Daring to Dream.

عمر دراز  مانگ کر لاۓ تھے چار دن 

دو آرزو میں کٹ گۓ دو انتظار میں 

بہادر شاہ ظفر

(Asking for a long life we got four days,

Half went away in wishing, rest in waiting.)

{Find the complete ghazal by Bahadur Shah Zafar here}


They say, "it isn't over till it's over", perhaps the same is also true for beginnings too. This post is about what happened to me when a dream I so lovingly nursed for for years now, blew up in my face. I apologise to all my readers(as few as they may be) and myself for not writing, but I preferred to be numb than take the heart ache head -on. Now I feel disappointed in myself for giving up a passion to a loss that has already taken so much from me, that I must visit that box in my head labelled; 'Do Not Open'.


What happened I think was quite big, as far as I am concerned, but I will not trivialise my post by making it about me, I have considered this a sacred place where the purest of my emotions get to free themselves, and not a place to vent. So I shall try and manoeuvre my feelings towards a general outcome, that can (hopefully) benefit those who might know what it feels like. 


When you have a dream, something that you really want, and in quite attainable, it hurts when that dream doesn't come true, even though you try your best. The first instinct is to hibernate, switch off everything and go in to a deep sleep where you don't have to feel anything else. Makes sense why sleeping a lot is a sign of depression, why wouldn't you want to sleep a lot when that is the only solace you have? When you are done with sleeping, there comes a point where you start wondering what's next, and as you pick up the pieces, you want to just move on. Moving on isn't the easiest thing to do. How can you when it is something that has occupied much of your thoughts for quite a while? I feel like I need to give out a scream, a very loud scream, that should go unheard. I don't know if it makes sense, but in the technical sense, when a sound's frequency gets too high the human ear cannot hear it. That's what I need to move on! 


I haven't moved on, and I don't think you should either, if you feel like you really want something to happen, then take a step back, analyse what the cards in front of you say, maybe you can try again? Third time's the charm I think. But do not put all your eggs in one  basket, have a back-up plan, set your self a deadline, have a project meanwhile. When everything fails you, which I sincerely hope doesn't happen, just know that there is someone or something looking out for you, if you have been earnest in making your dreams come true and things don't work out for you, do not take it as your failure, you tried, maybe the time wasn't right. I am not saying you should take no for an answer. I guess what I am trying to say is, that perhaps the time wasn't right, and when the time is right you will get what you want. Just hold on long enough and not make this one dream the central goal of your life, it is healthy to have other projects, other passions. 


Personally a part of me is some what happy, because I have always wondered how can a sheltered upbringing such as my own, foster true artistic genius, not to say that I have reached that point. But these punches life gives you, help add to the book of experience, which I can hopefully open one day and find enough source material to shape my masterpiece. Although being so empathetic can work for me but I long for first hand experiences, like so many of the work's I enjoy reading.


I open with a verse from Bahadur Shah's ghazal, a man who was destined to rule but was tied with strings and forced to be a puppet. The verse says so much about life, his and ours, and how some of us spend it. I would love to say that we are so empowered as to decide our own fate and nothing's impossible but right now I feel there is an undertone to these seemingly uplifting statements. Nature plays on us perhaps trying to teach us a lesson that is the hardest to learn. Patience. 

Quel est L'amour?

So I was having this invigorating conversation with my friend on the phone discussing the abstract thing known as 'Love'. We tried defining it, categorising it, quantifying it and finally summarising it but to no avail. Love in my head is still a very intangible amalgamation of emotions and experiences which can run in to infinite loops and even though a definition could be correct for you, or even be accepted by the masses, someone refusing to accept the norm is still entitled to call what they feel, love. Another friend of mine said, writing gives clarity to ones thoughts, so here it goes. 


Let's first talk about love as a verb. In the general sense I guess its the superlative form of the word like. When you like something or some one more than the rest its love. But again how do you measure it. Who are these others that you like but not love, and how do you differentiate. Perhaps there needs to be some sort of exclusivity for the action, cream of the crop so to speak. Here I think I should mention why I think Love is a verb, I believe the mind plays a huge part in loving an object, whether it be the aesthetics stimulating the brain in all the right ways or overlooking the short-comings to create an image* that is almost perfect(a very obscure word do grant me the license to use it in this sense) and thus worthy of loving, the brain is actively playing a part. Even on a subconscious level there's the obvious attraction when you really like something but cannot understand why. I think this definition loses all the fireworks attached with love but there are other definitions too.

What about love as a noun? Well the clear case of it would the object one loves, as in "my love". But then there's the abstract feeling Love. For many it's the intense feeling of joy mixed with trust. But I know many a situations where love entails sorrow and pain. So how do you know you are in love when you don't even know what it is? Perhaps the answer is when you don't know what you're feeling whilst being attracted to someone its love.

Moving from that my friend and I talked about the kinds of love. The main categories(as we see them) are Love of God(beautifully put in Urdu as Ishq e Haqiqi {عشق حقیقی} meaning real love) and Love of World(Ishq e Majazi {عشق مجازی} meaning metaphorical love). 


I would like to discuss the latter first. Love of world, is the love you feel for something you see. There are ideas of 'true love' and 'the one' which I honestly find ludicrous. For most of us statistics and science play a huge role in determining who that one person is, the affect of surroundings on ones individual self, the psychological void that is created by what ever one grows up with turns in to desire, and if you are in love, then odd's are the object of your love fills a part(how ever big or small) of that void creating all the feelings and experiences typically called love. Now when I say that I don't want to sound dull and de-romanticise love, for I do think there is something there, something that science cannot explain, a supernatural element perhaps but there is something. This something unfortunately I think isn't the case for most of us. What I am talking about is the love that poets like Mir and  Ghalib talk about, the kind of love that is said to be the love a moth has for a flame, the kind of love that burns you up inside the feeling of longing and incompleteness. That I think is love in it's extremist form, and even though there might be some melancholia associated with this kind of love I find the feeling of being engulfed by the aura of the one you love as something very rare and bittersweet and there is a sense of pathos that I may live my entire life without truly knowing what love is;

جدھر سے میں گزرتا ہوں نگاہیں اٹھتی جاتی ہیں

مری ہستی بھی کیا تیرا ہی عالم ہوتی جاتی ہے ؟          

  جگر مرادآبادی              

(Where ever I pass from people start looking at me

Is my personality turning in to your aura?)

 {Find the complete ghazal by Jigar Moradabaadi here}

According to some schools of thought thats not real, its just symbolic of something else, I have a theory which may link to love of God in the end. I have talked about there being a part of God in every one of us, and the eternal longing to return to the source of that particular part that's a compound in our creation. In simple words The Quran speaks of making Adam(and consequently mankind) from a part of God's divine light, and many literarians discuss how the human spirit long's for the source of that light, that is God. So perhaps this longing translates in to man's need to love, to connect with any glimpse of that light, which exists in fellow beings although getting to the source requires leaving the physical realm behind. Perhaps that's why poets draw parallels between a moth and human beings, they chase after a light they cannot get, until they let it surround them entirely, and burn to death in the process. 

There is one more kind of love, the kind that I think is the purest form of love. This came up in my conversation with my friend when we were wondering what the 'extent of love' can be. We remembered the saying that God loves for you is equivalent to seventy times the love your mother has for you. To me this says that the extent of love in this world is the love a mother has for her child. For example, if I were to explain the amount of a 'Million' to a person who only understands numbers under a 'Thousand', I would say that a Million is a Thousand times a Thousand, as in I would use the biggest quantity comprehended by that person. Similarly the love a mother has for a child is the extent of love a human being is capable of feeling in this world. Another noteworthy deduction can be the nature of this love. Where as worldly love may be classified as metaphorical, This kind of love is 1/70 times the love God has for mankind, that is considered real. So maybe this is as real as it gets here? 

When you think about it, you realise what a blessing motherhood really is. And I feel unfortunate that this is a feeling I will never experience. So no matter how patriarchal this society gets, Love; the thing almost everyone strives for, is entitled to women in all its strength and purity. 

*Image is a topic I have left for another post, but food for thought could be that we live our lives like an optical illusion. We are the only ones who know ourselves, rest of the world just knows me as the illusion it sees. 

I wonder...

I am here to drop a little word about something I was wondering, in fact this post is being written on my phone since I really had to get it out there before I might lose the spark. So consider this a fair warning that what you are about to read may not be one of my more eloquent posts or as orchestrated as the rest(that is if my work justifies the word).
So I was listening to this hindi song that goes; rotai huai atai hain sab, hasta huwa jo jaiga, wo muqadar ka sikandar jaan meri kehlaay ga. (Everyone comes crying, but the one who leaves laughing, would be the one who has defeated {appropriate word?} Fate). I have always thought this song has some profound meaning and isn't like all the other nonsense stuff we heard. And it got me thinking, is life really supposed to be sad? Is fate really the enemy here? And if so why is suicide such a crime (now I am not thinking about killing myself if that's what you're wondering)?
There are theories out there about what some call 'the human condition' about man's(I am not sexist, but the english language seems to agree upon man representing our race collectively) never ending search for truth and meaning in their life, the daunting questions of who brought me here and why. And a theory that I particularly enjoy is that man is destined to be, in plain words, sad in this world since he has left a world which, we hear, is much better than this one. When all the odd's are against us are we really supposed to live?
As far as I can see (which might not be very far) this world is extremely beautiful, and in layman's term it is heaven on earth, for the best thing we can think of, probably exists in this world but maybe unattainable, and at times the whole point of going to heaven seems to be to get those things that we want here but cannot get. Although personally I tend to see it differently, honestly I am God-fearing, but not afraid of hell, of course I don't want to go to hell but I don't think I know what hell is. So I do not concentrate too much on hell and heaven at this point. I do feel that this life takes a toll on me a lot of times, and I don't think I should ever mind not living another day, I am thankful for this life I have. And I know I should put it in proportion with the hardships others have, but I can't help but feel that in a way this world is a disappointment, and I would not mind leaving it as soon as my time comes.
By that I don't mean that I am just surviving and not living, because there are things that I want in life, I do have goals and aspirations. I should hope that what I feel is the longing of my soul to return to the light its a part of and not brush that longing aside.
That's all I think. I don't have a conclusion for you, because there is none, I have to live, strive, but I guess something to work towards maybe leaving a mark before I actually leave?

آزاد پاکستان؟

 

کہتے ہیں آج پاکستان بنا تھا۔ ہندستان کے مسلمانوں نے آزادی حاصل کی تھی، لیکن کیا ہم سچ میں آزاد ہیں؟ اور اگر ہیں تو کیا ہم نے اس آزادی کا صحیح استعمال کیا ہے؟ اور کیا ہم نے ان قربانیوں کا حق ادا کیا ہے؟

یہ وہ سوال ہیں جو میں سمجھتا ہوں آج ہر پاکستانی کو اپنے زمیر سے پوچھنے چاہیے۔

ہر ترف افرا تفری پھیلی ہوی ہے، بھایٔ بھایٔ کا دشمن ہو گیا ہے اور جان و مال کا تحفض اب کنابی باتیں لگتی ہیں۔ ہر انسان یاں تو خود مجبور اور لاچار ہے یاں پھر کسی اور کا جینا محال کر رہا ہے، بیبسی کا آلم یہ ہے کہ مایٔں اپنی گودیاں اجاڑ کر خود کو ختم کر رہیں ہیں لیکن ہم آج بھی اس غلط فہمی میں جی رہے ہیں کے ہم آزاد ہیں۔ سب کی سوچوں پر تالا لگا ہوا ہے، اور ہم اب بھی، رنگ، نسل، زبان، سیاسی تعلقات، مزہب اور معاشی حالات میں اٹکے ہوے ہیں۔ 

یہ مٹؔی خون کے آنسوں رو رہی ہے، اور ساری خدائ ہم سے ناراض ہے، ایک درندا زرد آری لیے اس ملک کو پاش پاش کر رہا ہےاور ہم ہاتھوں میں ہاتھ لیے ان سیاہ آندھیوں کے ٹلنے کا انتظار کر رہے ہیں، یاد رہے، خدا ان قوموں کی مدد نہیں کرتا جو آپ اپنی مدد نہیں کرتیں۔

زرا سوچو اس وطن نے تمہیں کیا کیا دیا ہے، تم یہاں پہلے درجے کے شہری ہو، تمہیں یہاں مسلمان ہونے پر کوئ شک کی نظر سے نہیں دیکھتا۔ اپنا زہن کھولو، مہنت کو بےایمانی کے اپر ترجیح دو اور اپنا کام کرتے رہو تاقہ جب اپنے رب کے پاس لوٹوں تو اسے جواب دے سکو۔ میں یہ ہرگز نہیں کہتا کہ میں ایک بہترین انسان ہوں، کیوںکہ میں نہیں ہوں، لیکن میں کوشش کرنے کا حامل ہوں۔ 

جاتے جاتے بس یہ کہوں گا کہ تعلیم کو عام کرو اور پھر دیکھو یہ ملک کیسے آگے بڑھتا ہے۔

 

روح ارضی آدم کا اسِتقبال کرتی ہے  

 علامہ محمد اقبال

کھول آنکھ، زمیں دیکھ، فلک دیکھ، فضا دیکھ               مشرق سے ابھرتے ہوے سورج کو ذرا دیکھ 

اس جلوۂ بے پردہ کو پردوں میں چھپا دیکھ                     ایّامِ جُدائی کے ستم دیکھ، جفا دیکھ

بے تاب نہ ہو، معرکۂ بیم و رجا دیکھ 


ہیں تیرے تصرّف میں یہ بادل، یہ گھٹائیں                        یہ گنبدِ افلاک، یہ خاموش فضائیں

 یہ کوہ، یہ صحرا، یہ سمندر، یہ ہوائیں                      تھیں پیشِ نظر کل تو فرشتوں کی ادائیں 

آئینۂ ایّام میں آج اپنی ادا دیکھ
  

سمجھے گا زمانہ تری آنکھوں کے اشارے               دیکھیں گے تجھے دُور سے گردوں کے ستارے

ناپید ترے بحرِ تخیّل کے کنارے                             پہنچیں گے فلک تک تری آہوں کے شرارے 

تعمیرِ خودی کر، اثر اہِ رسا دیکھ 


خورشیدِ جہاں تاب کی ضو تیرے شرر میں                       آباد ہے اک تازہ جہاں تیرے ہنر میں 

جچتے نہیں بخشے ہوئے فردوس نظر میں                       جنّت تری پنہاں ہے ترے خونِ جگر میں 

اے پیکرِ گِل کوششِ پہیم کی جزا دیکھ


نالندہ ترے عُود کا ہر تار ازل سے                               تو جنسِ محبّت کا خریدار ازل سے

یو پیرِ صنم خانۂ اسرار ازل سے                            محنت کش و خونریز و کم آزار ازل سے 

ہے راکبِ تقدیر جہاں تیری رضا دیکھ

Helplessness.

Something horrible happened today, and I would like to share it with the world. Firstly I do not think I can describe what I feel right now but the tears rolling down my face are testament to the fact that what ever this particular emotion is, it is quite strong. 


So there is this sweet little girl that helps around the house, she's quite young and its one of the issues in Pakistan, i.e. child labour, and an ideal situation would be one in which we don't have to employ such young children to clean up after ourselves, but for now I console myself with things which may or may not be so substantial. I tell my self that if she doesn't work here, her mother will make her work somewhere else, and we are good people, we clothe her, feed her and give her shelter so essentially we're offering her a better lifestyle than what she has at home. That suffices for now. 


Any way, somewhere around 5 p.m I thought I heard someone cry outside my door while I was in my room, I shook it off thinking it was the TV, and I so wish that was true, but it wasn't. Well I had to leave my room for some reason and as I passed by the kitchen I saw some red blots on the floor. I thought it was red chili powder and dismissed it. Moments later the little girl was running down the stairs with tears in her eyes and holding a blood drenched tissue in her hands. My first thoughts, shock. I asked her what happened and before waiting for a reply I ran upstairs to call my mother. We asked her to sit down, gave her rolls of tissue to press the wound and cleaned up. I cannot emphasise this enough, the floor was RED, it was a dreadful sight, I cry as I recall it, but in that moment, all was calm, we got her to eat a little while we mopped the floors and drained it with water. After that, mum took her to the doctor and the poor thing got around ten stitches on her fingers. She was doing the dishes when she accidentally broke a glass and cut herself. 


I try to block out the images of her standing there bleeding and crying in shock and pain whilst I thought it was the TV, and some how I feel responsible. This is so unfair, if something like this were to happen to me, I am so sure I would have my family around me all the time, and although we try to keep her happy by taking her out and asking her not to do any work, it cannot substitue the need of her family, she needs her mother right now, and the worst part is she doesn't realise that, I guess she is stronger than I am, she giggles and smiles like nothing's wrong while I am clearly traumatised.


I think I would like to do something, something to help her and perhaps feel a bit less guilty than what I do right now. So we feed her, shelter her and clothe her, but that isn't enough, it's time we took responsibility of educating her. I would like to teach her how to read, I know mum has tried to find her a tutor but not hard enough, not like its her own child and so I think for now I would like to make myself useful by teaching her what I can teach her. Illiteracy is a huge issue that needs to be dealt with, just because we were born in privileged houses doesn't mean we have all the rights to every thing good. Education is a basic human need and its the right of every person to get an education, and if those in power aren't doing anything about it, let us use, the little power we have, to try and make a difference.


p.s. Getting it out there makes me feel better, well my nose is still running but my cheeks are dry so thats a good thing. 

The Inconvenient Truth.

Happy Sunday everyone! hope the week-end's going well and the following week is tolerable. So today, I went out with my dad to take care of some household chores and get a haircut (personally I hate getting haircuts, but for some reason those around me force me to go). While I was en route the meat shop I looked around to see hundreds of faces, and I mean actually looked as in creepy stalker looked. What I saw was a shocking revelation, the people in this city have forgotten how to smile. Out of a sea of some hundred people I think I detected a slight grin on two or three faces.


Makes me sad really, all I could see were vacant eyes and wrinkled foreheads, here I would like to add that personally I think wrinkles are a great thing, they give character to your face, but in this particular case wrinkles around the eyes would have been better news than what I actually witnessed. Now its not a discovery I have made, its all around us, the people of Karachi can very well see what I saw. So as we were driving along and I was forming this post in my head I remembered that amidst all the brain activity, I myself had raised brows and an intense look on my face, so here I took a pause and smiled. 


When we reached our first destination, dad got off to do what ever it was he had to do, and I sat in the car with the AC on, listening to Abida Ji and trying to figure out what the real problem was, well there are moments where I would like to think of my self as a deep thinker, but I have been told my mind in most cases comes to a quick outcome and that's what happened in this case too. I listed the causes of this perpetual frown that plagues our society as follow; depression, poverty, tension, frustration, sense of helplessness, heart ache, etceteras , etceteras. 


Our last stop was the Hair Dresser's Salon. As the car parked I remember thinking, 'I hope the AC's on' and as we got towards the door I realised the generator was on and in fact the AC's were not working. With no hair dresser free we sat ourselves down and waited our turn, at that very moment, with the sweat running down my face I had an epiphany, the heat made it impossible to smile. When for a second I felt bad for those who didn't enjoy the privileges I got, I decided to try and not look pissed. So I guess that was the answer I was looking for, people don't smile because they cannot. Yes everyone has problems, big and small, but one thing that everyone on the streets shared was the unbearable heat that surrounded them. So it turns out that apart from everything else that is screwing us over even mother nature is not on our side. 


The heat does not take away from the fact that our society has some deep psychological issues, major depression keep us in the dark and makes us bitter, with everything working against us perhaps it is God's wrath or just plain bad luck. But I would like to say that take a break, remember those things you learnt when you were young, about less facial muscles being utilised to smile, and what you learnt when you grew a little older, that smiling makes you look better. I know I wouldn't write if I didn't have something to say so I could be très dramatic and exhort you to smile and make someone else's day brighter(not literally, the sun's bright enough Thank you!) but I will put it in simple words, please smile as much as you can. 

'Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky
You'll get by'

 John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons

Something is Coming.

Hey all,

I wrote this piece sometime last year, during the cyclone Phet fiasco, I haven't changed it a lot except a few gramatical errors here and there, I hope you enjoy it.

Hassan.





Something is Coming.

Cyclone Phet packing sustained winds of 130 mph is moving towards the coasts of Oman and is expected to change its direction towards the coast of Pakistan in the next 48 hours. The intensity of the cyclone is expected to decrease as it hits Pakistan, but what if it doesn't? What if, this is what we all have been waiting for? What if this is divine justice and with in a week's time the city will be liberated of it's criminals? Like the flood that the people of Noah was warned of, this is a warning for all the wrong doers, the oppressors the dastardly villains creating havoc in the streets of Karachi to back off and board 'the ark' before its too late.

And indeed We sent Nuh (Noah) to his people (and he said): "I have come to you as a plain warner." 

Al-Quran (11:25)

From the pistol bearing young man on a motor bike to the power bearing 50-something year old politician in a white shalwar kameez, there's a lesson to be learnt. It is imperative that God frees the innocent from the tyranny of those who use their power as arsenal against the common man. Day in day out, the common man is being forced to compromise his life, his integrity and his very existence. Whilst the government is busy in planning for the 2010-2011 budget and creating more ways to loot him, he man worries if he'd even be alive the next hour let alone the next day.

Perhaps death is the easy way out. Who wants to live like this? Who wants to worry about the rising inflation and the loss of jobs? Isn't it better to just admit defeat and end ones life? Or maybe robbing some one at gunpoint sounds like a better alternative? There is a choice that people make without realising the repercussions. Without realising how what ever they do affects people. I guess survival instincts force people to be selfish, to put their needs above those of others and as long as there is food on the table who cares how many people die?

Of course the people in power are to be blamed. They are just not doing enough. Its funny how every one in the 'system' is willing to sell their pride, their morals over a few hundred rupees. It's those in power who exploit the common man and create obstacles which require a few strategies involving money and special favours. So yes, Phet is coming and let us all build our arks and wait for this natural catharsis to hit the city and cleanse it from these selfish scoundrels.

He said: "Only Allah will bring it (the punishment) on you, if He will, and then you will escape not."

Al-Quran (11:33)

So the time is here. Let us lock ourselves indoors, duct tape the windows and brace ourselves for what lies ahead . The cyclone has reached the coast, people near the beach are already experiencing heavy showers, many houses in clifton and defence have roofs falling and are now vulnerable to the hand of God. There is a huge villa there, which belongs to a particular MP, look, the three storey marvel is shaking, the roof has a whole in it, can you hear glass breaking? Maybe this is a sign, Phet will indeed relieve us of all our troubles. winds are getting stronger, I can hear the rain hitting on the window while I sit here in my basement. Obviously I have nothing to worry about, I am on the ark, but that's more than I can say for that sheikh living next door. He has a lot of things he needs to account for. Bang! I think that was the sound of the tree in their garden falling on his new S-Class Merc. Serves him right, that money came from no good place.

Wait, whats happening… the shaking is getting worse, I can't hear anything any more, there is too much noise. What was that? did the dining table glass just break? This cannot be happening, I thought I was on the arc.