
Because they were pretty in their criticism.
‘Pretty’ is always so much easier to dismiss.
And I saw him doing just that, the polite smile acknowledging the little girls talent and raw idealism. Her love for art clouding the ‘real gory stuff’ over, harmless deflection, he thought. There is a reason why ‘people’ say that ‘people’ can be stupid when it comes to Religion. ‘People’ can’t really help themselves. Believing is easier than thinking for most and no matter how prettily one dismisses Art, nothing forces ‘thought’ more than the Muse.

I am usually considered subversive because I cannot glamorize and revere religious prophets the way most people do. I don’t dis-respect them, but I don’t respect them for their alleged contributions either. They are historical figures I accept or reject based on what I read of history and how reliable I consider the sources and sightings. And if there is one thing history always tells us, it’s that it is utterly unreliable. I do no more or less for them than I do for anyone. This bothers people, I have noticed. For some reason it is okay to question God and criticise him, but not his sentinels. They are sacrosanct.
Probably because very few of us are willing to admit that believing in prophets who actually lived and were human is much easier than believing in the much larger abstract that gives them their identity and definition for supposed posterity.
I have always maintained that if prophecy was ‘divine inspiration’ then it was ridiculous that it was only relegated to decaying historical nuances. If prophets were – in fact - individuals who wrote and spoke a message that struck a chord in people’s hearts to connect them to something outside of themselves, then it was impossible for it to be just one message that would expire as easily as it has. This could be why we are all at a loss to find how to replace, update, incorporate or suppress it in the present. My ‘prophets’ would then be Dylan, Cohen, Guthrie, Chopin, Twain, Barrie, Tolkein, Mohammad Ali…perhaps just as many as we have in dogma: 1,24,000…and ever-growing in number. Every thinker has the potential for prophecy. Whoever manages to move me to tears and ecstasy has the potential be my personal saint. I find that reverence for actual experience is well within my scope of devotion. Reverence for the experience mind you, not so much for the sponsor. Pure aesthetic appreciation for a message that can compound in a manner that tugs at the soul strings every time it is delivered. I have never cried for our prophet or laughed with his history. I have never been moved to …well…anything.

Does that discount his being a prophet, No.

Does it discount his being mine, Probably.

I have cried however, even as I picture the death of a man as multi-dimensional as Dylan or Cohen or Ali. Of the last song they will sing, of the manner in which that message will collect in the infinite well of every other sentence they wrote or sang or surmised.
Words strung together like pearls and bullets ‘Our Goliaths will be conquered’, ‘We sit here stranded though we all do our best to deny it’, ‘Its hard to hold the hand of anyone who is reaching for the sky just to surrender’, “ Float like a Butterfly, Sting like a Bee your hands can’t hit what your eyes can’t see”, ‘Our interests on the dangerous edge of things; the honest thief, the tender murderer, the superstitious atheist’ … what makes them less inspired than gospel? What makes them less valid for resonance in the soul than prayer?
What makes it real, if the whole point is for it not to be?


Does any of it make the Wanderer’s prophets or Art religion?
Why not?
Then again, ‘why’ at all.

How to Make a Moment

Lost in a chain of non-linear non-moments.
The never-ending well of not happening, not doing, not wanting, not trying and not having.
Non-Moments, every one of them.
The minutes spent brushing teeth without music murmuring in the background, seconds lapsed tying laces without registering the weather, hours spent staring off into television commercials blocking out the smell of caramel.

We are curious as to what makes her carve this expression. "What exactly is a 'non-moment' Maria?"
All those faded scraps of time spent staring into space?
Or is it the numbing of senses for sensibilities?
But then are they 'lost', what an unfair analogy for an individual who perpetually catches herself fantasizing about lying stoned in the middle of her steel grey mat floor, listening to 'Moonlight in Vermont' by Chet Baker and waiting for the swirls to form on her ceiling. It is not the swirls that bring on the high, it is the wait for them.
Toes tingling, breathing shallow and starstruck lunacy...all spent in the anticipation of tingling toes, shallow breathing and legitimate lunacy.

Yesterday's caught and bound in today's photo albums bring new lows, the smiling 'you's and them's' bring lows, the tears bring highs. For now she is an ice-cube swimming in our glass of neat vodka, and wondering why the blues are more beautiful than ever.
Wondering why she never learned to play the saxophone.
Wondering why she never wanted to.
Wondering why she under-rates the importance of stillness.
Wondering why she is alone.
Wondering how smoke can take so long to curl into oblivion.
Wondering how many non-moments it takes to make a moment?

Then they come, unabashed... in waves.
The swirls. Shadows behind the mirrors of locked eyelids.
Bottle green, Electric blue, and Tangerine Pink.

And there you have it.... a Moment.

And so it begins...

There is much to be said of our country, its people and our predicament at present, and many have said it, however what still lacks definition is the course we are setting out for ourselves. In the past two weeks I have come to the very brash realisation that among the three major corners that define the Pakistani triangle that ‘Finally gives a damn’ in civil society, I belong to the Journalist corner. Just in case it needed clarification there is also a Student corner and a Lawyer corner.
You see I have very carefully avoided the responsibility, thrill and work ethic that belong to my particular fraternity over the four years since I have graduated with a degree in Journalism. I have done this in spite of the fact that I have worked in both a national newspaper and am now working for a national television station which has been put to the back burner…but that’s another story for another time. I prefer to keep my head down and skulk in corners but it seems Uncle Musharraf has put paid that. I may be the only Pakistani who can still be duly grateful to the Great Leader for helping me discover a notion of latent nationalism within myself.

I usually deflect all of my career responsibilities by claiming to be a ‘writer’ not a ‘reporter’, now it appears that both titles are equally fraught with involvement, emotion and drive. I think what has inspired me to join in the haphazard, but hopefully well intentioned, crusade to save the country is – to put it plainly- the fact that people finally give a toss. In the past two weeks since my colleagues have been protesting daily at the Lahore press club, I have seen a shift in psyche – the ‘burger’ psyche, to be specific.

We that not-so-elusive brand of Pakistani yuppie twenty something’s who can talk, think and trace down on our fingertips the reasons why we wish to leave this country and settle abroad have been bothered enough to take to the streets, albeit in our designer sunglasses and Nike’s. The protests have made it plain that there are two brands of Pakistani youth co-existing right now, the PBCA (Pakistani Born Confused American) and the regular home grown garden blend. These two people have never really been introduced before and the powers that be are probably unaware that they have made this particular introduction. We now march from our offices, to the press club to the high courts chanting slogans in both English and Urdu (for solidarity) and are recognising the need to tolerate the ‘other’ for something bigger than the both of us.
It is funny how fascism works sometimes.

To those of us who perceive ourselves through the visors of the ‘rest of the world’ we know our USP (the Advertising analogy means ‘Unique Selling Proposition): Pakistani’s are world renown for their incredible collective prowess at bigotry, cheating and taking the quintessential short cut. Presently we are also one of the most dangerous people in the world, which is probably the only thing keeping us that spot the UN has us believe we will forgo in ten years on the world map. We have never been a patriotic people barring cricket matches and we have never been loyal to a cause of our own.
The latter appears to be changing.

I have been asking around my fellow-burgers what they are experiencing right now and the sentiment can be summed up like this:
“I’ve never really heard of a solid reason to love this country, I always grew up knowing that we needed to hate India, just never that we needed to love Pakistan,” said a friend of mine. I can relate to this sentiment, having always resented the fact that my generation was accused of apathy and lacking patriotism. We, the children of the Zia era, have only ever hard grand tales of Pakistani heroism and independence, we have seen differently. We have never known true leadership or anything to really take pride in, so why the expectations? If anything we were bred with a sense of anti-Indianism and not pro-Pakistanism. National anthems and ‘Dil Dil Pakistan’ always followed a sense of knocking down the neighbour, never real pride.

Something has begun to change though, it is hard to point it out in a canvas, but it is perceptible in the impression it leaves upon Pakistani people these days, something in the air…

“I’m not really sure I can honestly profess that I love my country, even now, but for the first time I’m trying to. I care enough to want it to stay on the map and I’m willing to get jailed or take a beating or two for that – somehow it finally seems worth it”, Abid Ali, currently a protester.

No sce teo ipsum

Know Thyself

I have lost count of the number of times I have heard people use the expression "I don't care what people think" and marvelled at how silly they sound saying it. A better way to put it might be "I 'try' not to care what people think or say about me", "I don't let people's opinions influence my decisions" but both are inevitable, and lets face it, both sound morbidly defeatist. I have had to come to terms with the fact that we all navigate our lives away or towards the 'people' that surround us, either way they effect the latitudes and longitudes of our course. If you are a rebel you are one because you do not conform to societal standards; if you are a conformist you are one because you do; If you are a nihilist it is because you just don't care like other people do; if you're a zealot its because you need other people to care as much as you do. People are unavoidable.
Even if you avoid them...
especially then.

It really would be a relief to -for once- not bother with the added perception of a larger, general, phantom audience. To look in the mirror and appreciate ones' face for what stands out pleasant rather than being bombarded with what needs fixing. It would be comforting to be able to take solace in literature, music and films without the added element of their ratings, their perceived triteness or depth or the general consensus that defines the "in thing". It would be good to just like or dislike something, anything on the premise of 'taste' that has not been outlined by the media, society, religion or culture. Then again, would it still be called taste without the bearings that confine it.

I have been tracing my steps back, which appears to be my strong point, thereby debilitating any chance I may have to move forward and I realise that all of my 'identities' both past and present have not only been effected by outside influence but practically outlined by it. At this point the realisation of trying to avoid concerns other than ones own becomes an added plight. The fact that I am presently trying quite hard not to profess opinions that belong to others has left me conflating abstract musings to define what is mine, if there is anything in my corners that I can claim copyrights to. I have always hated the notion that all creativity is essentially borrowed... I believe the polite inflection is "inspired". Somehow it cheapens both the muse and the musings. Recycling however, appears to have made it as the trump card of our time.

Recently, the borrowed perceptions that have driven me include those that pertain to my writing, my beliefs and my goals for the future. My ridiculous and rather pathetic propulsion to impress people almost always proves to be my downfall - the need to appear and sound intelligent inevitably trumps any chance of being so. I can no longer write without considering my readers, which kills the process or the solace I once sought in the simplicity of the exercise. Words no longer flow or skate pages because I debate whether they deserve to be there. My bigotry is boundless.

Is this really what I want... a sense of completion through an incomplete albeit hyper-intelligent notion of reality? I have learned that this also appears to be what I seek in the limited company I voluntarily solicit. People that make me feel dumb tend to impress me, which is rather silly when one comes to think of it, because it essentially means that I shall never be content with myself or anyone else. Perfection is not a human trait and by the looks of it, it isn't a divine attribute either. No one can 'know' everything about anything, so it is essentially a lost cause.

Perhaps I should stick to the 'look for someone to just 'be' with' adage rather than the 'look for someone to 'learn' from' notion. Teachers tend to become overbearing more often than not. They need students to feel smart, students need them to hopefully become 'not dumb'. Both conditions stem from insecurity and a care for what the 'other thinks'. I don't think there is such as thing as learning for the heck of it but it is a grand ideal to give up on.
Then again... I remain the girl who thrives on a perennial pat on the head awarded for a good answer given in class.

I think I am a masochist

... and I 'hope' I don't care what people have to say about it.

Bottled 'Green'

I woke up today with a near desperate urge to paint everything around me a deep shade of bottle Green. This inanity is made all the more ironic by the fact that ever since I was thirteen I have been obsessed with all Blue hues, save perhaps royal blue…my bohemian truancies prevail at all times. I don’t really know what this means, only that the urge to see the world through matrix vision follows immediately after my entire world has been suspended in time and space.

My country is dying, quite literally, before my eyes. And it is no longer possible for me to ignore the ‘big picture’ because my job and my jumbled priorities at present both necessitate that I take our prevailing Martial Law very seriously. I have never seen this before: people taking to the streets with black bands, people being arrested right left and centre without cause or need for it, all media channels (especially my own) at the verge of closure because of the back-log of programming that has yet to make screen time…but really it goes deeper than that, somewhere in the past week, I have given up on any hope of something good ever happening to this place. I am the first to admit that un-consciously harbouring such notions was naïve to begin with, but in the past week, for the first time I have actually seen people stop reading newspapers because it no longer matters. ‘Something’ no longer matters. Whether we will be bombed into oblivion, die out of disease or be taken over by the US.
Somehow, those of us who can actually read and comprehend these words aren’t really part of it all anyway, and with our ‘one foot in, one foot out’ stance we will always be okay in the end. Whether in two years that leaves us country-less, identity-less or passion-less hardly matters, seeing as we pretty much lack all of the above anyway.

Yesterday I was trying to talk myself out of another political down spiral mood swing when my mother posed a rather interesting analogy to clarify why my efforts were repeatedly proving futile. “It’s kind of like indigestion, loads of crap piled into the pit of your stomach and no release. You know how they say that the greatest anatomical gift are the ‘bowels’ because the greatest sensation they provide is release…(in all honesty I haven’t heard this one before but now that I have it makes good sense) , but right now its all the crap just sitting there.” In effect that means that even though I am trying to talk myself out of it with my usual flux of films, music and inanities the crap is still sitting at the base of my gut and the sensation of needing to let it go is overwhelming.
That’s present day patriotism for you: A shit analogy

Earlier this month, I was scheduled for a move to Karachi, try as I might I couldn’t contain the thrill that being on my own was posing. Its that weird electric excitement that lingers despite the sound judgment in you stating that Karachi is the ugliest city in the world, living alone with your best friend will be a financial travesty, facing the elements -quite literally- will rip your naïve idealism apart etc. But it was my chance to FINALLY deal with myself. Regardless that option ended when our Karachi offices and the news desks were the first to be raided in. I think what I hate Musharraf for the most is that he took away my chance of flight, and that’s a good thing. If enough people are personally pissed off, it might actually make a dent in our conflated sense of apathy.

I have turned for solace towards two entirely independent texts “Your God is Too Small” by J.B Phillips and ‘Don Quixote’ for the third time. I am enjoying reading over my commentary in the pages of the Man of Le Mancha and Sancho’s glorious travels. But mostly it is Cervantes’ preface that has forced me to forego the familiarity of being flippant about the important things. The three page author’s note deals with a conversation he had with his friend about what to put in the preface that would impress critics and readers alike. What would make him sound smart enough, witty enough, brave enough?
The two men indulge in all manner of Latin phrases, Biblical botches and Salacious sidelines. The note ends with him basically saying, “My protagonist is a balding, emaciated knight travelling the lands for the woman of his dreams and contemplating all stories he can narrate later on to make her think him worthy of her affections” …I think he should do all the impressionable fibbing.

I love this man. I love the truth in his insecurity because it is mine and at present it is the only thing that gives me hope that all of my ‘pathetic neediness to be good’ can someday prove more fruitful than actually being good. I will forever think of Cervantes as a four year old, dressed in a knight’s costume with a stare so curious it can solder the paint off walls.

And I choose to think of myself as the unfortunately rotund side-kick who needs to live vicariously through those who live vicariously.

Riddle Run

“You can wake up now- the world has ended.”- John Stark

I seem to be making peace with myself at last. I have been told that I am lucky to be experiencing this sensation, even if I am altogether unsure about it lasting. I believe now that
disappointment seems to come in threes and having dealt with my incumbent trilogy of bad omens of late, I am now glorying in what I think is commonly described as the ‘hibernation’ phase. I am simply tired of always 'trying' for something, whether this means desperately chasing my escape out of here; an insight into who I am or want to be or just vying to impress myself and anyone in immediate radius with some notion of dormant greatness buried within my person.

My life is fast assuming the proportions of a road sign: Maria Amir- A Precautionary Tale. Hibernation generally denotes enhanced delusion in my world. Lately it has meant that the first thing I did when I heard about his death was to rent out ‘Ratatouille’ and order an MnM McFlurry. It has meant that my first impulse when I heard about finally losing a six-year probability was to laugh hysterically with Asma and watch Family Guy reruns. It has meant that when I learned that I was not called back for the Chevening interview - which two colleagues whose application essays I had written out were summoned to- I picked up a novel and made myself a cup of coffee to drown out my prickled narcissism.
I have missed reading without an agenda, just random reading with no purpose save ‘saving me’ from myself. The first bind my fingers pulled out happened to be “The Secret life of Bees” and there is a quaint stillness to the overly simplified American South that I find appealing and necessary at present.

However this is not the important part. I like to believe that something tangible in me has shifted. Perhaps ‘like’ is not the correct sentiment. It is an awareness coupled with an intense bout of nostalgia for no longer really believing in all the silliness I rely on believing in. This decapitating realisation has left me stock still and I loathe being still. I have been still and the freezing notion of such inaction is all pervasive, everything comes back to haunt you if you are still enough to let it and since my tangible lethargy prevents me from being active in person, I have always depended on my hyper-active senses to compensate. The stillness within is deadening and given my incumbent fascination with death it is not a place I like to frequent. I know that it is almost always born of a latent lack of belief. It was the first thing that I thought of when faced with my trilogy of tangents: perhaps God is punishing me for my polluting professions. This made me angry rather than remotely contrite. It made Him appear petty and the universe more warped than usual.
But this is not what makes me stumble. The steady crashing of grand pedestals in the past 14 years has brought me to the point where I realise full well that I no longer put stock in all the things I profess allegiance to: my silliness, my inane rituals, my failed grandeur. Even though I continue to chase after them with increasing distraction I realise that I no longer believe in them enough for them to work and only the ritual remains relevant.
I feel altogether too much like Peter Pan at the moment where Wendy tells him she must grow up and that he is ‘just’ a boy. It is not the brand ‘boy’ that kills, it is the inflection ‘just’. As if somehow his entirety does not even merit a spasm in existence.
I find that I am not quite ready to escape my Escapism.
But somewhere along the past two weeks I already have.

I am taking to the park with increasing regularity. Running is a sensation I did not know I missed. It is rather sad, seeing as those of us blessed with motor function can always run, but almost never do. I have discovered that what I enjoy most is anticipating the stitch in my side that appears almost as soon as I cross my first round bend in the park and stop next to a quote post that remarks quite candidly “Respect Women…” the post after that reads “…please!” and I think it is my favourite presence in Lahore because it almost always makes me laugh, especially when I am feeling particularly miserable. Then there is a quote that states “Nationalism is the notion that ones country is the best in the world just because we belong to it”…I often end up sharing a not-so-secret smile with the many senior citizens who happen to chance upon the sign. Running has brought with it a sense of possibility. There are no words to describe the thrill of experiencing the complete absence of thought brought on by physical exercise. I should have tried it earlier, because listening to music without processing it; racing through an environment without observing it and shifting in the midst of people without caring is a respite I cannot manage any other way.
Of course this does not change the fact that when my eyes do happen to flicker off the ground ahead of me they invariably collide with a pair staring at my chest. However, I do not think this can be helped in my country and for once I refuse to be shamed into backing out. So I stare back down at my new Nikes and am on my way.

I think I ‘love’ to run.
And it hits me, isn’t that the ephemeral euphemism for Escape?

Dear Departed...

Serves me right for befriending an ailing 78 year old!

It has taken me two weeks to 'come to terms' with the fact that you are gone. I remember, quite vividly, sitting beside your deathbed and imagining this conversation clear as day but putting it to purpose has been harder. Had I done so the minute I got home as I originally intended, I should have felt selfish, finding it so easy to escape the loss in words but feeling it for too long would have meant a Eulogy. You always said that you loathed Eulogies. That they were nothing more than insipid details that people should have said to your face but didn't when you were alive, and only an all-pervasive notion of survivor's guilt made them utter them when one was gone.
I suppose I should be clear then that this 'is' in fact a Eulogy and I am in fact riddled with survivors guilt.

My grandparents have been telling me with much false bravado, that it is about time I began befriending people my own age rather than theirs, because I will lose many more that way. Perhaps they have a point but then I think to myself, you were not old. You were the youngest person I ever knew, old experiences, old pain...young spirit. I believe the romantics would call us kindred.

Do you know something, you looked happy lying there in your yellow room on that narrow bed. I suppose death is always a shock for everyone else, even if one has been dying of cancer for over a year. In retrospect, I do not think I can forgive you your cigarettes. I know you want me to, you reiterated time and again that if alcohol and nicotine had been lifelong companions, there was no point parting with them at the precipice. But it seems to me a colossal waste or perhaps this is just me being selfish. I would rather have you here and unhappy than otherwise and this does not bode well for my Zen aspirations but then you never really approved of my Zen aspirations.

You always told me to conquer the world.
I remember telling you I never wanted to conquer it, only to observe it but we never seemed to agree on this point.

I know that you knew me. I seldom manage that with people, the acknowledgment that they can see who I am and usually when I do, I drop them instantly. You were the only one I was drawn to. I wonder why that is. Maybe it was the fact that you flattered me, told me I was smart. Maybe it was because you thought my dreams were beautiful too. Maybe it was because you used to take my hands and tell me my dreams would come true by seeing something in them. I never really believed in lifelines or life scapes before you. Maybe it was the fact that you never did this for anyone else and this made me feel special. Maybe it was the fact that you didn't patronise my desperate need to feel special.
Maybe it was just the fact that you listened and you never really needed to.

I recall our last conversation clearly. The one we both had while staring insipidly at your cooling corpse. You were wearing your legendary maroon sweater, infernal cigarette in hand and were a little too jovial for the too recently departed while I was focusing very hard on limiting my responses to the vicinity of my mind by not letting them appear on my face as most of my conversations are apt to do. It is an odd thing, but I always notice it. Why is it that only women can be found collectively crying around corpses? It is almost like they are the only ones forgiven for the offence of showing weakness in public, because it is expected of them.


"I'm sorry"

About what?! What on Earth could there be to feel sorry about now?

"I didn't come to see you"

Busy?

"No... lazy."

We are who we are, kid.

"Any idea who that is?"

Not really, but I'm finally looking forward to finding out.

"Are you really? I mean I know you said you were a little apprehensive. Is it what we thought it would be like?"

You mean a 'revelation'?

"Yes."

Well 'yes' and 'no'. I think I anticipate a revelation but I haven't come to it yet. Its a lot of processing.

"What about guilt and consequences and mistakes... any of that coming in to play yet?"

Not at this point but I'm sure it will.

"And that doesn't scare you anymore?"

I don't think it would matter either way. I have decided on one thing though...

....

I'm quite sure there were no mistakes.

"So your leaning towards the 'no regrets' thing? I guess that's encouraging."

Yeah.

"Am I on track? I mean even with my beaten path on this whole thing, am I wrong?"

Why the self doubt all of a sudden?

"Well I think its called for, don't you?"

No. I don't think there is a wrong. Especially not with right intentions and I think the key may just be blind belief in your beaten path or at least in mine.

"I hate the term 'blind' belief."

I know. But that's what it needs to be.

"And you're sure about this?"

This I am sure about. Whatever the belief, it needs to be blind.

"You know I cant pray for you like this, right?"

I thought we were praying.

Paging Prince Charming: *Ting*

I have been pondering over past memories with more determination than usual. Recently, finding myself sorting through scores of old photographs and journals I am beginning to come to terms with the fact that I have always been a tad melodramatic. Here is something I wrote on January 12, 1994 “…I think I am being very emotional about all this. That's what they all say… that I am too emotional and dramatic. I am obsessed with beating her at her own game. And obsession isn't even an emotion. Is it?”
I was eleven then.

Apparently the 'obsession' grew over the years, because I remember, quite vividly, writing long, rambling letters about everything and nothing to no one in particular. I would sharpen up a fresh pencil every time, scrawl in the letters at night in my room, put them in one of those cheesy stationary set envelopes with Beauty and the Beast or Little Mermaid logo’s, seal them and bury them in the closure outside our house near the swings and badminton court the next day. I think I was passively inspired by all the 'Little Girl Lost' rescues that television had cemented in my mind actually happened.
I also remember discussing my behaviour quite candidly with my child psychiatrist and I would always close the conversation with a question “Do you think I’m normal?” He always used to say that he would think the behaviour abnormal if I tried to conceal it, but since I didn't he was just intrigued. I do not think he knew that I was a rather manipulative eight-year old and that I needed too badly to be perceived as mysterious and slightly tragic, but enchanting all the same. If he was privy to this information, he was very kind in concealing it from me.

My recent focus has been on all the “I have a dream” entries, it is a tad disconcerting to realise that one’s dreams can remain quite consistent over the years. I am pretty much still the seven-year old, except that I use bigger words now in lieu of outright fabrication.
A recent conversation with mommy dearest has prompted a new ditch attempt…

“Do you even know what it is you want?”

“As in from life?

“No in a life partner.”

“Sheesh, this again. You know just because your manipulation tactic is cuter than Nano’s doesn’t make it original.”

“Seriously, you have lists for everything else, your book collection, your “what I need to see or do in my lifetime” thing, your music…this one could actually help me out a bit.”

“But this list would just be…”

“Pathetic?”

“But much.”

“Your point is?”

“Ouch! Right, pathetic it is.”

“Ooh lets do it together!”

“Why not, we’re already part and parcel of the cosmic Ya-Ya sisterhood. You want to burn it afterwards and dance around a fire mom?”

“Couldn’t hurt.”

“I hate the fact one of me actually shrugged her shoulders at that.”

“Kiddo all of you, should be in on this…”

As some would know, my earliest Prince Charming personal Ad, consisted of a naïve request of the Powers that Could Be, for a betrothal to Prince Eric from the Little Mermaid. I was seven and my reasons were that the man had the good sense not to wear tights in public, loved adventure because he was a sailor, travelled the world and had a dog. When talking of essentials pretty much all of the above still apply, but I am told I need to be more specific about criteria so as not to be bamboozled by a gap toothed sailor who keeps a pet rat and cleans a fish boat for a living… and so Mom and I set about making me a Personal Ad.
A ‘normal’ person might find this process humiliating, derogatory and self-diminishing…I felt all this, but it was trumped by the sheer ridiculousness of the attempt. Frivolity always seems to win out over anything else in my book. I acknowledge that this may not necessarily be a good thing.
… Okay it may even be a bad thing, but at the end of the day the cavalier tend to die smiling and wondering what the hell the big deal is…a lot like the Fool in the Tarot deck.
I kind of like that.

“Do I start with something like 'Loner, utopist, child of 24 years seeks devil-may care globetrotter with a passion for coke, card games and obscene amounts of time whiled away in front of a television screen?'”

“Please tell me you want something a tad more productive?”

“Okay…who also enjoys large quantities of take out food, doing the voices for old black and white films with the sound turned off and thrift store shopping?”

“What in there is remotely productive?”

“… has some semblance of a job…”

“That’s it?! Some 'semblance' of a job?”

“…that allows him to buy stuff, appreciate art and the outdoors and purchase airline tickets to places I want to go. Better?”

“Not really, but an improvement. Some variety of a roof over your head might be a nice touch…”

“Buy stuff, tickets and a roof over my head, with running water and room for a dog.”

“Okay, what about brains…”

“Oh yeah, like that one ever comes easy. Okay no specifics, then someone who’s brain is multidimensional enough to carry on both coherent and incoherent forms of conversation for as long as we both shall live…”

“Elaborate”

“Okay, well… coherent would be something like ‘do you think God really meant for us to believe in Him if he really is All That?”…a perceptible shift into my version would be… ‘to me Theology is taking on a lot of Star Wars significance…I mean all that stuff about being with the force and the force not being with you. I mean its like Yoda is God always feeding us some trite feel good shit, which sounds weird enough to be smart, but is basically one-dimensional fact strung together backwards and why is it that the force not being with you has to make you Vader or Maul or plain evil? What happened to purgatory…and think about it purgatory makes no sense anyway, I mean basically its just another waiting room, I thought life was supposed to be the waiting room…”

“And this is required reading?”

“No, it would just be preferable if this conversation could be easily understood by the subject.”

“Do you understand it?”

“No, but that’s not the point, I don’t really mean understand just umm that he should have a follow up analogy that should be equally -or if he is perfect- more inane. Like a Douglas Adams Fan or an Arlo Guthrie fan, they would get what I mean.”

“Right. So what about looks?”

“I never can specify that one. My three main on-screen obsessions have been with too diverse a range: I mean there’s Yul Brynner who was bald, Johnny Depp who is perfect and Rex Harrison who was sarcastic, old and dead. I don’t like to think I’m looking for Bald, Perfect, Sarcastic, Old and Dead.”

“Neither do I”

“Okay then…teeth.”

“What?”

“Clean teeth. Can’t be with a guy who doesn’t have straight, clean teeth. Smokers are out.”

“That’s it…clean teeth. What about height, face blah blah blah, how in the Hell are you my daughter?!”

“Okay then, Good skin. Hygiene is important but so is a counter-balance untidiness.”

“And that means?”

“Well it means nada on the body odour and stuff, but nada on the neat, pressed and prim look too…”

“So you need to spread the ‘gypsy’ around?”

“I wouldn’t mind. Not really though, I couldn’t care…except that prim and proper anything just isn’t big on my priority lists and if it is on someone else’s I don’t think it would mesh well.”

“Fine then, how about a list of ‘MUSTS’.”

“Huh? I thought we were doing well so far…it’s the little details that count…and…”

“I just think this might speed up the process…”

“Okay. Must be able to make me laugh; Must be willing to act like a fool in public in order to accomplish the first; Must speak most of my languages, and be fluent in Hyper, Hoop La, Bah humbug and But Vy; Must not preach...anything; Must love coke; travel; trying new, crazy, childish things all the time; jumping out of planes, off bridges and stuff; Must be impulsive in hopes of drawing out my inner crab; Must appreciate that I need to mark my immediate territory – whatever it may be- with post-its of quotes, weird trinkets and lots of colour; Must love art, rain, junk food, talking nonsense and occasional sense, Star wars, Indiana Jones and animated films; Must tolerate the fact that I purchase scented toiletries, key chains, shoes and books in unreasonable quantities; Must appreciate the nutritional value of a midnight snack; Must understand the importance of collecting silly photographs, scrap booking and road trips; Must recognise the value of time outs and my pathological need to be alone for at least a few hours a day; Must not be Judgmental; Must appreciate the necessity that Coke, candy and cartoons are in my life regardless of my age; Must understand that I have issues and have some of his own to bring to the negotiating table; These issues Must Not include anger issues, bullying tendencies or “Oh look at me I’m a Man” issues; Must be able to enjoy movie marathons, play board games and take all of my pre and post rain and birthday rituals seriously; Must appreciate the importance of small, silly and inexpensive gifts; Must need to Want to be Happy as often as possible; Must not sweat the small stuff; Musts not wear labels or buy into them; Must know that I need to be dragged along into almost anything but enjoy it once I’ve taken my step; Must be a Master of the 'last minute plan'; Must think.”

"Must make me go - and this is to quote Asma- "*Ting!*"

"What?!"

" Ting! There has to be a *Ting*!"

"A *Ting*?"

"Like with Elizabeth and Darcy or Ariel and Eric or Holly Golightly...a *Ting* is non-negotiable."

“And the rest of these are negotiable?”

"If i find the * Ting*, maybe."

"So its the *Ting* or the List?"

"Pretty much. Mom do 'you' think I'm crazy?"

“Yep but its hereditary and I think I’ve changed my mind.”

“About the Personal Ad?”

“Nope about doing something about it.”

Join the club.

Circle be Unbroken

I have been thinking a lot lately about patterns, of how they breach and break our lives in so systematic a manner that it often goes completely unnoticed: a seismic event in shadows. Patterns are hard to break and I have been having a hard time defining mine of late – having already come to the decision that many need to be broken if I am ever to ‘move forward’. I have been told that ‘existentialist serenity’ and ‘stationary’ simply do not qualify as a direction any more. Yet it appears I am doomed perpetually to function in the reverse, regressive, counter intuitive and confounded.

I have come to the confusion that some statistics do in fact have a point and purpose to them and are not all contrived by portly, balding men so ill treated by mother nature that some latent notion of lingering masculinity compels them to plot her demise – this one, for example - may have a point: Television does indeed kill brain cells, many and mercilessly. I watch a lot of television, which is perhaps the reason why the amount I read (which only just trumps my tube intake) seamlessly filters through an invisible funnel into a gaping oblivion, leaving me to make what I can of the remaining mangled, pseudo intellectual junk and supercilious word residue to pass off as passive intellect. I appear to be quite good at doing this and it has proven to be a lucrative enterprise so far, function as I do on the basis that most people tend to believe any story as long as it is well told and hard enough for them to comprehend.
It appears that my love of literature cannot quench my masochistic yearning to wait with breath baited for romantic sub-plots to unfold in an increasingly un-original manner between passive-aggressive, Will-they-Won’t-they onscreen couples. Cases in point: House/Cuddy, Batman/Wonder Woman, Loralei/Luke, Meredith/Mc Dreamy or even and yes this bypasses humiliation in every manner of the word Seth/Summer on the OC. I am a shipper born and bred by careful and cultivated Tube Time ill spent over decades.

Pattern # 1: Status- Remains unbroken.

Another discovery I have made about myself is that I am obsessed with stocking up on unnecessary toiletries. It could well be considered a pet-peeve, purchasing fruit flavoured (I’m very big on ‘organic’ when it concerns anything inedible) groceries plays a considerable part in cultivating my unique blend of oddity. The flavour of toothpaste, moisturizer and random bubblegum flavoured bubble bath and lily flavoured body wash are too important an addition in my plebeian pocket purges, especially considering none of these items are ever put to what mommy dearest calls ‘good use’.

Pattern #2: Status – unbroken, prospects not promising.

I find that I have very carefully cultivated lethargy and sluggishness to an art form. Should I be left to my own devices – completely- I can easily sleep a 32 hour day, wake up for the occasional toilet break, sneak in a favourite song and laze in bed till Kingdom come…implying that Kingdom, would literally having to do just that, make its judgments considering my permanent placement by my bedside and transport me post-waste. Finally beginning to fear that my skin would commence to curdle without my realising it and that office non-work would hardly put pay to that, I have very proudly taken up several rather ambitious endeavours simultaneously: running, gym and re-visited yoga. The past two weeks have had me running in a neighbouring park, wearing a jogging suit, headphones plugged in allowing me a sense of distended self-glorification, figuring myself a healthy woman featured in a Nike commercial out to conquer the world, all until my two rounds are up and my inhaler put to plight. There is something very odd to be said about ‘getting back in shape’ the more one realises one is ‘out of it’ the more the ‘in’ loses appeal. However, considering that my mommies last vestiges of hope and paternal pride rest solely on the depletion rate of my love handles, thighs and posterior…I am willing to undergo this regiment to find ‘happiness’. And you all thought it came from within….HAH!

Pattern # 3: Status: Progress, determination intact, stamina building, optimism dwindling.

I find that my social skills are – much to my utter amazement- experiencing a drastic improvement. I have made a total of three friends this year alone and yes, these are individuals I willingly carry on conversations with. Whereas my past friendships have been woefully limited and relegated between forced family fostering sentimentality (cousins, in case it required clarification) and three friends. My total is now reaching a whopping six, real, in-the-flesh (well, not literally) people, the rest being cyber acquaintances, half of whom Beentherella stalks for her amusement and to keep ‘Circe’ at bay for as long as is possible.

Pattern # 4: Status: Vast improvement. Optimism high, sarcasm functional.

I am not a practical person, this is a theory that has been tested, proven and set in stone since I was placed upon this planet with only my wits and blinding naiveté to save me. However, I am discovering that ‘Money’ is an actual ‘problem’ to be dealt with in life and proposed love. I have yet to manage the latter. But in life, money must be saved, conserved, planned out and programmed. I am ill-suited to manage any of the above- mentioned tasks, however, I have come into some money recently and have managed to control all my inborn impulses that command money not spent as aesthetically unpleasing crumpled paper mache’ and opened a savings account. This has been a hard thing for me to come to terms with. Money, apparently, really does not grow on trees. Right shame, I tell you!

Pattern # 5: Status: Getting there.

My penance for hitting a phantom word quota for each day remains as strong as ever and even though I have been woefully consumed by writers block in the recent past- an affliction which I seldom – if ever- suffer- I am still careful to copy down random words, phrases and quotes from every manner or person. Some of my recent favourites include “If you wish to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, by all means get married”- Katherine Hepburn, “Oye us Dog ko kaho, Ulloo ka patha na banay” – Geo office clerk, “…dark confines of hyper-consciousness and endless spite…” – from ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’, Palimpsests: def. Reflections of history, manuscript of papyrus.

Pattern # 6: Status: Unabashedly preserved, maintained and perfected.

Belief has always been a problem for me. I find it terribly cumbersome having to define what my beliefs are. I however am perfectly aware of what they are not. Oddly enough this brings to mind a passage from the Harry Potter finale, the one where Hermione and Xenophilius Lovegood are having there little tiff and she says “But that’s ridiculous! You could claim that anything’s real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody’s proved it isn’t?” and he in turn says “Yes, you could”. Admittedly I still largely function on the premise of this philosophy, however, I have discovered that when it comes to- what Stewie in Family Guy beautifully refers to as- “Big Man in the Sky, eh?” , one needs to be a little more definitive, especially in this blasted month of State Sponsored hypocrisy. So I now openly claim to lean heavily towards Agnosticism, believing it to be the safest of all ‘isms’ seeing as it is the most vague and unassuming. I like that.

Pattern # 7: Status: Blissfully unresolved but conveniently white-washed.

My confounded lack of ambition remains steadfast. It appears that ever since I was seven and decided in earnest on my chosen career path, I somehow assumed that my 30-year-old self would in fact be a published author, dreaming away means to make enough money to backpack the world, meet the man of her dreams (which are a little blotchy on said man’s identity) and be ‘happy’ without effort. The fact that being a ‘published author’ actually means having to ‘publish’ something, had completely escaped her notice and it has taken the rest of me’s the past 16 years to get this particular memo. However, said memo has been received and I am praying to …Whatever…for my sense of envy and bitter, well-concealed resentment at others success and adventures to drum me out of my self-involved swamps to at least do ‘what I do in fact ‘do’’ to the best of my ability. So help me…Whatever!

Pattern # 8: Status: Slight stirrings. Optimism expected, Doldrums currently at bay.


What does one say of changes: one can embrace them, deny them, fight them or evade them - perched as I perennially am - on the un-decided, I like very much to think that making room for them to occur if they should is the ‘smart thing to do’. Which incidentally, does sound smart.

The time has come
To talk of many things
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax
Of Cabbages and Kings

A tale of 12 minutes

We have finally come to our wits end about something to write, and it goes without saying that our claim to wit is deeper than our claim to words. Which leaves us with just a blind desperation to put something-anything to paper, to reaffirm our assertion that we still exist.

The recent past has taught us quite a bit about her: We have learned that she is prone to judgment, much as she may claim otherwise, and that she forms her opinions about people purely on some nonsensical semblance of 'what she thinks they are capable of being' rather than what they are.

We have also learned that she is a masochist when it comes to the opposite gender. For her to openly acknowledge that she is unwilling to take first-steps or chances with someone because of a lingering fear that it wont be idyllic is pathetic, and she appears to thrive on it.

Also we have discovered that she does believe in fairytale endings, even as a great part of her considers them trite. This is the only notion that would explain her near-manic disappointment at discovering that Jane Austen's real life romance was -to put it plainly- 'A bust'. She is determined to be alone, and simultaneously complain about feeling lonely...which is turning her into a damned nuisance.

We have seen her finally come to terms with her faith however, in discovering the pleasure that comes with not-knowing for a change. Where as until now it had only been the slumps of hopelessness, she is now appreciating the glamour of residing between the canvas of questions not asked and not answered.

She has also begun to take an active interest in her life, we believe it has finally hit her that she needs to carve out paths for herself through an initiative that is relying on her to be called upon. Even though she has never really thought about wealth consciously, she is the first to admit that she has never really had to. Perhaps this is why she is now coming to terms with reality and practicality, we are surprised at how she is not falling apart as her illusions shatter.

These days she spends her time listening to old Guthrie bootlegs; watching animated feature films and Justice League re-runs; reading Machiavelli purely so she can use the expression 'Machiavellian' and she cannot seem to do so without knowing the man impersonally; sorting through old photographs and crying with older memories; reading her old writings while compiling them into some semblance of sense. We think that the loss of her Muse may be killing her. She contemplates dead-ends actively now.

She is searching for inspiration with a vengeance it seems... in the short span of three days we have seen her tackle her paint box and put together 11 pairs of earrings from old beads and tassels, paint an oil canvas, glaze a pot, sit in the rain and even tinkle with her guitar.

We wish she would just go to sleep like she used to, only to be woken up in the middle of the night by a flurry of waiting words.

Adeste Fideles

Come All Ye Faithful

“I just can’t decide if I believe there is something bigger out there, I want to but that only negates it more”

Well I’m, not really sure about bigger but ‘omnipotence’ – I like to think- is infinite, all-encompassing even…

“Even so, I re-invent you on a daily basis: one day you are dogmatic and trite; the next deep and metaphorical; some days mighty and marvellous; others petulant and childish… ‘You’ dear Deity, don’t really exist as an independent entity, save of my need for you to exist.”

What makes that any less important?

“It makes it less logical, less legitimate. Mere need and pathetic dependence on a false ideal. Where is the merit in that passing off as faith?! It isn’t noble, its cowardice.”

So? When did ‘proof’ become so bloody important all of a sudden? Why let details deprive you of the comfort that belief can bring?

“You mean, why let the illusion shatter?”

Illusions can help, heal even.

“Then why give me a brain if you never wanted me to use it…”

Aha! So you do still acknowledge ‘my giving’ of it. That means you still acknowledge Me.

“Not really, this conversation is subliminally manufactured at both ends. If I can speak for you, that just means that all your ‘tapped favourites’ did the same. What then, makes my semblance of reality any less bloody prophetic than Mohammad’s or Abraham?”

Dogma isn’t necessarily a dead end, you know…

“Oh it most certainly is, and frankly you are much easier to take without it, besides I could just as easily ascertain that my ‘brain’ evolved over eons of time, terming that process as ‘you’.”

But…

“Sounds less glamorous than ‘Almighty’ don’t it?”

Sigh!

“If I have a brain, and I have the audacity to presume I am meant to use it, then that means you probably already saw this coming, in fact I’m willing to bet you wanted it.”

Wanted what?

“You wanted me to question the logic behind your notion of existence, for me and you. You know what I think, I think you got bored with all the bowing and scraping (presuming you exist and are still into that sort of thing) and you chose to create an entity that could reject you. Maybe you just needed to know what rejection felt like…”

I’m not that damn passive-aggressive!

HAH!

I KNOW rejection, I invented it. I even…

“Yes, you know it but you’ve never experienced it. So now what, you’ll damn me for questioning the premise you yourself allowed me to question by invoking faculties you yourself gave me to do just that with?”

There are limits…

“No actually there aren’t, actually- You are the limit, and you by your own admission have none”

That is positively ridiculous!

“Why? Because you don’t come out a winner in the end?”

No, Its just…

“And why do you always need to win in the end, at least with me, if you ARE omnipotent, it shouldn’t really matter what I say or think. Why the perpetual tendency to have everyone back you up, you can’t seriously be THAT insecure?”

So your willing to settle for just a lukewarm affirmation for life?! “Something bigger than me” will be enough for you? I don’t think so, I know you, you’ll keep looking.

“Of course I’ll keep looking, but what makes you assume it will be for you, I’ll be looking for ‘truth’ beyond-behind-beneath-besides and, to cover all bases, even 'in' you.”

There are many things ‘bigger than you’ Sweetheart; why not inaugurate a cult to the worship of Aquatic mammals next?

“Actually, there aren’t. If I am the sum of my mind and soul then the only thing ‘bigger’ is the unknown. The ‘unknown’ is much easier to digest – pardon the cliché’ – than a Daddy-Don’t-Do-It-Deity with flaming chariots and Tartarus Pits.”

So I’m just something ‘bigger'?


“Feels small doesn’t it?”

Yeah.

Aut Disce Aut Discede

Either Learn or Leave

Yep…back with the pseudo-smart ass Latin verbal kinetics, it appears we have pissed off the Fates, because yesterday had us opening our morning sandwiched between an eight car wreck, surprisingly intact, as our poor little Bonnet Baby lost hers. Sadly disappointing though, there was no white spot-light, Voice of God scenario that one has come to expect in these situations – courtesy of 'All Dogs Go to Heaven' and Simpson's re-runs. Our split-second black out only recounts our iPod straining “Don’t Stand so Close to Me” by Sting. Unless THAT just so happened to be God speaking, which we think would be rather trite of Him/Her/It to do at a time of such collosal significance in our oh-so short little life. Although come to think of it, it would be much more pleasing to meet a pseudo-liberalist version of the Lord rather than have Gabriel solemnly stand on our steering wheel repeating “Memento Mori” in not-so-sonorous tones.

The past three weeks have been what can only be described as a Loony Toon’s Marathon in bliss-less real time, talking specifically of the Daffy and Elmer Fudd episodes that suddenly fade out with the Tazmanian Devil eating up the TV screen to laud in “That’s all Folks”. Our cousin got married, which in Pakistan tends to mean that everyone save the two subjects getting married lose all semblance of reality for an extended period of time, the subjects ususally undergo this transition at a later stage in post-proceedings. Considering that our presence has little to do with reality, this wasn’t as much a problem for us personally, until we were informed oh-so kindly by mommy dearest that ‘cousin’s weddings’ were the new inroad tap into what is politely termed as the “Marriage Market”, which is alarmingly similar to the “Meat Market”, with the fated exceptions being a lack of opulent display and older, staler ‘Meat’.

An added element in my dilemma was the presence of our other cousin ... all hail the magnanimous entrence of Hurricane Sabrina, who will henceforth be mentioned by name because of a remarkably overwhelming presence that overrides our propensity to need to refer to people in fourths and fifths after our own persons. We managed to meet our Hollywood Actress, New Yorker cousin after almost 15 years only to realize that she still retains the ability to make us feel like her trite little devotee without effort. Sabrina has what we believe Shakespeare referred to as “a daily beauty in her life which makes me/everyone else ugly”, add to that a will of dragon hide and a confidence in both her presence and person that we deplorably lack, which ironically made the Marriage-Meat-Market quest a much less scary enterprise because the horde of potential admirers generally surrounded her and we could comfortably fade into our “ooh let’s look at the weird things weird people do in socially contrived corners” mode, a default setting we are definately more comfortable with.

Besides our unsuccessful dips into finding a disappointing drop in the afore-mentioned Market stock (not our own mind you, we never put it up there, and justify our cowardice by maintaining that we find all such business venture capitals a demeaning exercise) but the general produce this year has been abysmal. No oomph in personality, appearance or literal stock either for that matter... a total bust!

We must, however admit that we have learnt quite a few lessons that need to be documented for reiteration and reception on a regular basis. All of these lessons were inspired, coerced or shoved down our throat by Sabrina, and we are told that we NEED to perfect them if we are EVER to have some semblance of ‘…a life’.

1. Quit 'Carbs' in all forms and suck in Maria's stomach with a frequency that will convince the latter to do this on its own….eventually.

2. Learn to enunciate, verbalize and communicate in element and spirit the word ‘N-O’.

3. Adapt a life-route/ine that appeals to Maria and align all selves to overlook the ‘issues’ of other people and focus on those that pertain solely to Maria's preferences without giving unnecessary credence to others.

4. Acquire, practice and eventually perfect the art of flirtation. Baby steps, and her current level of inadequacy at the following requires that Maria begin this exercise by learning to establish and maintain eye-contact without blushing or sputtering nonsense in the company of the most dreaded opposite sex of attractive proportions (blissfully a small percentage).

5. Define a life-path and not let ANYONE tell Maria what to do (yes we realize the scaly nature of this one).

6. Pen down all ideas and creative concepts that occur to self and market the following, with a nuance of confidence and sense of pride in their merit.

7. Repeat to oerselves in-front of mirror daily “Maria is beautiful, talented and fabulous and anyone who disagrees doesn’t exist.” In all seriousness…and Mean it.


Hurricane Sabrina hit Lahore, with full force on July 23, 2007, 1:00 am, in its wake it confronted societal pressures with a self-satisfied, confident and jovial air that stumped conservatives, flattered and intimidated liberals and obliterated hypocrites, it departed on August 15, 2007, 5:00 am and one hopes that Lahore will never be the same.

Adversus solem ne Loquitor

"Don't speak against the Sun"

Whenever it really comes down to it, I know that I will always choose my head over my heart in a split-second.
Whether this regards a larger or lower ontological dilemma or something as simple as an outfit to pick for a wedding – I find that I am not really bothered with details as much as I once used to be, unless these details pertain to the colour of clothing, the flavour of skittles, the characters in a movie, the author of children’s literature or tiny rituals navigated on the premise of the weather, my moods or my many prevailing identity crises. I no longer hold anything that is normally considered ‘sacred’ as sacred: faith, dogma, history, theology, God….but I am fine with my personalized ‘happy’ rituals: preparing a gift package for a friends birthday, elaborate to the extreme with ‘To do lists’ and ‘How to Open’ instruction manuals, playing Ludo with Karamat and Fauzia, singing along to eighties hits in my car when it rains. I am terribly content with just trying to be as human as I can be, but not pushed at being it any certain way or within defines set out by someone else.

This now troubles me, because it implies that my literary pursuits and my unquenchable thirst for knowledge may actually be proving to a bad influence. For some reason I cannot reconcile myself to an ideal that demands that I cease to seek answers and ask questions after a certain precarious juncture in time and trajectory, which my very limited forays into philosophy are teaching me is an impossibility for all faiths: organised and spiritual. For the first time, since I can remember I have abstained from joining my khala’s and my cousin in prayer, this is usually a mystic prayer centring around repeating the word ‘Kring’ over and over again like a mantra, the word itself denotes a timeless energy and the act is meant to be a grounding exercise. I abstain because I really do not see much difference between a spiritual mantra and an orthodox ‘tasbih’ and if I do not subscribe to one, this somehow automatically discounts – to my mind - the validity of the other. For me it is always ‘ritual’ that undermines the validity of anything…the glamour used to romanticize a philosophy – any philosophy- in retrospect only trivializes it to the physical sphere of candles, incense burners, hand gestures etc. I realise of course that this is a rather broad and perhaps somewhat unfair slur, but it is how I see it. This is the problem, choosing a logical course demands that you ask “why” you are sitting and murmuring unintelligible syllables at length, and these are ‘whys’ that faith inherently requires you to reject in order to ‘believe’ in something, anything really. Question is: how do you not ask a question that already exists, even if you refrain from vocalising it?

I feel that my khala, whom I have often considered akin to a spiritual guide is slightly disappointed in me, for debating spirituality and mysticism in the same vein as I have done religion. It appears that recent events have rendered ‘religion’, specifically Islam, open to attack but not mysticism. My logic dictates that not to do so for the latter would be hypocritical. I would again be led into the same ethnocentric cyclone that I have struggled very hard to climb out of. If beliefs other than mine are open to question, debate and attack…then logic and indeed justice demands that mine be equally open to similar treatment. I feel that my aunt might secretly hold my new friends responsible for this shift - the afore-mentioned Bookends – because they are both unabashed atheists.

I have discovered that I enjoy the company of agnostics, atheists and spiritualists more than dogmatic zealots, primarily because the former question everything and the latter nothing. Neither of these tangents is truly healthy, I admit because neither can manage to strike a balance between head and heart, but each is the eventual destination point for any determined seeker. Mysticism demands all heart and no head…. I ‘know’ now that this remains outside of the defines of my capacity, Atheism demands only head – this too I find myself incapable of doing and Dogmatism demands neither, just an obsequious ‘Follow the Leader’ rabble. If there are no real middle routes for an honest traveller then where does one turn?

I know quite well – that even though I may question all things and upset the precarious sensitivities of many – I strongly believe in God, very strongly…which – I like to think- is why I question any and everything about Him/ Her/ Them. And whether God is ‘a kid with an ant farm’ or a ‘director to all the worlds stage’ or a ‘bored conjurer getting his kicks watching us make a mess of things’ I know that I like feeling his presence when it rains, or when there is strong wind blowing carrying a pleasant aroma of jasmine (which admittedly is a rare thing in Pakistan). Whether this means I am a believer with too many doubts or a sceptic with only one belief… I know it is.

All I have to wait for now is for someone else to profess allegiance to it so that it can be categorically labelled in the Oxford Dictionary as an ‘ist’ or ‘ism’, till then I remain blissfully abstract. Then again, actively waiting for a dictionary definition might imply that I am uncomfortable with my conclusions....

and the questions just keep on a' coming.

Poison Cup

I have been walking around in a mindless haze for the past week, and this haze usually leads me in two directions: a Dvd store or a restaurant. A last minute Dvd store pit-stop meant that I could not wait to get back home and view my newly-obtained copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It also meant that on my way home I could not fully appreciate the fact that the foreign gent standing next to me in line at Subway ordered a whole-wheat bread 'green' sandwich: pickles, lettuce, cucumbers, capsicum, olive oil and vinegar...no meat, no 'coloured veggies'. Culinary racism, my friends....just the newest brand - we in Pakiland- have to offer for your frightful reception.

Once I was home, I gave express instructions to both Karamat and Fauzia that I was 'not to be disturbed' under ANY circumstances, suicide bombings be damned. All celluloid rituals honoured only to realize that the Boy Who Lived, having beaten off dementors in Little Whinging would pave way for three buxom blonds in the nude getting it on with two bald not-so-gentle-men. I shall admit, this is not the first time I have ever watched porn, but barring that one event with a group of girlfriends, slightly inebriated, and watching Caligula much critically, it came as a surprise. I admit that I was intrigued and I still am.

After watching the 'doings' of the caricatures on screen for about twenty more minutes a thought occurred to me - I do not claim that this particular cerebral insight was in any way original, only that it was apt - "The average man actually gets turned on by this," I thought to myself. Pornography is one of the largest industries in the world... so if what turns on the average man actually puts off the average woman, where does that leave us in the Mars-Venus debacle? Hell with 'us' where does that leave me? I acknowledge that I have no right to speak on behalf of my sex at large. This odd thought led to another one, Why is it that women consider sex a gateway to seeking love and men consider falling or pretending to fall in love as an inroad to having sex? A colossal ontological screw up this is: I mean how are two people supposed to meet across parallels if they are moving in opposite directions?

I was asking a friend the 'Love vs Sex' question, and he mentioned quite candidly that 'philosophically speaking' (and he tends to speak in that particular vein) one had nothing to do with the other. This friend claims often that he doesn't believe in emotion, so according to him 'love' was basically the prelude emotional justification people needed to proffer in order to have sex. I asked him if -by proxy- he was endorsing perversion and he told me that he wasn't. He was just endorsing a biological need without linking it to an emotional one and WHY do we need to moralize biology?!

"You know what your problem is ?!"

Dude, If I had a paisa for the number of times I have been asked about my awareness to my alleged problem, Fulbright would no longer need to be a consideration!

"...you want to rely on your head and heart simultaneously. It just isn't done, if you appreciate the arguments you read in philosophy then do away with this flowers and Ever After shit, and if you can't then do away with logic completely. The middle route will kill you."

“But what happened to balance and all that Jazz?"

"That's just dogmatic shit, doled out by idiots who don't have the balls to do either, so they need to justify not choosing. You can either look for doe-eyed romantic love and 'settle' for being female, fitting in with all that entails -the good and bad stereotypes, because you cant change what the word 'female' means or those that define it - or you can be your mind, independent, alone and fulfill basic bodily needs by remaining true to your brain instead of societal latitudes."

"But 'logic' dictates that I have both organs, semi-functional. Heart and Head, if both exist then it is 'illogical' to assume that I can pick one over the other."

"No cowardice dictates that you cannot do so, not logic. Don't trivialize logic"
....Never this twain does meet, but it did get me thinking.

I mean Aristotle once branded Man as a 'rational animal'. Assuming that the only thing separating Man from other Animals was "rationality", or higher brain function. How many of us really exercise any semblance of higher brain function... and by this I do not mean people who are 'brilliant' or bordering 'genius', only people who reason rather then react in any given situation. The average, uneducated man or woman is ruled by his/her body, the body tells him/her whether he/she is hungry and he/she verbalizes it. The body tells him/her that he/she is horny and he/she action-alizes it. No thought...which perhaps is why most men in this country seem unable to look at a woman without scratching their genitals and why most women take offence to compliments pertaining to their appearance even though the latter is generally crafted to solicit admiration and/or lust. If I were to take my friends advice, or Aristotle's, then a rational version of self should consider these men and women only in the context of socialized mammals and not humanize them at all. The male dog licks his balls when a female in heat crosses its path...where is the difference, in principle?

In matters of Love - because - regardless of logic or mindful of it- I insist on believing that Love is more than the combined sum of Hormones, Pheromones, Estrogen and Testosterone ... where does the head make an appearance, or does it not do so at all?

Similarly in matters or sex, where does the heart raise a curtain?

Linguistically we refer to the heart as an organ and the mind as a muscle...what does this tell us? The heart performs its duties as the devoted servant regulating our life force day in-day out, waiting for the scraps of attention we may or may not throw its way ... while the mind sits and revels in the affection we shower upon it as we take it out for a spin and feather it with constant attention, only then does it perform and even so per chance and choice. Kind of like the 'Dance with the one that brought you debacle'... is it better to love someone or be loved?

Allegorically the mind would be the best looking boy in class, the one you sit at your desk and imagine playing with your hair while you act the blatantly obsequious devotee as the geeky, sweet guy with six-inch-thick frames in lieu of your heart, lurks in the shadows and offers to carry your books to class every morning.

My favourite song of late, has been 'Poison Cup' by M Ward. It doesn't proffer much hope for my predicament or my organ-muscle battle, but it offers a good enough rhyme to romanticize the narrative:

One, One or two won't do
‘Cause I want it all
And a sip
A sip or a spoonful won't do
No, I want it all

She said "If Love, If Love Is a Poison Cup'
Then drink it up
‘Cause a sip
Or a spoonful won't do
Won't do nothing for you
Except mess you up"

Apologies

My apologies for believing Serendipity to be set in Stone.
Apologies to the Stone for objectifying it.

My apologies for Big answers to Small questions.
Apologies to all questions for quantifying them.

My apologies to everything for I am not everywhere.
Apologies to everybody for I am not every one.

My apologies to a Self I cannot meet.
Apologies to the meeting I have failed.

My apologies to all the Big words I rely on to sound small and quaint.
Apologies to quaintness for implying it to be small.

My glorious round of apologies for a 'Sorry' I cannot seem to mean enough to want to say.

Moth Memoirs

I am re-evaluating my life-long dream of taking a road trip through the American countryside by clamping on to the grey-hound trail. Of course these plans are all incumbent upon my actually making it to the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave and they depend entirely on whether I am blessed and deemed worthy by that most honourable of foundations - the Fulbright.
The reason I am re-evaluating the fantasy, is because road trips can go awfully sour depending on chance-company, as has been illustrated and revealed unto me within the past two days. What if the person who sits next to me isn’t a handsome, thirty-year old, Greek-born, Olive skinned and tawny-eyed, independently wealthy but flighty-of-spirit academic documentary film maker seeking adventure, conversation, connection and genuine companionship? Two days ago, I was sitting at my desk at work uncomfortably wedged somewhere between the impromptu alternative of sticking it out for another four hours of doing nothing or going home and getting ready for a day-trip to Islamabad to arrange a conference thingie for the Man and be back by nightfall. Option two had me thinking: time-off, travel and the chance to face Demon-central with my armour intact for a change.
“Done!”

The next day Lahore was at its best, which basically means it was raining like no tomorrow and I had to haul my highly-harrowed self out of bed by 8 am, get to the Daewoo Station and face the clogged streets and early morning traffic. But it was raining and I can forgive anyone anything if it keeps pouring. My colleague, who was to meet me at the stop at around 9:30 managed to make an appearance around an hour later and a chance booking on a different bus had me sitting next to what in unofficial circles is now termed as a ‘ninja’.
“This could prove to be interesting,” I thought to myself.

I have no qualms admitting that I enjoy a silent guffaw or two at the expense of people who depend oh-so diligently on constrictive dogma. While I realise that this somewhat tarnishes my claim of being ‘liberal’, I cannot seem to help it and in all unfairness the ninja in question was definitely the real thing: clad in black with black gloves and black socks under neon green slippers. Even the little thread hoops connecting the burka sleeves to the index finger lest the garment accidentally slip and bare a fore-arm. Further the lady was wearing sunglasses on a day where our poor not-so-fair city actually deserved credit for monsooning it like the best of ‘em.

Over the next four hours I am slightly ashamed to admit I derived much silent pleasure by giving in to my subversive nature. My iPod was looped to Joss Auckland’s narration of The Screw tape Letters and the book I was reading just so happened to be ‘Walking the Tightrope of Reason’ – The precarious life of a rational Animal by Fogelin. I tend to read with a pencil in hand, sporadically peppering the pages with my own inane witticisms or genuine questions – which I admit are few and far between- and every time I made a move to do so my companion turned to peek at the pages. She barely concealed loud sighs of frustration and grunts of disapproval at certain key quotes that I underlined, which revealed to me that not only could she read English but that she was in fact reading it over my shoulder. Incidentally- and this is through no fault of my own- the opening quote in the narrative goes something like this “Consider that the choice between theism and moral nihilism is forced on us by the claim that if there is no God then everything is possible”. I am forced to admit that at this particular juncture, for no reason that I can recount I felt a slight twinge of guilt – an abstract notion that I was being disrespectful. Even if this perceived slight was occurring on the confines of a page and through my headphones, but I soon quenched my concerns by reiterating that I had the right to read what I wanted where I wanted as long as I didn’t rub it in someone’s face. Even if in my head this interaction had assumed the proportions of some weird quasi-passive-aggressive paradox of theisms.

In all fairness, my companion left me alone, she did not comment on my silent insubordination with words or barbs, which I have known people to do. For this, she earned my respect, even if I was terrified of her cross or courage (depending on how one saw it).

I soon began to stare out the window and tuned out CS Lewis for Tom Petty, which for some reason makes the best road music to my ears. As the mellow strains of ‘It’ll all work out’ flooded my ears I dozed off to the point where I was woken by a disjointed English accent announcing that we had arrived. Laptop bag in hand, my colleague and I met up with our contact who was to drive us to join Conference-Organizer Man for a meeting.

Islamabad isn’t my favourite city by any stretch. There could be several reasons behind this declaration, but the most honest one would have to be that both the city and I have seen each other at our absolute worst. I lived in Islamabad when it was deadbeat, dull and boring not that I would have known the difference even if it was an all-hour Rasta joint and the city on the other hand had seen me at my most miserable, morbid and pathetic. It was odd really, the realisation that this was my first trip back –after having left five years ago- where I was not visiting family but was alone so to speak. Free to observe and be observed by my past. It didn’t help that the conference venue was two streets away from my original domicile and this ensured that ‘concentration’ was going to be an issue for the rest of the evening, especially considering that I could actually see my house peering at me from the street.

I also found it odd, that my life and circumstance necessitates a lot of ‘looking over my shoulder’. When I lived in Islamabad for ten years, every trip to Lahore meant my sitting glued to the window examining every car that crossed my path for signs of mommy dearest’s not-as-familiar face. This time around I was keeping a look-out to duck the moment I saw sign of daddy demon’s all-too-familiar one. It proved to be a weirder realisation than usual.

Wrapping up business took much longer than expected and it turned out so that leaving the same day would mean leaving at around 9:30 pm and getting back to Lahore at around 3 am. My ten o’clock curfew meant that this option was certainly not on the cards. So we would have to stay on. This meant finding a place on our own tab, because Geo had already covered its costs and listing new ones wasn’t taken to with kindness. My colleague suggested a guest house, which once observed, meant my having to play my ‘girl card’ again. “I’m sorry I am not staying in this place alone,” said, timid, trite and trying little me. In all fairness the ‘place’ consisted of eight rooms, all of which were empty and two men running it. So my mother kicked in her frantic maternal-gear into overdrive, all the way from Lahore and arranged for me to stay with one of her friends for the night.

My colleague and I went to Mc Donald’s – apparently Islamabad considers it a delicacy – and I was astonished to find myself sitting between a horde of moths – much like a swarm of bees- flitting between a total of seventeen light posts. My colleague and his friend reminisced as I sat mesmerized by the Moth Storm. I recalled reading somewhere that the total lifespan of a moth is 24 hours.

Which meant that in the time I had spent setting up a business deal, travelling between two cities, having a minor epiphany about the nature of my subversive hypocrisy, eating a couple of meals, managing a tiny quarter-life residential crisis, come to grips with my now-self and back then-self on the blurred streets of time and place: a moth had been born, matured, gone through puberty, met a girl and/or boy or both (whose judging) and procreated and was well on its way to meet its maker, whatever that entailed. I remember it troubling me that I was unsure about whether or not I envied the creature its simplistic existence; its lack of personality and therefore subsequent identity crises and its apathy for isms. I remember grabbing one that had fallen onto our table - and generally I would avoid doing this - and asking it “Seriously, are you the lucky one?”

And it is at precisely this most precarious juncture that it started to rain.