still life

The new billboard featuring vaneeza ahmed flashed before my eyes. She was flaunting yet another mobile phone in a rather revealing outfit. The power of vinnie was such that try as i would, i was only able to concentrate on everything but the mobile phone. Then suddenly my vision got partially obstructed by a handicapped beggar. My eyes met his and then I kept staring at the billboard, I was practically looking thru him. It made no difference in my life whether he was there or not. I had seen it all before, every day, it was the same thing, the same madness. I had other more important work to do. Vaneeza ahmed was too important to miss. I made a mental note to discuss at office tomorrow how lustful vinnie looked in the new billboard. I had just bagged another couple of points, suddenly become more popular, more acceptable in my own eyes. The feeling was exhilarating. Wow. I should do this more often

Coming back to earth, I flinched to see the old man standing on the window. He was saying something but it got muffled behind the head banging sounds of linkin park on the radio. I wasn’t interested anyways. I saw the signal turn green and screeched forward. I was past the roundabout a couple of seconds later when I heard brakes screeching on the turf behind me. I looked back in the mirror and ironically in the nick of time, saw a car hit the old beggar who had just been asking me for money. I saw him flying into the air with a couple of somersaults and then land on the road a few paces away. All this while I dint realize what was happening to my car. A nanosecond of pity dissolved and when I looked in front I was fortunate enough to catch what it was that was going to kill me within the next 10 minutes. I dint know what happened then. I felt a huge shock go through my whole body, something had hit my car from the right. There wasn’t any pain right then, just something that felt like an electrical shock run through my spine. Everything started moving in slo-mo but I was moving even slower. It took me ages to look to my right, and there it was, still dragging along at something like 80km/hour, a huge truck. It felt like I was stuck in an infinite loop, it kept dragging until time dint matter, it stopped being relative, space/time ceased to exist for me. Images started flashing before my eyes, my whole life was doing a fast forward right in front of me. Someone had filmed my life on 32mm and fast forwarded it at 1000x. Then it slowed down. I was living my life again, all those times when I could have looked at life differently, probably made a difference, not have left the world insignificantly. There was the guy in office just today who had wanted Rs.3000 for his operation and I had made yet another creative excuse. There was my girlfriend who had just given up on me because I never could be sensitive to how she felt. Then there were my parents who were being betrayed everyday into thinking that I really cared for them. If only I had been able to put myself in their shoes, I would have realized how they felt, how much they loved me, how much they accepted me for who I was. My life was coming to a close, all the small incidents, all the memories, they kept returning to the same image, the armless beggar whom I had been seeing everyday for the past 2 years, everyday on my way back from the office. It had become part of my routine just like a lot of other stuff. To look at people but not see them, to hear them but not listen to them and to touch them but not feel them. And today he too was lying in his own pool of blood just like me. Two people with such different backgrounds finding themselves caught in the same loophole called fate.

The car had come to a stop, there was a lot of commotion as people gathered about to see the work of the master, the unveiling of the master piece. They were standing there but to me they seemed to be like a still life painting, a movie from the 60s with no sound. My vision started getting blurry, watery. I dint try to move, it was all useless as so many of things in life are. All our lives we try to save ourselves from getting killed and then it happens so quickly that you’d wonder, why not get over it nice and easy.
So I closed my eyes and waited….waited until it would start all over again

Note: Wrote this about 4 years ago and then lost track of whether i had ever written it at all. Somehow this story has a deep connection with me which hasnt ceased to be relevant even 4 years down and i still feel this concept to be the closest to my heart.

blind faith…

The thread that keeps our sanity together is a finely woven cloth of blind faith and unquestionable belief. Without something to believe in, we would be teetering on the edge of insanity with no one to save us.

I learnt this the hard way. To ‘realize’ that belief is ‘important’ during the years when the light from your eyes is ebbing away can be a dangerous thing. You can’t turn back and your newly discovered invention is of no use to you at this age. It is a revelation that you would rather have lived without

At 17, my first encounter with divinity was when I was home alone. My parents had gone out to meet somebody and I came down with a high fever. It was as if everything was planned. None of the imagery is clear to me right now, but the only thing I remember is the feeling of a loss. I wasn’t very religious from the very start anyways, even though I was born in a very conservatively religious family, but this incident left me soulless. It is ironic that the divine presence had come to inform me that divinity just didn’t exist.

In the beginning it felt good. The social outcast had found something within him that gave him a purpose in life. A purpose, uniquely his and which no one could take away from. Every time a new question cropped up in my head, it felt like a new revelation all together. It was great to feel that I had a gift for questions which had no answers.

But with the growing years, the high became shorter and the frustration that followed lingered on for many days. A new question gives you a high, because in the back of your mind, it opens up a back door to the universe. Something that no one has ever thought of before has been found, so there is a certain amount of investment in thought that needs to go into solving that question. But ofcourse over the long run, there are no clear answers to the questions of this universe. One question opens the doors to many more questions and the only thing that remains in your hand is a wisp of nothingness. The frustration grows.

Over the next 30 years, there was hardly anything about life that I didn’t question. Uncertainty led to indecision and my life grew ever more cornered. The world didn’t make sense to me. The bitterness set in because I could see people around me not asking the questions that I was, not concerned about why they are here. How could they be so cut off from the world, why couldn’t they see the bigger picture, not include all the variables affecting a particular situation?

A person who asks too many questions never gets anything done in life. I could never decide on anything because there was always a counter argument sitting in my head. At the age of 47, alone and frustrated, I looked back at those years and asked yet another question. What do we want from this life? For the first time in my life, I actually got an answer.

The pursuit of happiness and the hope of leaving this world after having made a difference are the only things that makes living life worthwhile

I, unfortunately, had not followed any of these. The questions left me dejected, bitter and frustrated so I was never happy. And a 47 year old bachelor, left by his family, isolated from his friends, and sitting on the brink of extreme uncertainty could hardly qualify to leave anything but a book of unanswered questions behind.

To realize that there are no answers and to accept this as a fact of life and to live with it, around it and embrace it without holding on to it for dear life is something every one needs to learn. The temptation to ask questions would always be there. After all man is a curious animal. But the flow of life should never be disturbed by something that we know can’t affect us. Running after an illuxon is pure stupidity.

The world is not about me or you. We will come and go away but this world would remain. It is about living the happiest life that we can and leave the world a better place than we found it.

Today I am the happiest person in this world and my legacy is to have written this story and to have showed the world that blind faith and unquestionable belief is the most important thing man can ever have. Today I give in to this world. My soul is consumed and merged with the soul of this universe. Today, ‘I’ cease to exist.

that, my friend, is the right question

I was alone yet not lonely. I lived a life of my own, a universe created by me and I dwelled in that, oblivious to my surroundings. Within this humble abode I was at peace with myself. I had not created this world by own free will. It just happened to me one day. God knows when or how I had unknowingly started making it. But i knew that every day it was evolving into something more fascinating something more interesting. A place people dreamt of to go but cudnt because they were restricting themselves by the rules of the world, chained to years of conditioning. But for me the gates of this wonderful land were open since eternity. I have little memories of my first experiences within this land but this i know for sure that in the beginning it was difficult for me too, to find a place within my self for this land. But one thing that i did know that it always provided me with a sense of calm, serene tranquility. In the beginning it was difficult for me too to let go, to give my self away to what I thought was unreal, to leave this world and join one where there were no guarantees, no boundaries and no rules. But the “real world”, as my human counterparts dared to call it, had not left me many choices. Everyday I was moving ever more closer to the brink of madness. This world was like a getaway from the everyday drama that everyone played around me. No body had anything against me, this I was sure of. They were just playing their part according to a preconceived script written by someone higher up. By building this wall around me, I had actually succeeded in bypassing the rules laid down by that authority and in so doing was frustrating him to take other, sneakier routes. He was becoming sleazier by the day and attacks on me increased manifold. But my walls were stronger. I fortified myself ever more deeper into the dungeons and in the process discovered even more about myself.

the only thing i realized was that man is afraid of asking questions, asking questions of himself, of why he thinks the way he does and why he has to live the life he is living right now. its not the world outside, but something hardwired in our existence that stops asking questions.

letting go…

Can I look into her eyes and not feel anything at all? Can I hear her speaking far off and still not feel those words lingering in my mind for a few more eternal moments? Can I hear someone else talk about her in the background but turn a deaf ear towards it? Can I make myself to believe that she isn’t there when she is in fact sitting right in front of me? How long can I fake being devoid of any emotion, having no sense of feelings for her?

 

My first real test of letting go came yesterday. I failed it with flying colors…

It was one warm September in the summer of 89. salman kahlid was just 9 years old back then, but that month something really weird happened. That week he grew up a whole lot in just one week, so after that, he was never so young any more.

It was a time when it mattered that the guy next door could make a more aero dynamic paper plane than u, but it dint matter whether ur best friends dad had a bmw or hardly had to do with a 50cc motorcycle.

It was a time when you could keep awake the whole night just to meet the fairy god mother who would come to collect ur first tooth. Now even the hale bob comet on its million year journey passing by your window isn’t interesting enough to keep u awake after 12:00

It was a time when you waited all evening for the ice candy man to arrive just to remember later that he took an off on Mondays

It was a time when you savored the thought of eating out, a week before u actually went there. Now you come home saying “it wasn’t gud enuff” even after returning from the most expensive restaurant in town.

It was a time when having guests over at ur place was fun because there was a whole lot of new stuff to be done and so much more to eat, now there is nothing new left to do when someone comes over.

It was a time when you cried on the death of your neighbours dog, now you would care less if your own friend died.

It was a time when the wrath of your dad extending into a mild scolding meant a sleepless night. Now, your dad doesn’t scold you anymore because it stopped having any effect on you ages ago.

 It was the time when the tiniest of things made a gargantuan impact in your life, now even life or death has no impact on you

 It was a time when taking a day off from school meant a letter from your parents justifying your actions, now taking a day off from work seems to be your lawful right

 

 Everything has toned down now. And its not because we want to be like that. Its because the society wants us to act that way. Showing emotion is a sign of weakness and the one who cries last is the most courageous. We have become conformists, molded ourselves into ways that other people want to see us as. We have no identity.

 

dreamcatcher

Dreamcatcher

 

A recurring thought, with no meaning.

Traces of understanding, scattered within the deepest recesses of memory, flashes of light, followed by emptiness.

The light keeps the hopes alive… the darkness leads to gloomy despair.

Hidden signs, an unfathomable mystery.

Signs of an impending storm, the calm, a hibernating giant, the silence, the icy cold touch pricks like fire.

Behind closed doors, closets of memory bolted ages ago, never to see the light of day again.

 

An enigma…

An image…

A sound….

A dream

 

Salvation at last

this time around

this time around

when the clouds touch the morning sky

i will walk the road less traveled

float into the nothingness of the abyss

and drink the wine of her soul again

 

this time around

when the sun shines bright on this earth

i will give in to my desires

break the pillars down

and fall in love again

 

this time around

when the rain drops descend into the night

i will follow the path in my dreams

go to sleep on her shoulder

and never wake up again

hope for the life after

folding the well-seamed letter for yet another day, i closed my wet eyes trying to re-live the day in my thoughts. the day 20 years ago when love opened my eyes to the beauty of the world. that day is still as alive in my heart as it was on that fateful day when the colors felt brighter, the clouds seemed closer, the wind sang songs of enlightenment and the birds spoke merrier. it was a day like no other, a day that would never return again. 20 years down, and i’m still young, the letter from my beloved rests on the alter of my lonliness and every day it brings new tears to my eyes like it did on the day. each day i feel like i’ll never be the same again, each day there is a new reason to cry… each day there is a new reason to smile. there is hope… no one knows what tomorrow holds for us.. i cry because there is hope and i smile becuase this hope is not for this world… but for the next….

flickering stars

the stars burned bright. i sat there looking out of the window. waiting for her to apear behind me. somehow i had upset her by my egoistical outlook towards life. she hated me when i did something like this, my all knowing, not caring stance. her face showed it all and i somehow found pleasure in doing that to her. but what i dint know was that she wasnt pissed off in the cute sort of way that girls have a habit of doing when they hit u on ur back making sure that they dont hurt u. in most such situations she stopped talking or became too serious for what wud have been a happy go lucky mood. in a little while she wud just ask that she wanted to go home or had a headache and wanted to be dropped home. i, riding on my emotional high, still dint realize the truth behind those fake headaches.

sometimes she used to ask me whether i knew why some stars flickered and others dint. i mostly tried to give my usual philosophical answers to her questions, that they blinked coz god was more fortunate to those that dint blink and less fortunate to those which did. it was just a manufactured disability that god had given some of the stars. but then one day she asked me a question that i just cudnt answer. that day i hadnt even finished giving my usual answer that she leapt on and asked, but what makes u think that it is not the flickering ones which are more fortunate. at least they are the ones which are attracting more attention. i was dumbfounded. it was much later that i realized that she had probably been thinking abt that for a week, for it was only on fridays that we could afford to meet.

It was years later that I found enough time on my hands to ponder over the days that we were together. I had all the time in the world. after all I wasn’t going any where in the condition that I was in. I found it quite selfish of me to be thinking abt her when I had the time rather than have taken out time for her when I was too busy spending nights playing multiplayer online games with my friends oblivious to what was happening in the world around me. 11 years had passed since she had left me. At that time I dint feel a thing, I knew I was still young enough to befriend and get involved with another girl, the 2 year old relationship ended with a quite word. “Tams I need some time, have to sort out some things in my life” and that was the end of it. She dint come back, no phone calls no emails, no nothing, she was gone from my life forever. I continued with my life as if nothing had changed. Apart from missing our weekend meetings I dint have much feeling of guilt or remorse or a thought of why she left in the first place. I just thought that she had other plans and I just dint fit into them. But I never doubted or blamed myself for the event. Sometime later when I was in my last semester at the university I heard through some mutual friend that she had moved to NewZealand leaving her family alone and devastated. I dint give the talk much thought because it had been two years now and we hadn’t talked all this while so I just felt that this was just one of those stories that u hear through friends about a person you don’t know and cant relate to. It becomes just one of the many stories that u hear everyday and don’t give a heed to because u know that half of the stories are basically creations of someone’s imagination, told, just to keep the conversation running and also that u have heard so many of them through the times that nothing catches your attention unless its something outrageously different.

I finished my college and got the first job at a bank. The job in the treasury department was very demanding but apart from the fact that it paid well, I found the work interesting. My social circle became limited and more selected. I became friends with quite a few of the girls at work but the sparks just dint fly all over the place. That was fine with me coz I dint really want to get into a long term relationship with anyone at this point in life. People came and went in my life, there were some good times spent with them and then I moved on. I climbed the ladder of success with some agility leaving behind my peers. When I was putting in nights at the office, they were busy partying or just chilling out. I started fading away from the scene. I had changed. I dint know what it was that I was running after but I was too numb to notice what it was that I was changing into. Within the next 8 years I had become the number two man to the president of the bank. Every second week I was visiting a European country to finalize a trade deal. At home the pressure was mounting from my parents to get married. I had been able to keep away the storm with some force all this while, but now it was getting inevitable. My sister had stopped talking to me saying that I had turned into some kind of a psycho. I just wasn’t able to listen to what was happening outside my world. it was one of these routine trips to Australia that everything in my life came crashing down with a bang. I felt a pain in my left arm and then my heart beat quickened. I told the taxi driver to take me to a hospital. 3 days later I was diagnosed with a heart disease that had left 3 of my 4 arteries blocked. The doctors said that they needed to operate upon me immediately. A week later I had my operation, all was going well until the doctors accidentally cut off a small vein going to the brain. Only a few minutes of blood not reaching the brain made sure that I was left paralyzed from the waist down.

Even though my heart operation went successfully, the disability for life left me numb for days. I remained in denial mode not knowing what was going on around me. It was 5 days later when I regained a part of my sanity did I realize the grave implications of what had happened and then the depression hit me. I had to be put on medication for a week because the recent heart operation had left me weak on the heart. During my 2 week stay at the hospital I made plans to lead the rest of my life in Australia, I had enough money to support me for life. I informed my parents abt the incident. They came and shifted me to an apartment, but a month later I sent them away. It was then that the loneliness really hit me. In the evenings I sat out in the patio looking at the sky above me thinking of the days not so long ago when we had those discussions abt the sky and the stars that shone and the ones that dint. It was the first time that I really looked up to the sky to see how some of the stars flickered and for the first time I realized that she was right, it was the stars that flickered that were more fortunate because they got all the attention and blessings of the world and the manufactured disability was just one of god’s ways to tell us that the flickering stars are blessed

only an illuxon

….since then, I am at peace with my self. Pain keeps no meaning for me, and the acquisition of material things have long been considered a young man’s sport. Many a night I spent traveling treacherous terrain until I came upon the place I had seen in my dreams. For miles on end there was no object of the creation of man and the only sound to be heard was that of the birds in the morning sky or of the tiny brook scampering along the valley floors in the quite night. From then on I knew not what date or day it was nor cared about when the sun rose or moon shined. All that my worldly possessions comprised of were my clothes and a small bronze bracelet given by a dear friend. So like a man who has no possessions, roams the land of god like one who has nothing to lose, I lost track of time and also the desire to fear the loss of material things. Far from the rules created by man which bound him in chains, I led a life which few would have cherished. There were days when I had to go without food or water but that did not create as much as an inkling of doubt in my mind about my purpose in life. I had always believed that every man was given a gift by god, probably this was the gift that god had given me.
My only concern was to decipher the will of god and to find out why god created the world the way as it was. Since eternity I had heard that the world was a perfect place and that the way it worked always remained in equilibrium. But I always doubted the way god ran the world. I spent hours on end trying to discover the meaning of life and to find out where all the pain, the suffering, the discontent fit into this ‘perfect world’. If all men were created equal, why then were some men more equal than others?
My inhibitions about leaving the world of man were far and many and for many a year I had planned this day in my mind. I knew it would be a day my world would explode. The unanswered questions in my mind were bound to drive me crazy some day. In my dreams I had already visualized the day, the day I would be called a mad man, the day people who knew me would tell others that I had just died. But who would tell them that death is not an end but a beginning. And on the day I just got up and then to the world I, and I to the world, was no more….