Forward.

I am going to clean my room
full of anger and clothes
of useless things
of a past that cannot anymore be ignored.
Of letters on a secret love
and of photographs of elusive yesterdays
that were painstakingly collected
but now must be thrown away.

I can't live on yesterdays anymore.
So from now on
from now on

Survival.

Scene: One, just one, comfortably ensconced on a couch somewhere in the rigidly arranged apartments of DHA. Every window is blocked by walls of neighboring fancy houses, eliminating any wisps of weighed-down breeze. The air conditioner is switched on, the doors and drapes drawn tightly shut.

Scenario: He switches off the TV, the phone, the radio. Closes his mind, puts on some 50s music.
Maybe puffs a smoke or two and reclines. Smiles a little, even. No guns, no bombs. Nothing is real. That assignment is due tomorrow.

Seen:
An inner voice cackles. Who're you trying to kid?

His heart jumps into his throat; his stomach bolts down. A bead of sweat trickles down his pallid face.

Keep breathing. Tomorrow is important.

Keep breathing.

Brooding.

Pain in my heart
Pain in debris
Pain in my household
Pain in the key
Pain in the answer
Pain in the call
Pain is going
To get to me

Are you breathing
Dear old friend?
Here, let me help you out
Let me sin

Pain in truth
Pain in wrong
Pain in life
And love forlorn
Pain in the scissors
Pain in the wood
Pain is the song
That no one understood

Are you breathing
Brother?
Here, let me help you out
Let me take you
On a heavenly detour
Where fire breathes musk
And everything you fear
Is true
As true can be.

On serene, simple days
I'd lay on a park bench
And swing back and forth until I'd bleed
Floating in crimson clouds and heat
I reminisced
And missed
And kissed
And hissed
In pain.

Rollin'.

I want to change the name of my blog. Serendipity has become too mainstream for my taste.

But to what?

Disillusionment.

Sometimes I feel like playing Madame Defarge, silently knitting away the names of people who don't deserve to live.
I hated her when I read that book. But I could sympathize with her. And that sympathy is growing every day.
But she was wrong. She was the antagonist, the villain. And it just goes to show how deep all this goes, how much more complicated it really is.

These attacks, these protests--is the ignorance of the government going to turn them into a trend? Will somebody actually step up and take freaking action instead of using those infuriating words, "condemn" and "condole" repeatedly? Have we really been reduced to the status of a mere recurring virus in political agenda? An obstacle???

How Are These People Still Here??? Are We Really That Stupid????????

Paranoia.

I don't know whether it's relieving or frightening that I can trace my family's dysfunctionalities back to Partition.

Political bullshit aside, life was messed up back then. For everyone, equally. I wish people would understand that--I wish they'd remember!

December 28th, 2010; 7:30 pm

"What the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here."

I pause mid-action and take a big sniff.
More than a year now. But the smell remains. Musty and pungent. Whitewashed walls. Servant smells.

What it was like then. What everything is like now.

Where are we?
What the hell is going on?
The dust has only just begun to form
crop circles in the carpet
Sinking feeling...

I peep through the open doorway. Old trunks and paintings, dirty books, seventies London outfits, rags, medicines and keys. The history of a single phase.

Amidst she crouches, wrapped in thin, sickly blue. Her hair is disheveled, her clothes worn. As always.

Change? For her? An anomaly!
Where will she go?

What is this I feel?

Spin me round again
and rub my eyes; this can't be happening
when busy streets a mess with people
would stop to hold their heads heavy

The grand curtains are pulled shut. The floor is now bare, the carpet pushed aside. The bookcase still contains his unstolen treasures.
I remember staring at her bare white bed. Screaming.
I recall a frightened kiss on a withered cheek. Days before I stared.

Dust looks beautiful in the sun.

hide and seek
trains and sewing machines
All those years
they were here first

I laugh for her sake. Two prominent wrinkles beneath her lips. Her skin hungrily snatches the sunlight.
The paintings are beautiful, destroyed. Time shrugs and grins.
I ask if I can take a memory. The four bedroom portraits are on the floor.

Oily marks appear on walls
where pleasure moments hung 
before the takeover,
the sweeping insensitivity
of this still life

Why didn't this happen before?
And I recall the torture, the pain that was not mine.

I encounter Jekylls and Hydes. I push them away, I pull them back.

Golden sun filters on my face. The car is accelerating. My stomach is turning over.

Why do both left and wrong have 'right' as an opposite?

We turn left.
Fear.
Anticipation.

hide and seek
trains and sewing machines
(you won't catch me around here)
blood and tears
(hearts)
They were here first

We're going up the bridge. Speed fast, constant.
My stomach is still rumbling, but I love it. It's faded into the background, a constant feeling.
Change. Beginnings.

Mm whatcha say?
Mm that you only meant well?
Well of course you did
Mm whatcha say?
Mm that it's all for the best
Of course it is

They don't let me think. They start to chatter. They play their music. They need my advice.

Mm whatcha say?
Mm that it's just what we need
You decided this
Mm whatcha say?
What did she say?

Pink, cobalt and sienna blends together and fades away. Cold, mysterious night awaits. My prayer vanishes in the air.
Favoritism. Arrogance.
Day will dawn.

ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
mid-sweet talk; newspaper word cut-outs
speak, no; feeling, no; I don't believe you
you don't care a bit
you don't care a bit

I lose myself in conversation. Arguing, laughing, scowling, sarcasm. Being.

(hide and seek)
oh no, you don't care a bit
(hide and seek)
oh no, you don't care a bit



All will be right with the world.

you don't care a bit
you don't care a bit


song: Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap. I do not own this song or the lyrics.

Things I Learned In The Last Week of 2012 (because resolutions are so mainstream)

• I was an incredible student as a kid. 
• I was subsequently bullied as a kid. 
• I never realized/nobody told me that I was being bullied as a kid, and hence I made it through unscathed.
• ...I think.
• I am growing up. (I came to this conclusion based on the fact that I giggled once while watching a horror movie on New Year's, instead of freaking out like I usually do. Or maybe it was just a bad movie; in which case I am yet no better than I used to be in kindergarten, where I would draw stars on my schoolwork because I thought it was awesome and then tell my mother my teacher drew them.)
• I am a miser who is not above scrounging through her trash to look for an earring, not because it was expensive or real, but because without it the one not lost would be useless.
• Gajar ka halwa, while being the best winter food ever, is best utilized in small amounts.
• My latest journal is a lot less embarrassing than my old ones. (It's also a lot less full.)
• Bubble tea is delicious. It is also reminiscent of body scrub. (The fruit ones even taste the same.)
• Children do awesome things that every adult especially the ones going through midlife crises at 20 should do. Like decorating a jar to fill with notes of good things that will happen to them in the next year, so that they can pull them all out and read them next New Year's Eve. (Except, you know, if an adult did it, One Direction would be in the 'bad things that happened' jar.)
• At 15, you are willing to fall madly in love with just about anything if it pays you the slightest bit of attention. (I say anything because the occasional ignoramus tends to classify plants and trees as inanimate. RIP, my beautiful moghra. You served me well.)
• One must always actively engage in a hopefully-ending-soon struggle to filter useful information out of the baseless crap that media so voraciously feeds us.  ie my cablewala cut off Star World and i have been forced to watch CNN and Animal Planet now

"The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them--words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more that living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.” 
- Stephen King

Random Surges.

I've been having strange dreams of late. Which is all the more strange because I usually don't dream unless I'm awake.

The first one, for example, involved me as a teacher in a post-war situation. Traces of fire, smoke billowing amidst the smell of iron and dilapidated buildings everywhere. A few random people I know were also present, but here we were acting like good friends, whereas in real life most of us don't even talk to each other. We were all teaching together in a small, unfinished enclosure made of four poorly constructed walls and a wooden roof; and at night, we all slept right there, huddled together in sleeping bags for warmth. I remember thinking how it was a blessing in disguise the way the war had brought us all together. Even amidst that torturous environment, I felt quite happy and comforted.

The second one was no less bizarre, although I suppose I could trace it back to surrendering my insomniac self to Grey's Anatomy reruns. (Yes. I was desperate.)
I was working somewhere, in a hospital or something. I'm not quite sure what my designation was, but I think I was in scrubs. There was another girl with me who I know from real life--she was a close acquaintance when we were children, and though we attended all the same institutions, we were never proper friends. Also, as far as I know, her ambitions stray far from medical school. But there she was in the dream, also in scrubs, giving me an impatient look as I hurriedly pulled on my converse.

I don't remember actually doing anything, just walking with her around the wherever-we-were. At the end of the dream--which was supposedly a day of accomplishments--said woman and I had a heart-to-heart, where she ended up giving me really good advice regarding something. Problem is, I have no idea what she said, or even what I asked.

This is why I prefer daydreaming to actual dreams. The way these minions make you feel still remains even once you've awakened. Now that I'm perceiving reality again, I can't help but think of this girl and wish I'd still been friends with her. I mean, we grew up together. We've been to each other's houses, carpooled, done assignments, even shared a few secrets and fights. I know the things she likes; music, TV shows, food, even, to an extent. I know the different faces she makes--the way she scrunches up her face when she's focused, the way she leans to one side when she's being sarcastic--do I sound creepy. Okay. Sorry.
But you get the point.

And yet, here we are, completely nonexistent in each other's worlds. (Besides Facebook newsfeeds, perhaps.)

Naturally, I searched her up on Facebook and looked at a picture or two of hers. Just to see how she was doing.
In one, her face was scrunched up the exact same way it used to be all those years ago when we'd play together. And it just hit me. How she's still, apparently, the same girl I knew. And that just made me feel so affectionate, for some reason.

But it also made me feel kinda sad. The fact that we could have accommodated ourselves in each others' worlds, but didn't, because we were too busy trying to find ourselves.

What's even sadder, though, is that I understand why things unfolded the way they did. We were destined to grow apart.

Has anyone else been through this?

Soul Feed.

Today was one of the best days I've had in a while. And I've had quite a many of late. But this one was great to the point of sheer ludicrity-it included nearly everything a wonderful day possibly could. Even bubblewrap!

And yet, I find myself skulking through the halls at 3 in the morning, trying to fathom this freaking void that suddenly erupted out of nowhere.

A friend of mine went through something similar a while ago. But her emptiness included mostly fear of happiness-pride comes before a fall, that sort of thing. Mine is... God, I don't even know what this is.

Today, everything that was randomly hovering in Brownian motion suddenly, accidentally fell into place. Color outshone my horizon. Laugh lines became butterflies.

But just as suddenly, it fell into disarray. And I found me back in my particulate self.

The sheer spontaneity of it, the superficiality, disgruntles me. How something so deep and substantial can be so easily eroded, how entire worlds are sometimes swept away like makeup from a geisha's face. It embarasses me.

And then the fear of happiness ensues.

Worming Through.

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell


I'm extremely picky when it comes to books, and it was with resigned disappointment when I turned to the Classics section at the bookstore the other day and picked this up. Just the first paragraph, however, was enough to draw me in. I haven't started reading it properly yet--I'm still finishing up on The Ego Trick by Julian Baggini--but in all honesty, I can't wait to start reading! --Aug 18th '12

update: I'm going real slow with this one. Unexpectedly, it's giving me some sort of contentment, so much so that I'm almost afraid to finish it. Some parts were rather slow, but it amazes me how the writer manages to add humor even while narrating sad occasions. Wish I had that ability. It really adds to the sensitivity, bringing out the idea of life going on.
I really don't know why I'm taking out time to review this book. I mean, it's a classic. That should be enough for people to pick it up. --Nov 8th '12

View all my reviews

And Finally.

In the past few years, I've often mused verbosely over the concept of growth and maturity, and my need to acquire both. Now I address this topic again; probably, hopefully, for the last time.
Maturity, to me, has revealed itself as being the ability to responsibly compartmentalize and allocate one's emotions. And growth has proven to be the ability to empathize with others'.
And, well, here I am.

PS: Finally changed the blog design! Really like this one. It's funny though--I never particularly fancied orange before. Meh.

Working Class Hero.

Hustles and bustles everywhere. Chiffon, silk and velvet. Local names resplendent, discussing politics and arts, hastening for the limelight. The hall abounds with sophistication.

Amidst it all, there in a chair, Abbu peacefully snoring. All in a day's work.

 Dr Hugo Pine:What motivated this deception of his?"
 Erica Stone: A desire to humiliate and hurt me, that's wh--"
Dr Hugo Pine: Never! He has a deep affection for you, Erica Stone; but he's in rebellion against what you represent! Look. Here's a man in a responsible position, who feels insecure and inferior because he has no formal education. He meets a teacher, the symbol of academic achievement. By deceiving, dominating and outwitting the teacher, he experiences the exhilarating feeling of superiority. His battered and cringing ego emerges victorious. No... he's not to be held in contempt. He's to be pitied. "

Glitch.

Err... the past five posts were drafts from last year I finally decided to publish. Just thought I'd clear that out.

NB: HUGE AFFIRMATIVE to the technology-hating thing.

Talk to the Hat!

I went with my dad to the photocopiers' today. While we were waiting for the photocopy, there was a power outage. Since the guy's machine stopped working (duh..), we said we'd come back in an hour or so and my dad pulled out the car.

Right then, in the middle of the dark, dilapidated street, I noticed a man standing almost with his back to me. From what I could make out using the single distant streetlight, he was wearing a bottle-green button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, beige colored bell-bottomed pants, and black shoes. He also had a mustache, a beard and a bushy ponytail.

But what really grabbed my attention towards him, was his hat. That's right, he was wearing a hat at 9 pm in the streets during a power outage, after heavy downpours left even the more developed parts of Karachi in puddles. And a black bowler hat, from what I discerned.

Man, I thought. All this guy needs for the perfect image is some snazzy jazz music playing in the back, and maybe a neon sign or two.

And then it suddenly dawned on me. The hat! Without it, that man was a normal man working for a living. With it, he momentarily transported me to New Orleans. (Or what I know of it, anyway).

Just then, the electricity returned, and I noticed, to my utter dismay, that it was not a bolo hat as I had imagined, but a baseball cap.

Disappointment coursed through my veins for quite some time, but I eventually recovered quickly, consoling myself with my new discovery. I still could not get over the fact that something as seemingly insignificant as a hat, could make such a world of difference in my perception of someone.

At home, I went and Googled the word 'hat'. Since Google never fails me, a lot of interesting links popped up. The one I found most interesting was an entire website dedicated to quotes that were related to hats. I'm posting the ones relevant to my theory here, along with some pictures of these awesome black bowler hats.

They look good on girls too!

You can pretend to protect Earth from gooey aliens!

And all colors work!

You don't have to be human to wear them!

Theory: Your wardrobe NEEDS a bolo hat.

Potter Go Boom?

Speaking of movies, going to watch HP7-2  this Friday.

I can't say I'm not excited about it. But I'm also kinda dreading it, you know? People are saying it's remarkably close to the book, but what if it doesn't satisfy my overly critical judgement (which I know it won't on a lot of minor scenes)?

And also, what then? What comes after Harry Potter?

That just makes me really sad. Really.

And now I wish Voldy didn't die so that Rowling would've had to write another book.

:(

The horribly disappointing moment when...

...you're impressed by a person after ages and ages of yearning to meet someone of calibre, and then you find out that their grammar is horrendous.