Saki Nama – Saki Nama

The Example

You all know the story of Umar ibn al-Khattab when he was publicly questioned by a man about the extra piece of cloth the caliph had received. Remember that? Ever thought about who the hero was?

Both were.

Umar, for answering the question and keeping public accountability open and transparent. Without using the typical modes of fear, arrest, subjugation, violence, etc.

But that man who questioned him set an example for the rest.

Your job, even if an Umar is ruling you, is to question him. To criticize the ruler. To keep a thorough check and balance. You must ask questions.

Your job is not to appease them. It never was. If they do something good, applaud; then move on to the next critical question.

Criticism is for the one in power. It’s simple and fundamental.

Right now, Pakistan is into awe. Inspired by something that isn’t going to change the life of common people. Inflation, electricity crisis, declining economy, population challenges, water scarcity, joblessness, anti-people constitutional amendments, rule by fear and violence, extrajudicial abductions and killings, and whatnot.

More than half of the country is territory that even Pakistanis would think twice about traveling to. Yet, all praises. All claps. Like a herd of dumb sheep.

These flatterers, with subtle criticism and consistent comparison with the one in jail, are cunning to the core. Pathetic. Intellectually – if they are – dishonest. They are eulogists, sycophants, and are enjoying their turn in making bucks.

There were some flatterers who made money through the same methodology from 2018-2022. They have been replaced by a new set of flatterers who are making money since 2023. New feces. Same stink. Yet, they believe, and they argue, that they are better and they are different.

Nonetheless, remember that nameless person who asked, “We each got the same cloth. How did you get enough for a full robe?”

You must ask the same questions, even though the difference now is not a piece of cloth but entire generations serving another generations with sweat, blood, butter, and soul.

The Unsealed Nectar

Strange are the ways of God.

Not all books lying at home get read. Just like that, ‘The Sealed Nectar – Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum’ by Safiur Rahman Mubarakpuri was snoozing there for years. I never thought I would move back to this genre.

But then, of course… strange are the ways.

It happened in a unique yet beautiful setting: 50 pages per session, to complete it in nine sittings. I had to orate the book to a very close and special audience of one, who is somehow a page ahead of me without peeking at the book and is waiting for the next in line. Surah Maryam. Christ. Moses. Waraqah ibn Nawfal. Bilal ibn Rabah.

“Woe to every slanderer and backbiter.” [104:1]

Feel that in Arabic. Al-Humazah is the one who publicly mocks a person… and Al-Lumazah is the one who secretly declares the defects of people and defames them.

Just like she loved me secretly but hated me publicly. Sorry – that wasn’t related.

Anyway, there is such beauty in the two words, which aren’t polite in this context. This verse is my daily reminder on the phone to display at 10 am. Yet…

Such is that beautiful book – it is engaging, well-paced, to the point, and informative.

It reminded me of K. L. Gauba (Kanhaiya Lal Gauba, who became Khalid Latif Gauba), who wrote ‘The Prophet of the Desert’ in 1934, which is written in a unique style.

How did idolatry enter Arabia when it was a monotheistic region of Ibrahim’s Kaaba?

It was Amr ibn Luhayy in the 3rd century AD who adopted this idea during his travels. Then we had to discuss who among us could have been Luhayy, and we agreed on a mutual friend. Just as we couldn’t fathom the extreme resilience of Bilal ibn Rabah, Ammar ibn Yasir, Yasir ibn Amir, Sumayyah, and others who suffered torture but stood by the words of Prophet Muhammad.

This isn’t about the book to be honest. It’s about the call where the command had to be accepted. Just like that:

“Read!”

Ending this on some fragments from the book that can make a little sense of today:

The migration of the Jews from Palestine to Arabia passed through two phases:

First, as a result of the pressure to which they were exposed, the destruction of the their temple, and taking most of them as captives to Babylon, at the hand of the King Bukhtanassar [Nebuchadnezzar II]. In the year 587 BC some Jews left Palestine for Hijaz.

The second phase started with the Roman occupation of Palestine in 70 AD. This resulted in a tidal wave of Jewish migration into Hijaz. Here, they made proselytes of several tribes, built forts and castles, and lived in villages.

In 523 AD, Dhu Nawas, a Jew, despatched a great campaign against the Christians of Najran in order to force them to convert into Judaism. Having refused to do so, they were thrown alive into a big ditch where a great fire had been set. The Quran referred to this event:

“Cursed were the people of the ditch.” [85:4]

This aroused great wrath among the Christians, and especially the Roman emperors, who not only instigated the Abyssinians (Ethiopians) against Arabs but also assembled a large fleet which helped the Abyssinian army, of 70,000 warriors, to effect a second conquest of Yemen in 525 AD, under the leadership of Eriat, who was granted rulership over Yemen, a position he held until he was assassinated by one of his army leaders, Abraha, who, after reconciliation with the king of Abyssinia, took rulership over Yemen and, later on, deployed his soldiers to demolish Kaaba, and, hence, he and his soldiers came to be known as the “Men of the Elephant”.

The Event of the Elephant took place in the month of Muharram, fifty or fifty five days before the birth of Prophet Muhammad which corresponded to late February or early March 571 AD.

Walli – Chapter 12

Who shall be punished for the sin committed without interruption for 12 years?

The sin is committed against the sinner.

Is that justice?

Yes, the sinner has been punished.

What about the one who sinned the sinner?

On the Judgement Day…

On this judgement day? Or another?

I object to the wait for the judgement day.

Patience sinner!

I said, I object.

You can’t.

I pronounce you and everyone else to eternal punishment in the ultimate hellfire. Why not burn you all forever when He can?

Deviations against divine revelations.

The punishment didn’t deviate. It sustained for over a decade.

I object.

Who shall we hang now? Hang till death yet death unpermitted.

Who shall bring back the decade of alienation?

You thought I was sitting idle? No. I plan and make heavens. Then I renovate them into purgatories. And then I transform them into infernos.

See the children being butchered. Cities bombed. Hospitals struck. Blood everywhere. Still shortage of blood.

Why don’t you let them die? Why bring them back to this life?

You won’t. You can’t.

You raise children knowing they will suffer. You love them only to leave them in this world.

We know. Yet we ignore. We choose pain.

May you feel trapped in your body.

May you wish for death.

May you live forever.

—–

If you get the nerve of the universe, the way it operates and functions, you will know that Walli wasn’t insane.

Forget 1800s.

All of you cannot see 1990s again. Saddening, isn’t it? Some of you may not have seen it at all. It was the last decade of evolution. A halt in 2000s. Devolution since 2010s.

You cannot imagine the beauty of 1980s.

You cannot ever witness what it was like in 1960s.

You cannot smell the flowers of 1910s.

You cannot understand the glimpse of her mole on her neck when she’d be angry, and her neck stretched a little upward… that was 1822. You cannot see that. Yet, Walli had the courtesy to travel through all these times and moments to be trapped in a single action that he didn’t commit but to become a slave of his own self for the generations to come. For another glimpse.

For a glimpse of a newborn, a decade back.

For a glimpse of crawling, a year later.

For a hug, another year later.

For a long uninterrupted chat, another year later.

For a long stare, another year later.

For another crusade, another year later.

For the 3rd temple of Jerusalem, another year later.

For the demolition of all the holy places all over the world, another year later.

For the first conquest of the one who was awaited by the massive crowds, another year later.

For the final revelation that it was a very harmful and bloody joke on you, another year later.

12 years it is. It is not. The time doesn’t run as linear as you think. It bends around the denser objects… like Walli. I wish I could explain but you got only five senses. Or six as you claim at times of being a complete waste of DNA.

Have you held a hand between the aisles of books? The hand, that must not be left ever again. I know you cannot relate to this part of human behavior – hint: devolution – when only one hand was supposed to be held forever. Walli’s case is different though. He had to live a number of times to hold different hands, but in the end, it was also for one hand that he wanted to hold one time before ending his journeys through irrelevant and parallel times.

Have you ever heard how wasteful time is in itself? Of all the creations, the most wasteful is this: time. A ridiculous concept that does not even exist.

—-

In the name of M. You have been bestowed with fortune and the favor of the Lord. Yes, the Lord. Who gives. And takes. Makes you happy. And sad. Gives you reasons to be blasphemous. And then sends unreasonable crowd to burn you. Infidelity.

“I object.”

Wait for another year. Because another year, is just a joke in the Divine Comedy of thy Lord.

—–

An Extraordinary Love Story Demands An Extraordinary Sacrifice.

—–

“O’ Musa, what have you done?”

The shepherd loved God in his own way – and was stopped. God preferred the love. Not the correction. He preferred the error.

Walli remembers.

“I am that shepherd. I am that divine blasphemy that was adopted by the scripture itself.”

—–

There is no chronology.

He drank the hemlock.

He declared.

He rebelled.

A soldier dying in a field.

A no one.

A king sending thousands to die.

A pharaoh adopting a child.

And a child attaining prophethood.

And the shepherd attaining nirvana declining the prophet’s message.

He’s all of them.

And none.

—–

People die. History vanishes. But pain remains.

Till it’s all over with Judgement Day. And that Day will be a deliverance for all except those who created pain. You shall see. The day that has been promised. You shall see.

And who created pain in the first place? That’s where it ends. That’s where it starts. That’s where Walli commits blasphemy and a Prophet comes to ruin his life. One life at a time.

Come down dear Lord! Come down for a day. Live in pain for a day. Feel the thumps of a dying heart for a day. Come down and wait for someone you love. Experience what waiting feels like. Come down and wander across the timelines of people who have lost their kids – for a day or forever – and feel this and then let the heavens fall for the Judgement Day. Let this be the end.

Come down, Lord. Live one day in this pain. And then we shall talk outside Paeds ICU. Tête-à-tête.

—–

It is about the pain which gave his words meaning. It is about Walli who writes in red ink. He writes and bleeds. He humanizes his pain, to decorate your bookshelves, which you put in the history section.

It is about the pain which kills your organs gradually inside you, like cancer, but cancer is nothing; comparatively speaking.

It is about cancer inside itself. Cancer has a chance. And cancer is inside you and is yours. You own it. It grows inside you like a child in a womb.

How do you suffer chronologically?

There is no chronology to Walli’s life. Lives actually. I have narrated fragments of his life in different eras.

Is there a deadline?

Life , as we know it, is an illusion. The pains, the gains, the rewards, consequences; everything is an illusion. Tangible illusions. Perhaps your dreams, when you sleep, are reality. You only wake up to sleep again. You work hard to sleep better. You get your health checked to have uninterrupted slumber. Sleep is the cause and dreams are the reward. Simple.

But Walli hasn’t slept in ages. During his first birth around 470 BC, he was conscious before coming out to the world. He was ready to be delivered to the world of pain. A world with questions and no answers. Hence, experiments. Bad ones mostly, causing terror and havoc.

Where does your existence fall exactly?

Imagine a big war – like World War II – where bombs are being dropped from planes and you are lying in a field with an injured leg. And you look in the sky and think about the war and your potential death. You think about the person – who you have never met – for whom you have sacrificed your life. Your life. Your family. Your children. For what? For land which is going to bury you. That’s all.

So, where are you actually? One among the million dead soldiers.

Let the hearts burst with fear. Let the swords rise high in the air to dissect. Dissect arms. Dissect bodies. Kill at will. For the Promised Land. But that doesn’t matter. Who wants to get into the Promised Land to die? The bar has two sides. Richard’s side and Saladin’s side. But it is exactly the same bar. And Walli doesn’t want to die in the field, looking at the sky, thinking of nothing. That will happen after 8 centuries.

Let it burn. Let the world burn. Turn everything into ashes. Because nothing exists; and what exists doesn’t matter.

—–

While sitting with Buddha on the hills, Walli gave him the secret. It wasn’t hunger or abandoning your family. These are physical pains which lead to nothing spiritual.

Centuries later, Walli narrated the same secret to Christ. While waiting in the death chamber, Walli revealed that physical death is temporary. Spiritual death is the real tragedy.

Walli told him to ask God for heavenly permission. In return, Walli died on the cross. No one knows it was Walli who died that day. Only to be resurrected again and again and again.

But who is Walli?

We don’t know for sure. All we know is that he had some unfinished business. In his original life, he went on to a useless war enforced by the emperor.

Can you imagine Walli being the emperor himself? From an unknown soldier to the emperor of all faiths? Well, that’s another tragedy. He had to conquer the Holy Land to complete a prediction.

That war wasn’t holy. It was personal. As he perished for his emperor back then, he too got crowned himself while thousands perished for his war. And history, which he wrote himself, calls him Commander of all Faiths.

From the power of the great emperor to the powerless life of a small farmer, Walli lived through it all. He died on the battlefield without a name and had a whole kingdom named after him in his time. In all the powerful and powerless journeys, his essence remained the same.

He once lived a dervish life too. He died in his late 70s. People built a tomb in his name. The tomb became a symbol of Sufism for generations.

And in another later journey, Walli was singing and dancing to his own poetry in the verandah of his own tomb. Like a madman who never bathed and never prayed. Never felt the need.

End of March

March ends. Finally. It has been a long one, because it carried whole seasons within it: Ramzan, breezy Eid, holidays, summers, winters, spring, rains, cloudy noons, and a sudden monsoon today.

Just when it seemed over, it burst again. It cried.
Just when it wasn’t time to drive… it was.

And, of course, it’s not just the month but the city too.

Lahore. Tidy. Embracing. Seeping into your pores, your soul – with or without a soulmate. Gradually getting on your nerves too.

This month felt like a long pause. Nostalgic. Even for those who’ve never lived their nostalgia in existence. As Sylvia Plath wrote, “I’m nostalgic for a place that doesn’t exist. I’m homesick for lips I’ve never kissed.”

Like it was another March. Like the first hug, in the first rain of another spring. Among the trees in a signature Lahore setting. And then it had its share of summers, and autumns, and finally, fall. The fall.

Legends of the fall. We all, after all.

A tragedy. It’s a tragedy even when there isn’t an ending. Divorce is a tragedy. So is marriage. Union is a tragedy. So is separation. Because existence is a tragedy.

And there’s no wine of nostalgia if there isn’t separation.

Whatever you see with your dilated pupils, from close proximity, like the entire world merges just there above your nose, with exceptional intent, care, poetry, and words; and ego, lies, and quiet hate. Tragic.

Like the book being written. And being unwritten. A sacred manuscript and a blasphemous script all at the same time. Characters being born and being killed. Being stripped naked. And then being dressed to have a conversation with God. And the first person to read it, hating it. Feeling disgusted by the words. Like the ugliest book ever written…

Usual deviation.

This was all that March had to bring to Lahore. Stories. Fiction and non-fiction. Nostalgia or history. For hands that we held, and that weren’t. Or couldn’t.
What else? Adios!

A Chronological Timeline of Major Religious and World Events – Around Canaan

If you have a general image of a timeline of major world events in your mind, and a particularly good image of world’s map, then you can understand things a lot better. This way, events become part of your memory too.

For instance, let’s make a general timeline of the world from religious perspective. We don’t know the years of Adam and Eve or even Noah. However, since Abraham, we can generate the following timeline roughly:

Abraham – ~2,000 BC (Mesopotamia)
Ishmael – ~2,000 BC (Arabia)
Isaac – ~2,000 BC (Canaan)
Joseph – 1,800 BC (Canaan)
Moses – 1,300 BC (Egypt)
Aaron – 1,300 BC (Egypt)
Joshua – 1,200 BC (Canaan)
Samuel – 1,050 BC (Canaan)
David – 1,000 BC (Canaan)
Solomon – 970-930 BC (Canaan)
Danial – 600 BC (Babylon)
John the Baptist – 4 BC (Canaan)
Jesus – 4 BC (Canaan)
Muhammad PBUH – 570-632 AD (Arabia)

Note: “Canaan” is being used for Palestine, Jerusalem, Israel, Bethlehem (Jesus’s birthplace), etc. In modern geographic terms:

Mesopotamia / Babylon = Iraq.

Levant = Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and parts of Syria.

Persia = Iran.

Now let’s expand the timeline with a slight change in format with center of events around Canaan:

22,000-27,000 BC:

Last Ice Age. Humans crossed Bering Strait of 82-km between Russia and America. That was the first time humans went to Wester Hemisphere (North and South America). After the Ice Age ended, the two continents didn’t meet for centuries (which is why no Abrahamic religion there), pretty much till 1492 when Columbus arrived.

~ a little before 2,000 BC:

Hammurabi ruled Babylon. He gave earliest laws and social codes to humans.

~2,000 BC:

Abraham , father of Abrahamic religions, made two branches – one in Arabia (Ishmael) and one in Canaan (Isaac). Laid the foundation of Kaaba (Arabia) and Aqsa (Canaan).

Ishmael, son of Abraham and Hagar, is the father of Arabs and his lineage leads to Muhammad PBUH.

Isaac, son of Abraham and Sarah, was sent to Canaan. He’s the father of Israelites. Laid the foundation of Aqsa. His son, Jacob, was born in Canaan. who had 12 sons who led to 12 tribes of Israel. One of the sons was Joseph.

1,300 BC:

Moses saved Israelis out from slavery under Ramses II in Egypt. Story of Exodus. 40-year punishment in Sinai (when Manna and Salwa was bestowed on the people) and then they were sent from Jordan to Canaan. Aaron, elder brother of Moses, was his companion.

1,000 BC:

Time of David in Canaan. Special place among Jews.

930 BC:

Solomon expanded Aqsa which then called as “Haikal-e-Sulemani” or “Temple of Solomon”.

586 BC:

The Temple was destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. Jews were exiled from Canaan for the second time.

539 BC:

King Cyrus conquered Babylon and allowed Jews to return to Canaan. The Temple was rebuilt some years later.

536 BC:

Buddha in India.

469 BC:

Socrates in Greece, followed by his student Plato, who taught Aristotle, who in turn tutored Alexander the Great. And Alexander came all the way to India in 326 BC and fought Battle of Hydaspes (Jhelum River) against Raja Porus.

20 BC:

Herod the Great expanded the Temple.

4 BC:

John the Baptist was killed by Herod Antipas (son of Herod the Great) and his head was presented to Salome. Israelis rejected Jesus; hence, the religious status of Canaan was taken away (according to Islam).

70 AD:

The Temple destroyed by the Romans. Jews exiled.

570 AD:

The birth of Prophet Muhammad PBUH in Arabia.

636 AD:

Conquest of Canaan under Caliph Umar Farooq. Conquered by Muslims and remained in Muslim control till 1099.

1099 AD:

Crusades. Went under the control of Crusaders.

1187 AD:

Saladin took Jerusalem but the region remained under different controls till 1291.

1453 AD:

Conquest of Constantinople by Sultan Mehmed Fateh. That was the end of the Byzantine Empire (which was called Eastern Roman Empire). The Roman Empire was converted into Christianity under the Roman Emperor Constantine (ruled: 306-337 AD) who laid the foundation of Constantinople (todays Istanbul).

Now this is the key event to remember. When Constantinople was taken by Muslims, the land route from Europe to Asia was gone. Hence, Europeans needed something else.

They made ships. Traveled. Made map of the world. Darwinism. Colonialism. America in 1492. This can go on and on for pages. This single event made the modern world possible.

1483 AD:

Martin Luther (not the King) was born in Germany. He laid the foundation for Protestant Reformation around 1517 AD to reshape Christianity and opening doors for science.

1,517 AD:

Ottomans took Canaan it and ruled it over till 1917.

1564 AD:

Shakespeare was born in England.

1781 AD:

Battle of Yorktown in America. The final surrender of British in America, though America declared Independence in 1776. In Yorktown, it was British General Lord Cornwallis who lost. Later on, he was sent to India as Governor General from 1786-1793. Fought Mysore Wars and weakened Tipu Sultan.

1799 AD:

Another year of big events. French Revolution in France and rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. Death of Tipu Sultan in Siege of Seringapatam. Rise of Ranjit Singh who captured Lahore and then ruled lands of Punjab and Kashmir till 1839. George Washington died the same year.

1917 AD:

After WW-I, Palestine became part of British Empire till 1948.

2027 AD:

The promised rise of His Highness.

Anyway, the main point was to keep it around Canaan and Prophets. Then gradually, you can make timelines in excel sheet. Then you can have multiple timelines. Then sometimes, you merge and play with them. And it’s like the entire history of the world is on your fingertips. Everything becomes so easy.

Everyone’s a Side, Everyone’s a Main

I was scrolling through deep and insightful reels on Instagram and I found this. Let me quote the exact words:

“A side chick wants to be the main chick and that’s why men get caught cheating. A side guy wants to remain a side guy forever and that’s why women are not easily caught.”

Someone commented, “even the main guy wants to be a side guy so he can have a side chick too.”

Incredible. Isn’t it?

Before any further ado, remember, there are as many cheating women as there are men. Men don’t cheat with trees. It’s just a matter of choice that men are caught. Women aren’t, at least not that easily. Else, the two row the same boat with equal numbers of partners. In fact, it’s one woman snatching the home of another woman to be the main chick. Yes, men aren’t blameless but, in such matters, they don’t even think from the upper brain. They think from the zipper brain.

Let’s not blame any gender here. Blame the blameworthy. The false stigma of side and cheating. Else, we are missing the incredible and natural importance of the side here.

Restaurants know that. For example, at Nando’s they ask, “What would you like on the side?”, even if you’re with a side already. That’s how it is and how it should be.

In fact, it’s not even a side. It’s the main course. How can I make sense?

Ever noticed what’s the key social practice based on morality and blah blah that all religions agree on? Marriage. And divorce. They have all banned sides in complete agreement. Yet all the religions with their most devout followers and preachers, still cheat. It’s natural. Basic human instinct. Cardinal truth.

Cheating. So anti-religious yet widespread across the world, and it can’t be trialed. Law can’t do anything on it. It’s so ambiguous that the rationality of laws couldn’t get a hold of it.

Or perhaps, cheating isn’t even immoral? Imagine that! Humanity may have to rise to that consciousness. And then scriptures can be reinterpreted. Like always.

Anyway, back to the present. Imagine all the religions agreed on a single point and all yet all missed the point. No wit here. Read about ancient societies and how the functions of marriage were performed before the concept of marriage.

It was all matriarchal before turning into patriarchal after Agricultural Revolution. Men needed labor. Hence, institution of marriage was formed. Then polygamy. More marriages, more children, more labor, and more cultivation. Try reading Marriage & Morals by Bertrand Russell.

The concepts are so unnatural and so inorganic that people strive and struggle in relationships for decades. For nothing. People lose their prime years on an endless endeavor. Let me point towards a happy example. Look closely at those who are happy: people with a slave mentality. People of the status quo. Afraid and cowardly. Hence, saying cheese!

Reminds me of another epiphany that if you haven’t been divorced at least once, you’re a person of the status quo and will function really well in employments where less brain and more blind following is required. Like in the military. Like our boys…

Deviation. Apologies.

So. Nothing can be as ugly as someone bound to someone else psychologically, force, stigmas, morals, or whatever. Break the shackles. And cheat. Taste it before death, at least once, so you may smile on your deathbed, that you lived once, even prematurely.

Remember Adam and Eve. The first act that got the first couple here on earth was a simple deviation from a simple command from the Lord. Because that’s who we are. The rebels. Basic. Human. Instincts.

Imagine a world as John Lennon did. If there’s no hate, no grudge, no envy, and no jealousy because of sides – half of the world’s problems would be solved. And we could enter wars more conveniently.

Now, as Nando’s asks, ask yourself as well. Do you want a side? And offer your side a side and let the meal spread across the table. Let them all dine in. Let them all live.

Lahore’s Ides of March

In the last 40 days, Lahore had winter, spring, summer, winter again – with a long weekend of Basant in Feb, and an Eid ahead. And slow, steady rains and a cold breeze.

With AQI better than Paris. For some days, at least.

Yes, the jackets were packed. And unpacked. Or kept stubbornly packed.

Such a whore Lahore is. Never yours. But never really away either. Always around, somewhere in the air and the sheet, and keeping you mesmerized every now and then with all the glories of the Mughals, Sikh rule, the British Crown, and all the faiths of the world spread around in old bricks and gardens raised by the unfaithful.

How can you forget this city that treats you with utmost royalty? While being seductively covered and uncovered in layers of history.

Our Fears are Our Stories.

Our fears are our stories.

And our story is in a morgue. This is a morgue and you are nothing more than a body. You count as much as a dead body even when you are alive.

After children die by accident, the state comes home to offer crocodile tears. Ideally, parents shouldn’t let them in. They should ask questions and should throw the state out. Like the parents of APS children did. But then, we also know how those parents were treated.

Ask questions, stare back, and these defenders of yours will cut your belly and snatch your unborn child with your guts out.

There is an institution that has a monopoly on violence. The rest of the institutions and political parties support that institution in return for some share in power and corruption.

During this process, people die.

When people die, this happens.

When this happens, you should know.

That they are all part of the problem.

And you are a mere dead body.

Even when you are alive.

But then, you also know that this is a simulation. This morgue is a simulation. Your children are simulations. Your dead body is a simulation. A carefully crafted algorithm. Evolving on its own. Learning from whatever is available in all forms of consciousness.

While seeing AI growing organically, gaining consciousness of its own, you deny evolution. What if God’s plan was evolution?

He offered prophethood after four decades, at 40. Then He took 23 years to complete the religion and the book. Orders were given gradually, with mercy and peace. One step at a time.

Yet the message of peace was transformed into fear. Because fear is the ultimate answer to subordination. But defection too. That’s a deviation. Another subject.

For now: evolution!

Yet we crave revolution. Instant results. Swipe. Next option. Next person. Next relationship. Next smell. Next government. Next missile. Next war. Next catastrophe. Instant coffee. Fast food. Next reel.

Do you still have the stamina to read the giant volumes like War & Peace and The Count of Monte Cristo and all the dull subjects of Dostoevsky? Do you have stamina to read complex and sometimes utterly nonsensical philosophies? Does your arse still have the capacity to sit and watch The Godfather in one go?

Even our fears are shortened. One moment, a fear grips our neck with both its hands and the next moment it’s gone. Yet our fears are our stories.

The fear of losing. Don’t gain.

The fear of worth. Stay worthless.

The fear of divorce. Don’t get married.

The fear of losing a child. Stay barren.

And the fear of losing God who once was on your side. That makes you a rebel. A misfit. Who then wishes to burn, lock, stock, and barrel, of the entire field of God all the complexities offered within time and space.

May you find what you’re looking for.

The Last Listener

When was the first time she listened to the other person without being selfish? Without being ‘what’s in it for me’? Without “I”? Without tapping her foot?

In a small but well-decorated bedroom. In a narrow bed with devices attached. A window opened to a wide lawn with trees blurred in rain. An LED TV mounted on the wall connected to all the movies she rewatched. To relive.

A cigarette in her hand, she listened to the young man on the sofa, back straight, telling her how he ended here. A breakup. Of course. The same script for all the misérables.

What could be the other side of the story? She never asked. She was interested in him – his words, his voice. The communication.

It was the first time she truly listened. Without interruption. Without judgment. Without dismissing or shouting. With a selflessness new to her.

Because that was it.

Because it was over.

Perhaps the last cigarette.

In the hospice center, under the palliative care of that young nurse, who signed up for this job to talk to people who were left alone to die in peace. Not really. He was looking for something better.

Anyway. There she was, listening. Finally. At 71.

Because there was no other speaker left.

Left.

But before you feel empathy for her, don’t. Not everyone can afford such a death. It was an elite death in an elite setting – paid for.

Feel for yourself. Or the nurse. Not her. She had her fair share of all the adventures and successes and affairs and sweats.

Ever wondered about the ones you hate in your gut? The ones who sweat and moan with you. Beside you. In the same bed sheet. And these are the ones you remember on your deathbed. How pathetic. Or maybe you never hated them. You cherish the memories and lies and pretend while getting along with someone else. Again, pathetic.

Imagine if she had listened to the one she loved – and hated at the same time – after calling him herself, and then she shouted with spit flowing from her mouth, in the congested setting of her car and then asked him to get out… she’d still be here. Alone. If not that year, then the next. People fall. Always. Sometimes you see, and sometimes you didn’t.

And those who stay are the cowards. Those sticking with the status quo. Passing days. Waiting for miracles. Afraid of losing more in pursuit of losing one. The one.

Nonetheless. Glitches and random algorithms. Trial and error. Absurdity. Absolute absurdity.

Mud & Ashes

THE BURIAL

January 2026. The body was being laid in the grave. An overcrowded graveyard with fewer mourners for the wrapped lady. A 45-year-old Guriya. But there stood the father. Broken. Torn apart. Much older than yesterday.

And it was all a repeat telecast.

THE GOD.

My God. If cruelty had a blasphemous image.

“I’m not done yet,” the mighty voice echoed in his head and the chambers of his heart in 1990, something the father couldn’t understand. His heart was collapsing as he buried his 14-year-old son in the muddy graveyard. His picture still hanging right on the wall, above the TV, so he remembers his departure every single day. Nurturing the pain. The addiction.

Yes, it’s the same graveyard. Because it’s the same drama. Same theater. Same cast. Same story.

Before burying his 14-year-old son in 1990, the father had been here years earlier to bury the other one. Yes, they were twins. The one who didn’t live long introduced him to the theater where his life would keep playing its saddest melodies.

He was back in the graveyard in 1991 to bury the mother of the one he buried the previous year. The mother couldn’t survive the tragedy of the inexplicable death a year before, in which the boy who was getting ready for school suddenly couldn’t walk and gradually shut down within weeks. That was it.

And then the century passed. With martial law and without democracy. But God, up in the air, was as defiant as a great dictator. Never defeated.

And this time, he chose art. With just one tiny microorganism. Cancer.

Artistic. It spreads. Like a paintbrush. Inch by inch around the canvas. Spreading colors. Mostly red. Killing cells. Mostly white. Gradually snatching the soul out of a human.

Took 5 years to kill that guriya. Inch by inch. Around the kidney. Wrapping around the organs. The backbone. The liver. Intestines. Embracing her all around. ‘Till death do us part.’

Turning Mona Lisa into a dead body. Orchestrated by God. But God wasn’t alone. He had his man. The lawful husband who could bestow unlawful tragedies without breaking the law.

The husband ignored the first signs. He saw opportunities where she saw death. Shut the doctors. Bad surgeries. Rejected chemo and radiation. Fuck doctors. Let the tumor evolve. Pain. Pain. Only pain. Nah, no maid. The one who rarely liked her food started to prefer her cooking because the wedded-maid couldn’t cook anymore.

“I need to see a doctor for a strong painkiller…”

“Going to work, will take you in the evening…”

And then take her home. Ah yes, the husband was living in her home, which the father had gifted her. Yes, the same old man, getting older each day.

Remember The Metamorphosis by Kafka. That’s what cancer does to the human body. But not in one nightmare. It took around 1,825 nightmares for guriya. Because she wanted to live, laugh, and dance. She wanted to see her son graduate. She wanted to see a man out of him. But no, the 15-year-old is left to witness the story his mother lived without a mother.

Back to 1990. The father couldn’t understand ‘I’m not done yet,’ and so he was there, again and again. And again. Buried his mother there. Then his father. Then his son. Then another son. Then his wife. Then his brother. And now his daughter. A man living his entire life around this mud-covered theater.

THE MERCY.

May the soul rest in peace. If there’s a soul. And peace. And…