Just Randomly

A lot of facilities – tangible and intangible – that you have today, were once prayed for madly.

You have a handful of things today that you begged for secretly a decade back.

Since, we grow by forgetting us and our previous surroundings, we keep on asking for more. Without being thankful. Without being happy. And without being at peace.

But then, there are those who have nothing. They are on the greenbelts. Getting injected. Snorting. Snoozing. Haven’t had a bath for months. Totally in a mess. Have you ever seen them sleeping?

They sleep like babies. Even in cold and scorching weather. In sunlight in summers.

Some questions and doubts rise. Are they better or us? Are they having a better sleep than us? Are they at a higher level of peace? Are their dreams as nightmarish as ours?

And now I am wondering not what I am writing, but why.

Walli – Chapter 9 & Blade Marks

Do you wonder when you see a wrist with multiple, shiny, parallel, horizontal scars? Blade Marks or wrist cuts. Maybe you don’t. Why don’t they look unattractive?

Behind every cut is a story. Obviously. Could be anything. Lost love. Breakup. Goodbye. Death. Depression. Something.

Mostly, it’s love. Lost love. About the one you think is the one until the one becomes ‘the one lost’ and so… blade marks. Idiotic. But a huge portion of literature and poetry has been all about love, which has its branches and breaches deeply rooted in lust; but we prefer to call it love.

Writing, talking, and thinking about lips. Gait. Voice. Hair. Complexion. Height. Eyes. No one’s talking about the intellectual capacity of the other one or the conversations that talk beyond the universe. Maybe because that is not what love is.

There’s no ‘one’. Neo was the last ‘one’. Next is… wait.

Anyway, back to the blade marks of the lady behind the counter. Offering ice cream. Wonder how she executed the whole process? To let the pain bleed. Leaving the body. Making tiny paths through the sink. Dumping. Into the gutter.

Yet, pain stays. Because it cannot be bled out. It needs to be kept inside. It needs to be nurtured. Taken care of. Because it stays.

109 billion have died so far in this world. Your ‘one and only’ can’t be from those 109 billion. ‘The one’ must be alive in your time zone to initiate a love affair, that usually starts from lust. You can call it crush. Or cuteness. Or whatever your level of being an idiot is.

Comes the current 8 billion. 4 billion is the other gender. Then 3.99 billion are those you never meet. In the end, it leaves around 50 or so options. Out of which, max 5 would consider you as a partner. And then comes the one. Can lead to divorce. Pretty strong chances. Or it can be a suffering prolonged till one of the two dies. As vowed.

What if you find love later in life? After marriage? Then what? Extramarital affair? For the one?

By the way, if you convert ‘the one’ with ‘another one’; you may score a century.


The algorithm that runs the systems has its errors. Some errors are as idiotic as poetry. There is no ‘one’. It’s an illusion. That’s fine though. People must have reasons to live and reasons to die. I have some. Cigarettes among them.

However, Walli has a major reason. The one in which he has specialized with comprehensively crafted research of 9 years. It will be 9 years this April. This pain starts with M. It’s all in the name of M. Remember that story?

When Socrates had to die to live forever.
When Masur Al Haj had to be insulted to be elevated forever.
When Nietzsche had to get mad to become enlightened.
When Hussain had to bleed to live for generations to come.
And when Dante had to leave for hell so he could write divine comedy.
You don’t remember? You don’t remember Walli?

What if the wrist is clean? No blade marks. No wound. Nothing. Only blue veins neatly passing through the system that generates those illusions? Does that mean no story? No blade marks, no pain? No.

Some bleed once. Some bleed twice. And some bleed forever. They nurture their pain and keep it near their heart as a sacred message for the heavens and hells together.

Have you wondered what if you die with these cuts? Don’t you care about the trauma you give to the pain? Don’t you want to keep it alive? Don’t you want to live by it? Stand by it? And finally, die by it?

Walli doesn’t have blade marks. But he has a story. That story starts with M. And it lives as it didn’t pass through the sink. It lives.

She lives.

Class Struggles in the Rain

Winters aren’t leaving.

Have you seen such a beautiful March in years? A cold Ramzan with winter-cum-autumn mixtures to serve with different flavors at different times. Beautiful air to breathe. Rains. Cold breeze.

Now the bad thing.

Last year were floods to destroy everything of the poor. Now, rains to mess with crops, particularly wheat. It’s not just manmade hyperinflation to kill the poor. Heavens are also making sure to hang them twice.

Sometimes, I wonder. Between nature and science. Not sometimes. Everyday.

And like everyday, I wake up as a believer. And after passing and processing the whole day, I sleep as an agnostic. Or an atheist.

Or whatever. Does it matter?

The only thing that matters is rhyme. Rhyme without poetry. Rhyme to smile. Rhyme to mourn. Rhyme to love rain. Rhyme to bury in the drain.

Rain to smile. And rain to kill.

Water to crop. And water to drown.

From heavens to hell, let all come down.

Let all come down, let the poor drown.

Let the poor…

Breathe for God sake!

Oh! Wait.

Earthquake Plans

Maybe He wanted to save someone from murder. So He jolted the earth to change the plans.

Or maybe He saved a child from abuse today. 10 is our daily national average. 9 for today. 1 saved because the abuser panicked because of the earthquake.

Or maybe He wanted to put fear in the heart of that shopkeeper to sell honestly today, as one of the buyers coming today is His special.

Or maybe He wanted to save the lady from domestic tortures from tonight. Who knows?

Or maybe He wanted to give a short break to that guy who was having a very hard and long day at work.

Or maybe He wanted to put fear in the heart of a mob who was going to burn down a temple tonight.

Or maybe He wanted us to call our parents today.

Or maybe He wanted us to have a cigarette break.

Or maybe He wanted us to talk about jeans again.

Or maybe He just jolted the whole region just to make us afraid.

Or maybe He was having fun with our big egos. Mild jolts without a string attached.

Well, dear Lord! These tricks work for a couple of hours. We go back to our baseline within 24 hours.

And – even though we know You can do things – such manoeuvres are not appreciated. Thank you.

Lahore vs. Multan (First Half of PSL Final)

It’s like Lahore’s bureaucracy against South Punjab in general. And usual.

While the venue is always Lahore.

You have a problem?

Come to Lahore from Alipur, Muzaffargarh, D. G. Khan, R. Y. Khan, Fort Munro, Rajanpur, Multan, and Bahawalpur.

Come to Lahore for interviews. To submit an application. For the Ombudsman’s hearing. To meet a Secretary. To beg a Section Officer. To pay the bribe. To wait in corridors. For all the routine ugly stuff for your disgrace.

But, most probably, as soon as you enter, the Babu may have left already. Or the meeting has been postponed. Or the mood. Mood swings without PMS.

PMS. Some of them are from PMS actually. But mostly are CSS. It’s a federally owned curse in the whole country.

Anyway.

Lahore had been brutal today. At least in the later half.

And Multan should lose. To keep the records straight.

Human Shield for Human

Mourning. Again.

Outside is an amazing crowd. Doing everything on the call of their leader.

Inside is a leader who has no courtesy for those outside.

He make videos with shells and bullets in front of his desk, without empathy for those who collect these for his videos.  

Sometimes, he mourns a death. He calls the relatives to offer condolences. And relatives come. To receive the condolences.

At the same time, he keeps thousands of others in the same line of fire for more potential deaths and condolences.

Because dead bodies are not necessarily bad. It’s a boost. A martyred voter is still a voter.

 

What would have other – real – leaders would have done here? Given themselves in. Without a doubt and any second thought. But this one needs a human shield. People may die so that he may resides in the mansion.


The bravery of the followers is amazing, nonetheless. A demo for another institution that.

Just a demo. For now.

Spotless

She wished to be a punk rocker with flowers in her hair.

He prayed for her to be the one, so he could listen and see her daily.

But then, the residents of the world don’t live by their wishes. They rely on prayers.

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

Each prayer accepted, each wish resigned?

Beat the Lion and the Dogs will behave

One thing that unites this country is police. It’s same from north to south. Their faith of violence, injustice, apathy, and disregard of humans is homogenous. From Islamabad to Peshawar to Quetta to Karachi to Lahore.

They brag on Twitter. As Bhai and Api. So nice and cool in tagging each other to take notice for the sake of followers. Yet, the disgust for humans sustains. Weaker the human, the more disgust and disregard they offer.

This ugliness starts from IG and goes down through DIG, SSP, SP, DSP, ASP, Inspector, SI, ASI, PC to all the way down to Muharrar.

They have learned from the worst, their brothers in another uniform. They believe in guns and violence. They can halt anything. Can produce dead bodies at will. Can beat women. Can abuse transgenders and others. And can become bystanders themselves when a mob is doing their job of violence.

The more high they climb on their hierarchy of bastards, the louder they shout.

This utter disregard is pretty much same everywhere in the world. Why is that? Give men uniform – any uniform with a gun – and they will forget to be humans altogether.

Don’t touch him. Not yet. But a time will come when they will be dragged by their collars and they will remember all the filth they said in arrogance.

People say: beat the dog and the lion will behave.

I say: beat the lion and the dogs will behave.