Le Semur: The Sunset

There is a tinge of sunset-pink sadness fraying the edges of the clouds at dawn today. It rained last night.

A single dark bird, a spot of clotted shadows, rose into the air, flapping small dark wings to stir the stillness of a sacred dawn-sky. Streaks of pale grey smoke snake their way into the clear, softly eroding pink fog of the dawn.

On a damp, red rooftop in old Lahore, once carved in all the splendours of an emperor's reign, with ribbons of peeling paint hanging like thatch-eves down the sides, the silhouette of a woman defines itself carefully against the muted symphony of the dawn-sky.In that distinct outline, in all that care and enforced discipline, a single trendil of hair curls into the air, escaping.
See how it dances with arrogance and an enviable abandon. Like the wing of a butterfly in the wind.
See how it scorns the silence.

Somewhere, the dark pink sky bleeds into the lap of a rising sun. A child turns softly, pulling away from the breast it suckles. People huddle together in thick coats on the deck of the departing ship, hazy in the mist, waving at lovers that look on from the shore.A foghorn is heard in the distance.

She pushes in her last pair of socks and zips the bag shut. She takes one long look around the room, trying to convince herself that there is nothing she has forgotten to pack. Distraction, she feels, can sometimes work in the face of "real life". Before she turns the handle of the front door, she looks back. For one split second, everything that he ever meant to her, plays out in perfect silence before her eyes. His words, his pullover, his side of the couch, his claims over the remote control, his hands holding hers, his early morning stubble, him. She wants to stay, and she knows she must not. Twisting the handle, she steps out into the storm. There are some cliffs from where one has to fall.


***************************************

And hail the mighty river of change,
That hits the pulse of throbbing stars,
Sweeping over signposts, and markers, and such,
Erasing directions, while the child sits down on the
doorstep of his house, with his head in his hands,
And cries.
While the traveller, reaches out to smudge the tear,
For the flood that uproots the signposts,
Can never swerve the path.
Fly, my bird of freedom, fly
For memory flickers in the genie's old lamp
in the Arabian Nights of an immortal tale.
Fly, for today, the wind stands ready,
And so do you.


--Here's to everyone who has acted out some part in the Great Game that I have played.More to some and less to others.
To Beaconhouse Margalla Campus. Thankyou.
To the monsoon rain in Islamabad. For the inspiration.
To my books. True love, perhaps?:)

---And finally to Dartmouth College where I head: You're asking for trouble.:)

Family

So today I got two going-away presents. From my sister and my brother.
A tiny hand made version of the "MayFlower"(Ah, the wonders of involuntary symbolism) and an incredibly almost eatably cute stuffed puppy dog(one that I had had my eye on for some time).

*Sigh*.I almost cried.

No matter how well you think you know people, they still manage to surprise you.

Alone

I walk alone.

Red Woman 

The Space between Sleep and Awaking

There is a space between sleeping
and awaking.
Which is sacred.
Like an afternoon nap, with the whirr
of a slow ceiling fan,
and a blue sky etching pale yellow patches,
on a cross-stitch bedspread.
Like the stepping on water, and
allowing the foot
to hover lightly on the surface,
skiming the ripples,
while the other foot stands embedded
on solid ground.
Like a swollen dream, almost
spilling over closed eyelids,
and a circling earth holding
a circling moth.
Like a monk on the brink of nirvana.
Like the whore on the edge of orgasm.
She's walking on time, see?
She's walking on time.
And space becomes raw dust,
Spreading into nothingness under her Holy Grail.
Sacred spaces.
And indefinably
undead.

Maiden in spun straw 

14 August: In "Dependance" Day

INTESAAB: by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Aaj ke naam
Aur
Aaj ke ghum ke naam
Aaj ka ghum ke hai zindagi k bhare gulistan se khafaa
Zard patton ka ban
Zard patton ka ban jo mera des hai
Dard ka anjuman jo mera des hai
Kilarkon ki afsurdaa jaanon ke naam
Kirmkhurdaa dilon aur zubanon ke naam
Post-mainon ke naam
Taange-waalon ke naam
Rail-baanon ke naam
Kaarkhanon ke bhole jiyaalon ke naam
Baadshah-e-jahan, wali-e-maasiva, nae-bullah-e-fil-arz, dahkaan ke naam.

Un dukhi maaon ke naam
Raat mein jin ke bachey bilaktey hain aur
Neend ki maar khaaye huay baazoon se sanbhalte nahi
Dukh batate nahi
Minatton zaariyon se bahalte nahi.

Un hasinaaon ke naam
Jin ki aankhon ke gul
Chilmanon aur dareechon ki bailon pe bekaar khil khil ke
Murjhaa gaye hain

Un biyahataaon ke naam
Jinke badan
Be-muhabbat riyakaar sejon pe saj saj ke uktaa gaye hain
Bewaaon ke naam
Katehriyon aur galiyon, muhallaaon ke naam
Jinaki naapaak khaashaak se chand raaton
Ko aa aa ke karta hai aksar wuzuu
Jinaki saayon mein karti hai aah-o-bukaa
Aanchalon ki hina
Chooriyon ki khanak
Kaakulon ki mehek
Arjumand seenon ki apne paseeney mein jalne ki boo.

Parhane-waalon ke naam
Woh jo ashab-e-tablo-alam
Ke daron pe kitaab-o-qalam
Kaa takazaa liyay, haath phailaaye
Pahunche, magar laut k ghar naa aye
Woh mausam jo bholpan mein
Wahaan apne nanhe chiraaghon pe lau ki lagan
Le ke pahunche jahaan
Baant rahe they ghata-tope, Be-unt raaton ke saaye

Un aseeron ke naam
Jin ke seenon mein fardaa ka shabatab gauher,
Jail-khaanon ki shoreedaa raaton ki sar sar mein
Jal jal ke anjum-numaa ho gaye hain................


My humble addition:(Saleha Waqar)
Un deeyon ke naam,
Jo aag mein thande so gaye hain,
Un laharon ke naam,
Jo samandar ki talwaar tale,
Jhukne se pehlay hi patharon mein qaid ho gayein hain..
Uss SOCH ke naam,
Jo sach ke baghair zakhmi hai
Jis ka lahu sachai ka dard,
Jis ki awaaz uss dard ka rang.

Aur hum, uss rang mein akailay,
Uss sachai mein akailay.
K humare labon mein zanjeerain pari hain,
Magar,
hamari soch pe khare pahredaar,
Salakhon ke beech,
Silwaton se chaak,
Roshni,
Ko rok nahi sakte.
Ke yeh roshni, aur sirf yehi roshni,
Azaadi hai.

The Shadow behind the Dance 

Of Rain, God and the Random Tear

Its raining today. The monsoons in all their magnificient rage.
There's a tear in the sky.
God is crying.
(If God exists)

Me

"You're searching, Joe
For things that don't exist.
I mean beginnings
Ends and beginnings
Ends and beginnings--there are
no such things
There are only middles."

--Robert Frost

The Athiest Speaks

See the signboards on the low columns of the small market crammed together? See their dirty-white surfaces laminated with cheap paint on a yearly basis? See the cracked lampost where the man coming out of his fresh-out-of-the-oven Corolla, ties his dog? See the kid in a stringy T-shirt with a sodden "chappal" and a penny in his hand sitting under the same lampost? See the dull grey canopies of the street hawkers as they bite on hoarse throats? See how they were once striped red-and-white like candy canes? See them now? See how the "juice wala" wipes trickling sweat off his brow with his fingertips swollen with cortisone and proceeds to stir in hefty pebbles of sugar into a thick orange liquid inside a foggy glass container? See the green dumpster? See how it swings on screws loosened by young men in brown "salwars" with clotted heat in their minds? See how empty packs of "Lays" chips, "Cocomo" and Pepsi bottles flood out of it in an act of "globalized" rebellion? See how a dark woman, oily in the sun, with folds of fat straining against her bodice, sifts through this pile with one hand, carrying, in her other hand, layers of a smelly grey blanket with a baby inside? See the "Walls" icecream cart? Hear the jingle? See how a man of about 23 peddles through the street on this cart carrying ice-cold icecream under a blistering sun, with a song of commerical happiness blaring in his head? See the General Store wala? See how he sits on the grimy steps outside his shop with his legs wide apart and the elastic hanging out and his hand on his balls? See how his chapped brown lips play with a thin cigerrette, his hair matted in the smoke? See the sliver of a street snaking into the distance between the mechanic's rented garage and the Dye-wala's mortage on a hut? Smell the air? Smell the yellow on the mango peels as they turn to clogging the sewage beneath the road? Smell the blend of urine, sweat and rose water on the wheezings of the Third World's wretched? See the walls? See how a diesease of stagnant dirt distorts thier once-even periphery? See the people? See their eyes as they turn to the sky to thank God for the heat that burns them blind? See how they talk about the government? About Musharraff and Afghanistan and Amreeka? See how little people weave little conspiracies on the political front? See the "future suicidal bombers(--CNN)", and how they endanger the world? With their bedtime stories for sanity? With their malnourished, half-starved, mostly-jaundiced, hopeful renditions of the world? Them?



Show me this amongst the glorious turrets of your First-World glitter, and I'll show you God.

*Thinking*

So Im still kinda wondering how I managed to get so lucky.....(though I don't believe in luck,per say..)

The Writer's Dilemma

So today I sat wondering what it takes to make a good writer. Actually, let's kick the upper-middle class generalization syndrome aside, which we say, as everything else, is the colonialist's gift, and jump right down into the condom-free truth.I sat thinking how I can make myself write a good book. My problem? Sheer inconsistency. Cause: Excessive indulgence in distraction. There. I've done the scientist's work. Identified the problem and the cause. And like most scientists, I forget that things, in a very practical world, do not actually boil down to equations as simple as what Pythagoras thought of his Theorum. Then ofocurse, he ran into the the Problem of incommensurables, and voila! Pythagoras decided to bring in his issue with beans. In other words, he neatly sidestepped the problem at hand, and went on to explain the excrutiating details of his Bean Theory. I suppose that's where the word "nut" comes from. As in, when we use it ro refer to mentally disturbed "Bushes" of the world. No offense to Pythagoras, ofcourse, who I hold in very high esteem.

So anyway, (im sure you've caught on to the involuntary demonstration of what distraction means in my dictionary), I wondered if i could ever sit down and write agood book. Something, that came from whithin me, that was entrenched in my experiences and a piece of fiction that translated from factual realities. Something like the "God of Small Things", really, at the risk of sounding like i want to sound like her, as a writer, which I don't, since I want my voice to be "unique",(as is the case with most adrenaline-infested young high school/college graduates who consider themselves the epitomes of modern philosphy, hence the whole Picasso routine). Something that encircles history, and man, and social issues, both reagional and global. Something, that in the end, comes from the heart and touches, primarily the heart(the romance novels I've read had to have some influence, no?!). Something that is essentially ME, and yet, universally felt.

But then, a marxist friend said to me, you have to decide what side of the equation you're on. He, by the way , for all my firends who consider Mathematics a righteous enemy, was speaking politically. A gun was suddenely placed aginst my head and i was asked to choose between the rising tide of commercialism, and the secretly rising tide of what they like to refer to as the "Left".The "Royal" LEft perhaps, would be more appropriate, since they too, have begun to consider themselves a tad bit too important in the wake of things. My dreams of writing a "good" book, were, in his august opinion, closely linked to this choice. I could either try writing a book for publicity and money, your average "bests-seller" types, or write something more "literary". Now, here ofcourse, he never really defined what he meant by "literary", and that actually got me thinking.

Being fresh out of A-Level Literature, I know that all that what is conventionally refrerred to as "Literature" and what it churns out, is vastly diverse in nature. We have "literature" that is spread over different countries, different languages, and an increasingly diverse range of writing styles. Shakespeare, in his own time, was a famous playwright, not as famous, as a few others of his Age, back then, but famous enough to continue to use his plays as a means of earning his daily bread. Jane Austen, though not earning too much through her living room filigree works, was getting a lot of publicity in her own time. In the modern age, we had Tennessee Williams, who literally lived on his plays. So some general observations begin to emerge as a pattern in "literary" history. Here, I suppose it would be convenient to clarify that by "Literature" let us take the most commonest of its explanations, as in all those works that survive the test of time. And in this case of course, the loosely put together explanation itself renders all attempts at encasing the word "Literature" in an intellectual prison, null and void. However, even if we consider this, it is plainly apparent, that a lot of those who made "literature", or passed that insurpassable test of time, were famous and well-paid even in their own time, for their work. The Church clergy here, perhaps, will tell me that it doesn't matter if i get famous or paid for my work, as long as i donot write because of these two outcomes. As long as I write for myself, because i truly want to, I am all the nobler for it. In other words, I am resisting the tide of commercialism that threatens to hit me in this oh-so-capitalistic world.

But, and here lies the gripe, will J.K Rowling ever turn to writing her own book of short stories on the Dilemma of the Human Race, as long as Harry Potter still lives? We may start off in the ernest, but the increasing prospects of economic gain, are experienced persuaders of the world. Since writing would require getting into a very subjective mind, I will take my own example, hindered by the fact that I do not have numerous other minds to jump into, at my disposal, in lieu of the standards of ethics set down by the anti-genetic experimentation squad of the "New World Order".

On a personal note, If I start writing in a newspaper column that intially pays me only minimally, but when i become a sudden success overnight, it raises my salary to a considerablky high figure. There will be days, when I do not want to write, and when what I produce, may not really be a reflection of the kind of writin g that I dream about, the kind that is essentially about me, but in a universal mould, but I will continue the column because of the hefty paycheque i get at the end of every month. The existentialist will tell me that I still have a choice, that I can leave this kind of writing, lose my economic snobbery for some time, and try my hand at something different. On the other hand, I can continue. The existentalist, makes me think I have a choice. In the end, I suppose, our worthy friend, the existentialist, is bit like our other friend, the capitalist. He tells me I have a choice, which really, is a choice with a lot of barricades here and there to ensure I don't wander too far(translation: a longer leash). In other words, not much. And not too diffiucult either, in a world where each class sits up like a puppy dog on its haunches to be fed by the class above it.(With gratitude, thankyou.). So here I am then, day in and day out, and my dreams of writing what I really wanted to write, getting chewed up in the machinery of the Techno-era, and the world applauding my "genius".


Where does the writer end and the reader begin? That, is the question. And this question is turning from one of philosophy to one of economics.Shakespeare's plays were never meant to be read, they were only meant to be performed, and yet, your average, semi-literate, IT-armed epitome of street-smartness will tell you Shakespeare's literature. In the example that I referred to above(and i apologize again for it being a personal one, throigh no fault of my own), the world loves me. I will write enough, proabably, to last a good many years, and my work may even make it into "literature", if the readers of another time and place can still relate to it. But where, one wonders did the "I" in the writer go?And here its not the "I" in the survivor that I am referring to but the "I" in the writer, or the "I" in the artist. Some critics have said, that Shakespeare, even if he had been a rich Duke who needn't survive on his plays, would ultimately have made it to "Literature" through perhaps, his love sonnets for the Duchess. In other words, talent, they assume always comes out, one ends up doing what one loves most.

In the sudden awakening of this crazy rat race of survival and the golden turrets of competition, I really do wonder......

Think about it. Writing seven books, each roughly above 300 pages and others roughly double the length, in the course of a straight six years, cannot be particularly enjoyable. So why, does J.K. Rowling stretch that story? Why, I ask, does Harry Potter not die? Why, is Voldemort defeated? This isn't how it happens in the real world surely, where the Voldemorts rise in number everyday, and continue to trample Harry Potters under their feet. How, one wonders does public pressure build up, and how, one wonders, does it kill the artist's "I"?

Decision

I am awakened by the sound of a foghorn,
That treads like a fresh-water sprite over the whorls of puffed mist.
Like the faint throbbing of the lighthouse,
on a fire-ridden sea,
His whispers come to me.
I am awakened and I do not know,
which path I am to take in the blindness that sets in the spaces between the fog.
The hungry sound of the sea, from deep whithin its being,
scares the Albatross, and he runs from me. My bird of luck is gone.
Hanging on a fork in the road, as the grass turns to salt in my hands,
I hold on to the dirt. To watch it bend over in the frail gossamer skirt, of the wind,
Turning into dust. Dust, that dries with the beads of silver dew on the salty grass.
If I am to decide, the dust must never come back.
The air is crisp with salt, and the voice perhaps, is clearer today.
If I am to decide, the heart must not trace the footprints of the light,
As it slinks its way back to the Lighthouse in the fog.

November Rain... 

A History of the World(Part I)

Pre-Origin


All is not lost, and those who are seated,
In the glistening scales of the goldfish,
That swims the Earth, and separates the void,
From Water, are not bits of dry paint,
Peeling from the Chaos.

To be or not to be? That is the question.
But to “be”, is to writhe through “forever”,
And the “forever” seeks not the light.
The rocks and their decendants, that evolved into blood,
Shall “forever” rise and fall, and dust to dust, thou shall witness.
Theirs, will be a spiraling road to a burnt sun.

And if it “be not”, and if it “be not forever”,
Then the first grain to have blown into the hourglass,
Must be found.
The Origin must dance to an Origin.




The Age of the Dinosaur


The tempest that brings the waves to a blood curdling fever,
The reverberation of Osiris’ foghorn to Death,
(Death, ofcourse, for those who confront survival in reluctance)
The endless, night-infested tunnel, guiding in stony silence, to
Cold blood.
But Life, that through the pulsating Red, lives,
Rejevenates graveyards through more Life.
Grass and meat, do not separate,
And together, the “Balance” drinks on the water,
That the Goldfish swims.



The Meteor


Flashes. Reds and burning white. Heat and fume.
The eyeball of the Dinosaur reflects another eye,
That scorches itself. And sees The End.
Running. Cries of anguish into an abyss. Echoes.
The element that pierces through the “Balance”,
For a greater “Balance”. Or if it is the “be”, than through
The interweaving of the Dice of Chance.


When the flame has burned itself out,
And the flakes of white erosion begin to soothe and settle,
Frail rivulets of smoke, run through the air.
Wisps rise, and a slow wind mourns.
The sun sets into an ocean, that once faced a familiar horizon.

Traces of Life that the grains in the hourglass,
Collect, and will one day,
Reveal the eroded steps on the veiled staircase,
To other grains, that blow in Time.


(To be continued...)

Why Did God Create Man?

The heart sinks, and dives lower,
Into the ocean of existence,
To reach the water bed, and discover the sand,
That exhales the liquid.

If the dust grows on the traveler,
As he walks into the sky,
If the blood that marks a tyrant,
Embraces a thinker’s lie,
If the wing that tears and bleeds,
Is but an orb of thought,
Sculpted into clay,
By the fingers of a single voice,
If the voice allows the notes of a single song,
To scatter,
Then who, I ask,
Are we?

Do we walk, or do we stand?
And do we decide between these two?
Which road is ours, and which string,
Among the shimmering circles of the spider’s lair,
Comes from us?

The spider spins, and lets us ride its
Imagination.
The tangle of strings, as they struggle to breathe,
All lead to the snares of the Creator.
Or so we think.
Can the web be unraveled?Will “I” survive?

Why?

Premise: God Exists, therefore God creates World and therefore God creates Life, and therefore God creates Man.


Why was Man created?
In whatever way I choose to look at it, the argument remains circular. Why was "I created? If there is a Cosmic Purpose, and God is omnipotent, why not just jump straight onto the Purpose, why go through the entire process of evolution?
Saying that he made us to "test" us, as per relegion, doesn't stand, because its flawed logic. God creates man--God tests man--but the "test" cant be called a "test" since God created Man and in a way controls all that he does anyway. He couldn't have created man with some "cosmic purpose" and then left everything to Man's "free will" or chance. And if he did, then there is no purpose, for if Man had been given "free will" (if it exists), then Man can't necessairly be heading towards a Purpose ordined by God, for if he does, then he is not really acting in "free will" but in the will of God. SO it can be inferred that a man's "free will" is actually the will of God then it is not, by any definition, "free will".

So the question remains unanswered, Why was Man created?
I want to know. If there is an answer to that, I'm going to search for it.