Well, why not?

The thing about Firsts is that they are instantly legendary. They might not pan out too well, depending on how prepared you were to indulge in something so new, but no matter what happens, you will not be able to forget it.

Your first Kiss, for example. There might have been some teeth grinding going on, and a little too much tongue, you might even have been poked in the eye or almost consumed whole, but no matter what transpired, or who it transpired with, you aren't about to forget it anytime soon, or ever.

First time one gets laid, is the same. Mostly disappointing (provided you have managed to find someone as 'pure' as yourself), but impossible to forget. More than a decade later, and I still remember the entire 15 minutes with such clarity that its actually rather embarrassing.

The first time you drive, is a major First, as firsts go. The sheer exhilaration of it, the sense of having departed from an incapacitated life is far more monumental than the first fuck. Its a true Hallelujah moment, I tell you, and one we tend to remember with fondness. Plus its one you can actually share when it happens for your kids, you can celebrate it with them unlike the other two mentioned before.

First time you lie... may have been at a very early age but you still remember it. At least i still do. First time you steal, first time you smoke up, get drunk, get the snot beaten out of your nose, beat the snot out of someone else's... the human experience is full of so many firsts that its incredible we manage to get bored.

First time at a strip club, for me, is one of my most memorable firsts. It may be because the excursion went off so well for me personally, but even if it hadn't, there is something celestial about being in a place where the women are running around naked without fear in their eyes. It maybe a morally reprehensible enterprise but from a purely male point of view, strip clubs provide an extremely kosher choice for men to get their fix of feminine charms without betraying anyone's trust or getting laid. Its totally innocent, considering the circumstances... in any other instance you would find yourself with a gorgeous women dancing as seductively as she can in the nude, you'd be unable to not fuck her. But at a strip club, your eyes alone are put to use and its surprisingly fulfilling.

Girlfriends and wives who bemoan the existence of strip clubs are stupid, in my opinion, they fail to understand the basic constitution of a man. Men are natural hedonists who have been nurtured into voyeurs because of the sensibilities of women who take offense to the expression of man's omnipresent sexual desires. We would, if we could, like very much to fuck every single woman between a certain age bracket on the planet who we are not related to by blood. We don't because:
A) its probably physically impossible,
B) We have unfortunately evolved into homosapiens and can no longer get off scott free on the 'oh, apes will be apes' argument, and
C) The women we love (there is indubitable one that is dearer than the rest) would in all likelihood dump us before we could even begin the conquest. This is the reason prostitution has existed since the inception of civilization and continues to thrive.Men crave women. Crave.

To put into context, imagine a very hungry wolf who stumbles upon your picnic spread. It's not gonna NOT eat everything in sight out of the goodness of his heart. He will even risk his life to get his fill because he understands that if he doesn't eat he's dead anyway. Men are hungry for women, all the freaking time. I mean it takes a lot to put a man off sex, so much in fact that a firgid man is as rare a phenomenon as a woman who drives well. So when we see a beautiful women, or even a not so beautiful one, that we are imagining us entwined is not a question as much as a fact. But since we understand that exposing our hungry wolf reality is bound to make you run we have become extremely conscious of the fact that the lady in our sights may not necessarily be interested in us jumping her with or without her consent, so we tend to go about it in a more rounabout way. Making eye contact, poite conversation, becoming friends, listening to you whine, holding up your hair while you projectile vomit all over the bathroom floor, even catching your bile in our cupped hands when the booze gets the better of you on the dance floor, these are all precursors to what we really want: Make love to you. All of you gorgeous, perfect creatures who entice us into starting wars and losing them, into writing lame songs and singing them, into cooking up elaborate lies and telling them. You don't supplement our existence, you bloody well define it!

But since women aren't programmed that way, alas, we must concede defeat to your idealism, lest we become rapists which frankly is too gross to contemplate with any real intent. So we will hold off on expressing our true intentions, we will bear blue balls just so you are not offended by our nature, we will simply feast with our eyes at a strip club rather than enact our fantasies with whoever is willing to play along.

So when a 'devout' muslim decided to frequent a strip club before being deployed to a war he wanted no part of, it makes eminent sense to me. In fact, its reported that the 9/11 culprits went to strip clubs in the days leading up to thier assault and again, its just so blatantly understandable that i'm surprised its being pointed out at all.

I mean, why wouldn't they? Willing women, unabashed, naked, expereinced and fragrant (trust me the au naturale scent of a woman maybe a turn on for apes, but us evolved men tend to breathe from the mouth when exploring your nether regions). That's the ultimate window shopping spree! No commitment, no regrets, no fall out whatsoever, nothing but pleasure! And considering how the muslim wife of a muslim man is highly unlikely to be willing or able to strip for him herself, what is a devout muslim man to do in order to experience one of the most rewarding forms of cross-gender interaction?

However, now that the association between muslim men and strip clubs is going to indubitably be linked to imminent terrorist attacks, strip clubs might become weary of letting muslim men in, or even worse, the strippers themselves might become apprehensive about performing for a man who may be on his way to a murderous rampage. Consider the lady in the article linked up there, i doubt she will be willing or able to perform for another Muslim-looking man who comes looking for a borderline halal sexual experience outside of wedlock, which might end up further exacerbating his frustrations and end up turning him hostile even though he had no such intentions.

Therefore, exploiting the Islamic connection with a man visiting a strip club, is a redundant and counter-productive exercise. It wasn't Nidal's being a Muslim that took him to a strip club, it was simply because he was a man. And like all men of all religions he wanted to have a naked woman dance for him. That's perfectly normal.

Killing a bunch of people a few days later, though, not so much.

LOL moment of the week.

Pakistan Fashion Week! Amidst security concerns in a country ravaged by war and terrorism, the illustrious glitterati congregated in defiance to the archaic and deplorable customs of their religion. There was more Pakistani skin on display than has ever before been witnessed and even as the scantily clad models prayed to the almighty to spare thier parents from witnessing the sight of thier barely covered bodies, they simultaneously wished for the show to be a global success so that men all over the world can now fuel their wanking sessions with the much besotted images of once sacred Pakistani flesh.

We are trying to represent a better picture of pakistan to the world! Declared some guy of questionable sexual orientation while in the background, a tube topped woman fumbled with the top of her tube to keep it from performing a wardrobe malfunction.

A better picture of Pakistan? Better than what really, and in what way better? One could be prompted to question, but than if one was to indulge in such disappointing use of ones mental faculties when so much of what is so good about Pakistan was so unabashedly on display, one would have to be quite a fool.

So one must switch of his brain, stop drawing parallels, cease noticing the million little ironies scattered all across the catwalk and simply prepare oneself to thoroughly indulge in and enjoy the hedonistic pleasure being so merrily doled out by the people, for the people.

On the one hand we show the world that we are religious fanatics all set to burn the world to the ground lest ye obey and get in line. On the other hand we show the world that, oh no no no, we are not religious fanatics but on the extreme opposite end of the spectrum and as blissfully deviant as you would like us to be. So what we end up actually showing the world is that we are a nation of fanatics who are so polarized that if left to our own devices soon enough we will destroy each other. Our insecurities and our inferiority complexes have driven us mad and we can either screw you over or follow your lead like hungry but docile dogs, compromising on everything, even our morality and our dignity in an effort to be more like you. We are afflicted by an identity crisis and a severe case of wannabeism and the crux of the matter, therefore, is that we are lost in the quagmire of our own confusions.

I try to think of one person who should represent the country, its intellectual elite and its strength. Imran Khan comes to mind but only fleetingly. Musharaf perhaps? But then we know behind the exterior of a great demogogue there is only sinister intent. So who then does get to carry the flame? Are we so devoid of heroes that the task must by default fall upon either the most rigid or the most pliable? The most offensive or the most deplorable? Apparently, yes it must, because the moderate, the presentable are too preoccupied with surviving to be bothered with representing the country. So I suppose we might as well rejoice that, even if it is for self serving and ultimately counter productive goals, at least the fashion industry isn't afraid to flaunt its Pakistani roots.

5 or 6...

I've lost track of the years now. Its just here as if it's always been. Or at least should have been. So now as another B'day rolls on by, i don't even feel like offering a wish since it would be insincere, at best, anyway.

So instead, I will do an obituary. Or at least chronicle the achievements and failures like obituaries of the great usually do, in an attempt to offer my gratitude.

I was fucked over by love. Like properly. Driven insane to the point that i not only contemplated suicide but held a gun in one hand and rat poison in another even as the cigarette dangled precariously between my lips and the noxious fumes of petrol i had sprinkled half-halfheartedly across my one room apartment filled my nostrils. and wondered which would be more poetic. Poetic. Not more painful, not more grotesque, but poetic. That's how far gone i was. Clearly, the blog did help fix that little problem.
But why did i react in such an extreme manner? Because my understanding of love was derived from... absolutely nothing. Personal 'feeling'. Indian movies. English books. Hardy and Keats and Gulzar. It took me turning into a writer to understand how full of shit writers are. We lie. and we do it well. Sometimes so well that we end up believing the lies we tell. And you know, if you are going to lie, you should be that good at it. Also if you are going to write. Because you can not write the truth. It sucks you dry of your very essence. Like this blog did to me. It just sat there, like a sponge, waiting to absorb all the blood i could bleed on to it to let me purge myself, to let me empty out the wound off all its puss and hopefully avoid the permanent infection. I did not avoid the permanent infection. I could not, and now I know why.
We assume, when we are children, that love will set us free. Free of what? Everything, actually. But primarily responsibility. We believe that once we find love, once we have managed to find love, all else falls into place automatically. The universe on the whole becomes 'tuned' in to us and our desires and just up and quits all its duties to pave our way with roses and candles.
It don't quite work that way and it takes the loss of love to make us realize that. But even so the love itself, the intensity of it, the madness of it, the sheer bravado with which it completely conquers us, never quite goes away. There are many reasons for this but the most important one is that love is a need. Its not an affliction, its not salvation, its a need, like sex and a warm bed in December. Its a need and we tend to take our sweet time in realizing this. It has to be managed, lies have to be told, dates have to be remembered because love as it actually exists in the world is like a job. The most rewarding job you will ever have but a job nonetheless.
So i wonder now what if i had realized all of this back when the one i loved still loved me. The answer is a funny one. Nothing. Because if i had realized all of this back then i would not have been in love to the desperate extent that the loss of it made me want to kill myself. And if i hadn't been that far gone i never would have come to understand how integral, how important and how unpoetic love really is. Its a closed loop paradox: you must get fucked to realize that what you got fucked over really wasn't worth getting fucked over in the first place.
Similarly i wonder what if i hadn't started this blog to help me heal back when i was too stupid to realize that its not love that drives you to kill yourself but a weak constitution and borderline schizophrenia. There's the obvious I wouldn't have come to know all the truly wonderful people i came to know through this blog (nod to: Naveen, Zainab, Sadaf, Sadaf, Mahwash, Neha, Ozzy, dear old Luci and many, many more). But that's not enough.
Catharsis then? Definitely! But not to the extent that justifies the existence of this blog, had I slept around enough i would have gotten over it eventually anyway and had a lot more fun doing it (not to mentions STDs).
So then what is it that justifies the creation of this blog, the pouring of my most honest truths for the world to see and laugh at?
Closure, baby. Closure. The closure that my beloved could not have provided even if she had tried because no matter what she said it would not have been enough. I had to muddle through the mess in my head to draw the conclusions which were right for me and the blog gave me the space i needed to store all those uncontainable feelings which if left in my head would surely have led to a debacle of bollywood proportions.
So how is it now? How do i feel? So many years and words later, am I over IT? Her? Us?
Not by a long shot. And here's the kicker: I don't want to be. I've been toeing that line ever since i started this blog and that could lead me to conclude that its all been for naught but if i drew that conclusion i would be ignoring the ease with which i am able to say that now. Its no longer a desperate attempt to hold on to something thats up and left the building. Its more an acknowledgment, an understanding of how integral that whole 'thang' was to my growth as a human being.
So then what is the conclusion? I will never be able to love as abundantly as I loved her and i will never be able to forget those days and nights. And that is how it ought to be because she is the only one i will ever love without knowing why.

Burning Love Letters

There was bitterness in the wind that evening. It cut as it blew, right through to the bones and placed within its victims not the irritating but fleeting discomfort of winter but the interminable sadness of nostalgia. And so while the December haze descended upon Lahore, Mohammed found himself engulfed by all the leftover angst of his memories and in an unguarded moment of inspiration decided to die.

His seventh sister was the only one who still existed and so it was to her that he addressed his last will and testament and though he had nothing material to give he promised her everything anyway in the hope that she would believe that it's the thought that counts.

And then he borrowed his gardener's axe and even as the gardener looked on perplexed and bemused, Mohammed chopped down the Mango tree that his mother had planted too long ago to remember exactly when because part of him wanted to die for her. Than he chopped the felled tree into several irregular, amateur pieces and paid the gardener an extra five hundred rupees to pile them up in the shape of a pyramid so that it would not only function as the funeral pyre for his memories but also look the part.

He poured onto the wood a mixture of lighter fluid which he kept for his Zippos and the very last drops of alcohol in the 1100 bottles of liquor he had managed to collect since the first time he had decided to archive the past by means of keeping mementos.

He smoked one cigarette after another, lighting each subsequent stem with the dying embers of the last, while he searched for the things he wanted to burn. He ransacked his own house, turned over beds, emptied out closets, dragged out drawers and made such a profound mess that once he was done it seemed as if a private hurricane had ravaged the once well kept home.

It took him four trips to bring everything out to the bonfire. He paid the gardener another 500 rupees for his box of matches and after he had lit one he set the whole match box on fire before throwing it underneath the pyramid.

With a loud and instantaneous crackle all the remaining matches in the box burst into flame and the wood did not waste any time in adding itself to the inferno and before he had even had time to fully contemplate the absurdity of his decision the fire rose up to greet him.

He smiled the tired smile of a man who is reduced to finding pride in being able to start a fire and paid the gardener another 500 rupees to carry a lawn chair over.

Despite the cold sweat broke out on his forehead to bear witness to how close to the fire he sat. The first things he chose to burn were the letters his father had written to him because he loved his father very much. He tried to read each one as he surrendered it to the flame but after reading two he became so bored that he rolled all of them up in a ball the size of his head and gently rolled it into the fire.

He watched the paper ball collapse in on itself and slowly turn to ash which then floated up along with the smoke to disappear into the haze and in this way he set himself free of the indomitable specter of his father that he had tried valiantly to live up to but had failed and had thereby harnessed the most corrosive of all legacies, that of a disappointing son.

The only remains he could find of his mother were some Pashmina shawls that she had never worn but had bought and kept for the express purpose of passing them on to her daughter in law, who despite Mohammed's most vigorous efforts failed to materialize and so those shawls too became an accusatory finger raised in his face, blaming him of failure, of being unable to amount to the sum of his parent's expectations and their hopes and their desires.

The shawls burned with greater passion than the letters had managed to muster and granted the inferno several new colors to play around with. In a glorious crescendo of deep purples and gaudy reds the shawls crumpled up with the smell of rotten dreams and the flame raged higher prompting the mystified gardener to move farther away.

The gardener was old. Older than the letters and the shawls. Older even than Mohammed and Mohammed's father's house, old enough to have witnessed all manner of madness. Old enough to understand that when a man starts burning old things he isn't trying to erase the past but himself and that when this madness afflicts a man it does not end for no fire in the universe can cleanse him of his shame or rid him of the burden of his mistakes. He sat like the poor do: on his haunches. Ready to shit or to pounce, depending on the circumstances, but ready nonetheless, for something or the other, ready to escape, in this case, when the fire became too large to be satiated by the relics of a life that matters to no one.

There were toys that were set to burn. G.I.Joe figures kept safe from harm for five decades too many were unceremoniously turned into fuel for a fire that had little reason to exist and none whatsoever to be extinguished. The chemical smell of melting plastic rose phoenix-like into the atmosphere and made the gardener cough but Mohammed remained as immune to the toxicity he had unleashed as if he himself did not exist. He watched the plastic faces melt into hideousness with the sadistic pleasure that was integral to his nature and silently wished that it was human flesh he had condemned to this fate.

He even knew whose flesh he wanted it to be, whose face. Whose eyes he wanted to see melting and whose lips. And so when he closed his eyes he could see her. He was taken aback by the clarity of his vision, at the remarkable accuracy with which her appearance had been imprinted on his brain so that it had become an instinctive reaction rather than a memory and thus could not be erased even by amnesia. He trembled with the force of his love for her and frothed at the mouth at his hatred for her and in the dichotomy of his emotions he decided to save her for later.

A slew of underwear was then added to the flames, of women whose names he did not remember and had no reason to either. Women who he had pretended to love and who had failed to amount to anything more than a box full of underwear and had never managed to elicit any feeling other than lust from him in order to purge himself of the memory of the one who had pretended to love him

As the unmentionables burnt he forgave himself, one by one for every heart that he had broken and every lie that he had told but even as he did so he felt more pride than remorse and eventually burst out laughing invoking fear for the first time in the heart of the gardener who had already surmised that his master would die by the end of it but now felt that he too may perish in this catharsis of someone else's soul.

The only thing that remained to burn was the pile of letters and cards and candles and knickknacks that had once held more meaning than the word of god but had eventually been corroded into becoming wounds across his soul which could not be healed by any manner of medicine. The fire had grown so high that it was impossible to see its apex without squinting and yet Mohammed was dissatisfied so he paid the gardener another 500 rupees to go and rip the curtains off the windows and the sheets off the beds and the covers of the cushions and the clothes out of the closets so that it all could be fed to the fire whether it deserved such a fate or not.

The gardener complied and even brought out several rickety chairs from Mohammed's father's time because he had now understood that it was not the fire that was hungry but his master. While Mohammed sat murmuring to himself, the gardener broke the chairs over his ancient knees and plunged the pieces into the fire and watched the flames rage higher still with a pleasure he had not anticipated or even known before.

Mohammed did not throw the newly accumulated fuel into the fire but built another pile next to the inferno and linked it with a strategically placed curtain so that when that bridge was set aflame inexorably so too was the pile of other people's memories.

The heat from the ever expanding flame became too great to be borne without severe discomfort and so the gardener moved farther away but Mohammed did not shift his position or even flinch even as he felt his skin singe with the heat.

An excitement came over him once the flame became too large to be controlled and reached out to the trees lining the small lawn and lapped against the windows of the house trying to get in.

Mohammed then took out all the money in his pockets, which amounted to a little over 5000 rupees and gave it to the gardener.

"Open the windows." He said and though he knew that there was very little sense left in his master, the gardener complied but he did not come out again but he did not leave either because he wanted to see what his master would set on fire when there was nothing left to burn.

In his solitude, Mohammed found peace. The crackling of the roaring inferno as it consumed the wooden frames of the windows and spread deeper in to the house soothed him. The fire spread in all directions, consuming the flowers and the grass and the trees on the outside and the carpets and the beds and the mattresses on the inside but even as it spread it left a neat little circle at the center of its soul where Mohammed remained sitting, surrounded by the fire of his own dementia on all sides, waiting, watching , with a pile of once perfumed letters and cards with impressions of lips and candles that had been too pretty to light in his lap.

The gardener stood silent outside the gate of the house. Even as people began to gather and someone called the fire department he simply looked on, with his apathetic atrophy setting the precedent for all onlookers about how this particular fire ought to be treated. So a crowd gathered, unaware of what had caused the fire or why it was wild and furious like a fire of the wilderness, a jungle, barbaric, uncivilized fire which should not be contained but fed until it was satiated, like a god that demands a sacrifice in order to bestow his mercy. And thus with his mouth wide open, the gardener reached into his pocket and took out all the money there was in the world and handed it to the young servant boy from a house down the street who was brave enough to stand as close to the inferno as the gardener. Then he took of his clothes, all of them, and carrying them in a bundle he walked naked in through the gates, past the porch and up to the very tip of the fire that had managed to consume everything in its path up to the front door and then he turned around and sat down with his back to the fire and his eyes on the crowd that had become blurry by the December haze of Lahore and the smoke. He sat like the poor, on his haunches, ready, and even as the flame lapped at the taut and withered skin of his back, he did not move away from it and instead closed his eyes and exerted all the pressure in the world onto his bowels to produce an untimely movement which deposited on the marble clad floor a solitary piece of human dung. He had meant it as a final fuck off in the face of death, as his legacy of fearlessness and also of faith but unfortunately no one saw what he did and he ended up dying with only the dubious distinction of being the first innocent human life to be claimed by the fire that changed the face of a city.

The other thing the Gardener managed to achieve was to add his own essence to the fire by virtue of excreting in its wake and so the fire acquired the smell of the gardener, of sweat and feces, and as the smoke preceded the fire it carried along these smells to invest within the nostrils of all those who witnessed it thereby making them scrunch up their noses and their eyes water with the sheer tenacity of its horridness. But even as the noses crinkled up and the tears flowed a strange calm fell over the spectators, starting from the young boy who had become the impromptu recipient of the gardener's fortune who felt unable to resist the temptation of taking off all his clothes and sitting down on his haunches with his back to the fire in order to add his own excrement to the mix. Everyone else followed suit, even the women, even the well bred ones who did not even know how to sit on their haunches since they had only ever deposited their feces in ceramic seats with large holes which reached down to the very center of the earth. And so as the fire grew larger than the house it was started in and spread to the house to its left and the one to its right and methodically across the entire street it was greeted by a throng of people sitting on their hunches shitting without reason, ready to be consumed and to be purged of their own miseries and their regrets and their own demons.

And thus Mohammed's fire had managed to burn away all vestiges of pretentions from the world and united all of humanity irrespective of age or gender or social standing in a ceremony of death that had so many meanings that on the whole it had none at all.

The fire spread across the whole town and spilled over into the commercial district claiming shops and merchandise and livelihoods along with lives of innocent customers and wily merchants. Everyone past the age of 12 has a reason to die and as the fire came closer everyone who witnessed it discovered that their reason was love and failed to justify being alive any longer and so they all saw the greatest fire in the world as merely an opportunity to sacrifice themselves at the altar of eternal love and hence fulfill at least one promise that they had made to themselves out of idealistic fervor and the delirium of hope.

Several hours later it began to rain. Those who survived saw the rains as god's mercy but they did not know the significance of where the rain had started to fall. Even the inhabitants of that house at the end of the cul-de-sac everything surrounding which was aflame and it was obvious that nothing but a miracle would save it had become intoxicated with the smell of the gardener and had dropped their drawers and had lined up on their haunches in the front yard and had just begun to grunt and heave when the rain began to fall. At first they were disappointed but as the flames finally began to calm down and the ashes settled and the smoke dissipated they became embarrassed at their nakedness and quickly sought to cover themselves up.

In the end the fire raged across a seven mile stretch in the direction of the wind claiming more lives than anyone was willing to count and more property than anyone was willing to admit. It had annihilated everything and everyone between two houses seven miles apart which had a connection no one in the vicinity except Mohammed was aware of.

They found him still in the same chair which was made of steel and had thus resisted burning. His skin was blackened with soot and smoke but it was not burnt. He had suffered from the heat but he had not died from it. Instead he had choked on the smoke and asphyxiated to death and the pile of leftover love in his lap though somewhat singed was just as intact as the last house on the path of the inferno which had brought down the rain to protect itself.

It was assumed that Mohammed had died trying to preserve those relics of his lost beloved from the fire which had started for no reason and so his body was buried and his legacy was handed over to his seventh sister to be preserved and honored as the thing he gave his life to protect. They never quite understood how Mohammed had been found at the center of the flame and yet not been burnt but being the traditionally lazy denizens of Lahore they did not worry too much about it and wrote it off as an act of god or of love depending on whatever they felt more passionate about at the moment.

There was, in fact, only one person in the universe who understood the whole incident for what it was for she had been warned long ago that the world will be set on fire in her memory but she had chosen to ignore both the words and the one speaking them. She had absolutely no trouble in deciphering the connection between the house where the fire started because that is where she had swore undying love and the one where it ended because that is where she had been born and the reality of the invulnerable love letters struck her like an epiphany come too late for the false promises within those letters had been penned by her hand.

She wept silently as she watched the coverage of the fire and its celestial end on the TV too far away from it to be burnt and felt her heart catch fire and her throat dry up and her soul collapse in on itself to emerge from her bowels in the form of excrement to stain her brand new trousers for she had not had time to fully understand the legacy of the gardener as it emanated from within her. Her daughter called 911 when she saw the steam rising out of the pores on her mother's skin but it was too late to save her for she had been killed far away and long ago and this was simply her showing the world that she was dead.

And even as she burnt from the inside out, even as her memories began to shrivel in the heat of her remorse and die, even as she felt the flames issue forth from her eyes to scald all the beauty she had ever seen to ugliness and the heat begin to melt her tongue into a viscous liquid that felt like molten lava as it trickled down her gullet, even as she saw her daughter succumb to the inconsiderate rancor of a man she had once pretended to love, she was overwhelmed by the sheer omnipotence of love and her failure to believe in it when it had mattered. And so it was truly without knowing why she did it but with the acute understanding that she must, as her final living act she told her daughter to open the windows.

Before the fire department could get there her body burst into flames and even though her daughter rushed off to the kitchen to fetch a pail of water the gardener's smell that had ridden the invisible waves of Mohammed's love that transcended time and space and material reality engulfed her and turned her limbs to rubber so that she stopped and took off her clothes and allowed the full force of the gardener's spirit first to enter her body and then leave, and then she sat down on her haunches and waited for the fire from her mother's heart to reach her and consume her for she was more than twelve years old and, thus, had reason enough to die.

 

 

 

When negative thinking threatens your serenity... PURGE!

Being Pakistani has stopped being fun. Not that it ever really was “fun” but there was always a certain modicum of mirth attached to it. Now it’s primarily a stigma. The tell tale green passport tells a tale that no one wants to hear, least of all the poor unfortunate bearing the tell tale green passport. It doesn’t even matter really that the tale is a tall one; that it’s biased and manufactured specifically to misrepresent the protagonist because the world at large believes it nonetheless. And any one who has ever been scandalized knows that it’s not the lie that hurts but the fact that everyone believes it. And thus we Pakis find ourselves as the unwilling butt of a joke that we don’t even get while the world snickers behind our backs as we are led away to the ‘special’ security check at the airport.
It’s bloody unfair and it does set our blood to boil but what it fails to do is to make us understand that it’s our own damn fault. We have collectively managed to screw up this whole being a nation thing to such a monumental extent that to a remotely realistic person it seems damn near impossible that we will ever manage to find our way.
The list of our failures is so long and so convoluted that one would have to first introduce a course on the failures of Pakistan at university level, and then offer a PHD in the subject in order to begin to scratch the surface of our flaws. But at the root of it all is one universal trait that perhaps exists in all sentient beings but does not do as much damage to anyone as it does to us Pakistanis. It’s the attribute which, publically, we denounce the most vociferously, but privately embrace as a remarkable ability which makes us better than everyone else. Hypocrisy, ladies and gentleman, is the bane of our existence! Not illiteracy, not poverty, not even corruption, but Hypocrisy is what makes us the global losers that we are.
Also so the fact that we suck at it.
The Caucasians (who, due to my unabashed affection for them, I like to refer to as ‘cocks’) are by far the greatest hypocrites ever to have existed. The have the ability to start a war for oil and still keep a straight face while they tell the world the war is against terrorism, or for peace, or for freedom or whatever they think they need to say in order to have the people believe it. We are not that good. I’m sorry, folks, I know we treat the hypocrisy of our nature as a direct gift from the almighty bestowed upon us but alas it is merely an acquired skill. And yet we practice it so valiantly, with such prosaic dedication and fail at it so miserably that it is bound to elicit laughter and ridicule from the world at large. We are the Michael Scott of hypocrisy, so blindly self confident that we can’t even recognize our own incompetence.
This is why we need to surrender our commitment to hypocrisy and acquire a new vice. We are marginally proficient at hedonism perhaps that will serve us better. Then of course there is our tremendous capacity for stupidity. After all we are perhaps the only nation capable of voting for a dead person, who even when alive did not deserve our votes. We even voted for criminals who single handedly terrorized and held an entire city hostage for a decade! We believe that when we cross the road there is a force field of god’s love around us which will destroy any vehicle aimed at mowing us down and we don’t even realize that the driver of the vehicle believes the EXACT same thing and thus even if that belief was even remotely related to sanity it would still cancel itself out and we would still be on our own when crossing the road. The best part however is that when we come within a hair’s breadth of dying at the hands of our on stupidity and even though the poor shmuck in the car that almost ran us over almost had a heart attack at the sight of us materializing out of thin air in front of his car we stick our tongue between our teeth and we smile at him. We smile at him, ladies and gentlemen, and within that smile of resolute insanity lies our salvation because only by embracing the vastness of our madness can we ever hope to understand our place in the world. And what is our place in the world, you ask, we are the world’s Piñata, baby, and we lurvee it!

ab tak tees

Being 30 is its own punishment. You start getting that uncle vibe from your self even if you don't look or feel uncly. You look at women in a funny way, constantly wondering whether the particular hottie you are checking out is old enough to be checked out by you and she usually is not because the ones who are within your age range are now Milfs.
Funny thing about Milfs, there seems to have been a mushroom growth of them. It certainly helps to satiate the ogler inside but Milfs don't have much to offer to anyone except their husbands and lovers.
Also peculiar to being 30 is the feeling of having wasted away your life. Perhaps it only afflicts those of us who actually have wasted away their lives but it certainly did not occur even to us life wasters before the digits ticked over. However, and this is just sweet, this rather unsavory epiphany is not accompanied by depression. No, there's this wierd calmness instead. Its like, Ah well, what's done is done, lets waste away the rest of it too. I suppose in 30 years one manages to scrounge up enough emotional strength to understand what's what and not lose sleep over it and you know, that in itself is an accomplishment.
My mind is army strong, that's for damn sure. I've talked myself out of a LSD induced, full on hallucination filled hysteria on occasion, I've managed to survive an overdose of BHang by not allowing myself to fall asleep or throw up and for those of you with the rolling eyes, i'd like to see you try it and come out unscathed. In more conventional terms also i've managed to put the mind to good use and one of the traits i have acquired is humility. Its a pretty new thing for me so i'm still sorta struggling with it but i'm hopeful it will work out.
Oh and i have concluded that religion is in fact totally redundant and kinda boring when you try to understand it. And its because of the simple reason that the story was written for the people from way back when they rode camels to work, we simply cannot 'get it' like they 'got it'. Its just like the current crop of movie watchers yawn when the see the old Devdas with Dilip Kumar and his over-emotional squealing but they sit on the edge of their seats when they Watch DevD, which is essentially the same story but only more relevant to the current times.
Therefore, i can understand how the people from way back when, when told the whole creation of man and showdown with angels story, believed it despite the enormous dichotomous holes in the story which would make a present day homo-erectus's head spin with the sheer absurdity of it. Back in the day people just did not infer much, they apparently took stuff at face value, whereas nowadays we tend to take a fact and turn it every which way just to see if it has any leaks in it, and once we do that to the story of religion, there's a freaking flood of impossibilities that pours out. The Angels though unable to do anything other than praise the lord managed to get offended by the imposition of a supposedly lesser being, one in fact, was so chagrined that he managed to rebel against God to the extent that he became his opposite equal. Thats pretty cool, i'll admit, but it's also kinda strange considering how God is supposed to be all powerful and therefore, theoretically could have nipped the whole evil thing in the bud. But he didn't because he wanted to test mankind by telling them whats right and allowing them to choose but at the same time telling them that those amongst us who fail to follow the path of righteousness have been made blind and dumb by God himself and hence CANNOT be righteous and even so, they will be condemned to an eternity of torment the likes of which we cannot imagine, just cuz God in his infinite wisdom effectively chose some of us to suffer. Even as i write it i fail to understand it which is why i have for the second time in my life picked up the Quran to try and decipher it for what it really is and not take it as the super-potent relic that it is purported to be. Here's to hoping i 'get it' this time around. I've gone through the first Sipara and have found this Marmaduke Pickthall translation to be very different from the one of Bukhari i had earlier studied to the effect that where in the Bukhari version the scripture seems to be focused on Jew bashing, this is one is more... civilized, addressing the Jews and reminding them of thier history and basically portraying god as a slightly vain and insecure diety who is pissed off at being forgotten. For what its worth, this one makes a little more sense and hopefully by the end of it, so will I.
In summation, in having turned 30 i have found that i haven't grown up at all. I have found that i'm naturally resistant to change and that is possibly the one thing i love most about myself but it is also the one thing that is the cause of most of my miseries and failures because there is no room for rigidity in the world unless you are God and have dominion over Heaven and hell and everything in between, even if its only hypothetical.

The triumph of madness

The best part, without a doubt, is when he stands stock still, one or both arms reaching for the sky, a sheepish grin on his face looking towards the crowd to shower upon him their awe and respect as if he has just managed to save the world from apocalypse. It’s this irrepressible belief in himself, and in Allah, the greatest one, according to the lad himself, that makes it virtually impossible to hate the bugger.
For too many years he has consistently disappointed the millions who have adored him despite, who have scarred their throats yelling his name for hours on end only to have their hopes thwarted beyond consolation, over and over again. But does it not bear testament to the indomitable charisma of the man, the irrefutable charm which he effuses that, despite a long history of failure, interspersed rarely by dazzling moments of triumph, he has a fan following anyone in the world would sell his soul for? Does it not hint rather profusely at something extraordinary, perhaps even divine about this man? I mean, it is a tale of prophetic proportions: mired in scrutiny and failure only to one fine day not only being proven right but converting an entire nation to your school of thought?
Make no mistake, this whole 20-20 thing may have been forced upon the world by Indian Media Savants but it has its roots firmly in the land of the pure. In one individual from the land of the pure who burst onto the international scene with a debut the likes of which had never even been imagined before.
Anyone would want a century on his international cricket debut, but the fastest one? Yeah, it takes an inordinate amount of pomposity even to allow oneself to dream of such an anomaly. But then to not only conceive of it but to accomplish it, with such aplomb and relish and that infernal trademark grin, flanked by facial hair or not, speaks of a greatness that not everyone dares to desire, let alone acquire. The world of cricket was set on the path of change on that fateful day in Canada when Afridi bamboozled every one even remotely interested in the traditionally slow and methodical game of cricket. And he turned the paradigm on its head.
Met with futile and obstinate resistance he suffered at the hands of convention and the unwillingness of people to accept him as more of a harbinger of things to come than as a cricketer, and for too many years toiled in vain to sustain the glory which he deserved. But like god parting the red sea for Moses, the world view changed for Afridi, and lo and behold, he finds himself well and truly in the place he had dreamt up for himself in teenage fantasies. That’s what you get when you don’t compromise on your beliefs. How many times did we hear coaches and legends lament him for wasting his talent? How many times did we as spectators groan at his inevitable and inglorious fall from grace? We wished for him to grow a brain, to find patience, to develop a temperament with which to craft a proper cricket innings. But we all failed to realize that it wasn’t Afridi who was in the wrong, it was the game of cricket itself. We loved the tingles his brash, disrespectful, almost barbaric approach towards batting brought about but we were unwilling to accept the fact that such emotional decadence is only possible, and to be honest, bearable, in short bursts. But for all our chagrin, Afridi kept smiling, excusing himself unapologetically for his failure and never once, not for a single instant, not even as he visibly matured to become a better bowler, a better fielder, a better man altogether, did he bother to change the way he bats.
I can imagine what it must be like in Afridi’s head, coming in to bat knowing that not only are you expected to devastate, that’s the only thing you are predisposed to doing well. He probably treats each match like Achilles treated each war, where it is all about whacking the ball as hard as you can as far as you can, every single time. Destroy the confidence of your enemy, humiliate him beyond the ability to look you in the eye and then whack him over the boundary some more, until he wishes for death. That’s the Afridi school of thought, and by God, it’s brilliant! His own almost infinite reserve of confidence allows him to face up to challenges that would break an ordinary man into compliance, I mean imagine, just imagine being in his shoes, with so much riding on your shoulders, so many expectations, usually divergent, beating down on your head and you deciding that changing yourself is the last thing you are capable of doing. So you change the world instead. If nothing else, that itself calls for a round of thunderous applause that, if possible, should stretch into infinity.
There’s no argument that Afridi is not by any means the best batsmen, the best bowler, or the best fielder the Pakistani team has produced, but he is most certainly the most effective blend of all the aspects of cricket we have ever seen bearing the Pakistani flag on his back.
When you have had legends like Imran Khan, Miandad, Zaheer Abbas, Saeed Anwer, Waseem, Waqar, Saqlain, Abdul Qadir, Inzi, and many many more, it’s not hard to see why everyone still looks at Pakistan as a formidable contender even though we have thrown away matches more often than should be forgivable and broken hearts more regularly than should be acceptable. We incite passion when we get things right, we rile up the entire world to rally behind us because when we rise, we don’t rise like a phoenix rising from the ashes, no sir, we do it like a Dragon! A fire-breathing, acid oozing, curses spewing dragon who is pissed off and hell bound and is not only going to rain its fury upon your head but laugh at you while doing it so that by the time we are done with you, by the time we have had our fill and put you in your place and the time comes to shake hands and act all friendly, though our handshakes will be sincere, you will not be able to lift your heads to look us in the eyes because you will know you messed with the wrong animal on the wrong day at the wrong damn time.
We have done it often enough to be good at this coming up from behind thing. It seems it’s the only way we can actually win anything monumental as our current captain, Younis khan, who has the ability to speak so fast and so intelligibly that it’s a wonder how the poor guy interviewing him understand a words he says, I all his leader-like wisdom and quite comically pointed out yesterday, “Everyone knows, we are slow starters.” Yes, Mr Khan, everyone knows that and everyone loves us for it. Everyone loves the underdog and if there ever has been an underdog as worthy of the adoration of the kind hearted masses, it is The Pakistani Cricket team.
I recently compared the Pakistani team to a Ferrari in a discussion, not because we are as pretty or as brilliant, but because a Ferrari is never the quickest in a race, but it will come up from behind, riding in your slipstream, to overtake you without you even realizing what the hell just happened, and leave you puzzled, coughing in its fuel laden dust, towards the finish line long before you can even begun to understand the one fundamental truth about competing: It takes method to win, but it takes madness to be a hero. And as madness goes, there is no doubt, the Pakistan team is a team full of madmen (wasting one full over from Gul to let fawad Alam bowl? Hello?) And amongst these madmen, the maddest of all, again without a doubt, is Shahid Khan Afridi.
So here’s to the madness of Afridi, and to ours. Its rather fitting that Afridi is so proficient at the ultra-fast craziness that is this new 20-20 genre of the game, after all, he invented it.

feel good, for a change.

I know its not expected of me but i'm gonna go totally out of character for a few seconds and spread some warm fuzziness of the soul type happiness.

When there's nothing left to burn,

you have to set yourself on fire.

The Rushdie Effect.

How do you tell an imbecile from a genius? A hero from a fool? By reading the book he writes, of course.

God is The Devil, did you know? Yes, Why not? One and the same, same to same; a mutually-inclusively-fruitful transmutation. Siamese-twin like: Joined at the temporal lobe, buy one get one free. The twins have MPD. Severe MPD. Insanely Clinically Insane (ICI). Omniscient Insanity! Imagine! And you bitch about your ordinary schizophrenic tendencies. Godevil will level you, you miserable insignificunt! You merely dare to contemplate the existence of evil, he conceives it! He breeds it, kneads it into shapeless-massless-odorless-ness so that you may breathe in the sense of sin and thus begin to act like him. In his image, after all, thou art. His thus, is the crown of horns to wear.

The question of adequate security.

Not so long ago I found myself standing by a roadside shop as the convoy for His Highness, our prime minister rolled onto the stretch of road leading into DHA. There were two Jawans on fat Suzuki motorcycles leading the entourage, making me wonder what kind of an idiot would place such vulnerable targets as the first line of defense against an attack. I praised the courage of those two gentlemen who had put their lives on the line in the defense of a man who certainly does not deserve such courtesy but also pitied them for the kind of pressures under the weight of which they were willing to suffer such an indignity.
Following the two motorcyclists was a Toyota Pick up, bursting at the seams with uniformed guardians of the law ready and perhaps also willing to fight any would-be assailants to the death, provided they all did not perish in a well aimed rocket/grenade strike on their vehicle. Again, I marveled at the sheer intelligence which must be credited for crafting such a tantalizing target for anyone with half a mind to spread terror amongst the masses, oh just the cost effectiveness of it was a stroke of brilliance! One singular rocket, and you take out almost half the battalion assigned to protect the unworthy. Needless to say that once that vehicle has been rendered out of commission, the one following it, the first of three fully re-enforced billion rupee Mercedes sedans would have no where to go but straight into the wreckage. Or it would have to stop, causing the rest of the entourage trailing it to stop, or scramble, causing sheer bedlam because I’m absolutely certain the genius in charge of security detail would not have bothered to think up a contingency plan since he either doesn’t care enough about his royal highness to expend that much effort on planning for his secure transportation or he simply figured that Allah Khair karay Ga (God will protect him).
Behind the three black Benz Sedans came two more pick ups loaded with armed personnel of the police force and these even had machine gun turrets mounted on them. Why these pickups have an attack configuration in a dense urban area is beyond me, because if they were required to open fire they couldn’t possibly manage to miss all of the citizens of the state spread all around the area, including me. I would think they would go with Armored Personnel carriers so that they could withstand any possible attack from assailants and launch a more surgical counter strike than going apeshit behind the trigger of a .50 caliber widow maker. Not that a surgical counter attack could really help save the dignitary actually, considering how easy it would be for anyone with an agenda to mix in with the huge crowd gathered on the side lines after having discreetly deployed a grenade. In fact, it would be even easier for a terrorist to simply hole up in one of the multitude of multi-story buildings with a rocket launcher or an armor-piercing sniper rifle and take out the entire convoy with impunity.
I mentioned my reservations to the car battery guy whose shop I was at and in response he offered me the kind of smile you spare for an ignorant child. “Sir jee,” he said, “yeh maarnay walay hain, marnay walay nahin.” They are the killers not the ones who can be killed. Wisdom from a 4 by 6 road-side stall owner. He knows that the whole convoy thing is just for show, just to appease the enormous ego of the VIP who by the sheer extent of his immorality has managed to acquire enough power to demand an entourage for himself even when he knows that nothing untoward can possibly happen unless he has ordered it.
They drove fast. Maybe at around 100 kilometers per hour which meant they took about 10 odd seconds to disappear from my field of vision. A rocket , I imagine, travels much faster and would take maybe slightly more than a second to hit its mark. Even if the assailant were to miss, he would have up to ten tries to fix his mistake and would in the process eliminate quite a bit of the periphery, including innocent bystanders. Where then were the roof-top snipers who would indubitably serve as the most daunting deterrent for anyone but a suicide bomber? And exactly what precautions had been taken to circumvent against a suicide attack? None, I think. I don’t even think we have trained snipers amongst our elite police force, all we have our smooth talking bribe-takers too fat to even give chase to an escaping assailant.
How then could we possibly expect to provide adequate security for the visiting Sri Lankan team? Who, by the way, performed the most meaningful gesture of good will for Pakistani sports in history by filling a spot left vacant by the Indians and risked their lives to show the world that Pakistan deserves to be trusted. I would imagine that such a gesture, besides drawing tears from the eyes of every Pakistani, would also draw out the most elaborate, the most fool proof, the most intelligent of logistics plan from the defunct brains of our so called senior officials. I would have thought that if nothing else, the Sri Lankans would at least earn a bullet-proof vehicle for their transportation (maybe those billion rupee sedans?) . What we got instead was a highly questionable route change which was obviously communicated to the terrorists (probably by some high ranking official), our own team departing uncharacteristically 5 minutes later than the Sri Lankans, a slip shod convoy and an almost willful effort at actually exposing the Sri Lankans to an assault. It’s so easy to pretend that we are not responsible under the current climate of political instability and rampant terrorism, but at least we could have tried harder to protect the only people in the world willing to risk their lives to uphold our reputation. Greater shame has not been known by Pakistan, this really is the worst we have ever been. I hope Allah khair karay ga, but I don’t think he cares anymore.

The V-D conundrum

A freind of mine posed the following question on his facebook profile:

Valentines day is a festival which has nothing to do with our deen, it stems from the secular capitalist basis and promotes promiscuity/corruption in society?

I gave the following answer:

though i agree that Valentine's day has no affiliation with our 'deen' i cannot agree that it 'promotes' anything at all in any one. There are many people who do not observe this day in any special way and its not because they are Muslims but because they are astute enough to see this day as the money trap that it is. Under the guise of celebrating the human tendency to love and be loved this is just another economically motivated business strategy not unlike father's day or mother's day or whatever goddamned day that tickled the fancy of gift retail industry marketing execs. Its exploitation, sure, a cheap trick but a grand Zionist plan to undermine the authority of Islam? That's a bit of a stretch brother. It doesn't even matter if you are a Muslim, really, if you are smart you will shun such a stupid, baseless 'occasion and instead display you affection for the one you love on a totally random basis, which is bound to yield far more favorable results since you would have exceeded expectation rather than simply living up to it by spending a few hundred bucks on cards and flowers and whatever else is being 'suggested' by the media. A random act of genuine affection will also have a greater chance of leading Fuad to his goal. (Fuad dude said that he hoped to get laid on VD). Valentine's day is no threat to the sanctity of Islam, no, its our own inability to decipher the religion for what it is that is the bane of the Muslim ummah. Its our failure to logically comprehend religious diktat and the resulting confusion that is leading us astray, not Valentine's day.

Than i got to wondering whether my disenchantment stems from the fact that i do not have a valentine to be affectionate towards this year. The easy answer to that is yes, but the easy answer is not the right one. Even when i did have a valentine to shower my store-bought affections on, i did so grudgingly, always believing that i wasn't being 'genuine' with my affection in doing something simply to keep up with every one else. I always preferred , and much to my advantage, i might add , to buy flowers for no reason at all and chocolates just because my beloved was on her periods. is there anyone else who shares my POV?

oblique

A song comes on the radio and you very nearly crash the car because as soon as the very first words are ushered forth, in an angst-ridden, nasal voice, through the speakers, a face from your sordid past materializes in your consciousness as if not just in your head but physically present. An apparition brought closer to reality by your own desperation. .

But you're grown older and wiser and you swivel your head feverishly, like a pedestal fan gone berserk, to shake the image loose off its hinges on the walls of the little mental crypt your memories lay buried in.

And you almost succeed and manage to negotiate the onslaught of rickshaws and motor cycles and cars driven by almost unbelievably bad drivers as you hop your way past the round about. Then you hit the clear stretch of straight, well paved road with a bountiful greenbelt casting lonely shadows of the trees huddled together like pall bearers for all the love stories they've seen come to tumultuous, tormented deaths during their years of providing secluded nooks for various manners of romantic gesticulation.

And then the song takes center stage and before you know it driving becomes a habitual, instinctive reaction to being behind the wheel.

Its your sub conscious now that propels you forth, while in the forefront of your existence exists not the responsibility of maneuvering a 2 ton weapon through a maze of kamikaze humanity, but the reality that you once truly believed would last you through the rest of your days.

Each word that rhythmically falls upon your ears builds for you a bridge that spans not only the distance of miles but also of hours and days and years which has developed between you as you used to once be and the you that is the apologetic response to who you wished you were.

You chew on each syllable like its English toffee, trying desperately to keep it from sticking to your gums, your teeth, feverishly trying to untangle the web of caramelized sugar and butter hell bent on occupying sacred territory.

But you fail and you fall head first into the present as it exists for the one you love in the absence of you. You quietly let the stickiness multiply and you succumb to the folly of wondering whether she still sings the song; whether she still likes it. Whether her eyes still light up when she utters the words that hold a secret only the two of you are privy to because only the two of you got to live that moment under the shadow of that white marble mosque on that hot July afternoon when you discovered love in all its teen-age, over-zealous, uncontrolled and unabashed glory and found it to be almost perfectly congruent to what you had hoped for it to be.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Yo!

It wasn't that i was caught unawares. Anything worth having is almost always a contraband in Pakistan and so i had already deduced that Salman Rushdie must not only have said something offensive but must also have said it well enough to warrant the chagrin of the entire Muslim Ummah, prompting the ban on his words, his thoughts, even his name in this Islamic Banana Republic of Pakistan. And even though I was pleasantly vindicated for my blind faith in his skill as a writer upon finally getting my hands on the much accliamed, Booker winning Midnight's Children, I longed to have my socks knocked off with something of so much beauty that it would justify the awe this wholly unremarkable and somehwhat evil looking man had commanded from me. And then i came across teh following, and stopped reading to make this post because something rendered with such staggering skill must not be allowed to go unheralded.

"Family history, of course, has its proper dietary laws. One is supposed to swallow and digest only the permitted parts of it, the halal portions of the past, drained of their redness, their blood. Unfortunately, this makes the stories less juicy; so i am about to become the first and only member of my family to flout the laws of halal. Letting no blood escape from the body of the tale, I arrive at the unspeakable part; and, undaunted, press on."

Hats off, dude.

Excerpt from Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie.

Of Palace Walk and other stories

Although its is highly likely that my disenchantment stems from my inability to grasp the subject matter, the only reaction I could offer the Nobel Prize winning author’s best effort was indifference. In fact if it hadn’t been for my inability to leave a book unfinished, Palace Walk may have been abandoned three chapters in. Admittedly, the writer created an almost tangible reality where his characters live out their lives. However, in my humble and utterly meaningless opinion, that skill alone does not merit a Nobel Prize for literature. A novel has to be about more than the characters in it, there has to be a story there, a plot of sorts which serves the purpose of exposing the characters. In palace walk I found no plot, just several very well detailed character sketches. I do not for a moment mean to say that Naguib Mahfouz is not a good writer, he most definitely is as good as any I’ve ever read, it takes a little something extra to breathe life into figments of one’s imagination through words alone and he is undoubtedly a master at that craft. All I’m saying is that Palace Walk did not make for very entertaining reading. It was mostly bland and humorless, more like a summary of a novel than a novel itself. A very long and tedious summary at that, a summary which has far more details in it than even a novel should possess. I couldn’t help feeling that at several different points during the process of writing and editing this book, the author was compelled to add needless amounts of details just to meet a pre-determined word count. This resulted in me being able to skip several pages in numerous chapters without losing out on anything integral to the plot.
Not that this comparison is warranted or even fair, but just for the sake of argument, lets pit Mahfouz against Marquez and Palace Walk against One hundred years of solitude and see what happens. Both books were written in the native languages of their authors, both were translated and critically acclaimed and both deal with the evolution of a singular family with the world at large being restricted to the periphery of their lives playing an instrumental but clandestine role in the lives of the protagonists. Not to mention that both these authors are almost always catalogued adjacent to each other in any alphabetically arranged collection. Now that the similarities have been mentioned, let’s get to the differences. The most glaring and obvious one is that while Palace Walk is grounded firmly in reality and makes no effort whatsoever to dabble with the world of mystical fantasy, Solitude does nothing but transcend the boundaries of reality to create a mystical world that is as real as it is fantastic. Neither approach is ground breaking, many a writer have done the same with varying degrees of success but these two writers and these two books have been heralded as more or less equally outstanding in their respective genres. Other obvious differences are in the time period and the society where the two stories are set. But the most important difference, in my opinion as a reader, is in the style with which the two stories are presented. While Marquez favors brevity, Mahfouz seems preoccupied with verbosity, thereby taking twice as long to communicate an emotion than Marquez and without as much impact. Why Mahfouz felt compelled to do this can probably be attributed to the social set up he himself belongs to which eschews flights of fancy into the absurd and hence hampers the minds attempts to float free. Marquez, obviously unencumbered by such restrictions, not only permits his mind to go berserk with notions most of us cannot even begin to fathom but by doing so is able to create a cohesive and thoroughly enjoyable experience which both justifies his apparent absurdity to his readers but forces them to allow their own minds to shun the tethers of logic. The end result is that Solitude ends up saying a lot more in a lot less time and with far greater profundity than Palace Walk.
Furthermore, Solitude is a book that I’ve already read several times and have always managed to find new meanings and new imagery in it which could not possibly have made any sense to me during the first read through. I cannot even imagine ever picking up Palace Walk to discover its hidden nuances because of how tedious the very first attempt at reading the book was. With solitude, every reading results in a feeling of loss even though I know every single word of the last paragraph by heart and know full well from the very first chapter how the story will unfold, while with Palace Walk my only reaction to the ending was my inability to empathize with the plight of the protagonists fueled by the indifference I had felt towards them all along.
So in conclusion, what exactly am I trying to say here? Am I attempting to prove that Solitude is a better book than Palace Walk? Or Marquez a better writer than Mahfouz? No, its neither one because how one reacts to a book or a writer depends entirely on ever person’s own preferences. Some people find Mills and Boons the end all be all of literature and in all fairness they cannot be blamed for their opinion for they do not know any better.
My primary intention here is to put something on my blog after a long absence and I have chosen to write about the only activity which I’m indulging in with any really interest these days: reading. My secondary intention is to praise the book (solitude) which I have often wanted to write about but have failed to find satisfaction with anything I write about it because I feel that I simply do not possess the skill to do justice to either the book or my appreciation for it. Which brings me to my third intention behind writing this post: displaying a list of my five favorite books so far in order to have any easy point of reference for the next time I forget the names and have to ask old teachers and old friends to name the book based on the sketchy plot summary I provide.

1. One Hundred Years of Solitude (D-uh)
2. Red Earth and Pouring Rain (only for those who can suspend all notions of reality long enough to let the author have his way with their imagination)
3. Far From The Madding Crowd (I understood this book immediately and without apology and will never be able to forget the impression it had on me. This was monumental in determining my perception about life and love and all such meaningless things).
4. Life, Love and a Little Malice (The autobiography of Kushwant Singh, written with such relish by the man who lived the life being detailed here in that a reader can’t help but empathize)
5. Moths Smoke (its not very well written, nor is it very poignant, but it captures the spirit of a life I have known very closely to appreciate the fact that Mohsin Hamid made the effort to expose it)

I’m certain that there are a few books which I have forgotten to mention here, hopefully when the two people who still read this blog share their own lists I will be reminded of them.

Gumbat kay neechay (gulp) Kiya hai?

Even though I belong to a Sunni household my family has always observed the tragedy riddled month of Moharram with the kind of reverence most Sunni families don’t bother to extend towards one of the most horrifying events in Islamic history. I was told that we do this not because we are borderline Shii’a, which I believe we are, but because the grandchildren of the prophet deserve at least that much from his ummah irrespective of who got to wear the Khalifah cap all those centuries ago. Fair enough, I thought and sat through the aashoora majalis with the entire family in attendance, listening intently, crying on cue, visualizing everything from the arrow shot into an infant’s throat to the little girl searching for her father’s corpse amongst the many strewn all over Karbala because she can’t sleep if not by his side.
It didn’t take me long to figure out that a lot of what the Imam was saying was to dramatize the whole thing into a pseudo-Shakespearean tragedy, and I suppose that is acceptable in a majlis since you are congregated there to mourn the death of the grandson of the most important person in Islamic history and also to condemn the cruelty with which the death was dealt unto him and his kin. Granted that the whole ordeal is pretty dramatic without the need of cheap theatrics and fake howls of utter desperation but whatever gets the tears flowing in a crowd is acceptable as long as the line between fact and fiction is intact in the minds of the listeners. The whole self flagellation thing always seemed a bit extreme to me, maybe because I’m scared of pain or maybe because I don’t see the point in spanking myself with a blade, but even that made an absurd kind of sense to me considering how emotional Muslims tend to be about all thing religious, so even this quite blatant violation of the Prophet’s own decree regarding death and mourning somehow became tolerable under the weight of the sorrow which was being felt, even centuries later, on behalf of the departed by their followers. I must admit that the whole thing has a degree of romanticism to it, a certain charm which makes the logical question their own cruelty of nature, their own apathy rather than to question the outrageousness of the unholy rites being performed in the name of religion. Besides, Islam teaches tolerance and I don’t see any point in judging anyone based on how idiotic they can be during an annual bout of mass hysteria, as long as they don’t impose their extremism on me I can ignore them altogether.
But of late, a new trend has come to the surface which, though not nearly as gruesome as the self torture the Shiite submit themselves to is far more disturbing to my sense of respect for a religion even though I have found myself to be lacking in the devotion required to characterize one as anything other than agnostic.
This new method of showing reverence came to my notice while playing monopoly during load shedding at a friend’s place that happens to be unfortunately close to a Mosque. And don’t for a moment think that I’m oblivious to the blasphemous undertones in a sentence like ‘unfortunately close to a mosque’ but with the degree of noise pollution these mosques now produce, living close to one isn’t even in the same universe as a blessing. The sound of the azaan permeating the atmosphere, loud enough to over ride one’s own thoughts is perhaps an acceptable consequence of being a Muslim but I feel a line has to be drawn between what is mandated by the religion itself and what is shoved onto us by the self proclaimed brokers of religion calling themselves maulvis and pretending to be all pious with their unkempt beards and ankle high shalwars. Recitation of the Quran by a group of shrieking children being broadcast over the megaphone loud enough to wake up the dead is not a pleasant sound. In fact it’s probably the most unpleasant noise a human being can be subjected to short of nails being dragged across a black board. Perhaps if they got Iqbal bano to perform the recitation the resulting sounds could be considered pleasing but unfortunately they assume that the recitation of the Quran is such a remarkable benediction that it must be imposed upon all and sundry without any consideration for the sensibilities of the unwitting beneficiaries. But you know what, the Quran is the Quran after all, its written like a disjointed poem, has a lyrical quality to it and even though it makes absolutely no sense to a person who does not speak Arabic I suppose its still something which one can’t really complain too vociferously about out of the respect this divine book deserves as a religious relic. And if the buck stopped at that I wouldn’t even be writing this post but it seems the Islamic clergy, having hit rock bottom already, was hell bent on digging deeper still and managed to find a new low to hit with the kind of shameless gusto most normal, self respecting people can never muster. What they have done is remarkable really, shocking, revolting, but remarkable nonetheless for the innumerable ignorance pills a person must have to take in order to be clueless enough to not only create something completely counter productive to the purpose it is supposed to serve but to broadcast that thing into the minds of the congregated as well as the ears of anyone within a one mile radius and from under the banner of an institution which is supposed to house the very soul of Islam. Barely had we monopoly playing pseudo Muslims survived the vastly amplified clamor of the rocking-while-reading children of faith as it defied all barriers of concrete and glass in its bid to completely violate our auditory sensors, that a nasal, shrill and reverberating voice sliced the silence into bite sized pieces with the kind of hatred one only reserves for ones worst enemy.
Our initial reaction was to burst out laughing at the comical voice, the same way you laugh at American Idol bloopers. But slowly a certain sense of familiarity began to dawn upon us… the kind you feel when the opening riff of a song comes on the radio which you haven’t heard in a while but you know nonetheless. However, while the radio experience is usually a pleasant one, the familiarity we sensed now was coupled with disbelief. There were five of us in that candle lit room and not a single one managed to keep the shock from showing. Open mouthed we stared at each other, laughing in spasms interspersed by declarations of Oh my god as the tune sank into recognition. Not matter how desperately we tried to banish the vague images of scantily clad Indian actresses forming inside our heads, it was impossible to do so. After all, it’s the iconic image of a barely clothed Malaika dancing with an inhuman sense of balance on top of a train that accompanies the unmistakable, upbeat tune of chal chhya chhya, not anything even remotely religious, no not even if you change the lyrics to kar Allah Allah, as the retard behind the megaphone had done. He had managed to compose an entire ode to the almighty, replete with highly emotional and mostly nonsensical verses, to the tune of one of the most popular songs ever to come out of Bollywood. But before we could even manage to get into the reasoning behind using a movie song as inspiration for propagating religious doctrine our sense of propriety was dealt another, far more powerful blow by the next mutated ditty that the entire neighborhood was subjected to. Where the Chhya Chhya song was not overtly sexual in nature and retained a certain degree of literary merit (not enough to warrant imitation, mind you, just a modicum of appreciation), the next one this poetic wunderkind had chosen to convert into an azaan chaser is perhaps the most explicitly vulgar song ever to be composed for a big banner film in the history of cinema. Oh, the words don’t exist which can express the sheer horror which engulfed us as the singer not only mimicked the tune but also the subtle nuances which had been used solely to add that extra bit of titillation to an already risqué composition. In a matter of seconds the ladies amongst our group were blushing more profusely than I had ever seen in the decade or so of knowing them and us men were floundering in the abyss of not knowing what to do. The song he had chosen to serenade the Muslim ummah with was one which we quickly surf away from when we accidentally come across it while watching TV in the company of anyone at all. Not only is it vulgar, it’s also cheap, shameless and excruciatingly insipid and was meant to induce hard-ons not only with the suggestive choreography but also the obviously evocative lyrics. Why someone would chose to use chholi kee peechay kiya hai to base a religious ballad (of sorts) on is the kind of a question which can only be answered through communal conjecture because I doubt that even the person responsible for creating such an abomination can be in a state of mind to provide valid reasoning for it. Perhaps we can blame it on India and call it an effort by them to rape the spirit of Islam and start a brand new war, because I simply cannot fathom under what unholy influence could someone who calls himself a Muslim, and a Muslim who is actually supposed to be an authority on the religion in the opinion of the masses which gather behind him to perform one of the most fundamental rites of the religion five freaking times a day, could possibly have rationalized such an undertaking and then have the balls to broadcast it far and wide. And in case you are wondering what highly profound verse he could possibly have used to cloak the most vulgar song of all time into the guise of divinity, refer to the title of the post and feel free to let your mouth drop open. But whatever you do don’t for a moment dwell on the similarity in the shape of a gumbat and a chholi because, trust me, there is no graceful exit from that train of thought.

I don’t think anyone ever doubted that the Media can start a war, but could please someone tell the warmongering jackasses at GEO and ARY that you aren’t supposed to start one at home.

aik aur tag

Yeah Hira has done it again, and i thought she didn't hate me.
This timeI must disclose 6 unspectacular quirks of mine which i'm sure no one can possibly be interested in knowing but since blogs are nothing but an exercise in narcissism, why shouldn't one go on and on and on about one's self irrespective of how useless or pointless it may be. I'm sorry, sometimes tags are interesting but this is one is a bit much. Anyhow, here they are then, my quirky but unspectacular factoids:

1. I'm extremely paranoid when it comes to locking doors. Before leaving my house I check the door multiple times and yet I'm always running back up the drive way with the car idling at the gate to confirm that I did lock it.

2. The dark I can handle well enough but I can't sleep in absolute silence. In the winters I keep the bathroom exhaust fan running to provide background noise.

3. I prefer eating alone.

4. One of my favorite pass times it taking apart electronic equipment and putting it back together. The more complicated the instrument the more fun I have disassembling it. And if it doesn't work after I put it back together I pretend as if it was broken in the first place.

5. I'd rather have a fever than a headache.

6. I name my cars.

So there.

What doesn't kill you makes a funny story five years later.

This is where it all began. And five years later, now that all that could possibly be said (and a lot of what should never have been said) has been written, I'm no closer to forgetting your face or the warmth of your embrace. So rejoice, my muse, you are as addictive as nicotine and as time will perhaps tell, just as fatal.

Ishq mujh ka na sahi, wehshat he sahi
Meri wehshat teri shuhrat he sahi.

Thank You Hira, for the title.

tagaliciously tagless

For the record, I’m not a fan of being tagged. Which is why I never tag people either and to hell with convention I will not be tagging anyone on this either. But since I’ve been tagged by Hira I have no recourse but to comply. Why couldn’t this be about the 13 freaking cars of my dreams, huh?

So here it goes.:
The McCains own 13 cars, eight homes and have access to a corporate jet. If you were as insanely rich as them, where would your eight homes be and why? The only rule is: The homes must be within the borders of the country you live in, so as to utterly emulate the McCains.When you’re done, tag 8 people, so that they may join in the self-indulgence, forgetting about the crappy property market and the equivalent of The End of Pompeii on Wall-Street. You could spend your time hammering your doors and windows shut in preparation for the Apocalypse, but this meme is so much more fun!

1) Lahore. Because its home. Always has been, always will be. A sprawling mansion/farm house at the outskirts would make for a nice little cocoon.
2) Islamabad. Even if this post wasn’t restricted to just the ‘Stan, isloo would still have warranted a mention because I love that city. Its so sterile (compared to the rest of the country at least) and that jungle pana in the middle of perfectly planned civilization is just bloody awesome for someone looking for solitude without giving up on creature comforts like broad band and cheese burgers altogether. I’m thinking somewhere around peer sohava would make for a nice little summer retreat.
3) Karachi. Though it smells like dead fishies and it looks like hell, its got the beach… and i’ve always wanted a high rise pent house by a beach so there.
4) Bakkhar. Because at night it’s perfectly silent there. And when I say perfectly I am not exaggerating.
5) Naran. To be more exact, over looking Saif-ul-malook. They say fairies dance along its shore every full moon. I would like that fairy discotheque to be my back yard.
6) Hunza. A small cabin. Nothing fancy, nothing even remotely outrageous. For reconnecting with the simplest things in life.
7) Quetta. I even know which house. Dad’s ancestral home, abandoned eons ago when the family scattered all over the world. It’s old and dilapidated but it’s where Dad grew up and that’s enough of a reason to own it even if I never live there.
8) Nanga Parbat. Screw why I would, tell me why the hell I should not?

Okay so no tags, I don’t like people hating me. Which makes this exercise an entirely redundant one but whatever.

Hell raiser rides again

Imagine that you are 7 years old, sickly, bespectacled with exactly as much interest in studying as you have in cutting your left ear off and even less in playing sports, you are in for one hell of a fucked up childhood. Imagine not going to school because the fat asshole in class spits in your lunch and beats you up till you swear never ever to come to school again. Imagine suffering that humiliation for 4 years. Imagine being so enraged that you finally take that bastard kid down in the soccer field and bash him on the face with your puny little hands so many times that not only does he swear never to come to school again he actually doesn’t. Imagine that feeling of triumph; imagine strutting around campus like you are Bruce Willis and life is a Die Hard 4.
Now imagine being 12, pudgy, bespectacled, with as much interest in studying as you had when you were 7 and even less in sports. Imagine feeling totally useless because your parents are constantly asking you to study or play sports, your friends are non existent because you beat up way too many kids over the past five years and now they hang out with girls who you hate since you have four sisters at home who have friends that seem to derive sickening amounts of pleasure from pulling your cheeks and calling you bubloo. Imagine being so frustrated that one day on your way home from school you talk your driver into letting your drive even though you know your father will make your life so miserable that you’ll wish for death. Imagine finding out that not only can you drive you are fucking predisposed to driving well. Imagine hitting 60 with the windows down on the very first try, imagine cutting in front of a huge Hino Pak bus, imagine the power, the freedom.
The whole damn world opens up to you the first time you let go off the clutch without the car shutting down. Suddenly life acquires the meaning it was meant to have but hadn’t yet, you have access to places which your father never had the energy to take you to. You drive up to the school gate and let the driver take the car in and every kid coming in on the bus watches you with their mouths so wide open that you could park your car in them. Suddenly you become cool, friends start popping out of the brick walls, they don’t even care if you beat em up, and the girls they were hanging out with are abandoned to groups which you can now follow around Lahore, all the way to their homes and harass until their fathers come out with loaded shot guns simply to wave it in the air like idiots while you screech away blowing gravel and smoke in their faces.
Oh god! And then you discover sound systems!!!! Woofers and tweeters and amps and crossovers and bass and treble. Now you are not only mobile, you are mobile in style. And people have another reason to shake their fist at you and cuss behind your back. But you don’t care, oh no, you have this metal kingdom to rule over and while you are in it ain’t no one got nothin’ on you.
But then you hit the 20 year mark and all that becomes so infantile that you don’t even tell anyone that you can drive like they never thought was possible. You are no longer proud of the fact that you floor the gas every time you see a gap in traffic large enough to stick your big toe in, instead you are overcome with guilt being so irresponsible, so reckless, so immature.
But still, you are a trained blood hound and no matter how your mind tries you can’t fucking stop your instincts from doing what they are bloody perfect at. And after a particularly harrowing day full of feelings of inadequacy and failure, you find this car in the rear view mirror swerving in and out of traffic with such skill that it looks choreographed. Then that car passes you much faster than prudence permits to slam on the brakes and swerve sharply enough to slice a warm tomato into a gap too small to permit entry to a Chihuahua let alone a car. You hear the tell tale sound of tires yelling for traction in a dying attempt at avoiding calamity and hold your breathe for the sickening crunch of metal against metal. But it never comes, instead horns blare in anger and in jealousy and tires squeal in triumph as the car is hurtled towards the next available slot of space which the car may or may not fit into but you’ll never know until you try.
Now what happens is that a signal is sent to your brain from your foot, asking for permission to apply enough pressure to the gas pedal to make it taste the carpeting. Your brain, depending on the experiences it has stored in its memory banks, is now asked to calculate a response which is most intelligent under the circumstances, and tells your foot to shut the fuck up. Now your foot being simply a tool is unable to undertake anything of its own accord, but your heart… your heart cannot only undertake an action it can override the brain’s commands when it is given ample and justifiable reason to do so. And in its emotionally fragile state, your heart desires not safety but the thrill long ago abandoned to adulthood. And therefore it uses is Veto power to tell the brain to shut the fuck up and the foot to press on.
Your eyes then acquire a squint and a glare as they fade out all the useless periphery and focus in on the road ahead where the cars become static obstructions with spaces in between for you to utilize on your surge forward towards satisfaction. With radar efficiency you locate these gaps, and your brain is left with no option but to use its faculties to keep you alive by calculating the probability of fitting in instead of crashing in faster than the speed of your car. And soon enough your whole body is tuned into the act of driving as fast as you can through a gridlock that extends for miles. All your instincts come alive in this scenario which is much more familiar to them than the one you subject them to now. Your confidence spikes with the adrenaline and there is nothing that you can’t do and you slip and slide and skid and zoom in and out of lanes like a horny rabbit chasing after rabbit pussy. And soon enough, not only have you caught up with the car that stepped on your proverbial dog tail to make you retaliate in a fashion so idiotic, but you actually beat it to a spot which he didn’t even see.
And all of a sudden, you are in a race. In your mom’s car, which you took because yours doesn’t have a working AC any more. You surge and squeal your way over Jinnah bridge, which once jammed with traffic is more impregnable than a nun. Then you swerve into the turn lane to beat every one else to the green light at the Lux billboard. You circumvent a stalled rickshaw by drifting through a mound of excavated sand to find yourself half a second away from slamming into a donkey cart at 90 kilometers per hour, which by the way has an impact force equivalent to falling off the ninth floor. There is bumper to bumper traffic to your right, a gas station to your left with a line at the CNG pump extending on to the road and ahead of you is certain death for at least the donkey. So you do the only sensible thing, and you pull the hand break and your tilt the steering to the left and your car swerves 90 degrees on its axis to the left to find a car parked at the gas station with a child in the back seat with such a horrified look on his face that you decide if worst comes to worst you’d rather drive into the donkey cart. So you do the only sensible thing again and swerve the steering to the right, jerking the car out of traction again and slam the accelerator to make sure the tires are spinning too fast to not skid and with two wheels almost air borne, you hit the ramp leading into the gas station, take flight and land with a gut wrenching thud on the dirt shoulder past the donkey cart, past the parked car and past impending and seeming inevitable doom. Before you can realize what just happened, you shift down and push the gas again to take off sending enough dust flying in your wake to bury the Arabian sea. You spot the rival in your rear view mirror struggling to catch up and you smile like your are Mario Andretti and start planning against the red light you see in the distance.
You continue to swerve you way towards the entrance to Defence and find the turning lanes jammed with traffic. So you go past the turning lanes up to the signal itself where cars are piling into where you intend to be but you come at them with such force of determination that they all stop dead in their tracks to allow you a millisecond of opportunity to slide left onto the road with the help of a controlled hairpin.
You rival follows suit and manages to eat up at least 20 seconds worth of distance between the two of you. So you zoom forward, head to head, towards a traffic jam barely 60 feet ahead telling logic to demand that you step on the brake pedal, as hard as you can right fucking now. So you brake as hard as you can, letting the competition feel like you’ve given up while his car quickly lurches forward. But his triumph is short lived because when you seemed like chickening out you weren’t chickening out but you were planning much further ahead than your rival possibly could and you head into the service lane which has rows and rows of parked cars but no traffic. You fly over pot holes to beat everyone to the check post causing the traffic jam and you smile the smile of victors because you know there is no chance in hell of losing now.
So you coast to a stop at the next traffic signal to take the turn leading home, satisfied with yourself and your still present ability to burn the rubber off the rims. And your competition sheepishly drives up besides you, and points for you to roll down your window. And then he tells you that it’s the best damn piece of driving he has ever witnessed in his 18 years of being alive but you find yourself feeling anything but proud.
Then you grudgingly head back home in shame and yes also in remorse because you are way too old to be pulling stunts on busy city roads but there is very small part of you, a minuscule portion of your heart that feels warm and fuzzy, and maybe even proud because that part isn’t jaded enough to not enjoy the fact that even though the years have piled on and so has the sense of civic responsibility, the blood coursing through your veins is still that of a hell raiser and your instincts though condemned to dormancy are still sharp enough to beat an 18 year old kid to the head of the line.

yeh meray junoon ka hai maujza
jahaan apnay sir ko jhuka diya
wahan mainay Ka'aba bana liya

of seduction

So when she looked into his eyes and found the look of poetic lovers lingering therein she made the only choice available to her unenlightened mind and confused experienced treachery for sincere emotion. And to her palpitating heart she told the lie that when morning comes she will not love him any more or ever again because she knew all her heart desired was to not regret the moment where it knew right from wrong and let her make the choice.
And then he traced the map from here and now to eternal memory upon her cheek, making sure to linger along the fringes of her lips without quite letting her taste the salt of his skin, in the process making her soul move inside of her in an act of violent desperation that felt somewhat like an earthquake that shook her right off her defenses and into and onto the mercy of his rhythmic seduction, which irrespective of how vehemently she wished would last forever could only last as long as her desire to be swept away upon the frail and fickle wings of assumed love consumed her.
In the pit of her stomach, along the fault lines beneath her womb but above her hungry core, an entire troupe of nymphs danced in gleeful surrender to the silent music of answered prayers causing her knees to give way and her bones to ache with an ancient and unknown distress which healed as it hurt, perhaps just to make sure that no scars remain, no wounds, so even if she would never have to wonder where those golden sunsets went, and that pitch black darkness of expectation without reason, she would not crumble beneath the weight of her own conscience.
This is when he chose to allow his fingers to dance the slow methodic waltz of barely curtailed passion upon her supple and eager flesh and this is when her heart stopped beating in time to the rhythm of life and danced instead to that of lust. In every consequent moment that his hands traversed the hills and valleys of her form, she felt the agitated calm of passion being ignited and satiated, sinking ever deeper, down to that empty space at the center of her existence which existed in order to complete another in order for it to complete her. She had not known the nature of this vacuum before this moment and in this moment she made the convenient assumption that it had existed for him alone and that he was the culmination of all her anxieties and all her restless nights and all her sinful dreams which made it incumbent upon her to bless her baths with holy verses in order to purge herself of the rapture of those dreams that lasted much longer than their residue or the innocent delirium of sleep.
Upon her skin danced his fingers and beneath it a fire that had been lit long before but without direction or purpose, as if by accident, or divine intention in waiting for the most perfect of moments to expose its hidden agenda and it was in this fire that she set herself to burn because as it grew in its concupiscent fury so did the relief which had its roots in her womb and its branches all across the universe.
In silent mockery of modesty, she smiled almost without smiling, with a coy awareness of the magnitude of the distance between what she had been and what she was about to become, and without even the slightest vestige of grandeur or any illusions thereof she allowed him to free her of the restrictions of morality which encumbered her body with cloth and hide to suffocate the spirit which was yearning to return and to forever remain in the state of absolute ignorance of everything and everyone and all the peripheral anxieties that come along with them. She had secretly yearned for didactic inspirations to abandon her and in the moment when his life line stretched across her heart they finally did, setting her free upon the world of hedonistic inspirations with the reckless abandon of a cannon ball hurled unto an enemy.
His lips marked hers with the indelible and invisible scars of beginnings and as soon as she felt their enthusiasm rob her of her breath she understood that as soon as she made him surrender to her sensibilities his heart would break and along with it the spell which they both found themselves enraptured in and which transcended every inhibition worth harboring. At that very moment she knew that she would never break his heart, that she would never want for him to stop because she understood that much like her happiness too is eternally fickle.
His entire being acted like a single instinct stretched across the horizon of infinite possibilities to perform as a unified orchestra of numerous machines of pleasure with her as the sole purveyor/audience/beneficiary of his efforts. However, his proficiency gave birth to an anomaly which rose from the pit of her stomach like doubt, ruptured the cocoon of complacence around her heart like fear and lodged itself inside her brain as permanently and unapologetically as regret. And it was at this precise moment that he whispered the legendary promise of poetic lovers in her ear to gain an audience with the origin of her innocence so as to transform it forever into irredeemable loss and despite the trepidation coursing through her veins along with the infinitely exponential pleasure she acquiesced to his request but in an act of unprecedented prudence and perhaps unequivocal masochism she spread open her eyes as well and found his face hovering less than the breadth of a breath away from hers, staring at her with the flaccid fascination that is the sign of a man firmly in the grip of impending satisfaction but completely devoid of the look of poetic lovers or any mutation thereof.
Almost in the exact instant as she had opened them, she closed her eyes because the sudden and unmistakable surge of pride refused to allow her the luxury of letting him witness the sorrow which had in one tremendous blow replaced all the pleasure in the moment and in the world to settle heavily upon her conscience.
And it was when he finally lay beside her, panting from the excursion, oblivious to any thing other then his own sense of fulfillment, staring up at the ceiling fan rotating too slowly to create wind or to turn back time, the sheer intensity of her anger rendered her comatose. So she remained motionless, like a little girl’s doll placed aside in a moment of forgetfulness, never to be found again, never to be claimed again, never to be dressed or combed or bathed again with the tenderness of yesterday or a few moments ago wherein she had felt simpler than ever before or ever again. Her arms lay stiff and motionless, bent in wards slightly, lost between the desire to minimize the vastness of her exposure and the futility of making such an effort now; ramrod straight she lay, unable to find an excuse to move, to get off the soiled sheets and run out the door to some indistinct place where she could be blissfully and absolutely unaware of herself.
This is when his breath found composure again, and his hunger grew anew and even more commanding than before, unencumbered as it was now by anxiety or the possibility of rejection, and bolstered further with the legendary confidence of victors, he recreated the look of poetic lovers in his eyes.
This time when she looked at him it was not his eyes as much as her smile that was insincere, for in her surrender there was no ignorance. There was no gullibility in her acquiescence but where as his motivation was pure or at least unabashed, the hidden agenda was hers to harbor. That place of absolute unawareness which she had acquired the sudden and insatiable yearning for, where she could be too oblivious of herself to be burdened with the fatigue of bearing ruthless guilt was only to be found under the weight of his sweat and amidst the grotesque symphony of his groans and inside the bittersweet embrace of her own selfishness.
So this time when his eyes fell upon hers he found in them not the innocent bewilderment of one discovering her own capacity for accepting fantastic possibilities of never ending love and infinite, self fulfilling passion but the eternally insincere look of poetic lovers. And this time it was her who murmured the legendary promise of poetic lovers into his ear and this time he was the one who believed it.

Teched off.

Must keep spam filter on at all times, all sorts of nasty viruses tend to creep in if you leave your guard down. Even when they self destruct in a multi-pronged explosion caused by their own faulty hard code, they tend to leave irritating debris all over your hard drive which only formatting can get rid off. But sometimes formatting isn’t as easy as a right-click pop up menu option and sometimes the corrupted files are useful ones. So really just keep the freaking spam filter on dude, active shield and security suite and all that jazz. Some things simply aren’t worth knowing. Hud Hai!

The greatest love story ever told....

...is a Video Game.

Am I exaggerating? You'll never know unless you play and feel what its like to actually give everything you've got (which isn't much to begin with but its better than nothing) to try and bring the one you love back to life. So if you have a PS2 and haven't played this game yet, what the hell is wrong with you? And if you don't have a PS2 than what's wrong with you obvious and therefore its easy to rectify by either buying a PS2 or renting one long enough to play this game. This is no 'game' however, calling it a game, putting it in the same slot as its pixelated brethren is an insult and a disservice to the creators of this master piece. Its as good as the greatest of epic films and better still because instead of sitting on your bum munching popcorn while you watch the hero dude in the funky hairdo kick colossus ass, you actually have to do it yourself. Its not going to be easy, but then you wouldn't want it to be, would you? Not when there's love to be resurrected and life to be sacrificed.

The habit of missing you.

Love is an asshole. He’s mean and callous and extremely self absorbed. He never announces his arrival; you just wake up one fine day and find him drinking hot chocolate, farting through his dirty underwear in your favorite couch, hogging the TV remote, while you roll your eyes, say here we go again, offer an apology to yourself.
Love never cleans up after himself and never bothers to thank you for doing the needful. When love moves houses, he burns the old one down. And along with it every vestige of the past that could potentially hamper the future. He’s quite meticulous really, quite methodical…burning is by far the most efficient method of eradication, and love knows this well. Generally, the more valuable an item like a ring or a watch or a crystal snow globe, the longer it takes to burn. Some don’t burn at all, but letters do. They burn fast and they burn well and the more letters you have to burn, the hotter the fire and hence the more damage she does to whatever you want her to obliterate. She burns him down, he hunts her down, and in the end neither one of them was ever found, ever seen, ever heard from again. Was it fun, then? Was it fucking fantastic? Was it everything you thought it would be from watching QSQT?

I FOUND you. I FOUNDed you. I laid that freaking stone, that blood red plaque still bears my name. The trouble with stalking is that it never helps to know how huge a slut your ex-lover turned out to be. Random lovers on random days of random months and random weeks and random hours of random lust and random love unbuttoned and unburdened upon thine wicked-bitch heart that beats though it should really bound. Sense is for the stupid… now rage… rage is an emotion worthy of the brave, of the stoic and the grave. Rage is sublime, rage is supreme, rage liberates. Engage the rage and let it run amok across the barren plane of your shit colored domain for even when it rains the blood stains on your gilded mane will remain, will linger, will multiply and intensify and become the lie that you told so long ago because how could you have known that sometimes lies do come true, you did too, didn’t you?
God it was strange to see you again… strangely euphoric that is, strangely satisfying… strangely, masochistically almost fucking artistically complimentary to my state of non-existence. Did I make you smile or was it the irony encrusted fist in your face? You always liked it rough… hand cuffs and kid gloves. Oh what I wouldn’t do to keep you safe from disgrace? Oh what I didn’t do! Did too much is what I did, drove my boat right over board, over me and over you buried beneath the smelly milieu of little fishies and big fishies and dead fishies and live fishies and fishies that bite and fishies that sting and fishies that take you out for a drink and sit you down and talk you through the impending death of your virtue.
No shame on face, no flower on grave. Old Chinese proverb… they make everything now, from Nuclear Missiles to lame ass proverbs. Even God is made in China now, three different qualities. We of course, made a copy and tried to give it away for free only to find that much in the same way as any self respecting dog, a self respecting god will bite back too. Only when god bites back no shot in the world can cure you. Even death doesn’t rescue you because it takes you closer to god instead of farther away and far far away is where you’d technically want to be, but how far can you possibly run from god? Just as far as you can run from your own imagination. So run Forrest run, run faster than a nun with her habit on fire.
I’m a creep sometimes, but the sometimes in that sentence redeems me. Funny where redemption can be found, even at the bottom of a toilet bowl if you are really really drunk. Life is funny that way. Life is mostly a sadistic whore but it’s got a sense of humor. And the sense of humor in that sentence redeems life. Unfortunately, however, we regret to inform you, that there ain’t a god damned thing that redeems you. So please to feel free and burn everything you have ever known as pleasure because you can’t even begin to bloody imagine what pleasures life can bring, for if you did you wouldn’t be holding your hand out like the leg less beggar at kalma chowk for life to throw you a ten rupee note, no you would have snatched all the joy you ever wanted, you’d have fought tooth and nail for it and having found it you would have given it back realizing that no mortal man or woman is ever really worthy of owning such perfection, otherwise we would still be in heaven, or better yet, in hell.
And now, we interrupt this transmission of absurd vagaries composed by a less then intelligent and more than delirious mind, for a special message: The habit of missing you is still upon me too. And though love is an asshole and a creep and more trouble than anything ought to be worth it’s the habit in the sentence that redeems love.

Celluloid weekend

Its not often that you go to your neighborhood movie store and actually manage to find more than one movie with a good enough print to actually enjoy. And even when you do, the fare on offer from Hollywood of late has been less than stellar and for the past several months my occasional movie weekend has been wasted on the kind of movies that are made simply to keep the theaters busy without actually imparting much in the way of entertainment, let alone mental stimuli. Like an addict though who continues to yearn for his drug of choice even if his dealer rips him off a couple of times, my need for visual relief from the every day did not abet any and my persistence finally paid off last night.
At 10 pm, my xbox found itself playing host to a love sick robot and his trigger happy beloved and in doing so ended up providing me with an hour and a half or so of entertainment of such high caliber that by the end of it i felt fuzzier inside then a tennis ball.
By all calculations, Wall-E wasn't much in the way of creative genius. The plot was primarily a rip off a theme as old as mankind in a shiny new package, but the package it self was so well done, with the right amount of ribbons in all the right places, that it exudes creative genius the likes of which has not been witnessed since Finding Nemo. The first half hour or so is a spoof of I am Legend but unlike the usual spoof which tends to derive comic relief from over the top antics which are usually gratuitous and unfunny. With Wall-E though, Pixar has proven that a spoof can be also be an homage. And its no less than an honor for Will Smith to have provided the inspiration for one of the most memorable characters in the history of cinema, so what it this character is portrayed by pixels strewn together to look like a garbage disposing robot, this little robot exudes more character and a more colorful emotional palette than Russel Crowe ever could. Aside from the JOker, Wall-E is easily the best realization of an imagination to grace the silver screen.
And there was Eve. Eve manages to do what even Wall-E couldn't despite all his unwitting heroics. For all his cute love sick antics and shrill, desperate efforts for garnering affection from the subject of his infatuation, it was EVE ultimately that strummed the strings of my heart with the sweetest of rhythms. Her/its ( i swear using it for a robot here seems inappropriate, such was the power of characterization in this little gem of a movie) determination, singular focus and utter desperation to keep Wall-E from ending up in robot limbo, so much so that saving all of humanity is actually turned into a peripheral consequence of her own personal agenda ultimately became for me the most touching, and engrossing part of the plot. Its one of those movies where everything just falls into place, not a frame over done, not a dialogue uttered meaninglessly, not a character wasted, even the glorified vacuum cleaner of the future (or the past, depending on how you interpret one of the most meaningful end credits sequence in history) is endearing and immediately adorable. Hell the 2 second shot of the poor robot who gets stranded in outer space, the way his fear is made so evident so succinctly is the kind of mis en scene that the best directors aspire to accomplish but often fail.
A lot of people have loved this movie for its warm and fuzzy message and the tear inducing, awwww inspiring moments this movie is littered with, but for me it was the direction of the movie which makes it better than anything else out there right now. LIke the Dark Knight, it was ultimately the Director that gave the movie an edge over the average fare and like Dark Knight, Wall-E deserves a standing ovation for at least the first three weeks of its run in theatres abroad.

Next up, though this may sound like an act of idiocy, was Death Race. Barely had the golden hued, sun lit meadow rapture had worn off that i found myself on a collision course with industrial grade steel barrier in the middle of a race track with electricity pole sized metal beams jutting out. I will be the first to admit that Death race is gratuitous, sense less and replete with bad scripting and bad acting. However, Death Race never tries to be an intellectual master piece, it has no intention of provoking thought or introspection, its a roller coaster ride for couch bound adrenaline junkies and as such it certainly does its job well. Furthermore, for all its stupidity it never falls into being idiotic, never tries to insult the intelligence of a viewer and by doing so ends up being only and exactly what it wanted to be all along and delivers on everything it promised, however little it may have been. There are the kind of wow moments here that Hancock should have contained if it ever aspired to be a serious effort. Its not intelligent and it never said it would be which makes it honest and that's more than i can say for some of the 'block busters' which have sorely disappointed this year despite all the hoopla surrounding them.
LAst but not least, and in a turn of unprecedented genius on my part, the next movie to flicker across my screen was Get Smart. Another homage and one very well done. Steve Carrel has never seem funny to me, but he manages to draw the kind of guffaws that finally prove that Jim Carrey never deserved to be a movie star. His dead pan wit is refreshing and sometimes so subtle that if you aren't in teh Steve Carrel Zone you'd probably find it excruciatingly lame. But the skill Steve possess is to get you in the zone quickly and to keep you there for as long as he intends to perform. But the real surprise here was Anne Hathaway who simply stunned with her new found sexuality. Where once she induced vomit with her candy coated turn as some variant of Cinderella she simply seduced here. This was by no means a role worthy of her talents as an actress, she has as much potential as Natalie Portman or Kiera Knightley do but she over takes both those fine specimens of the female humanoid in the blatant sex appeal she has acquired off late. She is what Lindsay Lohan could have been had she ever bothered to learn to act more than jiggle her endowments. There were a few misfires in Get smart of course, it was by no means in the same league, or even in the same universe as Wall-E in terms of imagination or execution, but again it never intended to be anything other than an hour plus change of hilarity. And on this promise, it delivers with aplomb and entertains as thoroughly as one would want to be entertained on a Saturday night.
Therefore stated below are my ratings for the movies mentioned above as well as several other which i have had to suffer through before being delivered from disappointment after disappointment this year had managed.

The Dark Knight = 9/10 (lived up to the hype, which is usually not the case)
Wall-E = 9/10 (pleasantly surprised which is almost never the case)
Get Smart = 8/10 (thoroughly entertained with its own brand of hilarity which may or may not click with everyone but the ones who get it will have a LOL time)
Ironman = 8/10 (until The Dark Knight was the best super hero movie on my list, Downey is a genius!)
Death Race = 7/10 (The Van damme of the 21st century delivers in style)
The Hulk = 7/10 (Edward Norton! Nuff said.)
Felon = 6/10 (An unexpectedly smart movie, not intelligent mind you, but smart nonetheless)
Deception = 4/10 (Good actors wasted on a lousy script)
Indiana Jones = 4/10 (Could have been and should have been so much better)
Harold and Kumar= 5/10 (Not as good as the first but had its moments, for pot smokers only though)
Postal = 5/10 (Crass, rude and offensive, but in a way which if you have an open enough mind, is guilt inductively comical)
The Promotion = 5/10 (Mishits too often to be all that it should've been)
Waz = 4/10 (grotesque, avoid if you can even though its critically acclaimed)
Live = 4/10 (if it wasn't for the Eva's mole, i never would have rented it. Don't make the same mistake)
The Mummy regurgitated = 3/10 (Such a let down after two respectable tries)
HellBoy 2 = 3/10 (Didn't expect much, and it didn't surprise)
The X-Files = 2/10 (This one broke my heart. If you are a fan of the series, do yourself a favor and pass)
Zohan = 0/10 (A better use of a hundred ruppee note would be as toilet paper)

Of course there is a lot more to a movie than one person's perspective can ever encompass or scores can reflect and its extremely unfair to anyone who has put in teh kind of effort that is required in order to put something as complicated as a motion picture together so I'll refrain from claiming my analysis to be of any real value to any one else. But do share your own impressions, whether you agree with me or not, and also mention movies which I have missed though I shouldn't have.

Out of the pothole and into the pIt

WOW! I’m impressed. Lets all issue a collective hurrah for ourselves, we’ve certainly earned it. Pat your back black and blue you scions of democracy, you flag bearers of justice, what a victory you have managed, what triumph! You have proven, once and for all, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that if there is one nation under god (or under the sun or under whatever is now willing the bear the humiliation of being our patron omnipotent diety), which simply does not, never did and probably never will deserve the right to practice Free Will, it is Pakistan. For when we got the chance to caste our votes we caste them for a dead princess who was either a spineless pawn in the hands of her black hearted mother and sin loving husband, or an immoral witch with a soul evil enough to rape the legacy of her own father, who by the way wasn’t much in terms of worthy leaders either. Either way, well done oh people of Pakistan, you have managed to do the impossible and literally, butt fucked yourselves.
Hats of too Sindh in particular, not that I’ve ever had anything against the Sindhis, heaven knows the women are passion incarnate and oh so lovely, but by the grace of some powerful diety, sindh has managed to produce some remarkably astute evil dudes. Like international standards kay ghunday. It started with Bhutto, then Altaf, and now the Big Z, I guess its something to do with the putrid smell of dead fish hanging perpetually in the air, or the vast barren desert sands or maybe it’s the adopt the west as quickly as possible in all things evil first vibe of Karachi that somehow ferments nihilistically evil tendencies in the denizens of that province, but what’s remarkable is that the effects of it are so widespread that the people of Karachi, on paper the ‘smartest’ city in the country, decided to vote MQM into power. You know at this point believing in the elections having been rigged is being an optimist.
Civil War, anyone? Heaven knows it’s high time.

I want my Crazy

I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind

There was something so pleasant about that phase.

Even your emotions had to let go

In so much space



And when you're out there

Without care,

Yeah, I was out of touch

But it wasn't because I didn't know enough

I just knew too much



Does that make me crazy

Does that make me crazy

Does that make me crazy

Probably



And I hope that you are having the time of your life

But think twice, that's my only advice

Come on now, who do you, who do you, who do you, who do you think you are,

Ha ha ha bless your soul

You really think your'e in control



Well, I think you're crazy

I think you're crazy

I think you're crazy

Just like me



My heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on a limb

And all I remember is thinking, I want to be like them

Ever since I was little, ever since I was little it looked like fun

And it's no coincidence I've come

And I can die when I'm done



Maybe I'm crazy

Maybe you're crazy

Maybe we're crazy

Probably

Gnarls Barkley



Just when i thought i could safely give up the hope of having good new music

created by the retards churning out crap rap and shitty pop, this one comes and

makes me keep from flicking away from MTV.

Gnarls Barkley! Full marks for the moniker there, and a couple of million bonus

points for the massively innovative video.

But, and its a huge BUT. Its not the video on MTV that is making me write up an

ode to this new classic. That i witnessed a week ago and didn't really care about

enough to download the song. NO, it was in fact the lack of any CDs in my car as I

returned home after a hair cut  and a trip to the movie store. I turned on the radio

and was enthralled. Immediately, yes I was. Like I had been impaled by a spear made

of voice and a strumming six string. I refused to drive and turned up the volume

to let the gorgeous, almost seductive female voice slowly ooze in

thru my ears.

She sang with a fervor which seems subdued in comparison to the original, but the

nuances of her tone made sure that no bit of emotion being put in was missed.

And at the end of it i sat a bit overwhelmed, by mouth pouting in appreciation.

Sadly, the 'RJ' neglected to mention who the singer was leaving me agitated to no end.

Agitated infact to such a degree that i called up the station as soon as i got home

but couldn't get through. So i sought the digital route and sent in a inquiry

pertaining to the particulars of that song.

NO reply yet, and i have exhausted all the results brought up by Google and yahoo and

 currently have about 7 different version of the song. None of them, unfortunately is

 the one i was looking for.

 So i am forced to beg and beseech all those who read my blog. If you were for some

cosmic reason tuned it to FM 89 when this song was placed and paid enough attention

 to note the name of the singer, PLEASE let me know.

If you happen to know what I'm talking about plus a location where that version can

be downloaded, yur my new best friend.

The girl singing the song, sounded young. Had a very succinct American accent but

could possibly be one of the up coming performers from our very own country.

IN any case, I’m desperate to know. And hungry to have the song on a cd at my

disposal, any leads will be appreciated. 

Back when we were young, it wasn’t quite so cold. The summers were pretty intense, but not enough to break our spirits.

Back when we were young, alcohol was a lot more potent than it is now… and movies made a lot less sense but were a lot more fun.

When we were young no road was too long/dark/narrow to travel. 36 hour drives were measured in terms of how many CDs were needed, how many cans of coke more so than how much time. There was pleasure in the pain. When were young, there was no fear.

Back when we were young, we had long hair and we wore it like warriors wear their armor. It was our force field against mediocrity. We let it rest clumsily over our heads and shoulders so that when the west wind blew they would dance like gypsies under a full moon. We didn’t shave, when we were young, stubbles added to our street cred and the babes loved how tough we looked, plus the calluses on our hands from lifting canned goods to their specific shelves all night gave our hands the rugged look college chicks so crave.

When we were young our cars had woofers and tweeters and crossovers. I knew the names of every damn woofer in the market and the exact decibel rating. We used to ride with the music on full while you rolled up the last pre-class joint as well as the first post-class one. We drove drunk, when we were young.

We ran up our phone bill into the stratosphere because when we were young love seemed invulnerable to the ravages of distance. Love seemed incorruptible, I felt invincible and she… she seemed divine. She seemed like she was crafted for me and to me she was meant to belong. Even in yellow she could take my breath away. And then we crumbled to pieces and I learned that when they say love is blind they actually mean that it turns us blind.

We climbed mountains everyday to get to class when were young, and when we were young we could work all day and party all night and not break a sweat until Sunday afternoon. When we were young we passed up on free food but never on pussy or a ride. Things needed to make a lot less sense to be believed when we were young for in youth we had with us the legendary power of not knowing. When we were young we didn’t fear learning our lessons the hard way.

When we were young I loved mine very much. And you loved yours just the same. But we aren’t young anymore and we know that hearts actually do break and that when they do the pain if enough to scare you into making more mistakes than you can ever rectify.

When we were young we did throw caution to the wind and risked every thing for one. We drove fast and we danced fast and we lived faster still. We loved like madmen and with an intensity that is granted by youth and youth alone because when we were young the ones we loved defined more than the histories we would have to bear for as long as we shall live, they defined us.. But we are young no longer and it suits no one to go whimsically apache on our own asses in the search for that same old feeling of not knowing enough to give a damn about broken bones or promises or hearts. We are older now, they are older now and despite how different they may have been from each other, all women are essentially the same.

Except for in the moments that snuggle up into our DNA and become weaknesses which will last for generations. Except for when we were young.

Women 101

WANT.

Women say they know what they want and they tell you what it is that they want but they don't really want what they say they want, in fact, at times they want the exact opposite of what they say they want but they want people to pay attention to what they say and at the same time know that they don't really want what they say they want and therefore totally dismiss what they say and instead focus on what can be at best a lucky guess at what women really want instead of what they say they want.
That really doesn't leave much room for honesty in a relationship because the only way to keep a woman happy is to manipulate her into wanting what you want her to want irrespective of what she says she wants because in actual fact women don't know what they want, they only like to pretend that they do. But they don't care about this, they simply want to want something or the other at any given time and they want to have that something whether it is what they say they want or that which they don't say they want, they just want to want to have it. This is why manipulative men get laid a lot more than the honest kind and nice guys finish last and why more men than women cheat in a relationship because if you can somehow tap into what a woman wants and give it to her she will belong right to you irrespective of what someone else has on offer or what someone else has given whether they wanted it or not, right and wrong, loyalty and fidelity are overshadowed completely by desire. Or else you can manipulate your woman into wanting what you want her to want, which is surprisingly easy once you've gotten past the fact that she doesn't really ever want you to be honest with her even though she said so. Unless you fucked up in which case the only reason she wants you to be honest is so she can feel vindicated for fucking around on you the day of the valima when she went for her makeup but got stuffed instead.

Conclusion: Women are full of shit and should not be taken seriously, however they LOVE for you to pretend like they are in fact not full of shit. So if you wanna get laid, give her all the drama your mama taught ya, because end of the day, men only want one thing and women are the only ones who can give it. SO when its a trade off between scruples and pussy, always, ALWAYS choose pussy. Scruples can get you into heaven in about one million years so ... Pussy is heaven.

Forever Amber.

You couldn’t call her naïve, no. Simple maybe…no, not simple either, more like… blindfolded. Willingly imbibed, sort of. Somewhat like a coke whore, who knows what she’s doing is wrong but she can’t help herself. Of course it didn’t help that eventually on her way down to rock bottom she was known as a coke whore as well.

The reasons it hurt as much as it did wasn’t because I knew her in a romantic capacity once, but because I respected her. That’s not common or called for when it comes to women when you’re a horny teenager and she’s eagerly swapping spit with you in the back seat of your car outside Zakir’s. But I did respect her. Because she quite simply commanded respect. It was in the way she graciously smiled at her friends when they were making obvious fools of themselves. In the way she spelt her name. The way she would never roll her own joints and get out of it with a simple shrug of the shoulders. She never preached or poached or did much of anything that bears the curse of a stereotypical personality.

She was so strikingly different from any one else I had known up to that point that it was impossible for me not to be enthralled by her. Me, the infamously overwrought teen, who believed himself to be above and beyond his peers by reason of premature maturity. Me, who believed that only a woman older than me could understand me enough to claim my love. Fake and infantile me who didn’t know his ass from his elbow when compared to her. For the me that I was back then she was Aphrodite and Ophelia all rolled up into one gorgeous package with black hair and brown eyes.

It wasn’t love, though. Not by a long shot. More like the interest one develops for a good book, the thrill of the discovery, so to speak. I just simply wanted to know her. Desperately, I wanted to be known to her. I cannot even today say why that was, but I know it wasn’t love nor infatuation. I never even truly cared. But I still feel the same lurch in my throat today as I did back then when I think of her. Like the first time you drink booze just because you want to know what the big deal is. That’s how it was, quite simply quite simple.

Initially, she was with my best friend from back then. And I was with hers. But from the moment she stepped out of the car after we rear ended them on the Canal, I’m sure we both knew that it was actually us who needed to know, needed to relate, to understand.

And one night at Zakir’s, we ended up making out.

The transfer was quite amicable really, her friend was a slut and my friend more willing to comply, and just like that during an impromptu picnic near Sozo we had swapped and never a foul word was uttered by anyone. I suppose all four of us understood that we had gotten the coupling wrong the first time around.

The couple of months we dated for weren’t without their share of teenage-angst ridden episodes. My dad caught me talking to her on the phone and didn’t throw a fit; this, of course, was more educational than distressing. I ran away from home for some stupid reason that is suddenly not even important enough to remember and she came along for the overnight escapade to Islamabad. We broke up as soon as we got back to Lahore though. It just seemed like the right thing to do. That was the best break up ever, no residual bitterness to bear even for a second and no regrets. Atleast not then. The regrets were to come later.

Amber, was almost tailor made to self destruct. I could’ve sworn 8 years ago that she would die young. That she would succumb to all the sins and all the ills that were out there waiting for a victim. But still, her grace, her subtle simplicity, her demeanor, her decorum made me wish for otherwise.

She was one of those neo-modern, progressive Islamist, spiritual but not religious, romantic but not idealistic, simple but not plain, too hip to follow fashion, to conscientious to denounce it; bronze lipstick with kajal instead of eye shadow, halter tops with glass bangles, wrap-around skirts with payals, hush puppies and open toed sandals kinda gal. The kind who have had enough exposure of the western world to be able to successfully mold it into their very desi life styles. She wore pjs to Halloween parties, and hawai chappals to weddings. Got away with every social hiccup with a smile that could charm a stone. Eyes that grew large with excitement and shrunk with pleasure. Forever tinged amber, as if to justify her name, amidst the hereditary brown.

Hair that was either a jumble of tangled curls like enraged vines, or smooth and soft like strands of china silk. She swam, and tread-milled and lifted weights. And would consume a 1 pound texas steak served medium rare in 6 bites.

Hated ice cream and flowers. Too sweet, to fragrant. Loved shoes and watches; Too intrinsic, too important. She could make friends out of cut throat enemies. And enemies out of lovers. Always hurtling from unprecedented care to mind boggling lack of care towards the same people. Never asked for a favor and never declined to perform one.

There were at any given time as many people who were willing to die for her as there were who were willing to kill her.

Two years ago I found out that she had died. Over dosed on some drug. Coke most probably, since the last time she was mentioned to me was in the capacity of the easiest chick in Lahore giving it up for hits of crack to anyone who happened to have some when she craved it.

A little bit of me mourned her death, the rest was just in shock. Not a shock borne of surprise though, more like the one you feel for a long ailing relative. It hurt like hell and I mourn her still but all I can do is pray for peace for her soul.

All those who remember her now probably mention her in hushed tones with smirks on their faces and disgust beneath. But to me Amber will always remain the rebel without any cause grander than her sheer tenacity towards spelling her name the way she did.

As I said, she was tailor made for self destruction, way too perfect to really exist in this imperfect world and therefore honor bound to play the unwitting victim to the evils most of us either learn to avoid or master.

.I never knew the how and why of her plunge into depravity, I never even tried to find out. I wish now that I had known what the reddened eyes and the weight loss and the sudden willingness to have sex indicated. But I didn’t and I left leaving her not stranded as much as abandoned. It never even occurred to me that she would need a hand to hold through life, to guide her past the pit falls strewn across every day. From a mantle she fell and broke into too many pieces to be put back together. But she’d falling for a while, she’s been breaking for years. Whether it was uncaring parents or selfish lovers or friends who cashed in her grandeur for a hike up the vicious social ladder are to blame may never be clearly known but if nothing else, I hope and pray that all those who ever knew her, ever cared for her feel not the least bit of pity for her but fear for themselves. For if there is any justice in this fucked up world of gods and demons and vice and virtue, all of them, all of us deserve to suffer.

Rest in peace A, I wish I’d loved you.

terror comes to lahore

Now I’m no authority on bomb blasts, I have never witnessed one, but I’m thinking when I’m awakened by sounds of two back to back explosions that rattle my windows nearly off the hinges, its safe to assume that the explosions occurred much too close for comfort. Though the media claims that the explosions occurred in locations too far from where i live to make my windows rattle, rattle they did. Which leads me to believe that our hopelessly biased media now in the firm grip of our hopelessly insecure government has been exposing only the convenient truth. There was one mention on some international news channel of a bomb going off in Defence as well which made a lot more sense to me considering my own experience but i can no longer find any news on TV or online along those lines. Reasons for the cover up, if one exists, aren't hard to imagine. It would be humiliating for our armed forces to accept the fact that someone blasted his/her way to heaven in their own backyard and if I was a narcissist dictator i would probably want to keep that bit of info from influencing public opinion. Screw the fact that the truth deserves to be known and other such noble rhetoric which the fabric of humanity is crafted from. Furthermore, acknowledging that a bomb or bombs did actually manage to go off in the mighty DHA would lead to wide-spread panic seeing how DHA is considered the most 'secure' residential area of Lahore where even birds fear to shit without the army's approval. Fact of the matter is that any anti-government agent with a moderately able brain would want to disrupt the strongholds of the government which he/she is rebelling against. With dear Mush refusing to do the honorable thing by stepping down after the spanking in the ballots i think its safe to assume that the thin veneer of safety us denizens of the army controlled areas were wrapped in is now torn. Irrespective of what the agenda behind these blasts is, common sense dictates that wide spread distrust needs to be created amongst the masses against the government and the only city spared of such heinous motives is now fully in the sights of those who mean to gain control. The authorities are being targeted; I don't think anyone will refute that. Security is non existent, that too is irrefutable. From a man getting close enough to BB to take pot shots at her to news of bombs being found 'just in time' outside Defense beacon house, the shit has officially hit the fan and the umbrella the government was supposed to be holding is no where in sight. I've been harping on about impending civil war amongst friends, from whom I do not fear persecution, for a while now and it seems that my grim premonition is unfortunately on its way to coming true. It is true that no nation truly becomes great without shedding a certain amount of its own blood; just like an individual, nations also need epiphanies to mend their ways. I would've hoped that the horrors suffered in forming this country would serve as a sound enough epiphany for all of time to come but it seems we are too shameless to learn from past mistakes. Instead we have grown up to be evil, listless and confused; forgetting not only that this country was founded to allow for religious freedom but the edicts of the religion itself; choosing extremes that either desecrate the religion or shun it altogether and in the process building a society so polarized that an amicable solution seems impossible. We have brought ourselves to a position where being targeted is inevitable considering how easy it us for an outsider to cause rifts between us. There is no solidarity, no sense of responsibility, no honesty, no trust and no love between us as citizens on the roads we drive like no one else exists and even if we acknowledge teh existence of other people we believe they have no right to be there at the same time as us. Our children are so fascinated by the societies and customs of other countries that they don't even have time enough to fully dress themselves anymore. English accents are improving but the ability to form a sentence in Urdu is becoming extinct. We are in effect conforming to what the west desired all along. And though it may not be that bad a thing we cannot ignore the fact that our way of life, our understanding of it, our virtue and our perception has been replaced by those who we ourselves have deemed better than us.
For a country like this, for a people so lacking in faith and in confidence is it not judicious to suffer like this, to live in fear and distrust? We had a confused identity to begin with, Muslims who were so entrenched in Hindu customs that we weren't all that Muslim anyway, now we have no identity at all, just a remembered fascination to a religion which we only abide to in passing, like a daily chore or use as an excuse for the most heinous acts imaginable. The hypocrisy of it all is mind boggling. On a daily basis I’m blown away by the ability of Pakistani people to lie, to deceive and in the same breath praise Allah as if we gave a damn about what he had to say.
We may never really know exactly what went wrong where but its safe to say that the people of Pakistan have failed the country, over and over without remorse or guilt. The bombings today, therefore, aren't shocking, or unprecedented or out of the blue. They are simply an inevitable consequence of our inability to be human, to be Muslim, to be Pakistani. Its shameful and its sad and many will pretend to give a damn but no one, not even me, will do a god damned thing because really who has the time? There's a great movie on starplus and Bipasha is gyrating like a pro stripper in the same sexy top my occasional fuck-buddy at LUMS wore to the concert. Oh wait, there's a drama on Indus where some Pakistani chick has outdone Bips move for move. Isn't it amazing how slutty our women can be if only they are paid enough? I wonder how much you need to pay to have her as a fuck-buddy? And to think we put sexual extremes beyond our supposedly Muslim sensibilities. Or maybe I will watch Arnold kicking ass in the movie on HBO, or better yet I will just stay tuned to GEO for my daily fill of violence.

Its stock-taking time, people. Wake up and smell the C4, its about to go off in our face.

Angry proclamation of the day.

Fuck love, even like is god damned torture.

Blood on the dance floor

Masochism is underrated.

There’s a moment, right before knife meets skin, when it knows what’s coming. If you look at the eyes, the guy said, you can tell it’s not scared. He said you have to look it in the eyes, show some respect. Make it fast, greased lightening fast. He said don’t grunt. Be quiet. Somber. Allah-u-akbar, whispered, never yelled. Look it in the eyes, and it won’t bleat, it will let you kill him. It will make it easy for you, it will comply to its own demise.

He was full of shit, I was sure. Then he looked it in the eyes, and he placed the knife on the neck and he whispered and he pulled and the blood spurted out and the legs kicked about but it didn’t bleat. It fucking didn’t bleat.

Not a single one of them did. He said, most don’t know, most treat the slaughter like a job. It’s a service, he said, a delivery service. Goat to God, direct, never late. Destiny he said, naseeb. Your naseeb is to kill? I asked. To redeem, he said.

Strange fucker. Don’t expect profundity from my butchers nor do I desire it. But he didn’t even ask for money. He said the prayers of the bakra are enough. How do you argue with someone who thinks goats pray? That’s a level of faith I don’t expect to reach, nor do I desire to. He stole the skins on his way out, put my guilty conscience to rest.

Mom was jaw droppingly awesome. I hadn’t ever really noticed how difficult the whole butchering and distributing thing is. Sat right next to her to keep busy, wouldn’t dare let my mind float free these days. This guy sitting with one razor sharp knife stuck between his toes and one in his hands getting yelled at by my 5’1” mother. I’ve never feared mom, she’s never feared anyone. She says she’s scared all the time, she tells me stories of how she ‘adjusted’ to dad’s lifestyle, dad’s mom, dad’s sisters, dad’s customs. What’s yours, I ask. You, she says.

Who did you love mom? She doesn’t say. She doesn’t even say love, I love your father. No way. But she doesn’t say no one either. She doesn’t lie, just doesn’t tell the inconvenient truths. 35 years with someone you don’t love. Kinda makes love seem irrelevant. Dad said he loved mom. He never looked me in the eye while saying it. Dad could lie, dads have to. Some moms do too, the hypocritical kind. I know who daddy loved, and I know who mommy loved, I know who you love. But I don’t know who loves me.

There’s a phone call I need to make. There’s a conversation I need to have. I wish I felt it was the right thing to do. Infringe upon her happiness, just for a second, to redefine mine. Won’t though. There ain’t enough whiskey in the whole damn world to make me drunk dial your number. I remembered it. Somehow, all of a sudden. I remembered. I’m supposed to call. I should. But won’t. You’ll be nice, and I’ll be nice, and I’ll wish you a happy ever after but I won’t mean it and your thank you would be equally hollow. Wish as hollow as receipt of wish. And both soaked in long fermented venom. You will never forget, even though you won’t always remember. I wish I could understand what you hold against me. I don’t want to hear your voice again. There are specific words that I need to hear. Specific lines spoken in a specific tone with a specific sadness in your eyes and a specific tremble on your lips. You’ll never say and I’ll never ask. And within that oblivion of never ever will exist this fissure that both divides and unites us.

Something has given way. A trap door has dropped open and I’m unable to not jump in. The whiskey makes me softer, more pliable. The wall falls and I’m ruptured. Feelings take control, center stage, the reins and the remains of what I callously left behind in my unwilling manner of editing you out of my future.

Drunken proclamations. More honest than anything I’ll ever say again. More meaningful than all the bull shit in all the letters you hurled in my face to create the beautiful illusion of being in love. I want you, I said, over and over trying as hard to convince myself as O. It wasn’t a weepy statement but a defeated one. Iwantyou declared in spite of the explicit knowledge that I don’t, not really. Vengeance is what I want. Tear your dreams to useless shreds, make you suffer make you pay. Fuck nobility, I’ll save it for a better lover. I want to look you in the eyes and slit your throat just to see if you’ll bleat.

The list of mistakes is long. The list of conclusions is not. Too fast, too passionate, too early, too late, too much, too little, too true, too fickle. Not meant to be. The time spent wasn’t all a waste, only mostly. The words said weren’t all a lie, only mostly. But the words written, the ones dragged, snatched, cajoled out, now they tell the truth.

The truth is that destiny is overrated.

The truth is, that your happiness, your perfect ever after, this lie you’ve told well enough to believe your self, the web of hypocrisy that you’ve laid down to protect yourself, is one email from ruin. Now it’s only a matter of me deciding whether its love or hate that will propel the muscles in the finger that rests unsure on left-click as the arrowhead hovers over send.

The truth is that every second of happiness that you will know from this day onwards, every fucking smile across those lips stained with my spit, every night of peace and every day of languor, every dream fulfilled, every curse denied, every hug, every caress, every orgasm, the first kid and the last… everything that you will deem precious in your life to come, is my gift to you.

Don’t you ever fucking forget that when the choice came to me, I chose love over everything else.

Again.

A cop car named redemption

The handcuffs hurt like hell.

For some reason, I feel that pain again today. The irritating as hell one which is an itch and a pain and a cramp and a steel-toed boot kick right in the nuts of your ego, all rolled up into one.

I remember scowling at people staring in through the thoughtlessly un-tinted rear window. I remember laughing at them… let them to get their money’s worth, I suppose. Sitting solemn wouldn’t do the part justice, so I put on the show as I remembered it from the movies, the good guys always won in the end, but the bad ones looked cooler. So I was the bad guy, my one shot at infamy and I claimed it. They stared in and I sneered out and in their minds ran fear, straight through their hearts to their toes… I could tell by the way their eyes widened and their mouths snapped shut and the gulp travelled down their shapely Caucasian throats. The prettier the woman, the more she lies… the ugly ones only lie to themselves. I’m pretty, they say, 43 EE isn’t obese… fuck you, fat ho, flaunt what you got, not what you wish you had… you’re nice, be nice, don’t scowl, don’t bite.

Guys are worse. They don’t even care. They’re guts hang down to their knees but they can chug a beer in 3 seconds flat. How come fat guys never end up with fat girls? Or vice versa? Ever seen a couple that was fat all around? Why do pretty people lie? They don’t even fucking need to… maybe its cuz they’re just nice, or maybe its just cuz they’re not. Pretty people are only good for fucking, it’s the ugly ones that are worth keeping. The cool ones die the earliest. The cooler you are, the earlier you’ll die… just think how cool a still born kid is. We should be bigger fans of still born kids than Kurt Cobain… but alas, we aren’t… we mourn them instead. We’re fucking idiots. The sooner you die, the less you suffer. The less you suffer the less you hurt… we should envy them.

These handcuffs hurt like hell. I can’t sit back, and my fat ass gut won’t let me hunch over in comfort.

“They ain’t built for comfort.” Said the motherfucking redneck cop, chomping on his beef jerky and driving with the sirens blaring, cutting through traffic like he wrote the script. My heart would be in my mouth if it wasn’t already hiding somewhere underneath my balls in shame. Fucking Texans, they think they’re so cool with their southern drawl and blonde haired, blue eyed, sumptuous assed and mouth wateringly bossomed women. Kris was such a hottie, I wish I’d fucked her when I had the chance. Sodomy my ass, Kris’s ass was worth a few thousand years in hell. My ass hurts when I breathe in this position, this is a funny thing to discover, the ass can actually fall asleep. Wish I could shake it up, but this fucking pose barely allows me to breathe… wrists feels like they’re swelling up, it hurts to even groan… but this fucking cop won’t slow down, I hope he chokes on his god damned teriyaki Jerky and dies and ploughs head on into the school bus which goes up in a huge ball of fire, consuming every car in a 100 foot radius causing the greatest tragedy in the history of the city with me at the center of it all, laughing, sneering, pissing on the flames… playing the part.

She’s nuts, I thought, and turned away. I didn’t want to believe that she actually wanted to be a stripper… what self respecting Muslim woman with a family’s honor to protect would want to be a stripper? I said you can strip for me, she didn’t reply. Now she’s stripping for a new guy every second week, and I’m left flipping my limp dick around like a white flag going okay okay, you can strip all you want… bitch. Nothing hurts more than expectation. The more you trust someone the more you expect from them and the higher the chances of them spitting your faith in your face and then pissing on it to seal the deal. Trust no one, especially not your fucking fat ass nigger of a dealer. Mother fucker set me up. But how could he, he didn’t know I would disobey the edict of the red octagon. Fuck him. It hurts like a bitch and a mother fucker at the same damn time cuz now I’m not gonna be able to make bail on my own and I’m gonna have to call dad up and he’s gonna have to sell the car or something cuz my American education has already bled him dry and what the fuck am I gonna tell him? No dad, this isn’t for tuition, I graduated last year and only lied about it being a 5 year course, and I was driving too fast once and got a ticket that I never paid and got a warrant out for my arrest, and I was way too stoned on the way to work from the hood and missed a stop sign and viola… yeah that would end his miseries in a hurry.

Shame hurts like hell. Guilt hurts even more. But I sneered and I laughed and I acted all tough for my audience all the same, and man… what a show I put on. I wish she’d seen me then, maybe she’d have been proud of me… the stripper and her convict lover fucking in the back seat of a cop car while the world whizzed by, staring in on them in fear and in awe and in envy cuz we’re so cool, all naked and handcuffed, fucking like contortionists in a circus… Cirque du Soleil le pornographique… them Texans would love it… they like everything big… Churchill said he was afraid to pee in public cuz the labors taxed every big thing they saw… cocky bastard. How would he act in this situation?… he’d prolly light up a cigar.. Churchill was cool, but he became cool late in life… that’s why he lived as long as he did…. Actually I haven’t known too many lame old people, they’re generally cool in their own way… maybe every one is… but how do you put a cool spin on such a humiliating situation? You follow the bad guy’s lead… evil is cool. That’s the trouble with evil, its so fucking sexy… it turns you on, it makes you go all tingly inside… I guess that’s why she wanted to be a stripper. Or maybe she was just messed up in the head. I hope she got to be a stripper… she did strip for me and she was good, she could make so much money… she could probably be my sugar momma, that’s how much money her body could be worth… man oh man did I ever fuck up! So what if she wanted to strip? Why won’t this motherfucker slow down?

Then they shifted me to this other cop car at Gessner and Tanglewilde. And then they drove me to the jail house and took my picture. I always thought I was 5’10… I was always overly ambitious by an inch… damnit, today’s been a disappointing day…

This has been a disappointing life. Expectations hurt more than handcuffs. Expectations hurt like shackles, shackles hurt more than handcuffs, especially when you put them on yourself. But you get used to the pain. You get used to being fucked in the head. You get used to everything. I suppose, you get used to being dead too.

Acerbic Esoterica

Nary a whimper

Nor a tear drop in sight

Not for you my love,

Not tonight.

You’ll never know

So imperceptibly I cry

As upon my pursed lips

Hope quietly dies

I’m a glutton for the pain

You irrevocably yield

In your happiest of days

My sorrows are revealed

Every smile upon your face

Resurrects surrendered sighs

As upon my pursed lips

Hope quietly dies

Be nothing more than a passing glance

Condemned to the randomness of chance

Nothing more than happenstance

But nothing less than all of life

Bled me dry to gain respite

Your laughter echoes as if in spite

Wish you the best and all that jive

Though I really don’t

Though I really don’t

I just really do

Wish for you

To die.

The casualty of your inconsistency.

Internet killed romance, you cannot bathe an email in perfume without effectively destroying your email producing machine. You do not need to look someone in their eyes as you break their hearts. It’s easier to be cruel now than ever before.

And make no mistake, cruel is what you are, although in your world it probably doesn’t seem so.

I shall let you be happy, in all my benevolent glory, I shall indeed. Weddings were never my thing anyway. I’m letting you be happy because I don’t drink anymore. Gentlemen don’t make scenes, dad used to say, he never mentioned any exceptions to that rule, not vengeance, not heartache, not love, not alcohol poisoning. I’m letting you be happy because I know I know I know I know there ain’t no sunshine when you’re gone but at least in the dark I can’t see, I can’t see you burying me.

Happiness is a contrite concept, at best. Does it exist? In your world it probably does, but that’s only cuz you sucked mine dry of it. So I’m letting you be happy cuz you never loved me. Cuz, when the sun sets the sky is fucking purple. Cuz its gonna be a bad night for drunk driving. Cuz no one ever wins a war, no one loses. Koee marta nahin kisee kay liye. Umeed akeli marti hai. (no one dies for anyone. Hope dies alone). Lonely too, perhaps. I wish you misery. I hope you wear white. Heh, no I don’t. Hope is dead. Death, is hope.

For the Love of God (Khuda Kay Liye)

I haven’t read the reviews so I don’t know what the critics are saying, and in all honesty I couldn’t care less about the damn critics. This is primarily because at heart I’m a critic myself and do, in all humility, value my opinion more than anybody else’s. This is also because the only reason I went to see this movie was Iman Ali. Had very low expectations because after all, no matter which camera is used, what’s captured is still desi bull shit bu,t boy oh boy, was I ever surprised. And enthralled. And a bit overwhelmed,

First off, hats, shirts, pants, sock and even shoes off to Shoaib Mansoor for the massive balls he has shown in making this movie the way that he has. Bravo! Not-so-gentle story teller, you went on a limb to make a statement and you have succeeded brilliantly. Granted the direction was a bit shady at moments, the war scenes were shoddy, the climactic court scene was a bit too tame and lame for the subject matter, the acting could have used massive polishing but on the whole, damn good job. He intends to put indelible images on the screen and does so with remarkable ease and unapologetic impunity, managing to mark a viewer’s mind as well as the screen. The sight of a burka clad woman being dragged back into her personal hell over a raging river does not require the breath-stopping beauty of Iman Ali to bring it substance. And the scene with Shaan introducing himself to the group of musicians from all over the world, only to have them all join in as willing subordinates was a masterpiece of movie making which even the liked of Copolla would be proud of. The only other scene that has had the power to move me as much as that scene did was from Braveheart, and if you need to be told which scene I’m talking about you obviously haven’t seen Braveheart. That is too high praise, perhaps, if I allowed myself to let the rapture wear off I’ll think of a less respectable point of reference to gauge Shoaib’s work but I’m going to go with first impressions here because I think the movie has earned it. There were flaws, yes, I think the mullah bashing went too far into gratuitous territory, but it makes very little difference since maybe, and this is a very cautious maybe here, such extreme measures are exactly what are needed in the context of how polarized our society has become. Capturing this dangerously polarized society on film so well, so completely, and so effectively required not only skill but also guts which Shoaib Mansoor, in fact the entire team, has proven they have in spades.

If I were to boil my opinion down to one thing that takes the movie past mere greatness and into immortal waters, I would fail. Because no matter how long I boil my opinion, two things emerge as exemplary.

First of all, the Music. Its not much in terms of random listening, I don’t think the songs possess much strength without the images in the movie to supplement and substantiate them, but together they make the perfect couple. The crescendos set the blood pumping and the a cappella humming dragged the tears out of even the most cynical eyes. It could have been better, maybe, but as far as I know, it hasn’t been yet.

Secondly, Shaan. Never been a fan of the stone faced, gandasa wielding hulk, but he earned my respect in that video for fusion with the only other hottie in Pakistani media today. In this movie though, he was fantastic. Absolutely marvelously so. I cannot possibly be judicious enough to his performance since I’m no authority but in the words of Mr. Burns, I know what I hate and I did not hate Shaan’s performance. And a performance is exactly what it was, in every sense of the word.

Now on to the bad stuff, and unfortunately there was plenty. Mostly the acting of everyone other than Shaan, the guy who plays the nasty mullah, Naseer-ud-din Shah, the foreign cast members and Iman Ali to some extent, was a huge let down. The new guy has potential but failed miserably here, going with that age-resistant Faisal dude might have been a better choice. The freak who played Iman’s father is a prime candidate for a beheading, so awful was his sad attempt at creating a character. But you know, this was after all a paki movie and as such I think it deserves all the benefit of the doubt it can get and therefore, bad acting and poor editing and shitty special effects apart, this flick rocks and must be seen. I will not wax political about the issues raised in the movie except to say that they are extremely relevant and extremely important and if there has ever been a movie out of the subcontinent that has taught me anything, its this one. Sure Iman ali cannot pull off a British accent but at least she tried, and i think the mere fact that they thought about making her accent sound authentic speaks volumes about the professionalism with which they have worked on this movie. I am impressed, make no bones about it, I am and I think for good reason too.

So yeah, even though no one really cares about what I have to say or even comes to this blog anymore, that is my opinion and I strongly endorse this movie to anyone with half a mind.

And since I’m on a roll here, I’m gonna go ahead and dole out a review of the brand spanking new DHA cinema as well. It’s pretty decent, so far, but not really as good as a proper western theatre, but again, since it’s the Stan, the effort itself deserves a commendation. The electricity disappeared midway, and they took a bit too long to get the generator running and there was a freaking intermission with such bright lighting that it felt like a hospital all of a sudden but it was immaculately clean, the staff was extremely polite and courteous and the sound system was actually pretty good. The real test of the equipment will be Transformers but from what I can tell, DHA cinema has filled a void in the lives of the decent folk of Lahore.

Now to the statistical analysis because I want to act all well versed enough in the medium to quantify my opinion (points out of 5):

. Direction = 3 ½

. Editing =2 ½

. Music = 5

. Cinematography = 4

. Substance = 5

. Sound effects = 1

. Visual effects = 2

. Overall = 4

Now for Cast related categories, I’m only mentioning the characters that mattered (out of 5 again):

. Shaan (Mansoor) = 6

. Fawad (Sarmad) = 1.5

. Iman (Mariam) = 3

. Naseer (good mullah) = 5

. Bad Mullah = 5 ½ (forgot to mention earlier that he gave a very powerful performance)

. Shaan’s Dad = 2 ½

. Shaan’s mom = 3

. Shaan’s wife = 4

. Crazy INS guy = 4

. Iman’s beloved = 2

. Iman’s Dad = -400

. Shaan’s crazy ass maulvi friend = 3

. Everybody else = 3

. Ensemble = 4

So there it is, my thoughts on a movie that has a very realistic chance of breathing some life back into a comatose Pakistani film industry. Judging by the number and variety of people at the theatre the public imagination and interest has been captured and satisfied. There were fat scary uncles, laughing raucously at the funny bits, and explicitly attired hotties weeping at Iman’s fate without a fight breaking out or comments being passed. In one fell swoop, the experience of watching Khuda ke Liye at the DHA cinema has exposed two very promising developments for the denizens of Lahore, 1. Good movies and 2. A good spot to make out without being harassed. It’s a win win situation.

Go watch the damn movie. Its worth the effort, the 250 rupee price tag and the dealing with average humanity. No Pakistani, or Muslim for that matter, can afford to miss Shaoib's rendition of a thoroughly Pakistani conundrum. With any luck, you'll come away a bit smarter than before.

fever stained silences speak softly

And when it ends, all you will remember is the way I used to hold your hand

Slowly, ever so slowly, like a wound healing, the pieces fit. Reality is much heavier to bear than the burden of dreams, it’s more ruthless than the curse of temptation.

This apology is long over due.

And in the sun I see no god, no shades of gold.

Only you.

It aches like a mother fucker to become what we must become. Be it led by an unyielding heart, mind or world. But we acquiesce like silent, obedient Pinocchios, with hearts that collapse every time we try to defy the cruel hubris of merely being alive.

Some term it selfishness. Some say its man’s inane inability to deny his intrinsic core made of solid evil. I think it has more to do with choosing what we want to remember. And always choosing wrong.

There’s no fire in the hearth now, there’s no face in the moon

We got to get the fuck out of here on a smoke balloon

I try to recall

What you said through it all

But all I can remember

Is that day in November

When I lay writhing in delirium

Watching angels fall

But all I really noticed

Was the writing on the wall

The writing on the wall

Rang like a siren’s call

It bemoaned and beseeched

To me to try to crawl

Up out of my dementia

And into insanity

Curl up into the arms

Of depravity

It said:

Sup!

Mother Fucker!

Did u think it would be easy?

Did you think you could forget,

What you don’t want to remember?

Did you think you can fly,

Right on out of my life?

Did you think I wouldn’t haunt

You from dusk till dawn

Did you think I’d let you sleep

After what you did to me?

It whispered like you moaned

It stuttered like you stoned

It wrapped up all around me

Like meat on a bone

It strangled and choked

like cow dung smoke

I looked for rope

But found some dope

So I sat down stoked

As the roof’s water broke

And the windows made love

And the curtains wept blood

But your eyes never burnt

No your eyes never burnt

And like the tide you turned

And like the sun I set

Are your fingers still wet?

Did you remember to forget?

All that could’ve been?

All that never should have been?

the writing on the wall…
Was your name, after all.

ek khala hai seenay mien..

So much water under /over, fuck, right through the bridge. Even the rock bed foundation seems to have disintegrated. Coarse, jagged remains… like sand burnt to cinders and left to severe what the fire couldn’t burn.
Our choices are ours alone. And so is the burden of our mistakes. You don’t want to be my happiness, darling, you never were. A curse that has no counter-spell, a benediction that damns, perhaps. Plastic love, but not happiness, no. Never happiness.

I’m a masochist, a beast. I’m a fucking dinosaur in this world that seems hell bent on letting go. You are a gazelle. Leaping through light and shadow, casting lovely figurines across the vast but barren landscape of my soul. I bartered everything I had for a chance to be with you I gave into blasphemy just to see If not god than fate perhaps might bring us face to face.

But the skies weep for the fate of all mankind instead and there is no time, no time at all for the plight of a solitary man unwilling to tear out the hook you camouflaged in flesh for him to bite onto.

Lives of many follow the same damn paths you and I have chosen there is no originality left in the world. No room for it, in fact. Our emotions are all recycled our loves are all borrowed. The only thing that’s real is the pain we all suffer and the guilt and the shame for where we stood still when we should have walked away and where we held hands when we should have slit throats.

It feels a bit redundant to delve into that dark, dank, thoroughly unwelcoming nook where I have you stashed away. But I delve because in the great tapestry of life, I’m a moth even though you’re not the flame. The fire burns within me alone and it’s the memory of the great dreams we actually dared to have that fuel this pyre I hover around, hoping to stay at bay until its all burnt up or perhaps for a stray flame to rise high enough to claim me once and for all.

I see you dancing, Strobe light lit and swaying to the tune of some lewd nigger song. The L.I.I.T coursing its way into your blood stream bringing you the courage to forget everything but the moment, everything that could possibly lead you to choose anything except what you desire. I see you smiling, ear to ear, as only you could, walking, watching the world that could belong to you if only you do whatever the hell it is that it wants from you to assimilate, absorb, disappear into the thick green forest of the future too far away from the eyes that still search for you in the past to ever find you, to ever see you, to ever claim you again.

This is kind. This is kind of you. But this is not working.

I have no reason and no desire, not even the remotest inclination to ruin it for you. I wish you knew, at least, having failed so miserably to understand.

aaj phir dil mein teri khoee huee yaad aayi
jaisay weeranay mein chupkay say bahaar aa jaye
jaisay sehraon mein holay say chalay baad-e-naseem
jaisay beemar ko bewajha qaraar aa jaye

uff o

It’s a sad, strange irony to contend with.

It’s almost cruel in its inevitability.

I would give anything to forget you

Except my memories

if i had a name for this i probably wudn't post it

For years he tried to explain to himself what it meant to have lost her and why it hurt as much as it did. But he failed. Time and again, he failed not because he couldn’t understand but because she never had.

It was easier to assume that they were meant to be because they couldn’t see into the future. If they could they would have known that she was always meant for mediocrity and could not, no matter how hard she tried, deceive her instincts into making the safer choices. He, on the other hand, was meant to embrace mediocrity because the world he belonged to had come and gone decades ago and the world today could not accept his toxic genius.

In the end, he was a casualty of her selfishness, but even in that, unremarkable…since many more were condemned to be harassed by the unfailing ability of hers to love as intensely as she possibly could pretend to love without actually loving at all.

And she was ultimately condemned to be the muse who would make him succumb to his own impossible desires. Who would make him say her name with every word of every language, who would make him abuse her and condemn her through the lives and the people who he conjured up for the sole purpose of making sense of her to himself. But no matter how he molested his own story to craft a multitude of others, he could neither make sense of her nor forget her.

So when he finally slit his throat with the diamond in the ring that she had returned so unceremoniously, it wasn’t because she was giving birth to her third child with the poor bastard who ended up unified to her through divine intervention, nor was it because every woman he tried to love fell so far short of what he came to believe he deserved after losing her that whatever little faith he had left in learning to love again disappeared. It wasn’t even because no matter where he looked he saw despair so infinite that if he were to fall prey to it, he would never land, no despair he was used to, despair was an ally. What finally exiled the resolve to live from his heart was an epiphany. The one he had been waiting for all his life, really. The one that he had suffered all the other epiphanies for. The life changing one, the one that we read about and see depicted in Oscar worthy movies, the one that empowers you to leave everything behind and go head first in search of what you think you now desire, just like she had. The one that snuck up on him while he feverishly typed out the final chapter of his masterpiece which in his life would have finally earned him the attention he so desperately sought, from the critics and the readers and the people who pretend to read and from her. It snuck up on him at 3.42 am on a Tuesday morning and nestled itself uncomfortably between his ears, ringing like an incessant siren \. It spoke to him with authority and with anger and with a tone of finality that in itself was enough to make him reach for the drawer that still held all her personal effects.

Ellipses put an abrupt, unscheduled end to the story he had been writing all his life. A page break finds itself hastily inserted in the middle of the climax where the guy doesn’t get the girl but the strength to leave her instead.

Epilogue

He writes, italicized and underlined and centered. And beneath it he records his last thought before heeding to its command. Italicized and underlined and justified.

When you’ve run out of words or of the strength to recall them, when she is dead and buried, hell, even when the sun is at half mast above your head and the mountains really are like cotton candy caught in an updraft, do you think you will love her any less? You can abuse her all you want, you can curse her and bemoan her very existence, you can trace back her ancestry and swear to build a time machine so you can go kill the single bastard whose demon sperm led to her existence, but you can not hate her. You can not forget her and you can not let go. You are condemned, my friend, don’t you see? Your single greatest regret in this final moment of your existence isn’t that you lost the one you loved or that you loved the person least deserving of your devotion but that you spent all this time in trying to wash off the scent of her skin from your memories when could have ended it all a long time ago if only you had let go of your life instead.

N.B: you're so vain, you probably think this post is about you... it could be, but it's not. However, if the shoe fits...

February

Twirl Twirl Twirl. Look how your skirt swirls when you twirl twirl twirl. Little girl, you grew up way too fast. Way too fast you chugged that half full glass now your eyes are glazed over and puke stains your shoes, you didn't even notice the tightening noose.

That pose where you lie flat on your back, your head ensconced in jewels I could never afford, your mouth contorted in a sensual smirk and your hands half open like eyes half shut.

He fidgets between right and wrong having known all along that she doesn't belong in his right frame of mind he could possibly have gone on to follow her again like she was pleasure and he was pain. But in this frame of mind, in this circumstantial existence he has a wife and a son and daughter about to come and no matter who he loves he only has one stake to claim. Men don't walk out on their spouses as often as the movies say and women tend to be more discreet than brave.

Stone cold heart or resolve much too strong? It's hard to believe you ever loved me. It's harder to not.

The thing about breaking up is that you know exactly what steps need to be taken in order to move forward and away, its like science, a process. You know you will be miserable for a bit but stand firm through it, preferably go out, get drunk, get laid. Soon you will be too involved in work or family or other such shit to have time enough to remember and viola, if you keep an eye out, before you know it you will have another recipient for your fleeting affections at your disposal.

Breaking-up is easy.

But when eight years later, for whatever reasons you find out that not a damn thing has changed since that god forsaken day since she closed the door and you walked away. And that the happiest you have been in the past near decade is for the 3-4 hours just spend with her again. In theory, this is life giving you a bonus but in principal its life sticking it so far up your ass that your eye balls start to itch. But if you take it like a man long enough you will learn to bear it like a woman, which is basically saying that you'll learn to love it.

Women have the tremendous tendency to be so satisfied with themselves within themselves that they don't even notice who rigorously they don't practice what they preach. Women are master pretenders; its like acting is as much a part of being a woman as…well… pussy farts.

Engagements are weird. The same person can get engaged in one instance and bring IMMENSE joy to another person, and repeat the act in another instance and invoke the exact opposite reaction from the same, other person.

Engagements are also a bit useless.

Third time's the charm though.

Or so they say.

There will always be someone who loves you like they do in the movies.

No rings required.

Coelho Redeemed

Now I know I’m no authority on literature. I haven’t read enough to qualify as someone who could possibly reflect profoundly about the many allegorical inferences in what is hailed as the best work of contemporary literature in recent memory. To me The Alchemist was a ho-hum experience. It may be argued that it is because of the poor translation that the book loses its oomph but it wasn’t the quality of the writing alone that failed to impress but also the basic premise which has seemingly changed lives and cured heartaches and what not. I failed to see what was so great about the evangelical spiel the author doles out in that obscure tale that at the end of the day seems to have its mouth closed tightly over its own tale. Sure the message is of hope and of optimism and of faith but its not the first time someone has risen from the darkest depths of despair to rise and preach the miraculous effects of having faith in themselves.

It could also be argued that since I’m a committed pessimist I refuse to see the silver lining, but my gripe against the book isn’t based on its message of positive thinking, of keeping the faith et al. It’s more about the method chosen to relay the message.

Everyone gushes over this book but I failed to see why. To me it was a man trying desperately to preach a way of thought that most movies and fairytales have been trying to preach for a long long time for no really good reason. We don’t need people to tell us what real life is like, we live it every damn day. We live it and we know that life is essentially random, that shit happens and that you have to rise from the ashes even if it ain’t much like a phoenix and keep on moving lest we be condemned as madmen or lovers.

Then again, that’s just me. Maybe people do need people to tell them how to live their lives, maybe they believe that if they follow their dreams the whole universe conspires in their favor but I think those of us who have been around long enough know that life is a whole lot of struggle and a whole lot of hard work and whole lot of dumb luck. We know that no matter what blunders we make they remain in the past if only we have the strength of character to learn from our mistakes and not escape from them, we know that the key to success is not in blindly following dreams but in setting goals, in drawing objectives and in going after them head-first, provided that circumstances permit. Unless of course your self respect is up for sale or you are too much of a narcissist to really care about those whose lives become entwined with yours without really knowing whether you’re making your destiny or merely following it.

So with this kind of a reaction to the almighty Alchemist I had no choice but to give the dude another chance and fate (hah) brought On the bank of the River Piedra, I sat down and wept. This book was mutilated in translation. I could tell just by reading it that whoever wrote the English version did not do justice to the original. The imagery here could be beautiful, and I’m willing to bet that the guy who can conceptualize such brilliance probably can do justice to it with his words. The translation though kills the book and its meaning and its gravity. This was still a better read than The Alchemist primarily because it at least acknowledges some merit in being realistic and gives a more logical argument to the established norms of human existence. I would still not say that the philosophy preached here qualifies as something life changing or something that should be exercised in all its implications but I could feel that having a discussion over a J with the dude would probably yield positive intellectual stimulation. Nothing more though, and nothing less was I willing to give Coelho for his efforts.

Then my sister came across an old copy of The Fifth Mountain that Dad had bought some years ago. She feels much the same way as I do about Coelho and was just as curious to find out what the hell exactly is it about him that people like so much.

For both of us, The Fifth Mountain had the answer.

The translation here isn’t very impressive either but it is better than the other two books I’ve read. It does justice to the moments that the writer has crafted in his head. As someone who aspires to be a writer I know that what looks positively awe-striking inside our heads is often virtually impossible to translate into words. OF all the stuff I’ve written both fiction and non-fiction, only twice have I been able to actually realize the intensity I felt inside my head. One was in Of Ellipses and pregnant pause which remains the most honest piece of writing I have ever had the courage to pen down and Suicide note which is easily the most dishonest. To do justice to the thoughts in one’s own head is fucking hard. But to not only take someone else’s thoughts and understand them enough to actually translate them into a whole other language is a task so daunting that I have never even thought about trying it. Whoever did the translation for The Fifth Mountain must’ve made Coelho proud. Not only is the story as complete as any writer worth his salt would want it to be but its just as powerful too.

I loved the way Coelho constructed the protagonist here, Elijah breathes and blinks and walks. He’s not just in the words on the yellowed pages, he exists. I could empathize, and invoking your audience’s empathy is the single most important objective for any central character.

More importantly though, in the context of Coelho himself, what was redeeming about this book was the clarity of thought that comes across. At no time is Coelho losing control of his message here, unlike particularly in The Alchemist, At no time is a reader unaware of the personality of the protagonist or disappointed at the choices he makes. Elijah comes of as a much more praiseworthy and follow-able symbol.

Notice that Coelho’s philosophy is much the same in all his books, follow your dreams. I’m all for that, what I fail to buy or where you fail to sell your ideology to me is when you try to guarantee a happy ending. Happiness is relative and nothing that is relative can ever be guaranteed. Death is not relative, Death is guaranteed. When you acknowledge the realities of life, no matter how bitter or how disappointing they may be, you are showing courage more so than ignorance. And that essentially is what the difference between The Fifth Mountain and the other two books is, where this is courageous, they were ignorant.

What I liked about Coelho though is his consistency. He may be plagued by bad translations and by an overdose of positive thinking but the dude’s loyal to his beliefs. And that, if nothing else, earns him my respect.

Kaali teri choti tay paranda tera laal nee.

This song came on very randomly somewhere around Chichawatni. Chichawatni, by the way, isn't on Mars it isn't a name concocted by an autistic child very high on some psychotic drug, its actually the name of a seriously dilapidated city which sorta props up on your way towards Karachi. It is another in the long list that I just may some day compile of absolutely goshwoggling names of cities. Peelu Wains, however, will forever head this potentially mind-fucking list.

So this song, black your braid and the fake braid(?) red, came on randomly on the bloody cassette the driver owned. It ended up triggering this weird as being fucked in the ear feeling. It was a bit like nostalgia, but only a bit… mostly it was that tell tale gulp which you get when watching dependably predictable Indian movies when a tragedy is about to transpire. You don't want the cute as a button heroine to get brutally raped by the hideous Gulshan Grover, or some equally repugnant dude, but its all set to happen cuz if it dun than moti the kutta (dog) will not die trying to save Jackie the hero who will kill himself in the end anyway cuz he was singing songs on the top of a moving train while his lovely senorita was taking it up all the wrong holes and cuz his doggie died trying to save his sorry ass so why give a damn fuck about the dog's sacrifice or the girl's sad demise and just croak at the firstest opportunity. But this whole plot is from an entirely different movie to the one the aforementioned song is from. In fact, and this is the sad part, I could not, for the love of the only woman I actually want, recall what movie the phucking song is from. I couldn't but I knew that it either had some nasty hindi twist happening during it or shortly after it or whatever and the feeling if not the movie has stuck fast somewhere under all the damn gore inside my head.

It's quite like how we react to smells. Certain perfumes, for example. Rumba, a fairly cheap perfume in the most grossly designed box ever will forever remind me of the woman who I fell in love with before I even really knew what the fuck love actually was. She is sadly married now with a dude who belongs to the same phucking clan that my ex belongs to. This sucks on many levels but none that can possibly earn me any pity sex from any one at all so I don't mention this somewhat cruel but mostly repulsive irony to anyone but it hurts, oh it hurts so… please, anyone… sleep with me to cum all over the scars inside my head or heart or all over my… well

Yes, okay, I'm horny. This is what happens when you end up with a gosh danged hot as freshly bbqed mutton tikka chick from BWP and don't do jack despite all her umm… tits in your face type tactics… because you're on an 'official' tour and sadly enough getting some in the ball sack of hell does not earn any Kudos in shitsville, Pakistan.

This makes me wonder what exactly the merit is in this 'cautious' approach towards life. They do not make movies about people who say no to stuff. They just don't, it's a sad state of affairs, or perhaps a sad state of our entertainment industry but the ways of the normal do not make for a good cinematic experience. But when you have issues like honor and legacy and respect etc. clogging your head it is hard to find the reckless abandon which led you to get your freaka on in parking lots and girlfriend's brother's bed. I do believe this is what they call maturity. And I must say, its sucks. I always thought… nay, I always BELIEVED that I was the sort who would gladly be used by a gold digging wench looking for a quick lift into the professional stratosphere which an American degree has gotten you to, but alas, I am not. Dad's decision to go chill in limbo might have something to do with it, it has more than something to do with most of everything I do off late. Or don't do. Being an orphan changes you. At least at my age it does, and I feel, it should. Whether it should interfere with the pursuit of poonan is a matter of opinion, I suppose, but even if what was right got done in the end, I am not particularly elated about it.

What I am elated about, however, is my ability to tear assholes a new asshole. Its disgusting how some people, okay MOST people, will look at an initiative geared towards empowering the down trodden as an opportunity to fill their coffers further as if the blood of the weak hasn't filled it beyond capacity already. I used to be extremely volatile, when angry. Still am but only when really really angry. The boiling point has risen considerably over the past couple of years and the net result is that I'm so much smarter now than I used to be. Whoever said patience is a virtue fucking hit the bull's-eye. Patience is one of the most awesomest skills any one can possess. Not only does it allow you to retain dumbass idiots with hearts of gold in your ensemble of acquaintances, it also allows you to always, ALWAYS reach the best damn conclusion. Anger leads to mistakes, invariably. Anger should be harnessed. Anger should be used. And it is patience which allows you to rein your anger in. Plus, if you allow the person arguing with you to keep going to the logical end of their anger fed argument, more often than naught they will self-destruct. Then you can utter a casual 'I rest my case' with the most irritating self assured smile on your nicotine-stained lips and viola, the person's ego will go kablooie. Of course it is vital to be absolutely certain of your own argument because it's very likely that you will be the one self destructing. Wherein, the ability to bull shit will come to your rescue. The most successful people in the world are nothing but great bull shitters… unless their pathetic geeks like Bill Gates… if you ain't got the smarts, you gotta have the shit…the bull shit.

And thus armed with my twin Deagles, P and BS, I take on the world everyday whether it's in LHR or BWP or In the arms of the most buxom women since the ex. Funny thing, she even had a mole on her left udder. Now that I think of it that was possibly the hugest reason I balked when I should have actually soldiered on.

Any how, there is no point crying over spilt milk or unspilt milk, heh, gross. I'm so gross its incredible. I caught myself digging the other day and I burst out laughing, wondering how long I have been exploring the nether regions of my own nose without even realizing it. It doesn't really matter does it? I mean. Its my fucking nose and my fucking finger, if you don't wanna 'hang' with someone who digs, up yours. Of course I know enough to not dig in public, just as I know enough to not fart at seminars, or burp at parties but I'd like to be around people I can dig in front of when I'm in chill mode. I'd like to be friends with fellow diggers, I'd like to have a fellow digger for a spouse. Ah, yes. Digging ability and tolerance go up there on the ever expanding list for potential wives. I started out with one point, the love for weed, I now have around 5784. 5786 now. But that's what it comes down to. Sad part is that none of these desired attributes have jack to do with the normal stuff you'd look for like, sense of humor, or good cook, or huge gazongas, or a brain. My list is more like the stuff that you'd be NOT looking for.

Smoking Pot, eager and able to give BJs, killer rizla roller (the gravity bong ain't built for sharing), smoker with the ability to hold off while preggers and yes I swear to quit along with her, NOT a drunk, drunk women are incorrigible, hijabans will strip off on table tops when drunk, that is not acceptable behavior. Non manipulative! Now this in a woman is no short of a miracle. Yeah I know I'm gonna get a lot of 'lurve' for this one, but you know what, face the truth. Women are manipulative, its nature. Just like guys are horny. You may think yur not, you may believe yur not, but you are, my dear. You are.

Huge gazongas! Yes! Please please lord let me have a woman with the most perfect of all racks. I'm sorry if this sounds shallow, I truly am, but I like them big. I just do. Yes I know I said that this list does not include this particular requirement but I lied.

Speaking of lying, sense of humor is a must! I need a woman who can make people laugh.

NON NAGGING. Gosh, this is probably an even bigger deal than the non manipulative thing cuz seriously, even women know they nag.

NON HYPOCRITE. Women, are the most judicious people in the world. But when it comes to significant others and themselves, it's like if I hug a female friend I'm a cockroach but if you do and I freak out just like you have I'm still a cockroach. What's up with that? Either be okay with me doing what you're doing or don't do it yourself. Admittedly, most women aren't this way, I have known some very fair women but never as a love interest. I would like to though, then I can stop being jealous and start giving out bear hugs on the street.

And so the list goes on and on but the fact is that most of these terms are extremely negotiable. End of the day, I just want to be with someone who I actually want to be with. You know? Who I can lie next to and feel totally at ease with. Even if she doesn't have huge gazongas or pretty hands or compassion for the suffering of mankind or a desire to blow me at all hours of the day, as long as she and I can both lie entwined on a single bed in utter silence, stoned out of our fucking heads, I'll be happy.

Until then though, I'm passing up poonan like I'm a fucking priest and that makes absolutely zero damn sense. So if you want to hitch a ride to the next to top tier of the corporate ladder and are not a virgin please feel free to contact me, I assure you, I will not act like a silly self-righteous prick this time around.

Speaking of priests, I met a real life one the other day and was totally bowled over by the audacity of a humanoid in this day and age to be absolutely selfless. Its incredible, this guy is from Malta, and despite the name this citrusy place is fucking heaven compared to here but here is where he is, pulling a Mother Theresa for nothing more than the absolute faith that after apocalypse has come and gone it's the rest of us who'll be feasting on his snot balls till the end of eternity, which incidentally will never come cuz its eternity, stupid. How cool is that? Its like this guy KNOWS, you know, he's all smug in his beliefs and he's looking at us like what fucking retards, they're pissing their lives away after material gains and red sports cars and hot women and power and all for what, all you'll get in the end is a 6 x 3 pit full of sand or not even that if you prefer being vaporized. It led me to readjust a lot of my beliefs, this guy did. Come to think of it, this encounter may also have played a part in the failed episode of wannabe Lewinski 's dream comes true.

No, I'm just looking for excuses to justify my inexcusable behavior. This is weird cuz It now seems that I tend to write nonsense even when I'm entirely sober. I'm so sober that it's like being born again and yet I'm blabbering like my mind's ensconced in haze.

2,117 words, says Word and I plan on posting this on the blog. Lately I've begun to wonder whether I post on the blog to:

1. Purge
   
2. Bitch
   
3. Whine
   
4. Be read
   
5. Read my shit myself like the narcissist that I am
   
6. None of the above
   
7. All of the above
   

But I have no clue.

I still have no clue what fucking movie that fucking song is from. Or why I actually did not take up on the most blatant come on I have received in several years. I don't even really know why I'm still up writing this.

I guess the answer is: go to sleep shithead.

Good night.

And good luck.

And by the way, aren't women who sleep with men for practical considerations utter sluts?

And even if they are, why the hell should it bother the dude she's sleeping with?

Good bye.

phucking phitaymaun phenchod

Sadness will make you weep, it will make you bawl. You will cry and tremble and snot will go flying from your nose in all probable direction because you will lose control; of your body, your senses your heart and your mind and your ability to reason and to comprehend. Sadness will own you, when it comes. When it comes, you will be conquered and you will lie heaped into a pile as negligible as dirt on a Lahori street, turning into and unto yourself in the pursuit of deliverance that cannot come from within.

The awareness of sadness though, will save your soul. The awareness of sadness will act like a chastity belt secured fast atop your emotional vagina, protecting its sanctity and its sanity until you deiced to let the cherry pop. To understand pain is to conquer it, to dissect it and comprehend it just like Newton’s third law is to keep the reins securely in your hands lest ye be driven asunder. The awareness of sadness will make you smile, it will make you understand the reasons why there is absolutely no real hope or real lack thereof. It will sit you down and make you a cup of herb tea with a wedge of lemon and just enough sugar and it will talk you through the turmoil even before it begins and even before you can crumble you will stand tall and even before you can tremble, you’ll be calm and even before you can cry you will smile. You will see it coming from a mile away and though you’ll know you cannot avoid it you will brace for the impact and holding your arms out, you will embrace it instead of try to keep it away. And it is in that one twitch-of-a-wrist worth of emotional readjustment you will find that the poison it self is the remedy.

*picture credit to modifidious on deviantART the best damn portal for wicked visuals in the world

guess what this is

Remember remember the month of November, and the May we may never forget.

When I went to Dallas I found that it's much harder to find genuine e-pills there than anywhere else in the States. Maybe only for Desis, maybe that's the only city where the general populace cares enough about alien visitors to try and keep them from drugs no matter how euphoric in nature they may be.

New York is particularly bad for weed, you usually find Hydro and the Jamaicans are natural born rip off artists, then again why wouldn't a drug dealer be?

In St. Albans, WV, the strippers will dance completely nude, shaved muffs in your face for a dollar, and the lap dances are the most intimate you can hope to find anywhere in the US and the UK. They are incredibly cheap too, 5 bucks a song, but you do have to buy at least four songs to start with. They will not complain no matter how long you make the session go but they will walk out if you don't tip them after every song, and when closing times comes, no amount of money will keep the stripper from heading home to her daughter or son or cat or books. If you make a good (rich) enough impression you might get to drive her home, and if you don't know what that means you're not ready for a strip club excursion yet. If you study locally, you are very likely to find the too hot to be approached chick from economics 101, slithering down a fireman's pole for your viewing pleasure of biting your clothed crotch if you're rich enough. But when you buy cocaine, you end up with crushed Motrin instead… then again what the hell else were you expecting for 10 dollars a gram? Huntington is the best place to fill up a Ford Expedition with horny, FOB pakis because people are too unaccustomed to desiness to feel anything but amusement.

New Jersey is Mushroom Capital. Saturday nights, if you find yourself anywhere near the Rutgers' New Brunswick campus, one of the hole-in-the-wall pizza shops is bound to serve spiked pizzas which can lead to an extremely frightening experience if you're not mentally prepared to be butt fucked in the head. This will, however, ensure that you never bother with the cow-dung grown head tripper ever again, which is a good thing. Trust me.

Arlington, TX has the nicest e-heads ever. They will give you the night of your life just cuz and the local college girls are as close to the classic down south, home grown, next door hotties that you can ever hope to find in a now very plastic world. They fuck kindly, almost philanthropically… if they weren't on ex, they'd probably make excellent nuns. Beer Kegs are dirt cheap here, and Keith is by far the best keg-stander dude I've ever seen.

Refrain from driving up I-10 through Mississippi during the day time because you'll end up missing the hypnotizing effect of the swamps on the general environ. The fog hangs a few feet off the ground, like suspended in mid-air and the way the light of oncoming cars spreads, lighting each particle in its range, is a sight only a stoned person can enjoy. But it's worth it. Make sure, however, that you have a full tank of gas to get you clear across the state. Hunting for open or even automated pumps at 2 am in places where no light exists for miles and wouldn't be visible 2 feet away even if it did exist is an experience so frightening that it will drive 10 years worth of intoxication right out of your system.

Georgia does, infact, have an upper speed limit. You're likely to forget that if you're a FOB and its dark because the speed limit signs are few and far between. The cops there will assume you're dangerous if you're driving as fast as the car will go, they will frisk you and they will be helpless if you have an international driving license.

The Hertz people are as gullible in Hicksville, WV as they are in Yankee Doodle, NY, because they will accept your Kroger Card aided, badly printed and wide scotch tape laminated fake Driver's License as long as you look excited enough. Mustangs are the best cars to rent because they're utterly useless as cars but great gobs of American muscle fun as tire shredders. Camaros suck major ass. Camry's are excellent for getting BJ's while you drive and no cop will ever pull you over for minor infractions in that cookie cutter appliance, always rent the white ones they slip under the radars most smoothly.

Accords are the best starter cars in the world, slightly modified they will give a stock 'vette a run for its money to the point where it becomes a lot more about guts than muscle. Don't EVER forget to have your timing belt changed.

Women in Florida will break out into impromptu dances if you have the right song blaring from your woofers, and they will flash you even when you have no beads to give. Cuban women can make mountains dance, if they so desire, no one can grind like a Cuban on coke. No one can make out like a Paki on love.

Mexican women will swallow, Indian women don't moan, Russian women have the prettiest areolas in the world and Arabic/middle-eastern/Lebanese women are the most damn desirable of them all. Speaking strictly sexually, of course. No one can make a better spouse that a Paki grown right.

Houston is the worst-best city in the world, depending on your luck. Chicago is the most under rated one… you can fall sound asleep on a public bench through lunch hour without getting robbed of everything you own and you can get your visa approved while you sleep if you're honest enough with the authorities. The onion is the funniest newspaper ever printed. Virgin Atlantic is the best damn airline, period. They serve proper silver and china in economy class and they have the most gorgeous, most friendly stewardesses who will flirt with you like it was hooters and you were the birthday boy.

Charleston has the best hooters' girls.

American skies are generally more expressive than anywhere else in the world. Their range of emotions is remarkable. Always rent a car with a sun roof. Or better yet, a convertible. And drive like you've never driven before, the states were meant to be seen through untainted car windows. In America, you don't need CDs, the radio kicks ass.

November is the worst month for falling in love. May is the worst for breaking up. This is constant all across the universe.

For Cutty

Hmmm…

So the 2 year embargo ended last night. I sank into the arms of a friend who used to bring great goblets of warmth and pleasure and Dutch courage along with a spattering of bearable, almost welcome depression, clarity of thought and the guts to tell the honest truth and nothing but. She was angry. In the beginning, her warmth burnt me and the only pleasure to be gained was in the fact that at least she still cared enough to not be indifferent. But as is the way of old friends, she cooled down to a more pleasant, more calming warmth. The kind that putting on wool socks on a cold December night brings, or a forgiving hug from a much loved one. She caressed as she warmed and the reprieve of her touch went deep down to the very atoms that are me, forming almost a separate entity of contentment inside me that I hadn't associated with in a long long time.

Old friends have a different way of looking at you, they speak differently. With them, it doesn't matter what you've become or how high up on the food chain you've gotten, with them you're at you basest, crudest, most realistic. They don't care how long you've been away, that connection reaches farther than time and distance. On their faces is a familiarity which is instantly comforting, like the bed you had in your father's home, or that jacket you shared on a walk home. They are significant and important in a way that nothing else ever is. They have an effect on your constitution all their own, it can't be replicated, its like the scent of the first woman you ever kissed, you don't remember it, exactly, but every other woman you kiss from then on is subjected to a sub conscious sniff just to see if its there… maybe… but it never is.

She was kind and consoling when I shared with her the angst suffered in the years that had propped up between us, and exhilarated to know of the triumphs. She massaged my ego generously while gently catching the tears right out of my eyes, in her gentle embrace I found the comfort I had all but forgotten but had secretly longed for.

Old friends, don't preach… they don't try to teach or fix or mend. They simply are there, listening, watching, nodding… caring. They understand you, they know second hand advise never works on you, that you will never learn unless you fall and that when you do fall, you rise up stronger and smarter than ever before and so they merely point out the hole you're headed for but never try to stop you. They instead bring the rope to haul you out and the shoulder to swallow your resultant sorrow. They buck you up, and nudge you in the direction you should now follow knowing full well that they're leading you away from them, at least for a while. They're advice is never selfish, nor do they harbor hidden agendas. They don't care if you only call on eid or new year's, and never visit, they are happy as long as you are and they are always available when you need them again. There is no reuniting with old friends because there is never a separation; there are only breaks between meetings. When I left her company, I wasn't reluctant, as one is want to be when the parting is from someone who is desired more than required. I wasn't sad or apologetic or wistful… I was happy. I was satisfied. And satisfaction is hard to come by.

I left secure in the knowledge that whenever I meet with her again, it will be just as easy as it has always been, it will be just as rewarding because we both know that there is nothing else in this world that can possibly replace what we mean to each other for either one.

She saw me off with a smile and a wink and the psychological equivalent of a recharge. And armed, thusly, with her completely unconditional devotion rebuilding the fortifications around my confidence which allow me to dispense with the drudgery and the hypocrisy of every day, I waved a till we meet again.

Old friends never say good bye.