Jack of None

I have been spending the past few days sipping a series of subjects, none of which are remotely coherent. Perhaps this is the treatise that unemployment offers a person– time…to tread lightly and linger over random thoughts that materialise in the brain barring rhyme or reason. And even though I have only this month to savour the feeling before I get ‘back to work’, the languid pace is refreshing. For the first time in five years, I have the time to read again, the way I used to…uninterrupted.
Of late I have given a lot of thought to the lives of ‘other people’, random strangers moving at their frenzied pace and what it is that defines each of them. This is the kind of random thinking which usually leads to definitive dead ends and takes a hell of a long time getting there, still...it helped me put the proverbial panacea to a problem I have faced for as long as I can remember.
Time is a troubling notion and trying to navigate ones way through its loopholes is even trickier.

I have been reading William Hazlitt’s ‘The pleasures of Hating’ and one of his essay’s ‘The Indian Jugglers’ provides the key to open a door for a question I had long forgotten asking. I cannot count the number of times I have wished for enough time to pursue each idle, speculative, random, abstract thought that occurs to me to some manner of conclusion. To ‘run with it’ towards a definitive end. Hazlitt’s story tells of a local fair side-show, Indian juggler with the ability to juggle - in perfect precision and time - four golden balls for hours on end … seemingly without effort. The jugglers’ life is of little consequence, as are the minutiae of his daily habits: the time he wakes up in the morning, his favourite food or even his name, because his moments of glory are spent juggling. The perfection of his craft is his realisation. This man is at his best and his most complete performing the one task which only he can do.

Some might consider this a trifle: the ability to juggle over everything else one ‘could’ do, but then again, to do something, anything, better than anyone else in the world is no small feat. It brings to mind the age-old question: is it really better to be the jack of all trades than the master of one? Does the ability to do many things fairly well win over one overwhelming outstanding gift?

For the first time I am not so sure, I have always enjoyed the fact that I relish several artistic pursuits. Writing, reading, painting, music…but I couldn’t -for the life of me- pick one over the other. Is this what being a well-rounded individual truly means, to expand your vision but not your vocabulary? To broaden your horizons without perfecting any one of them? And who is to say that a pianist, doesn’t feel complete being just one thing…a maestro. And what about the mediocre pianists who spend just as much time practicing- if not more- but still miss out on 'everything else'? I do not know if I am safer or sorrier for the fact that I tend to enjoy ‘walking’ around life rather than jumping in and swimming its depths. Taking one task and exploring it to its fullest before moving on to the next, rather than flitting back and forth between dozens in the interest of ‘seeing all that I can’.
What is the point of seeing the bigger picture, when the details escape your vision?

I never really could decide how I felt about the extraordinary humans that live among us, I used to think that while I admired them I did not envy them their gifts. One gives up a lot to be ‘perfect’ at something…it is so much easier to be fairly decent at it and pick up a handful of other nuggets along the way to wherever it is we are headed. Then again this could just be fear rearing its ugly head for the umpteenth time. I think to myself, is there no one thing in which I can challenge others and claim to exact perfection. Even though the spirit of competition -or ambition for that matter- has been distinctly absent in most of my person for most of my life.
People tell you it is enough to ‘be yourself’…as if that is supposed to be helpful, some trite manner of consolation. “The mechanical performer undertakes to emulate himself, not to equal another,” Hazlitt says, but then let that performer not care about the skills of other performers emulating him…that is the tricky part. The ‘self’ is nearly impossible to define…is it our opinions, our innate habits, our pet peeves or our preferences? Or is it the projection of every one else’s definitions that we ingrain in our public persona? It is our innate assumption that we ‘could do’ something should we choose to do it, that often stops us from trying. Either that or the need to make it seem trivial and unworthy of our time and labour that keeps us from choosing to do anything at all. Is it easy to dance on a tightrope: let anyone who thinks so get up and try, this is the point where they would inevitably call it a foolish exercise to begin with.

Here in comes the question of ‘greatness’, all of us wish to be remembered after we are gone for our perceived greatness, but there are few willing to go the lengths required to cement, in the minds of others, that one memory which we will not even be here to savour should we be able to leave it behind. Themistocles said that he could not play the flute but that he could make a small city a great one. He did, and that gives one a good idea of the distinction in question. However, one might still say that Themistocles’s Everest remained the flute and that its all relative.

Browning’s poem Andrea del Sarto speaks of the Florentine painter who was so flawless he was forgotten amidst more passionate and less ‘perfect’ contemporaries such as Raphael and Da Vici. Sarto’s failing was perfection, he was dubbed "Andrea senza errori" (Andrea the perfect) and got little recognition during or after his lifetime, even though Raphael himself admitted that his work was far superior to anything he had ever seen or painted himself. Sarto lacked humanity, his images resembled photographs - there was no single error in stroke or stain. Further, Sarto’s life tells of how he lacked the determination and passion that his contemporaries had, he was perfect to begin with and had little ambition to carve his name into the future and even less care to better his work to compete with everyone else. He was content. Perfectly reconciled to live through his life by continuing his work at its languid, perfect pace and has been criticized, by many, for having “a taste for life that precluded him from glory”.

There are few willing to take into consideration the fact that from his perspective, Sarto got the best end of the bargain.

Guardian at the Gate

The truth has fallen
Smashed to smithereens on your meticulously marbelled floor
Why do you come here:
To brand me a traitor
Or save me from myself?

You call me the consumate actress
Hiding in halftimes between my next curtain call and my crippled smile
My love, I am an amateur for all the rest

My knight in shining armour begging me to let you do
what you do best
I suppose I should have told you
All that is false is fact
...that my truth is a glass-eyed tryst and a test

Now you claw desparately at my fort
grappling to hold my granite form for all eternity,
to melt the ice that races through my veins

Would you steal from me the sorrow that I have earned?

Can we just call this what it is:
My lesson learned.

...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.

Strike Three

I’m beginning to think that I’m jinxed, scratch that I know that I am jinxed. I’m beginning to think that The Man is trying to drill the point home with unprecedented precision. Three days ago, on January-frickin-27th…the weirdest thing happened to me. And yes, this was weirder than the time I talked to my hair dryer after surviving my first post-waste epiphany. This was downright wrong. For the record, I am aware that I am severely romantically challenged. I am also aware that I have 'issues'… which apparently is the new buzz word for problems because those only exist in terms of hunger, famine and disease. And I grant that those are a big deal.

Despite my numerous ‘issues’, I like to think that I’m polite, even if I tend to be a wallflower and prefer my own company most of the time. On the fateful day, while driving to work I was doing just that. I was minding my own business. I was looking right in front of me and minding my own DAMN business, until a man on a bicycle came and parked right next to my window as we were both waiting for the god forsaken light to kick gear. I have been told and I have picked up from priceless Pakistani experience that when men stare at you - and this is seldom a question of ‘when’ more than an answer to ‘whenever’- that the only way to ‘deal’ is to look straight ahead and ignore the catcalls, come-ons and subsequent car chases whenever they occur. This usually works and so that’s what I did. I suppose it goes without saying that bicycle man was staring…he was. Suddenly I heard a tapping on my car window - and in the naïve folly that is my complete and utter ignorance regarding the paramount perversion that men are capable of - I whipped my head around to utter a few ‘ladylike’ expletives (I am told ‘Idiot’ and ‘bastard’ now fit this bill) until I noticed something that made me jerk my head back and start pleading that God would - for once - ignore our mutual communication lapses, listen to me and click the signal ‘GO’. But God was on a rampage to prove a point.
And prove it He did.

Bicycle man was jerking off in the middle of the street, at the busiest traffic hour, in lane three and on – just in case it requires reiteration – a bicycle right next to my window. Which - had I, the stomach to not heave by looking again - would have provided me the premiere view of It-that-shall-not-be-named.

I give up. I really do.

My male friends, after swallowing their laughter, have told me to acknowledge that this isn’t really common and its not like everyone does it,at least not in public they said. Both are valid points, but the fact that anyone does it still bugs me. The fact that men are capable of being this sick is well…sick.
Were this a batting ring, I’d call in my third strike. First base was when I was fifteen; it was bad, really bad and I had braces so it was worse. Second base was a mammogram for fear of breast cancer, luckily the doctor’s face has now lost all conscious resonance in my skull.
The third base preview was…this.

Like I said, I give up.

Happenstance and Hedonism

In the new realm of spaced out quests and asinine algorithms one must work hard to find their bearings. I suppose I have been blessed, vehemently grounding myself in the here and now or concerning myself with what most of us call 'reality' has never really been high on my list of priorities or pursuits. Then again I have also been subsequently cursed for exactly the same reasons.
Being a realist holds little charm for someone as disgruntled by the ordinariness of this world as I. It means giving up the quest for happiness in the interest of a quest for practicality. Happenstance over Hedonism – this, will remain a choice I always hope to make in any given situation. And I always remain unsure of my conviction to make the same one regardless of circumstance. I figure, of late, that what challenges me more than anything is my never-ending battle to actively nurture 'denial'.
I don't really subscribe to denial in the conventional sense, or so I like to think. I acknowledge the world, the changing times and all that comes in between with a terse nod of my head, but I do not breathe it in. I examine the context, pick out my preference and sniff the scent and flavours I am willing to absorb, sneezing out the rest. Is this called choosing or plain abstinence, any evangelist would say the latter and in hopes of not being one I'll try to 'choose' the former. Even though this still doesn't preclude me from the good, the bad and the ugly, it makes it easier to pick a side. Whatever that side may be. In my case it usually frames an off kilter kaleidoscope of nothing and everything. Which is why there is little wonder I am as abstract as I am.

This brings me to the next proverbial jack-in-the-box: picking a side.

How does one choose a side, if you cant choose a semblance of the ordinary. The world as we know it, is bound by rules and premises, regardless of our quest for delusions… 'reality' prevails. Denial, must either be absolute or insipid to work…it cannot function half way. One can either be the Fool in all his bumbling glory or the Fascist in his tomb. The mid-route in this particular case means having to walk the path of circumstance on tenterhooks. I can relate, this is my chosen path.

Choices are hard. Really! Sometimes the compromising intensity that they bring with them is superfluous. Having lived in a realm where only dictates existed and choices were perennially absent, I can say that life was perhaps easier. It was ordinary and easy. Being told what to do, what to like, how to live and think…was easy because it discounted any input from the object. The classic case of 'subject' turned 'object'. It was automated, ordinary and practical.

Choices have brought with them rights, along with the persistent struggle of identity. A choice, any choice…from the shade of nail polish one picks to the school you go to, to the man you marry… each one brings with it a new step on your path forged and forayed by your own judgment. The wrongs and rights are your own, as are their fallouts.

It is choice that allows for Delusion.
And it is the picking of the latter that necessitates more choices.

Garbage Cans and Flower Children

I have been walking around in a turquoise and amber mist, a surreal tryst at best. To find myself trudging through clouds with a needle and thread in my hand striving to sew my person in a canvas, already complete. Trying to find myself in a lens carved in crystal.
If there were a way for me to go back and intertwine my person and perception through a map, I would stitch my soul into a song. I would set sail to ‘Suzanne’, begging her to take me down to the place by the river where I could see the boats go by and spend the night forever. Because I know that she’s half crazy and that’s the only reason I’d want to be there. I may not be big on tea and oranges all the way from China, but I’m big on crazy kind.

And I want to travel blind…


I

And you want to travel with her and you want to travel blind
You think you maybe trust her because she’s touched you
And she’s moved you
And she’s kind

Her eyes and ears were always open. Alert, attentive and apprehensive were the tools and survival the game. She rolled the dice a long time ago and just kept on rolling. A Gambler’s recourse if there ever was one.
They say crossroads only cross our paths once in a while. It isn’t often that we find ourselves at a major bridge - a choice that changes a life, or is it that we forget the bridges once we’ve burnt them?
“Who will it be sweetheart? You don’t have to be scared, just whisper it in my ear. No one will say anything, no one will hurt you. Just tell me, do you want to go home with Mom or Baba?” It is an odd thing standing in the middle of a court room trying to pick a parent when you’re eight years old. She felt that it was odd, it was odd wasn’t it….this couldn’t be normal? The judge seemed kind, so maybe the truth was the order of the day…
“Mom.”
She never figured out if it was the right choice.


II

He himself was broken long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a star

Her heart and head were always closed. Only her will functioned, a steely resolve that was unbreakable to the point that it was unbridgeable. It is what happens when one loses the bet, but refuses to fold.
Bridge number two was easier, it just didn’t work. It was only her, the vanity mirror, three fresh zits and eight pills of Valium. Fourteen is a good age to go, if one can’t find a reason to stay. Its enough to say you’ve tried and not enough to hate yourself for trying too hard. It was perfect.
A failed attempt at a fable. Tragic endings are poignant because they move people – finally, the ultimate curtain call for the teenage drama queen that no one understood.
Only, it proved to be the dress rehearsal.


III

She’s wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters
And the Sun pours down like honey on our Lady of the Harbour
And she shows you where to look amongst the garbage and the flowers
There are Heroes in the seaweed there are Children in the Morning

She had a winning smile. It had been practiced, painted and choreographed to perfection. It was flawless, unfathomable and therefore unreal. It was nice to know that fooling people was easy. All it took was a flash of teeth and glint in ones eye. It’s a power rush like no other – A follower’s deflection and a fool‘s redemption.
It is harder to map out a pinnacle point when the time span is ten years, hard to pick the one moment where the smiles crystallise and lose all humanity. Impossible to identify the time and place where she first faked it. The first fake laugh, the first fake ‘I’m fine’, the first fake ‘Its okay’, the first fake ‘Don’t worry about me’, the first fake ‘I’m so happy’. She never tried to phase out the lies or the truths.
They were too mangled to be different.


IV

Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water
He spent a long time watching from a lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him
He said all men shall be sailors then until the sea shall free them

The first tears she remembered. They always came after the door closed on his way out. Her Demon was her inspiration. It was a release like no other, to have an excuse to cry, even if it was perpetrated by sheer terror. It was permissible because it was passing. It never happened outside the hailstorm, which is why both he and she could accept it. It was forgivable. It was the only human thing about her.
It was always her favourite part.


V

They’re leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the Mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel Blind…

Her crosses came in different sizes. They were all easy to bear, because they needed to be. Some were just more memorable than others. Ten years marked the end of the biggest cross. The cliff-hanger to crash all others. An actual choice.
“Its up to you, you will stay here and do what you’re told or you can get lost.”
There are seconds that one can count, they are few and far between, but they exist. They are the slit in time that they show in the movies, where you can hear your heart’s superimposed beat and count each breath and the space in between every flicker of your eye lash. It was the biggest hand he had ever dealt her…and he was bluffing.
And she called him on it.


The hardest time to move is when the cast comes off.

The hardest moment to be free is when the shackles have been broken.

The hardest time to love is when you are free to do so.

Hard times come and wait…till you are finally ready to go.

Lifescapes

It was her face that was different, more so than anything else about her.
It was a painting and a symphony all at once. An array of sounds and a palette of hues danced across her cheeks and that was why she was beautiful.
She was more beautiful than anyone I had ever seen.

That’s the funny thing about faces; the more people try to hide the flaws the more they flaunt them. It’s almost as if every new blush stroke manifests itself somewhere else, the prettier the cheek the less bright the eye, the glossier the lip the less dazzling the smile. I have always marvelled at how women poke their way into perfection. Seldom realising that it is the flaws – the crevices, the laugh lines, the dimples, the freckles that make the face. The layers of cover up do only that, cover up.
Every face tells a story. At least if one is willing to hear it. The simplest ones tell the simplest stories – hard, honest, bitter... real. These are the faces with deep caverns cut into the cheek bones, canyons of time withered away in skin. These are eyes that are so bare they tell all, there is no mystery in these eyes because there is no hiding hunger and pain. There is no mystery in pain. These are the skins that, though seldom washed, are somehow touched by the sun more potently. They glow and shimmer as they bake. These are the lines that tell the stories that need to be told. We were wrong to assume that life lines were embedded in the scabs of our palms, they are emblazoned in the folds of our face.
Our life is what we find mapped in the bags under our eyes, in the depth of the curves that corner our mouth as we flash our teeth wide, in the crinkles on our forehead when we mark it with an expression. Any expression.

It makes sense for those of us who have the means, to cover it all up. Who wants to wear their stories for the world to see?
Who has such courage?

But she did and she was only nineteen. As I took her flowers - Narcissus (ironically, my favourite) and rather inappropriate now that I think about it – I made it a point not to look at her directly. I thought it might make her self conscious. Being burnt alive cannot be an easy story to wear, but she did it with spunk. She told me to look at her, said that it wasn’t that bad. In fact her exact words were that she had found the only way to become fair overnight, she had only missed a few patches, but extra strength liquid bleach would take care of that. As she said this, her smile was slightly lopsided, the kind of smile that begs you to take the joke from the tail and roll with it so that the teller can laugh a little more at their predicament. I am not slow, I rolled and she laughed. Her stunning desi ‘sheen’ had been burnt away in rosy splotches and as I looked closely at each and every one of them I found that each accented her smile. Honestly, they did. Since everyone was embarrassed to look at her skin, they finally looked into her eyes. She had beautiful eyes, shy and sassy at the same time. She kept laughing at herself and I think that was the moment I fell in love with her. If it is possible for a woman to fall in love with another woman without wanting to jump her bones. I knew this game and I knew it well. I knew how to save face when the face was bashed in, I knew how to laugh at myself just so there was something to laugh about. She said that her mother had finally jinxed it all, she always told Nadia that she was gorgeous and if she were only fairer she’d land a Gora from Bora Bora. I told her that dudes from Bora Bora were hardly ‘gora’, which we both found rather disappointing because a gora from England just didn’t elicit the same enthusiasm. I told her that my mother had said the same thing, only in my case it was the weight. Perhaps I should try and get run over for default liposuction. We both laughed.

Then she asked me if her life was over. I looked at her for a minute and right before I opened my mouth she told me that if I was the friend she thought I was, I would say it as I saw it. I told her to read ‘Taming of the Shrew’ again. This time we cried.
As I was leaving she told me, that if I could survive my life she could survive hers. Then she got out of the creaky hospital bed stood in front of me and we both did the Carrey Bradshaw Head toss followed by a “We’re single and Fabulous!”.

She really was more beautiful than anyone I had ever seen.

Jedi Master Bullshit & the Bitch from the Blue Lagoon

I have never felt the need to see myself this way and I hate that She could make me do so.

I am one of those quirks of nature that like to think of themselves as the pinnacle of the universe. While I recognise that I have very little to offer anyone and that I am more of a mess than the average Lahore street corner, I still find myself constantly measuring everyone else in venomous doses. This is rather odd, when one takes into account the fact that I am a social misfit who likes to hide in corners and inadvertently begrudge other people their success. Perhaps the most loathsome thing about me is the fact that I can never own up to any of this, I am always impeccably polite, cordial and consistently bashful. This usually means that while I may actually want to rip a person’s face off and use it as an ass wipe, I am more likely to offer them a nice cup of tea and an invitation to come and stay at my house and borrow all of my belongings.
I, my friends, am Jedi Master Bullshit.

My biggest problem is the fact that I am plagued by the intellectual racism that persists in society. One might perhaps think that this particular form of racism does not exist in Pakiland, but I tell you it does. More so, because it is so rare. My ‘issue’ being that I am not half as smart as I would want to be, but smart enough to know that I want to be smarter. It is a conundrum. I spend my days walking through a void of maladjustment, reading as many volumes by the stodgiest of authors I can find to impress innocent bystanders who ought to remain innocent and stand by. There is a glitch in my plan (which is why it obviously hasn’t yielded any results) : I am hopelessly inept at marketing myself. This - I am told by the few people that I agree to converse with on a semi-regular basis – is a fatal flaw for a young, twenty something woman, who wants to be someone in this life. I work in a newspaper office, one with a certain measure of repute, and I am not so proud but apathetic enough to announce that I do absolutely nothing of any consequence. I edit the random musings of even more random people from around the globe ranting and raving about how ‘they’ think the problems of this country can be solved in less than 300 words and then I wait. I wait for the clock to strike nine so that I can walk out of the doors of this building littered with an army of academic casualties. I have yet to join the ranks, of which I do not know if I am grateful or in mourning.

I met her a few days ago in a restaurant where I and the social degenerates I usually consider ‘of my kin’ hang out. I use the expression ‘hang out’ loosely, for I seldom subscribe to the principles of this term which imply a degree of comfort and being at ease, two things which I can never relate to. By hanging out I simply mean my partaking of any form of voluntary social interaction. ‘She’ was dressed to the nines, glamorous and a snob. I mean this judgmentally and I am very proud to finally admit to it. I am often told by acquaintances that I need to embrace my ‘femininity’ more and I have never understood what this means. I enjoy dressing up now that I am permitted to do so and I especially enjoy ornamenting myself with ridiculous jewellery and unconventional colours. I also subscribe, very dearly, to a fetish for shoes (which I believe is a trademark of all that is ‘Yin’ in this world, has two feet and falls under the classification ‘Homosapien’). I have many a time patted myself on the back for not being one of the people who needed to stamp themselves with three inch specs and sweatshirts to proclaim themselves as smart.
My complexes are far more complex, pun intended.

Anyway, as our conversation ran along career lines, She just happened to mention some of my problems. This monologue usually moves along the lines of “You know what your problem is….?”, and ends with me nodding my head in acknowledgment of the said problem and a determination to stick with it. This time however the entire sentence ran something like this “…you don’t know how to make the most of your looks in the workplace. One needs to smile and flirt - at least a little- I’m not saying you date your boss, but you need to be less Ram-rodish (this is my own term to replace the original, which in case you were wondering was ‘frigid’). I’m making twice the amount you make and I can barely even string together a proper sentence (again my own intervention - ‘She’ simply mentioned that I could do better than her if I so chose).

In all the years that I have been cornered and rendered speechless, this was an occasion I could never have seen coming. The Bitch had spoken. And once again she had rendered my Bullshit prowess mediocre at best. She quoted examples of the leagues of women who were in positions that they perhaps did not deserve to be in, were merit the criteria for selection. And I was forced to recount the many women I knew of who I felt ought to go out and get a brain. Apparently brains come in second to beauty and third to balls. These women usually have the latter two and the first therefore becomes irrelevant. I was also forced to remember all the Hollywood films I had seen of women suing men for sexual harassment, something that we are given to take as a norm here.
But then it occurred to me, we had found a loophole – in a country where by and large one can find the most frustrated men on the planet. Why not turn the tables? Pakiland: Ladies and Gentlemen – Land of the not-so-demure. After all, a smile and toss of hair can do wonders in a country where men often sport erections walking past a burka-clad woman in the street.

Needless to say my Bullshit self was no match for the Bitch from the Blue Lagoon.
She would always get ahead much faster than I.
She would always make more money than I.
She would always have more admirers than I.

I on the other hand would always have my Jedi Master Bullshit self.

“Girls always have an unfair advantage over boys. If they can’t get what they want by being smart, they can get it by being dumb.” – Yul Brynner.

Mo-ruse

The relative ruse of being in a state of general discontent is re-heallllly disturbing.

This is not a pit-stop I had ever conceived being stuck on and it is no picnic being angry, morbid or generally miserable by myself, with myself and of, on and in my surroundings. A nerve-wracking combination of the perpetual flu, the drudgery of work and the niggling thought that my life - dragging my person along for the ride – is headed nowhere.
It is hard work being morose.
I do not understand how people do it.

...And a crappy New Year

As it so happens, I find that I am not above writing out my New Year reveries, which is testimony to the fact that I am not the proverbial party girl this year…or any year for that matter. I am NOT complaining, or if I am than I am doing so with a much-displaced sense of grandeur. What is it about the holidays that prevents us from treating them with the blatant disregard that we offer to almost every other day? Is it the fact that we are all too aware that others are out partying it up all over the world?
If it is the latter, that still shouldn't be such a pickle. People party all the time and I am always not one of them. Why does it bug me on New Year's Eve? Perhaps my downfall is the fact that I refuse to immerse myself in the holiday blues with dedication, which is somewhat sadder than being sad on said day. There is an age-old contrived mechanism for the would-be depressives to attain new lows on New Year's Eve: Joni Mitchell records, fire places, frost and morbid TV films on Hallmark. I refuse to allow myself this treasure. I, instead resort to watching an animated Disney feature, this year its 'Cars', with a small tub of vanilla frickin' ice cream next to my Sui Northern-warning-antonym-of-a-heater. My play list invariably involves Chuck Berry, The Beegees and this year, in memoriam, James Brown. I vehemently refuse to let the blues set in. Elvis be damned (for this one night only).
Morbidity needs to be embraced, or so say the 'oh-so wise' sects of our post modernist literature. Morbidity makes us achieve unattained levels of genius, they say. I am not morbid and I can't carry it even with my best effort, which I have yet to exert for anything. I can't wear plaid colours and I cant not laugh at the dilemma that is destiny. My best effort at morbidity is that I admit New Year's Eve sucks. That's it, that's all the bitter venom I can spew forth.
I subscribe very dearly to the edict 'Save the best for Last'. Thereby on my dying day I am very likely to spew forth some words of such eloquent-sage-genius that the Angel of Death, himself will have to nod his head and say 'Aaho, changa aakhiya!' Yes my Angel prefers pedestrian. Every New Years Eve forces me to look my life over, which is why I hate this blasted holiday. The Grinch and I are synonyms today, which hardly helps matters considering the fact that the Grinch mostly had dibs on Christmas - but the sentiment still applies. 'Looking my life over' isn't high on my list of priorities, which apparently is a problem. There is one song that sums up my entire couch potato, laugh-through-life, no-goals-barred philosophy on life, love and all that could come in between if I ever let it - "Cleaning Windows" by Van Morrison.

I heard leadbelly and blind lemon
On the street where I was born
Sonny Terry, Brownie Mcghee,
Muddy waters singin 'Im a rolling stone'
I went home and read my christmas humphreys book on zen
Curiosity killed the cat
Kerouacs dharma bums and on the road

Whats my line?
Im happy cleaning windows
Take my time
I'll see you when my love grows
Baby dont let it slide
Im a working man in my prime
Cleaning windows...

Carbohydrate Thinking

I think I have been 'thinking' all together too much these days. It isnt even a specific type of thought that I have managed to entangle myself in, just random musings of absolutely everything and consequently nothing.

Too much thinking is definitely not good for me. Its a lot like carbs in that manner. The more you indulge yourself the more it sticks to your ass!

Not that that ever stopped me from indulging.

Boxes over Bedlam

I fear that my dream of laughing life away may be floundering.

Apparently it is not a responsible notion to have such a limited goal. I have been told, at great length, that it is not practical to expect so little of life. That writing in one's journal and backpacking through the years is not a suitable lifeline to hope for.
WHY?
In essence it is perhaps the hardest pinnacle to crave, it is the deepest struggle - to be happy for as long and as often as one can be. How is this not a noble enough cause? Why do we need to say that we want to 'get rich' and 'famous' to be taken seriously.

They ask me what I want to do and I respond, "I want to be insanely, ecstatically, fanatically happy".

They stare at me and blink thereby...

Picking up from the nonsensical ramblings of my last entry, the question lingers in different tangents. I find that regardless of conformity the struggle to be true to myself is ever-pervasive. It is still there, but it seems to be getting easier. Atleast I like to think it is. The last week has been a productive one, I seldom have those. Sometimes it takes forced company to get over ones' phobias. And noone can deny the phobias are many. I discover that when coerced in company im not half bad. Good even, when need be.
Heres to victory! This probably calls for a 'victus' battle cry at midnight in a gladiator outfit.
I don't have a gladiator outfit. Plus i'd have to shave my legs, so i'll scratch that.

Back to the mythical point that I need to prove exists and hence probably doesnt. Why is it that most of us (political correctness ever important) bracket the romance department. I have always nurtured the subjective belief that a perfect other exists. He is real and one fine day a not-so-random shopping mall, rainy street or bookstore will bring us together. Lightening will strike and the Beachboys will play 'Wouldnt it be nice' in the backdrop. If that be the case than what are the perfect similarities and perfect differences that make this 'other' perfect? Just a notch over or under the prescribed recipe and the fabled love is either over or under cooked. I watched the little Mermaid for the umpteenth time yesterday. 'The seaweed is indeed greener in somebody else's Lake' - I mean poor, demented Ariel simply needed to fall in love with a human. It just so happened that the first one stupid enough to fall off his boat in the middle of a hailstorm was a prince who was handsome. But what if she had been practical and decided to test most human men before 'choosing' the one. Whom would she have picked or would she not have picked at all and waited. I mean what happened after the rainbow glittered over Ariels wedding boat?
Is that how the notion 'love' came into play?
Did it simply become too hard to wait for perfection, think about it? Thereby the dependence on one all-powerful emotion that would help us overlook all the cracks and the flaws and settle. When all the signs blink red, one can say that love was the culprit. Love was the noose. Love was the excecutioner. Love made it 'worth it'. I have always longed to say those words, hopefully not with regret as most of us do.

Nevertheless, had we waited for Mr or Ms Right...perhaps love wouldn't have been that important. The pieces would fit, it would be perfect. The 'practicality' of 'perfection' would easily win over the silly stigma that is emotion. Two people who were 'made for each other' would be happy and the x factor wouldn't need to exist. Monogamy would be overruled by biology (which lets face it, it often is) and ecastacy by comfort.

Boxes over Bedlam...
It is the most loathesome notion ever.

Sheep in Shepard's clothing

The compound mysteries of the universe seem so base when we view them through the eyes and hear them through the ears of others. Looking out at the cosmos can only be described along the premise of words that have been used by others in the past ‘vast, magnificent, deep, dark…’ We are so impenetrably content to continue along the cliché’s set out before us. Our competence measured only by what we can reproduce rather than what we can produce. The finalities of ‘objectivity’ often prove disconcerting - it is rather taxing to discover that the human composite is broader and simultaneously more bracketed than any other species on the planet. We are a confounded race, denounced by our perfections and announced by our imperfections. Only a mirage of preconceived notions and sell-out sycophants can survive on the basis of copying over creating.

It is a parallel of impossibility. To know not what becomes of the mind and binds the soul to precepts and concepts that need outside sponsorship. For some reason it is never enough for us human beings to believe in something unless we can convince others to do the same. An abstract collage of ‘wills’ and ‘wont’s’ does nothing to dispel the notion that we are no more than our compound being - perhaps not even a little. By and large we do not exist beyond the dust that forms us and the ideas that free us.

Any idea travels its very own, intrinsic wormhole before it is complete, indeed, if it ever is so. If every new thought holds its premise in an old thought or interconnected thought and if every new idea is layered with the undertones of logic, creativity and time – how does ‘creation’ take place? A more apt description would be re-creation and that too, over lifetimes and lifeless lines. According to Plato, an artist is quite passive during the act of creation. Indeed the artist is quite literally in the grips of the creative process. Such an account of creativity hardly flatters the artist. Not only is the artist’s ‘activity' inherently passive but the responsibility for creation is transferred elsewhere. Thereby, underlining the age-old gap that frames the un-availed transit between the Philosopher and the Artist – a reluctant admiration but a discord in algorithms. Generally speaking it is the formers dependence on logic and boundaries and the latter’s disdain for them that separate these two tangents.

A true Artist is a romantic in either parody or principle and a true Philosopher is a realist in both. Many have called it the unbridgeable gap even though many have tried to cross the divide by taking what is politely termed as the ‘middle route’. This approach in itself poses a problem, is the middle route merely another layer of sheep skin that allows mankind to fit in with the herd and adapt, or is it the ‘meant to be’ we long for? If not, and that is a big ‘if’ and a bigger ‘not’, than the absolutes are the only ones who have the courage to be themselves regardless of the consequences. In a manner of speaking, they are the only ones willing to retain the ground carved out for them over centuries of stigma.

It is so tragic that there is little room for ideas left in this world. Ideologies have replaced ideas and tyrannical idioms have replaces idylls. We are a nation of sheep, my friends. Even the Lions and Wolves no longer recognise themselves.

We are followers of followers of followers, not a confounded leader in sight!

Second base

What are the odds!
I find myself plagued by one of my deepest fears realised.
A lump.

So off to the hospital it is, for a mammogram, which by all definitions is an uncomfortable experience. Checked and cleared off all C-charges, my sigh of relief follows more along the lines of the gale that huffed and puffed the little piggies' house down.

"Nothing more than a pulled muscle".
Now to investigate how the hell I could have pulled a muscle in my breast!

But that comes later.

First I have to get over the fact that the first dude to get past second base with me was a doctor whose name I cant remember and whose face I wish i didn't.

Patches and Goodbye's

It is an enormity of parallels.
To find oneself eclipsed between old songs and memories. I watched a History Channel biography on Cat Stevens yesterday and it brought back the days when I used to write purely for the sake of writing. A catharsis that can only be experienced by fellow misfits: Invisible people. When I was invisible I was invincible. My corners were a fortress of masked truths and free visions.
Much changes with freedom.

Today I know that I have lost some of my way. I have bent in a way I never thought I would, I have bent my mind. It used to be my body. It is a hard fact to admit: that we do many of the things we do, only to fit in. Even when we want to stand out, we still want to stand out in a manner that is contrived. The deepest chains bind you, when you are finally free.
And this time you are the gatekeeper.

Oh very young
What will you leave us this time
Youre only dancing on this earth for a short while
And though your dreams may toss and turn you now
They will vanish away like your daddys best jeans
Denim blue fading up to the sky

And though you want them to last forever
You know they never will…

And the patches make the goodbye harder still

Today I woke up to a Stevens playlist.
It opened with 'Love is in the Air' and for a brief moment while I was driving to work, Lahore was at its most magnificent. The tonga's swayed and the beggars smiled. And I marvelled at how a man who wrote songs that sang to the spirit could give them up for the notion that God doesn't like music or dancing or joy.

Then it closed with "I Love my Dog more than I love you".

A ramble of proportions unparalleled

There are so many questions that seem to get lost in the not asking.
So many thoughts that are fragmented in the not thinking.

I fear of late that it is change that scares me the most. The reason why this notion is terrifying is because I have, for quite long, held myself together by the delusion that I embrace change better than most. Being on of those - a child of circumstance and crass corruption - it is infernally hard for me to accept that I may not actually 'be' who I am in my head. I have yet to figure out which version of self is less preferable. However, circumstances are forcing me to make the choice and deal with my manifold delusions. I am free inside my head. I am anything but outside of it. My cerebellum flower child spirit comes from within, so does my noxious need for approval. Needless to say it is not a pretty struggle.

Telling onesself that one is self-sufficient, solitary, silly and sassy at the same time does not make it so. It appears that we cannot, in fact and fiction, have our cakes and eat them too. What a ginormous fall from grandeur. I am not claiming in any way that I have reconciled myself to reality: that would be too big a betrayal of the seven year old girl who first locked her door to read Dahl's Matilda amid screams of scorn.
I have seen reality.
I have known it.

My delusions are not subterfuge, they are self effacing and well contrived to keep my rose-tinted spectacles intact and glossy. I believe very much in the notion that fiction only trumps fact when one accepts that it is fiction and would much rather live with the story than the truth. It is only worth savouring when we recognise it as it is. "I know that this is not the real world. I have chosen otherwise." It is the poor sods who believe the fiction to be fact that are destined to be hit over the head with it time and again.
If we are all damned anyway, what does it matter how it comes about.
Or does it?
Is that all that matters?

Many a great man (implying that there have been many great men) has said that our lives are shaped by the choices we make. Even if all the choices lead to the same conclusion and take off from the same pick-up point...it is the 'in-betweens' that gear our gait. If that truly is the case, then all that matters 'ought' to be following ones' dreams, making ones' mistakes and sucking the proverbial marrow out of life.
A dreamers recurse if there ever was one.

Animal Forum

I came accross a writer's inordinate lack of regret for displaying a sheep-skin rug. She said that sheep were stupid and therefore did not extract much sympathy.

I can relate.

I do agree that sheep tend to be quite foolish. However, one must consider D-u-n-keys, I mean the poor creatures from time immemorial were ivented for hard labour. Also, I can never feel sorry for Chickens, it is a weird looking contraption of a thing. I have a Khala who feels sorry for chickens and all animals - my hippiosity is much more selective.

I will glare daggers at anyone draped in a Shatoos because, well Bambi had major ranking in my life. However I simply cannot bring myself to indulge in a love for Chicken Little, atleast not to that degree. That would mean not eating chicken. It simply cannot be done. Thereby Chicken Little is just too whiny. Also Chickens just produce weirdly, not that I have ever found the reproductive process - in any animal, especially human's - remotely endearing, but with Chickens it is plain screwed up. I do, however, appreciate God's tiny Jack-in-the-box with Sea horses: a dude doing the 'give birth' thing is small consolation, but i'll take it.
Every egg has the potential of being a chick, given the right temperature. So basically scrambled eggs are scrampled fetus, poached are poached fetus, fried are....ugh. See Chickens are just wrong.

We are all selective in our animal loves and loathes. I mean, who in their right mind would defend the right of life for a Lizard. Those who do, refer to part: 2 of the previous sentence and cease further argument.

Sheep are also inordinately stupid - symbolically. 'A nation of sheep', 'lost flock', 'gather your herd'....dumb ass things never do anything for themselves. Now see lambs, those are cute - they should just never grow up. Tinkerbell needs to meet Mary, so that the latter can always have her:
'Ickle, wittle wambie'
With fleece as white as snow
To follow her till Kingdom come
Wherever, whenever, however ... she goes

A no equal C

Having debated, in a manner of thinking, syllogisms of sorts. I discover that logic aint' my thing and never can be. Perhaps not the best of omens to connect with, considering GRE is two months away.

And apparently if A= B and B=C : then A=C.
I shall never agree, what if A only equals B when its in a good mood, having danced till dawn and what if B can only match C in a fist fight, when its hipped up on stereoids and nothing else. Then A can never equal C, who is understandably (hah) good at fist fights, because A is a pacifist.
"Me no LIKEY!"

Also the whole God thing...after moderate consideration - which is more than I award to most things unless they involve the genius witticisms of Daffy Duck or Tom and Jerry - I have dicovered that Divinity IS damned.

I am not damned.
I don't like damned.
Therefore I am not divine.
There- also-fore, I dont like divine.

I can think of atleast two people, who if reading this are probably perched on railings waiting to jump. Dont JUMP - have a Coca Cola. All the answers lie in a bottle of Coke. I have the answers to all ontological dilemma's - they are fizzy and beautious.

We must all drink of the Coke
Lest a swarm of bottlecaps bruise thy into oblivion...

....Aah oblivion!