Category: Fragments

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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…

On the flip side of the classes, poor people have higher birth rates than upper-middle and elite classes and they are in much larger numbers. Roughly half of the population is poor. That half is producing laborers and slaves for the top two classes.

A kid born here will serve a kid born there. No, let me rephrase it. Ten kids born here will serve one kid born there. Let me rephrase again. Ten kids born in Chungi Amar Sidhu will serve one kid in DHA after two decades.

Don’t empathize. Flip the coin again. These poor people are mentally pathetic. They just keep on producing more and more useless workforce with an idea that a number of children will be able to help them in the future. As selfish as parents of the elite class, but idiotically so.

Parenthood is selfishness – more on this later, but this idea that eight children will be able to bring eight times more in the future is a farce. In this nullah of sperms, some will be wiped out, some become addicts, and the rest will generate another generation of labor force, and the selfish parents will die exactly the same way they lived. Except, they will provide another generation of slaves to the bourgeoisie.

And this will never end. The poor are not only poor but dumb. The rich are dumb too, but they can afford to be dumb. The number of servant kids will keep on multiplying, and the rick kids will have battalions of their own. To be screwed. To be fired. To be deprived. To be rolled over.

Then we have a middle class. Once rising, now falling with the consistent militarized regimes one after another. This middle class produces educated battalions to serve another class. We call it service sector.

That other class is bureaucrats. They don’t have generational wealth in most cases, but they do make wealth by ‘101 ways to screw you’ as the Miss ASP said to the Doctor.

By the way, how ugly are the days for doctors since the new CM arrived? Handcuffed. Dismissed. Ridiculed. Deduction in salaries. More work hours. All that shit.

Recently, Punjab has passed a law that no more employees will be regularized. So, no more pensions. Gradually, the entire workforce will be of contract employees on lump-sum pays. This does not apply to bureaucrats (CSPs and PMSs). They’ll be regular and will keep on firing people on moods, mood-swings, and whims.

Now imagine a real case scenario. A female bureaucrat from a strong bureaucratic family with CM’s hand on her shoulder abusing her employees with words like ‘haramzaday’ and ‘kuttay kay bachay’ while shouting in their face. Imagine one of the employees getting a heart attack (himself a PMS officer – but PMS officers core duty is to swallow the spit of their CSP officers).

You know why she’s being able to do all that? Because she can terminate employees as the majority of the employees are not regular and will never be regular. And she does. On daily basis. They are destined to suffer.

Some will collapse. Just like the student of University of Lahore. But some of them cannot even think to collapse. They have mouths to feed. Folks and children at home. Rent and bills to be paid. So, okay. Being haramzada is fine.

These contract employees – engineers, data analysts, business graduates, economists, etc. – are not poor but the system is dragging them down. This is exactly the squeezed middle class. Serving the rich. They were born two or three decades ago to serve the ones born in GOR houses.

The world is cruel. But do you know who is the cruelest? Yes, that one. Followed by the parents – until we become the one and the dumb one. Because the cycle must continue.

Until we die and reach that promised stage of Sidrah-tul-Muntaha only to find that there’s another trial awaiting us to drag our wounded souls to eternal hell. Because there was no tree. And there was no promise. Only an illusion that smiled back at you in the dark park surrounded by the stars of the universe. To give you a message. That you, after all, were a jerk.

All lies. All promises. All blame on you. And you must suffer. Forever and ever.

The conception. The long nine months. The birth – the lone God-gesture only mothers can perform.

The nurturing of a new life. A woman giving her body, in return for heavenly pain, to become a mother. The prophetic transformation.

From womb to lap.

Day and night. Night and day.

The first word. The second.

Crawling.

The first step. The second.

The first smile. The laugh. The giggle.

The tooth.

The clap.

And then: death, right before her eyes. And an audience. A crowd. For the tragedy crafted by a thousand hands. Hand in hand.

The brand that couldn’t place a manhole. And the king who must reign. And the amendment. And the law. And the system. And the brothel. And the pimps. The mayor and the ministers. The secretaries and the bureaucrats. Thoo!

From cradle to grave. A snap.

And the mother: her trembling voice. Her falling heart. A dark night. And a gutter into eternity.

Such are the days, and such are the nights when nothing deserves attention. Not the 240 million. Not the billion-dollar scandals. Not the executive, not the legislature, not judiciary. Not the chief and his desires and his adamance to be the God.

Nothing.

I wish. I hope for an ending. With an earthquake or a flood. Whatever. But this may end. This world of men with greed for power and lust for bodies and chess of dead bodies – may end. And we all may have cancer. And the gods here and the God up there may finally be happy forever.

And ever.

To kill.

One of the first human instincts.

Then bury. The second instinct.

Then takeover the leftovers. Third instinct.

Then be remembered as a villain throughout the history. Not an instinct. It’s a lineage. A bloody lineage. The one who got killed, died. The one who killed, reproduced. Until, 8 billion.

8 billion galaxies. And so much deviation in the words. Like the galaxies themselves. Let’s all wish. For another Big Bang.

Suicide is a cowardly act. Until I, or someone very close to me, commits it.

We are the strong ones – men and women. We don’t fall. Not just because we don’t have an option to, but because we can’t. We are invincible. Unstoppable. And we roar like a tiger in our inner jungles – where we rule.

With materials around us, success on our badges, trophies in the cupboards, degrees in the drawers, and a sexy profile picture liked by hundreds – we are the warriors.

But we are the losers too and only we know that. Dancing and singing crap of the world. Our bank accounts. Vehicles driven by us. Tyler Durden…

Another CSP officer commits suicide only to tell you that CSS is not the end of the world. It can be the end of life too. But that’s not the point.

The point is: suicide – a beautiful way of leaving the world, but not the ideal one. I know.

Once upon a time, I wrote an application to my higher ups – a chain of CSP idiots. That application became a joke. The reference to the suicide of Bilal Pasha in that application became a laughter, and they all giggled, even made things harder for me for daring to question the ugly rotten system.

WhatsApp has ruined employment. Bosses keep a 24/7 tag on you. They text you anytime of the day and weekend, and they expect a swift response. They don’t care about you, your family, your mental health, your personal time. Nothing. They only care about the

And what does this 24/7 check achieve? Nothing. It’s like the civil secretariat of any province. Everyone is running, everywhere are meetings, and nothing is happening. That woman, yes, the one sitting on the bench in the shade of the British Raj’s tree, came from Rahim Yar Khan for creation of an OSD post of her dead husband. Yes, she took a loan to buy her ticket to Lahore. And yes, sahib ji is not available, and she may have to wait for eternity.

The applicant – His Highness, mind you – got reflected as “emotionally unstable being” on the ACR by the officer who was known as scum in the civil services among his own fraternity of scums.

Imagine how ugly and toxic these people with government provided car, petrol, chefs, servants, homes, electricity, etc. turn out to become in the end. For them, death of Bilal Pasha was nothing more than a joke – though they cried out loud on their social media and public gatherings.

Now come to civilians. Like you. Like me. And suicides that are young. Too young to be employed and gagged before burial.

Abdullah from Jamshoro committed suicide just like that 15-year-old boy from Chakwal – probably named Shaheer – who decided to depart this world on his own terms. Both were tired. Both had their own philosophies, which by any means were neither ordinary nor apologetic. Those words could be blasphemous for you, but they were sweet. They could be rebellious but peaceful. They had queries, anger, struggle, and nothingness. A void where they departed on their own terms.

I only wish they had lived longer so that they could’ve contributed in this rotten society by their words and poetry – and may have caused some damages for the betterment.

I don’t hate suicide. I can’t condemn it – even though it leaves painful relatives behind. Sometimes, the only cure is death. And committing it yourself is a victory over life in itself. Can’t condemn it. Can’t feel bad about it. Can’t empathize with it either.

How can you beat cancer? How can you beat leukemia? How to live forty years of your life on dialysis? Sclerosis. Parkinson’s. Arthritis. Weak heart. One leg.

Or.

The demons inside. Schizophrenia. Bipolar disorder. Nightmares. Anxiety. Trauma. Personality disorder. Insomnia. Mental masturbation. Blasphemy.

There are some glitches in humans that everyone around you knows that you don’t know. Like the beautiful souls with down syndrome. It’s fine.

Then there are some glitches inside that you know but others don’t. And sometimes, they get out of your hand. The rope slips under your skin, and your hands are torn, and the pain kills your guts, yet you can’t cry.

In such a scenario, there’s this option of death – by choice. Why to live on knees for decades than to die on your own terms? Why not?

[Half of the passage is deleted here. Apologies for that. I can’t make sense, and you can deliver verdicts instantly.]

I know. You disagree. I know nothing. You know everything. But let me try one more time with some old words of mine:

‘My Lord! You don’t know how much I’m going to love You and You cannot imagine the passionate sajdah that I will offer right on that moment of reunion… that sajdah which is better than a thousand nights of worship.

With all due respect my Lord! You cannot imagine it because you are not me.

Because you are not a human being

Because you are not in pain

Because you are not me, like I’m not You.

This is a relation between You and I

I ask,

I bear,

I cry,

I serve,

I accept,

I bleed,

I weep.

And You?

You give,

And forgive.

Just give me!

And forgive me!’

If that’s that, that’s fine. If that’s not that, then let me take what’s mine.

#SakiNama