...Anything but

I find the blatant disregard with which we throw around the word 'But' highly disturbing. I also find it impossible to count the number of times I have started a sentence with "…I'm not sure if I should say this…BUT…", and every time the 'but' takes over. Why is it that we always use a 'but' as an excuse to do or say what we know we probably shouldn't?
Perhaps, because sometimes we just need to talk, regardless of the aftermath.

Like I said – I don't know if I should say any of this, but…

Of late I have experienced the enormous thrill that accompanies reading and, somewhat understanding, Philosophy – and yes I realise that this does not sound particularly enthralling. I was beginning to feel frustrated with my search for 'answers' or 'questions' – depending on one's perspective - in religious texts and turned to philosophy as a detour. There are two things that strike me pleasantly about this new search, the first is that it forces the mind to expand – one can actually feel the cogs ticking and turning as every new thought is planted and the second is that it is easy to disagree with when the need to do so presents itself. After Sappho and Plato, I moved on to Marcus Aurelius – the stodgiest of philosophers (and that's saying something) – only to realise that despite all the 'good ideas' there were plenty of 'bullshit ideas' (or so I thought). The silver lining for me personally was that I was free to say, "Okay, so this dude lived bazillions of years ago, times have changed and some of this stuff needs to be scrapped 'cause it can’t keep up (at least not practically)."
Doing so was easy because it wasn't dogma and it wasn't absolute. There was no hellfire and no damnation in dissent. It was all about taking a 'good idea' over a 'belief'. This notion always brings me back to Chris Rock in the film Dogma, when he tells Bethany that Mankind's greatest mistake was taking a good idea and building a belief structure on it. Ideas could be changed, beliefs were trickier. No shit Sherlock.

This is probably the point where sanity and a naturally ingrained sense of self-preservation would generally tell me to heed the 'BUT' and let y'all come to your own conclusion rather than 'go there'. Then again, paper is the only place where I don't 'do' buts, not that this is 'technically' paper.

If we admit that time changes man and man changes society and society changes the rules every now and then – how does one rationally justify hanging on to a 1400 year-old belief structure in the same spirit, when all evidence proves that it is in desperate need of a drastic update. I used to have a theory - one I shared with only a handful of people – that the 21st century would mark the death of organised religion because most of these religions navigated themselves on the bearings of absolutes and the world was becoming increasingly variable. By nature, an entity fights its hardest fight when it knows it may be the last time it can do so. I believe they call it ‘going out with guns blazing’. Islam, for all practical purposes came with a bang, lived with several and it only makes sense that it should choose to go out in the same manner. 'Sense'...no wonder i've always had trouble with the word. This was the theory at least.

The 'New Age' would be all about Humanism – or so I had hoped, but there seems to be little hope of that now. I admit that I have been quick to give up on Islam, the moment I could no longer find an anchor anywhere in it for myself, I sailed away. But God, He proved harder to leave. This is probably why I didn't leave Him. He and I set sail together on my new voyage and I know he nudges me towards safer waters and scarier notions time and again. I know that I have a bond with an entity greater than myself, I just loathe the notion of giving that bond definition. It diminishes both the bond and the purpose of having it.

There is one person who unknowingly smashed quite a few of my moulds for me, without my realising it. During my one-year stint at a national newspaper I met a girl. In some capacities she was my boss, in others my friend and in most my teacher. Burki broke quite a few barriers for me. I am no longer ashamed to admit that I am defensive and can be judgmental when judgment is directed my way, especially when it comes to religious symbolism. The beard, the scarf – these items are often met with a sense of reservation by me, my beliefs and my overall insane persona. It is a double-edged sword – when most of the 'burka's' judge you, you put up your shield and judge back. I have yet to acquire the complete Zen stillness that will allow me to smile at blatant hostility.
But all that changed with Burki and I am glad, for once, to be proven wrong. Burki wore a dupatta, prayed five times a day, swooned over 50's classics like Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald, drooled over Gene Kelly oldies and smiled more than most people I have met in my lifetime. I am quite sure it was the smile that first set me straight. It was one of those pure, honest, ridiculously unpretentious smiles that forces you to confront the bigot within. It coerced me into considering that if there were liberals on the right then there were also bigots on the left. The key was to keep your heart open and your eyes closed. I think I'm getting better at it, then again there are days…

Working in a newspaper changes you. Some integral part of your person that is 'supposed' to react to words like 'gang rape', 'severed limbs', ' bomb blast', '120 killed' and '3- year-old sold' just stops reacting. The words become punch lines and the crux no longer remains what they say but how loud they look while saying it. Bit by bit the quiet, jaded monster in your heart bleeds more and more venom until the headlines become a part of regular dinner conversation. You know the monster has truly won when you can laugh at them. That is when you lose yourself completely- when it starts to sound funny.
It has been eight months since I have been editing Letters to the Editor. I used to find it fascinating at first, having an in-route insight into Pakistan's psyche – now not so much. One can divide letters and letter-writer's in four basic categories: Whiners, Wax-poetics, Waders and Warts. Needless to say the distinctions have been honed to near-perfection after a daily regiment of going over an average of 150 letters per day. The Whiners are easy- these are people who need to complain. It can be anything… bad roads, bad plumbing, bad government, bad electricity and bad policemen. The Wax-poetics are a notch above the rest – these are individuals who write well-posed tirades directed at the establishment, the President, the beards and the bureaucracy. They tend to be honest – left or right – and brutal. Essentially they are the best letter writers, which is why it goes without saying that they're names almost never see the light of day. Then come the Waders – these are the small fry who like to stick to the small stuff like cricket (and yes in the LARGER scheme of things it IS small stuff), investment and television programming. They make it a point never to mention names or anything of consequence and are the most frequently scouted in the column. Last but not least come the Warts – these are almost always the fundoo's, they are the most frequent contributors and the largest in number.
There are a few letters I shall never forget – words on a piece of paper or on screen that have managed to ruin my day, my week and occasionally even quench my morale to the point that it s unsalvageable. One was by a woman who called herself a 'Daughter of Islam', she complained about the Women's Protection Act being passed by stating that women were the chattel of men according to the Quran and for them to be dissatisfied with their 'position' denoted disrespect for Islam, God and the Prophet. She said that women had been given a position by religion and asking for anything more amounted to blasphemy. The other letter was more recent, it came in response to the murder of our provincial social welfare minister Zille Huma's murder for neglecting to wear a scarf. The woman, writing from Islamabad, said that all women who walked among men with their heads uncovered deserved to be raped and then murdered. According to her Huma got off easy.

I saved both of these letters, in the likelihood that one day I would begin to believe that anger truly does breed strength and power. For now I remain a pacifist, which is why the realisation that approximately 92% of our people feel this way is depressing. And I say this after reading letters addressed to what is widely known as a 'liberal publication'.
I no longer know where to direct my attention and my anger. I quit my job yesterday for any number of reasons: I was bored and idle and unable to contribute, I could not be creative, my salary sucked and I was being offered much better elsewhere… I lack passion for what they call the 'News Business'. When I think about it, it has to be the latter at large.

My mother has told me time and again that I feel far too much of everything. That my mind never stops wringing out the depths of every notion and every idea it comes into contact with. She is wrong, too wrong. The problem is that I don't feel 'enough', not nearly enough to do something about anything.
I have struggled my entire life with telling the truth, whether it is about my feelings, my dreams or my reality. Lying for a living seemed the easiest thing in the world at first – it isn't. The tinting and tainting of the truth is one of the most loathsome sights one can ever see, because it is often done without qualm. All I hope for now is the chance to tell the truth by whatever means in speech or in art - the whole unadulterated, un-censored, un-fashionable truth…so-help-me-God.
Today's headlines warn about a 'religious group' going to every bus stop and forcing women to cover their heads. Another item tells of the same group calling in bomb threats to several girls' schools if the students' uniform is not changed to a burka.

You seethe, You simmer, You sigh and then You're done.
I'm done.

Pocket points

Who can tell what it is that drives us?

What is that elusive, underlining presence that gets us through each day? Some of us allocate our time between work and play, other between school and weekends and the rest by alternating their way through parties and pedagogues. I, on the other hand choose to measure my days in tiny units of time - small pocket points that can help calculate how my day went. I suppose I always did this, but watching Hugh Grant stumble though his safe cocoon in 'About a boy' helped me put it in a broader perspective.

It is a fascinating art, if I do say so myself and I obviously do. The ‘they’ might call it a science but the fact that I make it a point not to tally my scores at the end of the day precludes it from being so. I do not know why I do it, count every minute and measure every moment in an obtuse context…perhaps I do it to pass time, or for lack of company, but mostly I think I just do it to feel like my day is special, that these seemingly insignificant, tiny denominators give my life and my days a layer of meaning that noone but I can comprehend or appreciate. I like to think that I dedicate my full attention, devotion and time to the frivolous details and hardly even conceive of such a thing as a 'bigger picture'. It is all about getting through the next breath, the next sentence, the next word and the next half-hour.
That is my plan.
It has its chinks and I’m sure those chinks will result in major fall-outs someday, but for the time being it works swell. In a manner of speaking it is a lot like knitting, which is something I have picked up living with my grand mother…it seems inconsequential, but the fact that time and energy is devoted to every stitch and every second make the minutes seem bigger than they are.

I shall clarify my point because I have so many points to make up for and yes this ‘clarification’ will probably take up most of what may as well end up being my latest effort. For this I am sorry…in advance- NOT!
I woke up this morning with a resounding headache (-5 points) and with the echoes of Hall and Oats' ‘Private eye’ bouncing in my head (another -5). For the record, for those of us who wake up with a new song ricocheting off our skull caps every morning, the nature and words of that song often prove to be a prologue for how the day will go. I lay in bed for a while, long enough to ensure that I would have to run to make it to work on time. So I swung my feet out of bed and stepped on my television remote on the carpet … it broke so that’s another – 5. I limped my way over to the computer and put on ‘Private Eye’ that by the way is a -10. One would think that readily embracing a negative impulse is serious cause for concern.

Next I moved over to my blackboard, wiped off yesterdays Jim Morrison lyrics and thought up my storm for the day. For some reason the most vivid image in my head was the three Greek fates: Cloco who spins the thread of men’s lives, Lachesis who decides their destiny and Atropos who slits the thread when their kaput. Not a cheery first morning thought…Shit, I hope I’m not dying today. That would be a bummer. Negative, glass-bloody-empty-thought…another -5.

The fact that my shower wasn't working and that this just had to be a 'bad hair day' started me off with a –50 by the time I got to my car. However, traffic was actually tolerable that day and this got me back in the game, it is unprecedented and therefore I gave it a straight 50 just to be fair to Lord knows what. So, I officially started my day when I got to work and realised that I had too few letters to the editor and would have to manufacture three new people, each with their infallible set of opinions regarding the Baglihar Dam (5 points) I call him Usman Zahid, the lousy education system (2 points) I call her Hira Malik and the clincher Sherry Rehman getting the shit kicked out of her by a woman who she was trying to win over with a not-so-well-versed diatribe on women's rights (15) I don't remember what I called that dude. This done, I realised I was missing a coke. My day needs to start with a coke at work and the coke-getting-dude was off today, so that's a minus all the points I made on the letters.
As I edited my way through the hours and tried to talk as little as possible, I realised that my e-mail box was surprisingly full and I had 7 new mails, sad as this sounds, it always cheers me up to have morning mail. So that's 7 points. It also struck me that I would have to sit and wait for my boss to put in the rest of the pages for two hours because he was currently out, so that meant I could read. Now this is where it gets tricky and the whole glass-half full-thing comes into play. I have my proverbial fork-in-the-road-for-the-day, I could choose to scrap off all my points by sticking to my guns on bumming out because I was practically under lock-in, or I could embrace the fact that I hardly get the chance to read anymore and Marcus Aurelius in his 'Meditations' is oh-so-bloody wise and condescending that I would otherwise miss out on his ramblings from across the ages.
I am so proud of myself for being an optimist, which doubles my points. Thats points for optimism and for having pride in my person, just incase it required clarification. Then I chose to go and sit with one of my colleagues, since I 'chose' to do this…voluntarily and in good humour which I rarely exercise, I gave myself 25 points and the fact that we talked for about an hour definitely puts me way ahead of my Hyde today. Then my colleague told me that Dr Preston Burke on Grey’s Anatomy was gay. That was low, bottom of the barrel low…this was a man who had occupied a fair amount of my day-dream musings and somehow knowing people we fantasise about are gay always ruins the experience.

Because, were I to make it to Hollywood, manage to purchase a thousand dollar dress, cram up the courage to act smitten and run into him in a secluded hall looking better than I have ever looked in my life, I still won’t stand a chance. There is something distinctly depressing about that train of thought, especially for someone who functions on the perpetual premise of “but, what if’s”. This would constitute a plain ‘nada’. So that was a -50. Pages were finally done by around 8:30, they were more boring than usual which was a -2, but they were done which was a +5.
Driving back home, I stopped at a flower vendor to get what I think are the last Narcissus of the season, (+ 15) and I stopped over at Chatkhara for a plate of samosa chat shared in my own delightful company (+ 30 for flavour, _30 for fat: it’s a toss up). I got home to realise there was no electricity so that was a –15, but I usually use black outs as an excuse to light candles and do my chanting and yoga so that's the 15 right back.
Then, came my low, low point… I watched Top Model on channel V, which I grant is a –250, not to mention the unalterable damage done to my already flailing cerebral faculties. I exercised for an hour, which probably denotes the same amount as the samosa chaat. And I didn’t count a ten-point worth of my winnings or losings, which is the beauty of it all. It is all about getting through the day feeling like something happened by making the nothings feel like the somethings and hopefully, some day the everythings.

I almost made it were it not for that blasted Top Model. I lay in bed at around 4 am and did my last minute re-play.
That’s when I heard it…
…Rain.

Wild Horses

I believe that there is a force that breathes beneath the surface of each and every one of us. It longs to be set free, but civilisation and breeding require that it be contained. Society demands that we tame what is wild in us and we all smudge it in different shades. Some of us work through it, some deny it, some resort to pain thinking that it provides a cure, some cry far too much to be taken seriously, some laugh far too much to sound sincere and others sit in corners and dream of what their lives would be like if they opened the door to the cage that cramps them in.
Then the crevices appear, cracks in a painting that has been silent and still for too long. These are splinters designed only for those who can appreciate them and there are few who can.

Yesterday I watched a film, a film that I think was meant to be seen by me. You know how every director, makes a film for one person, an absolute stranger who will see it from every imperceptible tangent because it was intended for them? The artist hopes the others will like it, but only the trifle few will 'get it'…that's kind of what it was. I always thought 'my film' was the Little Mermaid, but I suppose growing up involves more than a right of passage. I was canvassing the shelves at my Tuesday DVD store when my eyes swam across the title 'Flicka'. The cover bore a picture of young girl racing a horse - by no means original. I haven't watched a 'horse movie' in seven years, because they were all I watched for the years preceding. But yesterday I thought it was time I faced my past. I was ready and 'Flicka', I later discovered, meant 'Pretty girl hiding from womanhood'. I couldn't have picked a more perfect pinnacle to plummet down memory lane. Perhaps that sounds a tad vain…like I said, right of passage.

Traipsing beyond all the 'Daddy's little girl loves ponies' tarp… I admit that I have loved horses for as long as I can remember and my 'daddy' loved them too. I recall getting my first leather cowgirl boots when I was five. We lived in Little Rock, Arkansas and even though it was a week before those boots got to experience the thrill of a saddle, I can see myself scrambling out of my bed past midnight, trying them on and dancing across the room while my parents were asleep next door. I was the five-year-old who raced horses because it was the only thing that made her feel big. I always picked 'My little ponies', 'Fashion fillies' and 'Starlight' figurines over Barbie dolls and throughout my childhood my room was invariably covered in pony bedspreads and wall prints. Then came Pakistan, my father bought land for a farm, he bought dozens of horses and the love affair continued.

My father believed in 'breaking' horses that couldn't be broken. I believed in riding them. He became famous for buying stallions that no one but he could ride and I usually just managed by a very slim margin. I also see the day I began to shy away from horses. I was thirteen and he was teaching me how to 'break' a horse. She was a jet-black, Persian mare, gorgeous by all definitions, and just as flighty. I hear him saying that if I wanted the horse and if I wanted to name her (‘Midnight’ after a Rainbow Bright fillie) then I had to ‘break her’. I distinctly recall hating those words so much I didn't bother trying. He would offer me crops and spurs and I wouls cower away insisting that if I fed Midnight enough apples and sugar she would let me ride her eventually. My father and I were at an impasse, and it went far deeper training technique. I had chosen my mothers emphatic weak-ways and that was not something he could forgive me for any time soon.
But I remember my infatuation vividly. I am not prone to infatuation and Midnight was my first. The sensation was defined by the tingle in my toes and the winning tinker in by brain that kept me awake all night just so I could go to the farm early next morning and see her. It was the hours of conversations spent feeding her apples and sugar and talking about how lonely I felt. It was the kind of friendship that comes once in a lifetime. And she felt it too - I know this, because she did let me ride her. I would sneak out in the middle of the night, during our weekends at the farm, in my shalwar and T-shirt, mount my Midnight, take off my shoes, open my hair and we would run.
And all of a sudden I wasn’t stupid anymore, I wasn’t small, I wasn’t a failure and I wasn’t alone. The heart never beats faster then when it is riding the wind and a girl can never feel more beautiful then when she is racing a horse alone at night with her hair open and her feet bare.

The only thing my father and I have ever shared in common was a love for horses. For ten years these beasts provided the openings and the closings for every conversation he and I exchanged. I would read his books on horse-care to solicit his approval and he would watch horse movies with me to ‘be a dad’. We watched them all, the Stallion series – Black, White, Silver; Black Beauty, The Arab and even random rodeo tapes. We spent hours deliberating the merits of each of the horses in the films, whether the extras would actually make better runners or whether the lead was more of a quarter horse then an Arab. We would go to the farm where he would sit for hours staring off into space and I would scamper off to the stables confessing my sins to my four-legged, secret-keepers.
We seldom rode together, because every time I rode with him it was a competition. And I am notoriously ill-favoured when it comes to competition. I was coerced to ride with saddle and I had to win races. I never won, which kept him happy because it meant that he could still feel big and do so by keeping me small.
Then one day, I won.

It happened out of nowhere, I was riding in the fields by myself, when my father came up behind me and before I knew it we were at a gallop. In less than a blink of an eye I realised I had won. While I was gathering my wits, he told me that it wasn’t a race and that I was an idiot to ride a horse without a saddle. But we both were painfully aware of the shift in balance. Winning changes a lot and that was what ended it. He never forgave me for winning and I never forgave myself for not losing.
I was fourteen, when I realised that I no longer wanted to have anything in common with my dad.

The final thread needed to be severed and I was determined to cut it. I was no longer willing to share anything in common with a man I otherwise couldn’t fathom. I told him to sell Midnight and I got rid of each and every vista of horse mementos in my room, right down to my silver Unicorn earrings. Ponies, stuffed toys, birthday cards…the works. I was an artist, I was sensitive and I was human. It was loathsome to entertain the notion that I shared a shard in common with a man so violent, he bordered on boorish. And so I didn’t.
I didn’t share anything.

Seven years later ‘Flicka’ showed another fifteen-year old vying for freedom and her fathers approval by resorting to the resounding thunder of hoof beats. And all the scape-shots of wild mustangs soaring through the mountains, with a young girl fighting for dear life to ride the gale make sense to me now. I have never cried through the course of a film- though i tend to be a bit of a weeper- but I did for this one. A whole two hours, non-stop. It woke me up. I have battled that hailstorm and I know what that freedom feels like. It is a touch of the divine, like racing through sunflower fields, under blue skies in summer rain. And I won’t give it up.

I have to believe that we are more than the sum of our parts, more than the intricacies we inherit from our parents. That the shared hobbies and eye-colouring are only layers to cover a core that is our own. I need to believe that it is ‘I’ who love this freedom and not my DNA. I need to believe that I carve my own curses and that I am not born into them.

Which is why I called my friend at the Polo grounds today,

…And I told him to saddle me up for tomorrow.