I am bad !

And once HR wrote somewhere in her diary:

My world is old…surprisingly old…achingly old…beautifully old...hmm....

They say that when its 8 am of a morning…it is still 1938 with me…and they – whoever “they” might be in this case…are right.

Among the latest gadgets and iPhones…and what not…HR is still living in 1940…and once you meet HR you will wonder whether she is real or is she a character came to meet you from a World War II movie.

You loath to see her…whenever you see her emerging out of rickshaw and crossing the road with small and decided steps you take a deep breath to get ready for some old drama…

...hmm...you looked around and think you are the only thwarted and most unlucky one to have her…why not you get someone better…someone to give you hope for future…someone to please you…but no…sometimes life is very unfair…and that is how life is treating you this time now…isn’t it?

What HR wants to say to you is that…she is really sorry...but its not her fault…she is entrapped in her books…you see she is very bookish…she seldom smile…she rarely laugh…and more over she will never ever say any thing without counting to 10.

And she knows that she is the most difficult person to be with…she don’t expect you to like her…since HR knows she held way up a position and you with your little tiny brain can not even grasp what her tendency is…

...so as you are bound to spend few more Saturdays with HR…hmm...she would humbly and sincerely suggest you to... BEAT IT !

Practical Demonstration

I met Uncle K after so many years…that was fun…he throw a party for all the relatives and I am now as he said left by family alone here I has to join.

As usual…hmm...when you meet after very long time any of your friend or acquaintances you think or try to remember all the good time you have spent with that person…for Uncle K…my brain got a little bit of memory…not much.

A two or thrice meeting in his grand house…his old mother’s ranting about good old time…and him at that time a young man shying away from ladies.

However, why I kept his memory is because…Uncle K has his ways to tell you about something…he will do it practically so that you can understand him without him using words and at the end he will tell you that exactly like this it happened…he is not good with words…hmm...once he was telling me that how a certain person scold him and punch him and without waiting further ado he tried to punch me on face…on my protest he said…but I am only demonstrating its not like I will going to punch you actually…but by that time I knew that Uncle K has his own way of DEMONSTRATION…he will always do it practically. 

One day he was driving me to school and there were four other children of same school whom we picked going along the same road…I was in front…suddenly he started talking about how a bad driver his mother is and to demonstrate – “ Whenever a huge big truck or a trolley like that one…(we all saw that one water tanker was on its way towards us…) coming loomed into sight it would take mother infinite time to spot it, ‘ cause she can’t see…are you following what I am saying here…she can’t see.”
He rubbed his eyes furiously to show me, “And I ‘d say, “Whoop look out mama, a truck.” And she’d say “Enn? What’s that you say baita?”, “Truck..! Truck…!” and at the very last moment she would go right up to the truck like this .” and Uncle K hurled the car at the truck roaring our way, wobbled and hovered in front of it a moment, the truck driver’s face growing gray before our eyes, the children in the back seat subsiding in gasps of horror...hmm....swung away at the last moment. “Like that, you see exactly like that, how bad she was.”

I can’t say that I was afraid…but I was kind a speechless…in fact I was thinking what he would do if I ever complain so this little incident got stamped on my brain and seeing him after so long it came back to me…I smiled and asked him do he have the international driving license for which he replied sarcastically that he has none...well what shall I say…lucky Ontarians.

At that moment....

And that moment when HR was deeply engrossed in a conversation with a plumber telling him all about what and how she wants him to work in her kitchen while suddenly....
...her nearby neighbors start playing an Indian song...."Doori...Doori na rahay koi....Ajj itnay qareeb ao..." (Come so close today that there will be no space between us...hmm...pardon for my translation...)....

....and exactly at that moment...
hmm....what shall I say....that's embarrassing...hunh !

Ligitimate Rejection

All of us can detect...identify...acknowledge it as soon as it happens to us...we may have faced it periods of time...hmm...
.....but not even for a single instance we think of it legal...proper or sensible....we may feel indifference...annoyance....mild anger...but never accept it as deserving...

All of us knows what it feels like to be disliked...rejected...abandoned... and most of the time it hurts...

Hurts because we are being hated for things we have no control over or being hated for the things we cannot change or the things we didn’t even have done...hmm....

So the best remedy to get rid of this or to deflect this HURT is to believe that the dislike or hatred is unjustified – you didn't deserve that...hmm....

You start ranting endlessly about it to all your closed friends and family members whom you feel comfortable to talk and they help you...help you built the wall against the hatred or to protect your self-esteem...ego...character...help you justify yourself to yourself and keeps you remember that this is a part of all human life....helps you move on...grow beyond it.

But not all of us are such lucky one...may be one of us is not confident enough to think oneself undeserving of this illegitimate hatred...may be one of us don't have such confidants to help one grow beyond unjustified rejection...and thus this powerful self-loathing may turn oneself into a dangerous...violent...brutal person.

....sometimes this unjustified hatred...rejection...make oneself surrender one’s identity...

The character completely melts into the persona which lacks ego...self respect and self-esteem.

There are some who collapse...hmm....silently...anonymously....with no voice to express or acknowledge it.

Have you ever felt it?

(Took inspiration from Toni Morrison...novel - The Bluest Eye )

"Kun! Fayakoon" 'Be! and it becomes'

Whenever He (Allah) intends a thing, He needs only to say: "Be (Kun)," and it is (fayakoon).
[ Yaasin - 36:82]

And it s near...so near that it is very hard to concentrate on anything else.

I am trying my best to keep calm but failing...heart wander and take me to it again and again...

I don’t want to talk about it...just keeping that in mind want to be happy and to keep waiting...as I have been doing so long...its like all my life I have been waiting...waiting for this...moment to come...

And some voice deep inside the heart keep calling....

Behold...its near...

Freedom...freedom is here...freedom is about to fall into your hands...or I will be falling into the hands of freedom...such excitement...such thrill...such suspense...

So many times I have failed...that failure has become part of my personality...I can even brag about it...I have somehow perfected myself in failing...overloaded myself...sometimes wished feebly that this weight is enough to drag me down into the ocean and end it all...

This time its different...this time it is for real...this time I can feel it...its near...

Freedom is near...I have already flapped my wings restlessly...can’t hold the anxiety...although I know I can’t dive right now....few more days...months...but its certain that soon the time will come... the time ...the time for my Lord to say...Kun...and I will take my final flight...

I will never stalled my flight...
I will never stop flapping my wings...
I will fly up and up and up...
I will never look back...no...
My time will finally arrive...KUN for me...setting me free...and behold..here I am coming...free...hmm...

Beloved

There is a saying that we meet everyone with certain reason...unknown to us.

The reason we sometimes can’t figure out since the person we met...lost before we understand the reason behind our meeting than instead of figuring out the reason of meeting we started our reasoning on losing each other...sometimes we only understand the reason of someone coming into our life when we lose them and no matter how hardly try...can’t figure out why we lost them.

Sometimes it’s useless thinking about the reason of losing someone if that person is already gone and you are sure that there is no other way you may get the lost one back...which is only when the lost one is dead...so than you are free...free to ponder on the meeting..losing...reasons...a good past time...a good way to remember....but in case the lost one is still alive...breathing somewhere...it is advisable to keep a decent distance and keep your mouth shut...because as soon as that person come near again you will...as if you have no WILL...will start falling for that one once again....which is very embarrassing as if you are such a lousy failure that all this time you done nothing but tried to overcome the distance between lost one and yourself.

Is this what you think that I have been doing all these years when you deject yourself from me?

Partly it is YES...yes I have been thinking about you a lot...there were time when I forget you completely but soon after a bit of time the remembrance came back...bouncing...with the exact reaction force with which I have pushed that away...hit me...touched me...lowered me...humbled me.

Only now I don’t think about the reason of finding...loosing....finding...it became like a circle...always ends up at the beginning...

I want to weigh our relationship...in terms of worthiness...does our being together worth anything...does our loosing each other brought any happiness to both sides...does re-uniting will bring any change...confidence...happiness...does our relationship worth anything in our world?

For me...it does...I valued you... and will...keep valuing you....Don’t know about YOU.

The beloved you've lost 

but you’ve chained me down 

stolen away my heart 

leaving yourself behind 

now I have lost my way 

my soul restless 

and head twisted 

all because of those secrets 

you once whispered 

I only must keep

fasting my heart 

to set me free 

from sleepless nights 

since your only advice 

when you saw me in flame 

was to keep burning 

with you or with your thoughts 

words of wisdom 

came to me at last 

“the beloved you’ve lost 

the one you’ve been seeking outside 

can only be found inside” 

– Ghazal 2582, from the Diwan-e Shams 

Translation by Nader Khalili 

“Rumi, Fountain of Fire” 

Cal-Earth Press, 1995

Fairy GodMother

Dear Blog...I have news...hmm...

I had a colleague...although working on higher position since she and I used the same Office Van we often got chance to talk to each other except those were only few remarks on weather and other petty things in office...not more than that because she lived so near the Office that she was always the first one to drop and last one pick so we hardly got few minutes together more hardly to engage each other in conversation due to the continuous loud music in the back ground emitting through the Office Van’s speaker which were exactly placed on our heads...that is the Van’s Middle Roof...

As the story goes, once she read one of my article in my Facebook notes and wrote a comment in praise...the problem with me as usual is don’t know how to take the praise...and more worst is that how to reply those praising remarks so although she wrote it few hours ago and must have forgotten all about that I reading it at once blushed and for few minutes do not know what to say...and thus as I couldn’t come up with a better reply so I let her remark unanswered...hmm....

As I lost the job and lost my house and inevitably my dream came true as an old HAG in RAGS...I lost her contact too.

Few days ago I was just roaming in my Hotmail account since I forgot its password and it took fifteen days for the Microsoft to confirm every details about me to provide me the new password...

I saw her email...she asked me write something as I used to write during my Office days...at first I thought what the hack let the email gone by wind and if we ever meet again (which I strongly believe not possible)...

I would tell her that I lost that email account...but then suddenly my flare flickered itself so hard that I had to obey... I wrote few articles and send her...she asked for my number too which I sent with the article after few hours she replied on my phone that she has selected one of the article and it will be published in August Issue...hmm...

Now...the epic scene arrived in the story...she for the first time revealed herself (which is like in Cinderella movies the Fairy godmother suddenly reveals her true identity by magic leaving Cinderella dumbfounded for good five minutes to overcome her joy...surprise...the amazement...so on and so forth...)she told me that after leaving the previous job in which I used to be her colleague she joined this highly ranked English Magazine as an Editor In-Chief and she has selected one of my article to be published in August Issue...no wonder it dumbfounded me...

...and I don’t know what to say in return as usual...I tried to humble myself wrote back with lots of thank you...and stuff like that but I don’t think that these would compensate the favour she is doing to me....

Whenever I think of it...it feels so romantic...someone read you in your old days come back with that memory and suddenly give the chance of your life...you were waiting whole your life...although one article would not lead me to the NOBEL as was my determination but at least I would not remain the unpublished one too...yah? Something is better than nothing.

Time to time this strange feeling also creeps into my heart that may be she was just making fun of me and in August I will be searching desperately her Magazine in vain (which is so expensive I can buy few books with the same amount) I would find nothing and she would be sitting somewhere with her friends making jokes about how she managed to take fool out of me...but next instance I get rid of this awful feeling...as she told me that I will get the August issue for free...so my fears are just my fears nothing more...

She is definitely one of those wonderful miracle makers God thrown in between our hard and rough ways to fall for HIM all over again and I am sure I DID....only....August is so far away...hmm...

Exchange

As it always happens to me ...time to time....I get this feeling that I have wasted enough of my life and so far has not read the enough books...hmm...which got me freaked out and I closing all the doors to the social world (unless it is necessary) start reading the books...

I don’t know but I always feel like in debt to all the good books out there and thinks it is my duty to read them...somewhere someone written a very nice...informative...sensitive and creative book and I am just roaming around not even a single second thinking about what actually I am missing...for me...this is very very very...bad.

As a child I used to calculate...hmm...I used to make the calculations in my diary about the books I would have read by the certain age I reached...my calculation was very simple...for me one week is more than enough to finish a book...adding...everyday routine as three time meals...one time shower...one hour with mum...and one hour for my pets seems like a good plan to me...

I can even make notes...can feel the passion...and can move on for the next one...and if one week is enough than it makes almost 50 books per year...and if I somehow would manage to read all these books a year depending on searching...finding and finally having them beforehand ....lots of lots of books I should have read by the age I am...but...nope...as I said I have wasted lot of time...causes were sometimes created by my own...and sometimes as the Air Plane Tickets disclaimer says...” Works of God”...

Does this sound irrational? Do you think I am exaggerating?

Consider yourself during a hectic day...phone ringing every second...pile of files lying on your desk so high that hides you behind them ...searching something desperately on the Google as your next meeting is in few minutes and you are the one leading it...and suddenly you looked up and saw a calendar hanging just in front of you and this calendar containing the current month scattered throughout the half page and the upper half page got this very enchanting scenery of some distant ...out of reach...dreamy place or park and even though you should not be thinking anything else...you feel the numbness towards everything scattered around you and so wanted to be there....yes...in that dreamy...enchanted...lonely place...at that exact point...if you will be asked I am sure you will readily exchange your place...from here to that dreamy...soothing...gentle place...

hmm....See...?

That is exactly how I feels...the longing for the books...to read every master piece...to read contemporary at the same time the classics...to be able to remember them...to be able to talk about them...to be able to live with them...this is for me...my exchange from this social world to that wonderful world of books....

The difference is...hmm....you may not exchange your place (unless you have some witch on broom as your friend who would happily give you a favour)....but I can...chee...

I can exchange my social world to that world of books...and so right now I am writing this from that book world of mine...hope all is well with you.

Forgiven !

Chin in my hands I kept brooding over recent incidents...I really wanted to go out have some ice cream and be cooled...at least for a while...instead....cemented on the chair...kept thinking....hmm...

You can forgive every other person in this world...the thief who stole your purse...the milkman who charged you more... plumber cheated you on kitchen’s basin...drivers high jacked your car park...neighbourhood children putting elfi in your door lock.... if someday any of them turn to you miserable...and ask for your forgiveness...what you going to do..hmm...?

You will simply smile no matter how you really wanted to slap the person you will emit the words..like...
okay okay no big deal...
dont feel bad...I either...
sorry I don’t even remember that...

hmm...thats what you gonna say embarrassed enough to get rid of the situation as soon as possible as if you are the one confessing your sin...asking forgiveness...you will simply give them a chance to be a better person to the next person they will meet...even if they failed to be one with you...to you...

So it is easy to forgive...and yet so hard if it is to forgive one own self...to forget and to move ahead...to be better person next time...why I could not forgive myself?

Even as an adult...coming to this age...getting wiser everyday has not change anything...my status is still like...hmm...brooding over mistakes...lies...oversight....

I still wish that I could go back and change things :
the ungainly lies my mouth emitted...
the insecurity I had felt...
all the innocent mistakes I made or were them not innocent?

I am trying hard to give me reasons for my perversion...but all I feel is the resentment...hatred and rage against myself. I should not have done that...I should not have accepted that....

I should have known that forgiving is very hard especially when it comes for one own self...every day every time whenever I ask myself for pardon I got the fit of furry...for myself.

I failed myself to be myself....I have disappointed myself...humiliated myself.

And no matter how I reason with myself...I just can’t forgive myself.

hmm...what a lovely...holly word this is...FORGIVEN.

Diary

If you’ve ever tried to keep a diary, then you’ll know that the problem of trying to write about the past really starts in the present : No matter how fast you write, you’re always stuck in the THEN and you can never catch up to what’s happening now, which means that now is pretty much doomed to extinction.

(A Tale for the Time Being – Ruth Ozeki)

I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.

(The Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank)

So this is what people think about their diaries...hmm...you may confide anything to it...yet no matter how much you write on its fine blank pages...

I wish that somehow they have EARS... Yes...EARS...not the tongue but the EARS (one ear would do also) so if my diary has ears I think it would be more convenient for a person like me who always have so much negative to write about this world...this is very difficult for a person like me who managed herself somehow to present in such a positive manner to this world that when I truly sometime reveal my true identity people brush it off as something like for a time being after the episode I will go back to them saying sorry and will again resume my shell of being a courteous...hmm...humble and abased.

By the way, this reminds me of a lady (my ex-boss already more than 70 years of age when I used to work for her I am not sure her still living...does not mean that I want her dead by now...but...okay...okay...back to actual story)...
...she used to tell me (instead of her being very polite and humble) that nobody knows how rude she is...and I being not able to understand her...used to laugh aloud...

hmm...now I understand what she meant...now I am one of that “the” most rude person pretending to be very nice and humble but inside her heart melting with rage never getting courage to tell them that how foolish and stupid they are...how absurd how naive...

I can see their fake faces...I can feel their masks...I can see inside them...that how their insecurity led them talking endlessly without thinking that their talking reveals their true identity...it is more easy to be quite and let the other people do the talking...a never failing trick.

So this is ME...writing the same in my diary wishing it having ears to listen to me which I am right now feeling...which I don’t want to write but to say it loudly...since I can’t shed this negativity I feel time to time...when I hear those foolish...illogical...and absurd talking wishing myself patience to bear them and courage at the same time to tell them the truth.

hmm...seems like I am asking too much from my diary...anyone there to lend me an ear?

Observation Machine

As a child I used to rolled a lolly pop in my mouth like a sourball until I had its taste and feel.

As a grown up sometimes...when I hear something I fail to grasp at first listening it I usually repeat it to my mind again and again like a little child rolling lolly pop in my mouth until I can feel its taste on my tongue...and that is how I rolled his name around my mind until I became fluent with it...hmm....

Mustansar Hussain Tarar...now ...you too...try it..hmm...

It all started with, ‘Bahao’ his masterpiece...I read it and that led me to roll his name’s sound into my mouth again and again.

hmm...I have given up on Writers...not the famous ones are really good writers and not the good writers are good human beings...it simply means that good creativity does not promise you good character.

But when I met Mustansar Hussain Tarar, his simplicity impressed me.

He said that it is blessing from ALLAH (SWT) to make him such a famous and accomplished writer as he don’t have any other skills to feed him or to have such beautiful family. He also claimed that being a wanderer it must be his luck backing him up on attaining such success as a writer.

I like/admire his wit, its amazing to sit with someone so famous yet feeling comfortable not being once disturbed by the awkward silence you feel when you don’t have words to fill in the spaces between speeches...he never need those little speeches to encourage to speak up.

He always do his homework about where he is going...to whom he will meet...what kind of people would be there to greet him and so soon after you settle yourself opposite him he will start the conversation...and its always the same...

I have met him four to five times now....never seen him disorganized...miscalculated or out of words.

Once he told me that the Writers are so different from people who don’t write or don’t want to write or could not write...the Writers have kind of Observation Machine fitted into their mind...rescuing...noting...documenting every bit of what eyes are seeing...hmm...

....he went on as he remember every details of his father burial and said that at that point ‘..., ‘I asked myself that I should not be making notes isn’t so sad that my father died why not the grief blinded me or make me so dumb to record any of this? ...but I couldn’t help it...I was there and I was noting down every little details.’

I usually don’t like to meet famous people...as I said earlier...if I like a writer I go ahead reading all his work...in case of an actor watch his soaps or every on air dramas...but sometimes I make exceptions....and I am glad that I made that exception for Mustansar Hussain Tarar.

Reader

I should only make myself ridiculous in my own eyes if I clung to life and hugged it when it has no more to offer. 

Do you know what actually every living being is a reader only.

We are actually reading our story which is not written by us but we are forced to read it aloud so that we can be heard by others...sometimes it does us good since without reading perhaps we would never have seen ourselves clearly just by reading myself aloud I am actually making myself understand me...hmm...

The first line is the last sentence said by Socrates and soon after that he took the poisoned hemlock and ended his life.

His friend Crito was just asking Socrates to take more time...what is the rush for drinking poisonous water...let us celebrate...let us have a feast...perhaps you should ask for little luxury as your last wish...but Socrates sustained his friends request by simply saying that why wait when there is nothing more left....

I think Socrates knew that he have fully read his book and now there are no more stories left to continue the session but ofcourse how would I know...I was not present there...may be Crito told him to hurry up drink the water so that the world soon after his death recognize his real talent and make a statue of him...so that they can burden their coming generations to read and understand Socrates to understand life and they can discover a new branch of Science and call it Philosophy....I understand to make a new branch they needed sacrifices...may be Socrates was just freaking out by his unseen future and was out of his mind....and his disciples make all this up...as I said...I was not there.

But....I have seen my mother in her last stage...few more people...they become calm and kind of relaxed that they have finally come to the end of their book...perhaps by the end of the story the reading aloud fatigued so much the reader that s/he only want this to be end anyway...good way or bad way...just anyway.

Now you know that few books are lengthy and few hardly make any weight...so by just grabbing it you have this automatic feeling about how much this book reading will take your time...and so is we...by just going through different events of life...sensed our time in this world.

I just wonder that whatever my book held....does its starting and ending make any sense to anyone who is listening to me reading it aloud? Because I hardly make any sense to me so far...hmm....

What kind of dumb and boring book my Lord placed me with? ...even my highly appreciated reading skills failed me to make it interesting...if I had a choice to make...I would have picked a book with adventure....drama...suspense and a little bit action in it...hmm....but I think we are not allowed to make choices...whatever...hmm...

Explain Heat

As human beings...hmm...we invented the languages...and words...and sentences...and phrases that explains...

We...hmm....as proud inventor of our languages and faithful to our words thinks that there is nothing in this word which is in-explainable...you got words...put them into papers forward it to the person sitting next to you and after reading your words...in the language you both know (of course) will understand what you are trying to explain....or simply say them.

Never mind those who...hmm...can’t read or write and not all of us are good putting whatever we are feeling into words but besides all these people most of us have this confidence that we are able to talk so other can hear us...listen to us...believe us...understand us.

But sometimes after all one must and someday learn that there are things...feelings...or even natural bearings you can’t explain.

It is like one has to suffer that...bear it...encounter or experience it oneself to get it understood...hmm....

Then you just have to mention words like...~you know~, hope you understand~ and the other person would spin the head in affirmation and without saying any other word it would satisfy you that you have made your point.

So when my 8 years old nephew called from Canada and said that he is so happy that summer is around and he has plans of going to long rides and will have some outside Bar B Q parties with family...

I told him that summer is very different in Karachi.

He asked me how summer feels...here?

Well..hmm...it was a tough one...I tried explaining him that its very hot here...sunlight heated everything so much that you can cook an egg on your car’s windshield.

But he seems amused and said that it was funny or might be I am not a very good demonstrator...what could I say...just blurted out few more nearest examples I could catch at that point of being ridiculed by an eight years old...but failed....we closed the conversation and moved on to the other topics.

Well how can I say...hmm...that you don’t know what heat is until you are in your 1992 model Suzuki Khyber old car...in an afternoon crossing the Shahrah e Faisal road in the summer.

You can’t just come up with words that catch it.

Some might be...like...

A: Trees give up.
B: You may cook an egg on your car’s windshield...

hmmm....what else...well...describe that if you know how.

Being in the Flock means....

Any of the Aesop’s fables will do as examples to begin with...hmm...

The fox who loses his tail in a trap and then tries to persuade all the other foxes to cut theirs off, because a fox looks better that way, is a situation that may be paralleled in human experience easily enough.

So...don't think its only with the animals...its with us human beings too...Aesop was very good in his fables....suits us all...hmm...

As I said there are others always trying to tell you what is better for you...making decisions for you knowing you least makes them more confident that they are doing a good job...less they know you the more determined they will be in making decisions for you.

I want to know that why I can’t make my voice heard...I tried few times explaining but seems like whether I am not talking the same language they do or perhaps I am just pretending to be talking while there is no voice at all coming from my mouth what so ever....like I said...I am not a fox without a tail...yah...so persuading is not my hidden talent...

As in Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Robert Bach said: Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you’ll see the way to fly.

To be different means to be alone...outcast....sitting where no one wants to sit beside you...isolated...I might not like their decisions for me but I also don’t want to be an outcast.

And I really don’t want to be different...isolated...a fox who loses its tail...I don’t want to work hard to make others believe that they will look better without the tail so get rid of it...I don’t want to be the one telling people that all their eyes showing them is false limitations...

I just want to be with the flock and be happy and gay as human feels with their fellow beings...so I don’t want anyone to stare at me and exclaimed ...ohh my my...whats happened to you? Or something like ohh...where is your tail...have you lost it accidently?

I just want to be like all of them...however if being with the flock means losing my common sense and reasoning...hmm...I might give it a second thought...(wink)

ME within me !

There is one ME within me, deep inside of me ~ Yunus Emre

One day Nasreddin Hodja lost the key of his treasure.

Although he searched the street in front of his house and around the neighbouring houses, as well as along the road to the village, he couldn’t find it anywhere.

So he called on his neighbours to help him find the key.

They also looked high and low and all around the village but to no avail. It was as if the ground had opened and swallowed it up.

Fortunately, sometime later, it occurred to one of the neighbours to ask the Hodja;

“Hodja, are you sure you dropped the key outside ?”

“Oh no, “ the Hodja said, “I dropped it inside, but to search outside is easier, that’s why I am searching out here.”

hmmm...I imitate ME...but this is not ME...this is someone look like me...wearing my face and having my voice...believe me I am not ME.

And does this really matters to you if you come to know that while talking to me you are not actually talking to Me...but the one imitating ME?

hmm...I think thats the whole point...just because what OTHERS will think about me I have to imitate...had I care less myself would not be imitating ME and would have been happily living being myself.

You know what...I think I am searching the key somewhere or from someone I never will find...perhaps new place...or new god???

hmm...so my dear dear Lord...now would YOU please tell me once for all that whether YOU want me to find ME or should I go somewhere else...to someone else for help?

...and being always a devoted slave....my parting words (as always) would be...

hmm....to ALLAH be all glory.

Outsourcing Old Age !

I watched “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”, hmm...I know its old but I happen to watched it just yesterday.

At one point Sonny (Manager of the Marigold Hotel trying to persuade his mother to let him run the hotel till its success he said):

I have a dream, MummyJi, a most brilliant one. To outsource old age! And it is not just for the British, there are many other countries where they don't like old people too! 

I questioned myself…hmm...is it possible?

Not for the countries outsourcing their old people but us outsourcing our own selves…to outsource part of our life?

And is it not that we do…did already…outsource some part of our life sometimes to our family…sometime to our so called soul mate sometime intentionally sometimes its unintentionally.

Isn’t that at some or other point of our life there are people who demand the rights of our time…and how we consider that?

We think this is the reason of our life to do favours…or may be we don’t even call them favours but the way we spend our life like a honeybee spent whole life collecting bee we human beings spend whole life building someone else’s life which we think that we are doing it for ourselves…we are building our own life…these are like regular little savings…on which we can rely on old age…and at the end of the world what we come to know…hmm...?

 My parents has all of us(six of us) and most of us left them at their old age…why is that when a person worked whole life…gave his/her best years to someone / children at the end of life have to be alone…why people do like to be with young ones but like to be away from old ones?

I also think about my old age…I know few of the friends are being very humble and nice and would say…something nice but the truth is that although I am getting wiser at the same time I am getting older…well its not that I am afraid of my old age…also I don’t mind if my country want to outsource my old age since I know I have not been very nice to it in my better years…instead I was thinking if by that time (within few years) this outsourcing the old age has gone under certain developments and has become a very organized or systematized itself to perfection and they would let us choose the country…”and my dear little old lady…where you like to go to die..?”

They would ask me…and I…I might ask for the map...hmm…but why not start my home work just now…while I have eye sight…can type and google the places…?

As in one point Evelyn said : (about the new environment) Initially you're overwhelmed. But gradually you realize it's like a wave. Resist, and you'll be knocked over. Dive into it, and you'll swim out the other side.

Taking that advise...hmm...I don’t want to resist my old age…it is inevitable…yes ofcourse I don’t know may be I die before I come to my old age but I want to swim out to the other side of the life (which is life after death)…not just let it happen but to be prepared for it…come what may…you will find me gay (as in happy).

So suggest me places where you think little old lady like me can go to die… hmm.... !

I am sorry !

I am sorry that I rushed away from you.

hmm...I am sorry that I leave you.

I am sorry that I no longer talk to you…leaving you was crucial not for me…but for your own sake and safety…hmm...

Believe me that seeing you achieving whatever I dreamed of was getting on my nerve…it started with jealousy and suddenly becomes desire to hurt…to see tears…to watch you fall..to make you loose whatever you have gained…if I had not left you I would had done something to make you fall…or may be I would have hurt you so badly that…but I didn’t let it happened and so not let’s not talk about that.

I know that you still think about me…although you have become so accomplished and a complete professional you still get time to think about me and my suddenly vanishing out of your life and still you are not able to put the jig saw puzzles back to there place so combined you get the actual picture… so that it may satisfy you that it was not your fault…but fault is not mine as well…

I think its in human nature….we do get jealous…we do hurt people…we do like others to fall from their higher places to pieces…however I admit…in our friendship…if you still want to call it Friendship…or was that mere likeness of thoughts…commonality at that moment of life between us…whatever was that…

I admit that my fault was quitting….I could have talk to you about it…you might have find some ways out…why I couldn’t talk about US to you…?

My fault is that I didn’t even give our friendship/commonality any further thought…as if it is not that important…doesn’t worth our talking seriously about it…I thought about it…saved my own respect and left you alone to wonder WHY…HOW…you have done something to make me a stranger.

So please understand that this is not YOU…the reason was me…I couldn’t just stand your progress…I couldn’t swallow it…

I am a very jealous person and I became jealous of you extremely and by doing this I not even started hurting you but also I was loosing my self respect…

I was loosing my image on mirror as if I never had any image…and to save my own image in my eyes and yours too I had to leave.

And I know that you will never forgive me and I can’t or will never ask for your forgiveness…and we never will be friend again…will never share any joke…any gossip or even a simple smile…twinkling of eyes…happiness to see each other once more after so long of waiting or talking endlessly on phone…or your sharing your simple innocent jokes about your family…or mine telling you about something foolish…

Believe me you that I love you…that I miss you everyday…and I just want to tell you so much that leaving you was not at all easy.

IT

Last night I heard it talking to itself again.

Something bad had happened to it and now it will take revenge on all of us…so it was talking to no one as though we can’t hear it although we can…but since it was middle of the night and everyone was deep in sleep no one expected to calm it down.

I heard it yelling and in my dreams I remember the program I didn’t actually saw but since I was happened to be in Television lounge so watched it as well…in that program three different women of different political parties were yelling against each other making their points that the other one should resign from the Government as they have failed delivering what they promised and due to their simultaneous talking/yelling/cursing…

I am sure even the listeners would had not get what their points were…or may be I am the only one….anyways ‘it’ yelling in the night to itself gave the same impression.

Finally, it woke me up…I took a deep sigh and asked myself why it always me…but since it was talking so loudly I had to react in panic and in panic I went to it…tried few of its NOBS when they didn’t worked I turned it off from the main switch and that was the end of the story.

Although…we got life time guaranty with our television set but I think the three women program had seriously got on to its mind and thus our television is now switching on by itself whenever it wanted and sometimes it embarrassed us front of our guests too…

I still can’t wave off that embarrassment when we were having some very decent guests and suddenly it switched on and started showing the Sports Channel of some name and the woman’s wrestling program was on…hmm…I mean…why me?

By the way when I was about to switch off it I heard the news which I am sure was also repeated that some robbers forcefully snatched Sharmeela Farouqis’ car and the first thing came into my mind that how could they…? I mean how could they snatch the car ‘only’ and left Sharmeela...?

I think time to go….hmm…

House Wife

This time I was lucky to have little chit chat with Kamila Shamsie, my all time favourite author.

When I asked for her autograph after the session (in KLF) she asked my name and out of politeness what I do…I told her that I don’t do anything…I am a house wife….she smiled and said never say that…housewife is a full time tougher job than any other job in the world…by that time few more people have gathered around us and she narrated one of the funniest thing happened to her…hmm...

She told me that she was invited to a very leading News Agency recently for an interview and when she reached the studio…one of the compares’ helper asked her few question to get the compare know about her and her work… so the dialogue was like that…

She : What is your recent novel?

Shamsie : Its God in Every Stone

She: What you do?

Shamsie : I write.

She: For what News Agency / NewsPaper?

Shamsie: No, I write novels, I am a novelist.

She: (a bit confused now) I wanted to know whom you work for?

Shamsie : Well, I told you I work for myself, I am a full time novelist.

She: (with a big sigh) OKAY…SO YOU ARE A HOUSE WIFE!

No need to say that we had a good laugh on that…however it also gives us a lot to ponder as well…first Novel writing does not consider by the world as a full time work…job...still people thinks that one can not have a decent life (or raise enough income) by just writing a novel…hmm...

Second the perception of a novelist is still unclear….its lot different from being a news person.

Recently, I have seen and read so many authors who first established their identity as a Columnist or Reporter…and suddenly they have come up with a novel …they may be good authors but since their writings are influenced by their political career their novels also have the same flavour one of the example is M Hanif and his novel The Case of Exploding Mangoes revolve around the assassination of General Zia ul Haq.

It is like mixing two different genres to one….in few years may be we will forget to separate a good fiction and political based novel since we are not setting any rules for them.

I wish…as reader I can have the thorough understanding on these matters and can separate these novels on the basis of their plot, stories and moral.

Sign

hmm…has anybody missed me?

To be honest...I was not busy…I had plenty of time to write…to contemplate…to compose my words but I was least interested in writing anything.

I don’t know whether it was just my will not to write or not to share what I feel…hmm…whatever it was I read a lot instead…

There I find few books worth recommending…few writers inspired me deeply…

Its amazing when you are reading something and come to a page where it suddenly start talking YOU…and the writer no longer remain the different person...the writer becomes you....it is such a nice feeling somewhere deep inside your heart you sighed and said to yourself…I am not the only one feeling that…hmm...

It makes your day…and I found out that I do not read to find answers or to become wise…or to become more compassionate…I read because I want to know that I am not the only one experiencing…feeling...what I am experiencing and feeling…I am not alone.

Somewhere…someone was living my life (had my life) and s/he was good in words and wrote every bit of it.

It gives me hope…faith…hmm…

So here I am sharing one of the latest book I read of Karen Blixen, Out of Africa…

It’s an autobiography of Karen Blixen and revolves around her stay in Africa where she had a farm near Ngong Hills.

The whole book was worth reading but the last few chapters when she has to sell her farm to move back to Europe were sensitive enough to read again and again.

Though her and my conditions are different she was selling her farm and I have nothing to sell…but the situation was same…the place which she chooses to be her HOME was slipping out of her hands and she could not do anything to stop it…the life she loved…but forced to change and how she wrote about it…was brilliant.

So here is a little excerpt from the book…

“I lay in bed and thought of the events of the last months. I tried to understand what it really was that had happened. It seemed to me that I have, in some way, got out of the normal course of human existence, into a maelstrom where I ought never to have been.

Where ever I walked, the ground fell away under me, and the stars fell from the sky. I thought of the poem about Ragnarok, in which this fall of the stars is described, and of the verses about the dwarfs who sigh deeply in their caves in the mountains, and die from fear.

All this could not be, I thought, just a coincidence of circumstances, what people call a run of bad luck, but there must be some central principle within it. If I could find it, it would save me, if I looked in the right place.

I reflected the coherence of things might become clear to me. I must, I thought, get up and look for a sign.

Many people think it an unreasonable thing, to be looking for a sign. This is because of the fact that it takes a particular state of mind to be able to do so, and not many people have ever found themselves in such state.”