Thursday, January 28, 2010

Zubermann

Zubermann singing in the bathroom

"Aaaye ho mairay dil mein tum potty bun kay

Aaaye ho mairay dil mein tum - nahin nahin nahin


Aaaye ho tum mairi zindagi mein potty bun kay
Aaaye ho tum mairi zindagi mein potty bun kay

Ab flush na ho jaaannaa!!!!!!!"


Go figure..

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

(Draft) Munn-dane: The Balanced Equation of Chee

I ask the little Asian boy his name. "Chee" he blankly responds.

I feel a smile take over my face. Chee is what i call Tariq Chachoo and anything that reminds me of people that are home make my heart lighter.

So tonight i'm thinking of Chee on the 99 and what comes to mind is his advice.

The wise Chee explains:

Everyone has their own equation for Life. The variables are the same and so what defines an equation is the importance accorded to each variable. In your case love is the dominant variable in most of your relationships. Keep that in mind. If love isn't the dominant variable for him in this particular relationship then restructure your equation accordingly.

Spoken like a true Physics major. An 18 year old didn't need eloquence. Just effective advice.






Royal BC Museum, Victoria - Incomplete Draft

I never understood why people went to look at historical monuments or art and architecture. Usually, this lack of appreciation would surface when ami would drag us to see "masterpieces" on family trips. "Ami aap bhee naa..!!" i'd think to myself.

Khair. At the beginning of last term i found myself praying for God to show me the Reality that the colors He/She made cloaked. Hands raised, and with Zubair at my side, We'd pray: "Ay Allah Mian, humein cheezon ki haqeeqat ki pehchaan dila".

Shaayad iss liye hi i've started looking at everything differently. My indifference to art is still there, but something in my perspective has shifted. I try constantly to search for a bigger picture and if ever there were one, i found a huge chunk of it at the Royal BC museum in Victoria. Such beautiful Native art, but it didn't really move me. What stirred my thoughts more was the capacity of human beings to destroy. How methodically the colonials had destroyed a living mosaic thousands of years in the making. But even the thoroughness of the destruction wasn't what stuck in my mind. For once it wasn't human beings' capacity to destroy that took the spotlight in my mind's eye. Rather it was our capacity to survive.

Despite the annihilation of peoples, despite the terror, despite the pain, despite the savagery, despite the injustice, despite the oppression, despite the suppression, and despite of the enslavement of mind and body, somewhere a soul roamed free.

And even though a raging forest fire had been extinguished, the rising smoke filled the woods with a smell of what used to be and so, in some sense, still is.

They might have no been the fittest according to Darwin, but they survived.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Self De-(s)-crypt-ion: Rough Draft

It all started with a simple question:

"Usko Samajh nahin aati tum kya ho. Are you darkness or are you light?".

He was the youngest in the family. He tended to observe and absorb. An asteroid trying to catch up with shooting stars; trying to strike an equilibrium in the orbital system of love. A sponge some might call him, but even a sponge has a saturation point and he'd long since passed it. He'd heard all these words and - true to his nature - had stored them in his treasure chest, thinking he'd understood them, thinking being the operative word. Life was yet to teach him though. She was yet to use her most effective tool, the hands of the clock, to slap some sense into him; hitting him harder each time. It was good for him though. It was only when a saturated sponge cried its burden that it created space to absorb more; to learn. "she is the most supreme of teachers" he thought to himself. And her brilliance lay primarily in her persistence. She doesn't get angry. Time doesn't get impatient. She doesn't stop nor does she get derailed. She maintains calm, continues at her own set pace, and persists. And that is why sooner or later - and sooner for their sake - she reigns in all the rebels and eventually expels all the stubborn ones.


She reminds him of his high school. "Perseverance commands success".

That was his high school motto. For the longest time he thought they were three completely unrelated words. You'd think he were stupid, but given the militaristic nature of Aitchision, it wasn't surprising that he heard the words in his head as if a stern general were shouting them one by one. Perseverance! Commands! Success! That would've certainly have been more in line with the Aitchisonian way. Nonetheless, she'd taught him to understand these words, to appreciate them, and so to appreciate her ways. These words aptly described her defining trait. She'd persisted and forced her students to submit. Truly, Perseverance commands her success and lack thereof our failure.

Back to the start. "You're everything".

Love, like time, teaches too. It makes you understand cliches like you've never understood them before. Cliches weren't too different from other sayings he'd stored word for word in his treasure chest without having fully understood. They were just ones he'd hear more often. And today love gave him an impressive lesson on "you're everything". Today, the young boy had lived these words. And now, he asked himself a simple question:

Was she darkness or was she light? And immediately his heart answered:

-To be continued

Monday, January 25, 2010

Bro-man-ce

Humaare liye tairi surat hi ghaza hay
Tu saath ho tau yea dil la parwa hay

Rare Ripples In Still Water

"I know. That's the way the world goes. nothing remains forever. what we must do is always remember the positives and be happy for all the time we share toge.....ther. In the end, life is a bunch of memories we string together".

06/11/2009

I hope i can get to know you as a friend one day, inshAllah

Bud du'a

"I hope you regret this".

Kehtay hain kay maasoom ki bud du'a say bach kay rehna chaahiyay. I really hope there's not as much truth to it as i believe there to be.

Ameen

Golden Memories From Her Treasure Chest

Texts me while i'm in class

Qeeqa: Are you in class?

Me: yea...?

Qeeqa: Then focus Goddammitt!!!!

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Munn-dane.

"Sub kiya tha uss nay tu nay baatein banaieen". (Ali Zafar - i used to call him Ali duffer before listening to Nahi re Nahi)

Question. Question because. Question because God commands you to. Question so that the universe may answer you. Question because the question and the answer are inseparable. Question until your thirst is quenched, but never, never let a question become a barrier between you and your Lord.

"let not Satan bar your way unto me" (Qur'an)

Rand-Om-ar

So here i am. At Zuberman's and he's suddenly decided he's going to blast backstreet boys' songs tonight. "How do i shield myself against the cliches and cheesiness"? i ask myself as i try to write this next post.

I'm groaning now. He's put on "shape of my heart" by BSB.

I'm doing my best to ignore it and focus my energy on finding words to express how sadness isn't as bad as it's made out to be and that its loneliness which is what one should really be fearful of. I said it perfectly to Nabbu just a few days ago, why can't i find the words? And just as i'm getting frustrated, one of the goons in the background sings:

"Sadness is beautiful, loneliness is tragical"

not too eloquent, but it'll do.

I would never have imagined that my thoughts would find expression in a BSB song..

Rand-Om-ar

They apple of their eyes when she was alive, she now rests in peace (inshAllah) as the onion of their eyes.

Zubermann

"Yaar kya band tha yaaaarr!!!!"


Zubermann listening to backstreet's back at full volume

Zubermann

"Kya bandddaaa hay yaaaaarrr!!!!"

Jahaaz!!

-As i get ready to leave the ELI building i'm certain i am forgetting something-

Me: I just always know when i'm forgetting something. Its like a third sense -- Oh wait! that last bit was totally wrong

Boss buddy Anisha correcting me: yea didn't you mean fifth sense??

haha!

Zubermann

Me: yaar please 'dancing with myself' tau laga day

Zuberman: haan woh kiss ka gaana hay, billy talent? (song by Billy idol)



HAHAHAHA! o zuberman!!

(Hey, it was exactly THAT funny!)

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

For God's Sake

Rahim, Aun, and Sikander enter the restroom next to the Musalla. They aren't regular in namaz, and being residents of Vancouver, they don't have the aazaan as a beautiful reminder. But today, today the call to prayer came from the deepest recesses of their thought and so they now find themselves in the University Musalla. All by themselves. Just the three of them.

They perform Wuzu together, stretching their hearts as they would their limbs before a game of soccer in preparation for exercising remembrance. Or ideally that's the function wuzu serves if the 'spi--rit' isn't taken out of the '--rit-ual'. All they can think about though is everything and anything other than prayer and this is the state in which they enter the Musalla.

Aun, having entered the room first, assumes the position of imam. Sikander, not that far behind, now approaches the front of the room absolutely certain that Aun's forgetfulness will dawn upon him any moment now and that he'll relinquish the responsibility of imammate to him.

Fast-forward a few minutes and Rahim is leaving the room though namaz is yet to be offered. He's leaving because he's just been reminded why he doesn't like praying in jama'at. Aun and Sikander are still arguing about who's more qualified and better suited to lead prayer. They seem to have forgotten, he thinks to himself, that whether at the back of the Musalla or in the front, they're both bowing down to God; equal. In humility before the Supreme Ego. But the little gods they brought with them to the Musalla have caused them to forget.

Rahim wishes they hadn't brought their idols to the room; that they'd been swept away during ablution. Amidst the madness, quietly sits in the women's section a disappointed young girl peeping through the space in between the covers, unnoticed and listening intently. Surprisingly, her disappointment is not owing to the argument that is still raging. She's had box seats for a showing of the brilliantly idiotic before. Rather, it is seemingly sensible Rahim's exit that has her dismayed. She understands why he is moved to leave - that too frowning. She understands why he's turned off, but disappointed that he's turned away. Level-headed Rahim, like she used to, had forgotten why he'd wanted to respond to the call to prayer to begin with: Fi sabeel Allah

Khuda kay liye

Yaar

"Mairay baitay tau tujhay chachoo bolain gay"

'nuff said.



Yaar

"Think of all the kids in Saudi who don't get Al-cohol!"


Zuberman trying to convince Nabila to drink

Yaar

"Log suicide depression ki waja say nahin kartay. Confusion ki waja say kartay hain"

Zuberman

narcissus (The ego doesn't deserve a capital)

I didn't intend it to be so, but maybe its fitting that this be my first post for the year. Here i was, in an SUV, being treated like royalty, when a thought resurfaced: "i should indulge in a bit of narcissism and re-name my blog Badi-uz-Zaman". Its only been less than a year since i've fallen in love with my own middle name; a middle name that i've ignored since i was old enough to know that it is difficult for others to pronounce let alone spell. But its not a name is it? its a title. A grand one at that. One that i don't deserve and its right after this final thought that i picture me smacking myself on the side of my head. Just before impact i ask myself why do parents give their children such heavy names? not that i mind, i love my name. But high expectations much?

*thwapp* (thwappp - really??? must've been a sissy slap)

Despite the sorry excuse for a slap, my reflection has effectively reminded me i've been blessed with magic mirrors. Do not forget. Oh wait. that's useless to say. Remind yourself constantly! THAT'S better.

And so, as always, i have digressed. Maybe my blog name should be Tan (ned)-Gent. Always digressing. You're the only one i know who could digress when talking about digression itself. Babay always said i needed focus. Khair.

The point being, and i swear i have one, (i think), was that truth be told, and it seldom is, especially to one's self, a fitting name for my blog would be Khichri.

Here's to Khichri in 2010.

P.S.

(HOLY CROWWW!!! ITS 2010 ALREADY!!!)