coming back to life

I thought its enough! I haven't written much and the times that I have managed to, only rows and rows of depressing posts have come up on this page. Today it struck me that maybe its my lifeless posts that has driven all the readers away :/

Hence I have come out of my melancholic mask and jumped into the colours of life. *splash* I have also uploaded a picture of the 'happy smileys' in the spirit of change. At the start of the year, I promised myself to write like crazy but as evident I have failed rather obviously. Its the end of march and here I m with only a handful of posts and writings.

'Coming back to life' should be a 'monumental' event, at least this declaration calls for a PROPER gay (used as an adjective) post. HAPPY in other words. However, happiness it seems doesnt spread as fast as poison does. hmmm totally out of my gray matter i will just type about some randomness around me. Ahh the word 'random', saves our ass every time no other words come to our minds.

Sania mirza weds Shoaib Malik. For those of you who don't have even an iota of interest in sports, the former is an Indian tennis player while the latter is a Pakistani (humara apna as we would claim on such merry occasions) cricket player. Ya so they are getting married to EACH OTHER. so whats the big deal? yesterday night surfing all news channels i thought is this the first time two cross border people are getting married?And for some odd reason people thought that their marriage is going to set things right between India and Pakistan. Its just two people getting tying the knot into a new relationship, what does that have to do with the big political agendas?

Since we have come to the topic of matrimony, this reminds me that my friends here and there are getting married. A friend's wedding is just two days away which is a good thing but also a sad thing. Good thing she is going to Amreeka and bad because the entire shadi business is making me emotional :/ By the way I'm not the one who stands with a tissue in her hand, sobbing on weddings. I' m just me, kind of unconcerned to the feelings of the bride :$

Next thing on my mind is the blog awards competition. the competition seems promising but the sad part is that a) i got to know of it quite late and b) none of my followers or readers nominated me :/ not that i own a fantastic blog that would be remembered but still !! :p Alright enough of my complaining :p

With summers at our doors and fans switched on, load shedding is on its extreme. one of my 'summer resolutions' was that i wont say a word on the never ending horrible age of load shedding. *sigh* ya well dont expect me to write any further of this topic, didnt i just mention my resolution? :p

hail randomness and hail writers' block ! ugh !

my clever gora saab

With Lahore under the shadows of blasts, the night was spent worrying about relatives living near the terror zone and changing channels to see and hear the fate bombs bring. As tension and doubt still hung in the air, I opened my blog page this morning and 'quote of the day' on the right side of the screen caught my attention. How apt i thought, a right quote on the right side at the right time. A cloud of irony floated above my head as i read the quote another time. Here's it below.

The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things. Henry Ward Beecher

How true Henry Beecher! Though i dont know you properly, i do know that your breed also comes from the 'angraiz' / 'goray' people; a race of humans known in my part of the world to have awaken a sense of confusion related to us the day we are born. Its next to impossible to explain what i mean here. A state confusion you see. As soon as we see our faces in the mirror we see a 'angraiz/gora' staring back at us. The moment we open our textbooks in school we read about the long colonial era in Sub continent and a number of scholarly studies that hammer all sorts of theories into our minds ranging from how the 'goray dost' left us handicapped post colonial times, how their shadows still lingers on our minds and souls. How we are still under their imperialism though of a different nature. There is just so much more but the adjectives and details of history betray me right now ( i think i will use this phrase time and again now)

Great! See my 'gora dost' again remained successful in diverting my attention from my very 'imperative' post. Coming back to the quotation under scrutiny, i would say how ironic! First the 'angraiz' made us learn the word 'irony' and then gave us a truckload of irony to deal with.
As these golden words gleam and glitter at me, i realise that the superior breed of humans (of course my white friend) have successfully come up with this equation and also followed it. They have realised that in order to be happy they will have to rob the common things in the world around them. I see the readers raise their eyebrows to very uncomfortable angles ( my assumption) but lets break the statement down and pick out the words that add weight to my argument that originates from a state of mind developed under the shadow of the west. Here i also very skillfully display my art of blaming everyone, even my white friend. All apologies though not meant.

The words 'happiness', 'power' , 'extracting' , 'common things'. Now do you get my point? Power lies with the white man, without a doubt. Happiness is a myth for us brown people, hence the only race on this planet deserving of this 'happiness' remains to be my white friend. Extracting - its a word in disguise for all the amazing maneuvering skills my friends possess while they sit seas away in other fortunate continents. Lastly, common things that would be us?

Oh and did i mention how we, the brown people have been trying very hard to please our friends? The most noticable thing found in our blood today is loyalty. Yes L O Y A L T Y not for our own filthy, uneducated lot found begging on the streets and living in what we term very beautifully 'on the poverty line' but for the superior human race. Some of us are just too keen in explaining that we are very peaceful and modern. Well the truth of the matter is that we are not peaceful. No. No where near to being THAT. we are not peaceful but full of pieces. Yes. Thats much better. One blast of 9/11 and then one attack on 26 Nov 08 many precious lives were lost. Very sad.

Bombs, suicide attacks, bombs, more such attacks in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, on random hours at night, around the clock here in Pakistan. People die. Its normal isnt it? What is even 'more' normal than Just normal is the attacks by my white friend from up in the air on people down on the earth because we are looking for the bad guys.

The entire ordeal of writing such a praiseworthy post for my friends leave me exhausted. Hence i take my leave and will continue if my gora saab whispers anything in my ear.

Death lay awake

He lay there with his eyes closed. A fly came and sat on the wound near his left eyebrow. Someone quickly waved their hand over his motionless, lifeless, expressionless face and covered it with a transparent white 'dupatta' probably rummaged from one of the cupboards at home in a state of hurry and bursting emotions to add to the dead body's paraphernalia. Exhausted by continuous crying and hiccups, lost eyes and minds wandered to their private thoughts. Seconds and even minutes passed by until someone new entered the tents and hugged the daughters, wife, nieces sitting near the sleeping man and made them cry again. A new round of fresh tears laden with emotions and memories trickled down many cheeks. A drop of tear kissed my lips and startled me. I realised it wasnt mine. Someone had hugged me and murmured some words of condolence. The embrace I was oblivious of left a tear with me, on my face, touching my dry lips.

Time had come to a stop like a train that reaches its desired stop and seemed to have enclosed us in its shell. The wait grew longer.We sat in the shell, surrendering our strengths to the reigns of time. We sat around the charpoy as if astounded by the sudden appearance of a unicorn.
Night fell and so did our voices and sobs awaiting few last visitors for the dead. He laid there, frozen in time and we sat there, stood there, did whatever we could to escape confines of seconds and minutes and hours.

It was a long, long period of waiting where we with beating hearts and he with death awake acted according to our roles. Then one last roar of grief and pain escaped into the air pregnant with melancholy and life and death parted ways.

People die. life ends. we being humans forget. In the hustle and bustle of life, lost in the pleasures and pains of it, we somehow, forget about our romance with death until it knocks on our doors or that of our neighbours or relatives...

Tale of a moment

Illuminated by the pristine sun rays pouring in through the long bay window, a speck of dust floated by. The floating glow caught her attention. Her brown deep set eyes followed the slow rhythm of the dust as it made its way away from the light and into the room.
The pair of eyes stalked the dust motes as they disappeared somewhere above her head. The slanted sunlight kept filtering in through the glass and dust motes continued to invade the room like some magical dust hanging in the air after the spell had been cast. Her mouth agape, she stared above her head as if there was some 'splendor' in the way tiny particles moved about for a while and then vanished.
In the meantime a trail of thought slipped from her and joined the celebrations of the dust mote, now appearing like tiny angels in the slant of the sun's light. Her idle hands untied her untidy bun of hair and let them loose and tied them in a neat braid. The long plait of hair rested on her lean shoulders and touched her floral kameez below her bosoms. Her eyes remained fixed on her thoughts and dust particles disguised as angels in a rendezvous. with her back towards the window, she sat in a trance of an insane person.
An impatient knock rapped on the bay window and startled her out of the bubble. As she turned her face towards the light, a pair of angry eyes met her dreamy pair. She slid her cracked heels into her rubber slippers and trotted her way towards the door.
An artificially exasperated voice said: "Didnt you hear the bell? Where are you lost half the time?"
She said: " I'm just a dust mote". The exasperated voice didnt wait to hear and walked away in her own bubble.