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.”

Run Over

We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over, so in a kindness there is at last one which makes the heart runover. 

~Ray Bradbury ~ Fahrenheit 451 ~ 

Or is it the other way around?

There is your vessel of love..tolerance…patience and forgiveness…drop by drop its filling itself and there is always one drop…hmm....

....at last the last one…the drop which will spill it …the one and only…and its over flooded..run over…

It doesn’t matter what kind of that drop was…the best time pass afterwards is to remember every drop which filled your vessel slowly…silently…except you can’t remember the last drop…the one which actually did it…

Every drop has its own story…you remember them but the moral of all those stories fill you with more hatred…more resentment…more anger and you feel like an IDIOT !

What an Idiot I was…hmm....it was obvious…very clear…transparent…everyone knows it going to happen…everyone was signalling me…everyone…except me…saw the truth…why I am so dumb?

What was I thinking…?

They say...after every storm there is calmness…no…nope…never….

After the storm there is always wreckage to take care of…there is so much destruction…the looses…the damage…the brokenness….and you are the only one…who have to face all that…

I mean even if you have people to take care of you…you actually can’t share the feeling…you have to keep it to yourself and keep it hiding too….because the sharing might start the blaming…it might trigger another storm…

What is the remedy?

There is none…once its done…its done…no turning back…every step will enhance the distance between the two…yes…that last drop is deadly enough to kill all the hopes…faith…believe and love…

Explanation Call

Everyone who is an employer or an employee knows what ~Explanation Call~ is…hmm...

Well...it is not literally a call…its a chit chat…one to one…closed door meeting…it is when in the position as an employee you made a mistake...blunder or when you make a decision which your employer was not expecting from a lousy employee like you…the Management ask you to come over a cup of tea…

hmm...though you will not be offered a cup of tea but instead(sigh)…after a brief salutations your higher will start making you feel like you do not deserve the position you held and it was with your sheer luck that you got the job….

Normally its not the person who took your interview because than s/he can not tell you that you were a mistake by the hiring department….the person will ask you for the reason…intention…the time you made such a horrible blunder but seldom give you time or space to talk…you will gasp for the space…and s/he is better trained to choke you…its like a fight…a dual…all the time…you are the one who will loose…unless you are at the other side of the desk…so if you are…this post is not for you…sorry for wasting your time.

In my 10 years of working experience…these Explanation Call are kind of treat for me…sometimes I deliberately do it to spent sometime with the HR and thus to take sometime out of the routine work…blink…

Once I remember I came out of the meeting room and a newly hired colleague asked me how it feels to be in there all alone with no one to back up…I gave her a big smile and with indifference…grace told her it was not a big thing for me…since all these HR has only one thing to do… to find the mistake and to pin point someone while I am so experienced now I literally do not take them seriously and this is the only way an employee can survive…shortly after giving her a lecture I learned that the HR personal who was with me before in the meeting room was actually with me that instant too...hmm...me and my lousy indifference...

But these office Explanation Calls are easy to handle…you explain…write…make note and either your explanation was accepted or rejected you feel contented that at least you were asked for it and the decision was not made on one side story. 

What I find difficult is the actual life explanation calls…which your parents…in-laws...peers…friends or even stranger time to time throws at you…you have to hit those with care to bounce them back…not to hurt your counter…and measured enough to satisfy the person.

There are different kind of people in your life…one of them are those who accept you the way you are…once they understand you they get along with you the way you want them to get along…hhmm...and there are people who try to make you feel guilty all the time…its not that they will ask or send you email to explain yourself ...but it is in their gestures…or the way they carry themselves with you…soon after a phone call…or a visit…they will start showing the signs…they signalled you with their little conversation here and there with other people who knows both of you…they will make metaphoric remarks between your talk and ignore you…

You don’t know how to explicate what is the wrong you did to them and how to clear things without hurting them more or even hurting your ego.

This becomes worst when these people are the one you care most in your circle of acquaintances. This is strange that these are the most intelligent people you know and do not expect them to behave like that…

I mean they whine always for freedom…free will on the other hand when it comes to their hand they usually force their own likes…dislikes on you.

I don’t like to explain myself...I never do...do all I can to avoid it…hmm....but if I do…it brings the resentment in me against the person forced me to do…I usually don’t want the people I care about to put me in the condition to explain myself because I know it will not help us...will not bring us close...but will grow the distance between us…one step…two step...viola…we are two distant colonies. 

But...hmm...what  can do…some people are like this !