A poor woman was passing with her three children, laughing and blushing; and you realize it’s not about poverty at all. Not even if some are without shoes.
But other times, you see poverty ridden faces, freckles, hunger, unliveable homes, and medical problems; and you realize it is all about poverty.
There was a big banner of a big landlord contesting in upcoming elections under which the woman with three children was passing. That landlord has everything. Yet, the banner was all about begging for votes. And you realize, poverty is not even in the equation of begging.
And finally, all of a sudden, it’s all about death. The milestone. The full stop. The laughter will die. So will the hunger. And poverty. And begging. And everything.
How important is life? We know that. But death is more important. It’s an end to everything that causes pain. It’s an end to everything that gives vanity. And pride. And the develish desire to keep poor poor. And rich rich. And sick sick.
A laughter is about a joke. A joke that can make you laugh once or twice. Or thrice. Then it dies. A pain isn’t a joke. It never dies. It never tires itself away. But if you look in your past and relive the painful moments, they don’t feel painful anymore. They feel nothing. And sometimes, they feel just like another joke that lived it’s life.
But then there are some perpetual pains. That live forever. Makes you numb. You don’t even need a drug when you nurture your everlasting pains.
That poor woman laughing with her three children, is a woman who lived that moment. Before death. And the landlord shall face a defeat. Will become a defeated face in his society. And he won’t be able to laugh.
And I would stay the same, looking outside my window for faces and feces all at the same time.
Guess who had the last laugh?
Death. For everyone. To everyone.
Category: Fragments
Marla’s Smoke
When Marla wraps her fingers around a cigarette and lights the fire in dark mode, and inhales the first puff of the fresh tobacco; you feel the urge to meet her. Cross her and come by again for eye contact for a conversation to happen. That never happens.
But whatever happens, happens in slow motion. Black and white.
Only the smoke remains afterwards. That you can inhale. Second-hand smoke of Marla’s cigarette. A fine epilogue, nonetheless.
Steel knife in windpipe
As Eminem said:
I can’t tell you what it really is,
I can only tell you what it feels like.
And right now, there’s a steel knife in my windpipe,
I can’t breathe, but I still fight while I can fight.
This is how it feels after vomiting – anything and not just spaghetti – when clean smoke passes through your throat after burning – not Rihanna’s burning of inside flames – of paper wrapped between your fingers. Politely. Elegantly.
Obviously. Throat is temporary. Smoke is permanent. Or vice versa! Smoke and mirrors. Smoke and mirrors.
Eh!
Just gonna stand there and watch me burn?
Well, that’s alright, because I like the way it hurts.
Well, that’s alright, because I love the way you lie.
Hello from His Highness
There are always disagreements on religion, politics, culture and every other thing. That’s fine. Agree to disagree. But there are things which are oddly amusing.
Some of the comments on the posts are, “are you seeing the hidden agenda?” Another one is, “do you know who is behind this page?” Some comment with the knowledge of the unknown like, “he is sitting abroad”. Sometimes, the vagueness is like, “this page is being foreign funded”. “Thank you, I am unfollowing your page”. And my personal favorite, “this writer has some serious mental issues”.
First of all, you’re welcome. The pleasure is all mine.
No, I don’t have an agenda. At least not hidden. If I did have one, I would have opted to write in Urdu to reach the masses. I don’t. I don’t want to and I don’t intend to.
No one is paying me. There is no AdSense (or whatever those clicks-based-stuffs are) on my website. It’s a simple website with my words on it (not all of which are posted on the Facebook page). There is no funding and I don’t desire any. I want to write as freely as you are free to unfollow this page.
No, I am not sitting abroad. I however, quite enjoy this idea of people guessing my locality, stupidly. Although, why is there a problem if someone is sitting abroad? People go abroad. It’s normal. Some for education, some for work, some for safety, some to party, and some to run away from their local responsibilities. People have reasons.
Anyway. I am not abroad. Not my taste. Was there once – for education – but am back.
I know the taste of being a second-class citizen abroad. Being a Muslim and that too from Pakistan is a thing not liked by the West. In buses. In trams. At airports. In stares. In looks. In avoidance. So, it isn’t my way to live like that in a land where I cannot have cheap cigarettes with the freedom to throw buds at will.
You don’t know the pleasure of throwing the bud out in the air like Tyler Durden; while smoke is still in your lungs – heaven inside. If you do know it, you are as free as His Highness.
Nevertheless, I can relate to how people here feel when they are treated as second-class citizens; based on religion, caste, creed, and ethnicity. We don’t like Africans and Chinese here. We don’t treat Christians, Hindus and any of the non-Muslims at par with us. Even our government hiring is ugly when the post of janitor is specifically mentioned with a particular religion.
Deviation.
Then there are those who think I have some mental issues and some personal problems with Pakistan and Islam. Well, I may have mental issues. Never got checked. Maybe someday. You and me. Me and you. Unhappy together with a shrink.
Having personal problems with Pakistan and Islam is somewhat a true allegation. I am a Muslim and I am a Pakistani. So, yes I am personal about Islam and about Pakistan. And I have problems with wrong interpretation of the religion and the doctored history of Pakistan. So, yes. There are problems and they are personal.
And the person behind this page!
Lo and behold! His Highness. The one and only. And not yours truly.
This page is just a page, without any will in particular. Maybe to inform. Maybe to share knowledge. Some literature. Some personal views. And some personally owned and created stories. Nothing more.
Imagine! If this page is deactivated, what will exist? Maybe some ideas, some information, some knowledge. Not a person or a brand. That’s the ultimate dream. That’s a V for Vendetta kinda thing without Natalie Portman.
Give Tyler Durden a Guy Fawkes mask and that will be His Highness. Please, be seated.
I do receive lovely and beautiful messages. Thank you. I try my best to reply to every single message I receive / read; even when people abuse and accuse.
I know there are people who disagree and don’t like my views. It’s completely fine. Even when you disagree harshly. That is one of the purposes of life: to co-exist with all the disagreements. Agree to disagree.
But those amazing ones – mentioned earlier in the post – are the ones who give His Highness a chance to enjoy some good smirks. You are an asset. A national liability though, but an asset for me. I learn from you; to not become you.
Before leaving: there are actually people who challenge the things I have learned. So, I unlearn, unfreeze, and re-learn. People come up with strong counter-arguments and sometimes with strong objective information. So, yes. You people help me as much.
Thank you for all the guesses and the love and the hate and the accusations and the appreciation and everything.
Stop rolling your eyes. No one finds a brain that way.
Where is Honor?
Is it on the honorable seat of the honorable judge where they sell justice?
Is it beneath the table of clerks who take bribe before doing legal work of poor citizens?
Is it in the barracks where soldiers plan to takeover the country rather than to serve it?
Is it in the national anthem which is written in foreign language and hardly understood by few?
Is it in the national assembly where the most corrupt is feared the most?
Is it in hotels where men pay for sex so as to tell their friends how vulgar the society is?
Is it in the schools where students pay more fees than the income of their parents?
Is it in the mosque where sermons of violence and murder are given?
NO.
Honor is only and only between the legs… that too of a woman alone.
Hira
You talk to a girl – let’s call her Pari – for some time. You haven’t happened to see her, yet you talk to her daily on the phone. Then she disappears. She disappears because she was unable to own you.
After some months, you talk to another girl – Hira – and she is exactly the same person you talked to before. But not entirely the same. The identity is different. And this time, you happen to meet her.
You talked to two different people; perhaps the same. Yes. No. She was the one.
You talked to one, met another one; and both were the same.
You know, men want variety. They talk about it all the time. ‘Change’ and ‘biryani’; not ‘daal chawal’ every day. But then, men are always looking for the previous one. “The one who got away.” They are forever striving for nostalgia. Maybe they live in nostalgia too. Who knows their psyche?
Always trying to get a whiff of the breeze they inhaled a decade back at the beach.
Back to Pari. Oh! Hira. The same person. She knows you already. And as is likely, she disappears again. Because you could not be owned. You were not conquered. Her agenda was to own you, and your agenda was to escape.
Such a clichéd story: A random call. Random sharing. Random meetup. Random disappearance. End of story. No? No.
There is something to be said about being nostalgic in the present. Sensing and fearing a future without the beloved. You are going to lose this person right in front of you. Who you just met. For the first time. And for the last time. After the first touch. After the first kiss. After the first breath. That’s it. Nothing to follow. No seconds. No second touch. No second kiss. No second breath.
Are these lies? Like everything else. This life, this breathing, this space, this whole coding in a virtual platform? Oh! Pain is real. It can be felt. It nurtures and evolves on its own. We all have our share of pain in different shapes. And we are kind of addicted to it. Because that is the only thing we own. And sometimes that is the only thing we know. Pain. Very personal pain.
But even pain is nothing more than some angry brain cells.
See the other side of the human spectrum: special people. Above all of us. Above politics, above consumerism, above religion, above philosophy, above love, above lust, above everything. They are happy. Just happy. They don’t have eternal pain, like us who are actually handicapped and mere consumers.
Rooh / nafs / soul is dependent on a body. Complete human body. Religion simply dismisses differently abled people as they will not be judged in the Hereafter. Fine. But there are questions. Rooh depending on a body completely rejects the idea of soul. There is no soul perhaps. Just a system. Working and evolving.
One cell splitting into two. Two into four. Four into eight. Myopic microscopic evolution.
Or one cell is ordered to split into two. Two into four. Four into eight. The design.
Sigh! Don’t want to drag to the point where a story becomes blasphemous.
Eyes see a person. There is a chemical response in the brain. Curiosity. Love or lust, whatever, is a biologically intrigued chemical reaction. Mood, mood swings, temper, very intelligent anger, everything, is a chemical reaction. And then a whole human body, an object not to be objectified, is talking to you on the other end of the receiver. From chemical reaction in the brain to frequency signals on the receiver to decoding of wavelengths by the ears; love is born. Give yourself a break.
Reminds me of Merovingian’s causality scene of the Matrix. Everything is coded and hence can be manipulated, accordingly.
Back to her. Pari. Or Hira. Or whoever’s Zia she was. Two persons. Two cities. Two names. Yet, one.
How does it feel that you talked to one and met another one; who are exactly the same? That was the story that caused chaos in a dead sea. Some phone calls, and some social media snapshots – welcome to the modern world. What remain are some pictures to see. Sleazy pictures. No second touch but a possession forever.
The pictures remain, the person does not. The story remains, the voice does not. The stories have evolved. Now Ranjha isn’t running madly to save Heer. Romeo is already dead with nothing in hand. Now, the modern-day-Ranjha sneaks onto Instagram, takes screenshots, and keeps on reliving the past. Eating himself like the tail of a snake.
Why do men need to relive and die again and again, yet looking for variety at the same time? Are they still in an early evolutionary phase? Will they ever be stable? How they long and strive to see someone naked for months and then keep on reliving the moments where they were able to save some sleazy shots? Isn’t this digital-lust pathetic?
And the person you see in the picture is the same, yet not the same. The body is the same, yet the soul is different. What would have been a future of such a story? Only unfulfilled love stories are complete. Fulfillment follows disaster. And mutilated stories are not even worth telling. But here it is. As it was. How else to write such a weird story?
Maybe in another life. When they both are cats. Animals.
P.S. I know exactly what I was writing initially but kept on adding some words / fragments randomly in this piece. And look what I made? Noodles! May you make some sense out it. I couldn’t. Maybe in another piece.
Top Gun: 1986 to 2019
I wasn’t even born when “Top Gun” was released in 1986. Tom Cruise became a global star and Air Force Planes became a sensation for both men and women. The inverted plane maneuver is still one hell of a scene to watch.
It’s 2019. Trailer of “Top Gun: Maverick” has been released. Tom Cruise is the lead cast again. It looks promising though one shouldn’t bet against classics like that. But that isn’t the point.
In those 30+ years, while Cruise remained the lead cast / hero on screen, we went through the whole cycle of life. From Azaan in ears to passing through never-ending midlife crises.
Some of us got fat. Some went bald. White hair. Decaying skin. Decomposing. Some are unhappily married while others went through divorce happily.
Anyway, we hope, with our flop lives, that this movie will be a hit. We, the crowd, don’t like our stars to fail though our stars – our other stars – rarely align themselves.
“I’m going to need a beer to put these flames out.”
P.S. This one is for you. Not me. Because I ain’t bulky or bald.
Romanticizing Duffers in Paris
The business is same. 7 million tourists per year. To visit the steel tower. Why? Because movies say so. Celebrities keep that tower in the background of their pictures. Instagram. Models love to pose in front of it. It sells. And with that, Paris too. And consumers, the tourists, keep on coming like herd of sheep. Duffers!
It’s same elsewhere too. In Amsterdam, they have Red Light District. Tourists come even if they don’t want to fuck. They come. They spend. They visit. They roam. They spend a year’s savings in couple of days. But they don’t fuck. Yet they get fucked. Only they don’t know about it.
Well, why not enjoy the free stuff? Like sports on TV. Or do you want to be part of crowd to stand in queues for tickets, then fighting to enter, then finding the seat, then seeing the game with a binocular in one hand and selfie stick in other; posing for the world of social media which is waiting desperately for this particular duffer to illuminate their timelines.
Like. Like. Like. Heart. Love. Wow. For the ego. For self-confidence. For rest of the duffers to see the response on this duffer. Like mine. I will like yours.
Quid Pro Quo.
Even after following all their advertisements, we are tracked. Like inventory of Walmart.
Those who didn’t fit to the prescribed model of advertisements and monopoly and brands and trends; were out-casted. They were labeled. Traitors. Anti-nationals. Like Snowden. Like Assange.
And Assange is arrested. The founder of WikiLeaks is finally taken. The man who showed us a ray of hope in this ugly world of Orwell’s 1984, has disappeared.
Anyway,
Guess what? This sells too. Such words and books are cool. Also accepted and widely read. Writing about duffers has a market. A market of duffers. Not niche now. Every duffer believes he isn’t referred here. That’s his friend and everyone else. Not him. And that works. In writing. On laptop. In a hotel near Eiffel Tower.
Likes. Yikes!
In the Name of Zainabs – Our Daughters
There was a Zainab before. A blind girl.
In the times of Zia.
She was raped. Gang-raped.
But as she was blind and couldn’t identify the culprits, she was stoned.
Stoned to death for adultery.
The so-called “sharia” by Zia was imposed.
Just walk through the corridors of government or private organizations and you will find corruption at every corner of this country. Employees at lower grades are as corrupt as employees at top hierarchy.
Clerks are the ones that keep the pain alive. Employees in the field are the ones keeping the bribe system blooming. Shopkeepers, section officers, businessmen… almost everyone is corrupt. We have to verify a zillion times before making any purchase in this country.
Our kids, our generation, the innocent beings, are also not safe from our corruption. We feed them with impure milk. We raise them with bigotry and complexes. We trust strangers for their development. We send them to unsafe madrassahs and schools. We use them for our gains.
Most of the people, when asked about their kids, reply that they will help them in old age. That is it. Selfishness.
Lower the income bracket, higher the number of pregnancies. The only flourishing indicator of this country. And then they are left to face the miseries of life. Which is why they get into the wrong hands.
A Basic Health Unit (BHU) is given a minimum target of 60 deliveries per month. If less, an inquiry is held. Such is the ugly state of our “population control”.
Anyway, there is a question. Questions. What to do? How to keep our kids safe? Apparently the best solution is to take contraceptives. Let the kids stay in the heavens. But our selfish nature will not allow us to do that. Then what to do?
Schools are not safe. Madrassahs are not safe. Streets are not safe. Even relatives are not safe. What to do? There is no answer. There is only selfishness and misery. And misery will prevail for long. Because we see, we shout, and we become normal. Until we are jolted again.
Young Zainab’s father said that the head of JIT should be a Muslim. His consciousness is amazing. The rapist and killer of his daughter would most probably be a Muslim. The men behind child sexual abuse scandal of (2006-2014) were also Muslims. The state should be rid of this religion card by now. Our security, our existence, and our future is as stake; but we keep this card alive for personal benefits.
People are angry. There are episodes of anger.
Political parties are playing their political card.
Religious parties are playing their game.
The father of the unfortunate Zainab is also speaking in favour of the religious card.
Everyone is playing except those who are beyond the tags of conservative, liberal, Muslim, and non-Muslim “clichés”.
I Don’t…
I don’t want this medal of patriotism,
I don’t want the medal of martyrdom.
I want a safe future for the generations to come.
I don’t care what land it is,
And I don’t care what name it has.