mYsTiCaLlY_pUlChRiTuDiNoUs

 In the darkness, softly mumbling His name, closing your fingers against the emptiness and knowing that despite the silence and the loneliness, He's listening to you. Getting up for His sake, washing sleep from your eyes, feeling happy that it's one more day you didn't falter in your love for Him, and knowing as soon as you open your eyes that He's there. Right there. Right beside you.
Sometimes I think He's so close that I need nothing but to whisper.
I talk to Him when I feel lonely, tell Him why I'm so lost, and ask for His favours as I would ask a best friend.
But then, He IS my best friend.

There are moments, obviously, when I feel detached. When I feel that despite the fact that He loves me, He's not really close anymore. And those are the moments when I realize the vulnerability, the absolute inanity of preferring to depend on humans instead of on Him. At least He never lets me down; He never backs away under pressure. There IS no pressure for Him.

Today I was thinking that Alhamdulillah, I have experienced everything I've wished for; be it love, be it friendship, be it beauty, be it travelling, be it driving, be it reading...be it excelling, be it fame and splendour. Everything has come my way; albeit in its own good time. It's like whenever I've wanted something obsessively, He's been stringent. Maybe He wants to break my intense longing; maybe He wants me to realize that I don't need what I only think I need. And then when I'm calm about it, when I've passed into a mode of indifference...He showers me with it. Waves His KunFayakun wand and sprinkles me with stardust.

And that is when I feel utterly loved.

I have never wanted to be able to kiss someone more.
I have never blown kisses with such passion to anyone else.
Come to think of it, I've never blown kisses to anyone at all.

But Him. Him I blow a kiss to every night before I sleep, wink at Him, catch His kiss and pucker it on my cheeks. If someone caught me in the action of it, they'd think I was schizophrenic.

But no, I'm just in love.

I feel priveleged that I can turn to Him any time I want; that I derive pleasure from prostrating before Him, from reciting His words, from asking Him and begging Him.

I hope nothing ever changes and that the bond only grows stronger.
I love you, God.
Thank you... for everything and evermore.  

nisha, "I MADE that cake people!"

 

ushna, "its natural. like you eat, sleep and go to the bathroom."

 

me, "why do they let us dream then?  why do they tell us you can become doctors or pilots or whatever when this is what they have to bring us to? might as well just tell us back then that we don't have a right to dream."

 

ushna, *quoting khaled husseini*, "whenever a man's finger is raised to point, its inevitably towards a woman."

 

me, "how do you know what goes where?!"

 

naurah *sarcastically serious*, "there's a thing known as foreplay."

 

me, "i dont know. maybe its psychological, but i still fear it."
naurah, *exasperated*, "woman! those kind of miracles don't happen now!"

 

ushna, "your parents dont think anythings wrong...its the other people."
me, "I DOUBT my parents dont think anythings wrong."

 

naurah, "oh God. maybe we should stop talking about this stuff."
farzeen *speaking for the first time that day*, "haaaaan."

 

ushna, "oye, tum MERI tasveer kheench rahee ho?"

 

me, *from the window*, "chuchuk"

 

nisha, "shabbo, remember. we're no longer on terms."
me, "dhamkee de rahee ho?"
naurah, "oi, size dekha hai apna?"

 

nisha, "shabbo's trying to kill me! NOOOO!"

 

me *going down on one knee*, "how does this look for a potential beg-ali-cheema pose?"

 

ushna, "thats the glow y'know. because you're just no longer tense."

 

naurah, "you're NEVER the same person."

 

me, "i still think after everything's over we'll just be sitting across from each other and asking, 'so then, what do we do now?'"

 

ushna, "we can't be judgemental, we don't how what we'll be like afterwards."

 

naurah, "i'm marrying an angrez! they've beautiful children!"

 

nisha, "i've told my mom. i'm bringing back a firangi from michigan."

 

me, "dammit. their priorities are messed up." *mumbling to myself*, "by the way, is myopia a recessive gene disorder?"

 

ushna, "the CATS! i'll never forget the CATS!"

naurah, "its so annoying! even if i poke them, they only go a few metres away. I mean, people! hello! go get a room!"
anam, "that IS their room." 

me *reclining on ush's bed, hugging a cushion to my chest*, "do you guys know what this cushion says?"
anum *peering in*, "i wanna be your puppy. hahaha, cute. who do you think got her that?"
me, "shaina did, from karachi."
naurah, "if she'd bought it in a black neighbourhood, it'd have said, 'i wanna be your bitch!'"

lol.
it was a good day, but it made me feel like i've grown too many years :)
miss you folks! 

 I just wanted the thrill, the excitement, of sitting here and typing out a blog entry. It has been so long, and somehow, no matter how many times I tell myself that I've outgrown writing, so far I haven't. It still makes me shiver; the desire to be absolutely apt, to put down in words EXACTLY what I feel...

I noticed something strange yesterday. You forget moments, you forget details, what people were wearing, what they said, but you never forget how you "felt". My very first memory is of slipping on a wet floor and hitting the terrace railing, when we lived in Karachi in around 1989. I felt pain then. Absolute, utter pain. I remember how when I first joined Esena, I used to feel slightly left out during break time. That was when I started talking to myself. I dont remember much, but I remember inventing Amna and Zahra, two of my good friends from CPS, and talking to them all through break. Much to the danger of being caught out as a lunatic, but hell, that has never bothered me.
I remember my first walk in Esena was with a girl called Fatima Shafi.
I remember the pits of hopelessness and the heights of fear I felt when I'd go to school in grade III. I remember that intense amount of determination in my head, the way I'd gather all my strength and pull away from the teachers.
I remember when I was 5 years old and got an injection in my behind; my dada holding my legs and ammi saying, "Uncle, she's very strong, please hold them tightly or she'll kick" I remember feeling mortified, absolutely insulted when dada said, "She can't kick, she's just a child." I remember kicking the doctor off his feet. He landed near the doorway and shouted to my dada to pull out the injection lest the needle should break. *smug grin* Child, hah.
I remember feeling absolutely snobbish and smug when I was little and when to parties. They couldn't understand me, these stupid small-talk ladies and politics men. I chose not to talk. Everyone thought I was shy and stupid. lol.
I remember feeling scared when Abbu and Bhais went for Rami and weren't coming back. I remember feeling a sudden relief when I did tasbih of Hasbonallah-e-wa-naimul-wakeel.
I remember feeling ecstatic when we got our Olevel result.
I remember feeling lost on my first day in LGS.
I remember feeling unknown when I came to LUMS. I remember wanting to be recognized, to see that spark of acquaintanceship in everyone's eyes. *smile*
I remember feeling like I was falling and falling and falling when Dada was ill.
I remember the absolute calm I felt when Ammi called us to tell us he had died.
I remember the amount of strange, serene happiness I felt when I kissed his cheek for the last time before he was taken out to be buried. I remember knowing that I had done it after too long, maybe too late, but that he was happy I was doing it.
I remember feeling ambivalent, in its EXTREME sense, when Abbu's plea bargain got approved. I remember not feeling anything at all in those few moments. The tears, the laughter, the many arms I hugged...I remember falling into men's arms that I had never fallen into before. I remember hugging everyone I saw. I remember this fleeting thought that I couldn't see anything. I had dropped my glasses somewhere.
I remember when Dadi died, in grade 8, I felt suddenly grown up when Phoppo told me that the Pinky, Dolly and Saleha were my responsibility. I remember force feeding them breakfast the next day. I remember taking off my own chaadar at night so that they didnt feel cold. I remember I didn't have the strength to see Dadi though, I hid away all day.
When Mamoo died last year, just four months after dada, I remember feeling this strange...sense of routine. I remember thinking the tears were temporary, the grief would die, that we'd move on. I remember calmly explaining to all my cousins what would happen...the sequence in which things would work out.
I remember being patient until Mehru and Sehar collapsed in my arms and cried their hearts out.
I remember feeling I had grown up all over again.

Feelings cannot be forgotten. We cannot rise above them.
And every time I write, I feel like I'm in control. It makes me amazed at how something can cause me so much happiness.

Just for the crack, this time, just for the crack.

Today, I have been happy and sad. Confused. Should I just forget and move on? Should I feel jealous of the sequential numbers? Should I fight, should I cry, should I reconsider?
And then I was praying and I realized I wasn't concentrating.
The thoughts were taking me over. And that old shayr came to my mind...

Mai jo sar basajda huwa kabhi tau zameen se aanay laggi sada,
Tera dil tau hai sanam ashna, tujhe kya millay ga namaaz mai.

I shook my head, said sorry, and after salaam, blew a kiss to the only being that I blow a kiss to every night. And I told Him I loved Him and that I know He was looking out for me. So for once in a long time, despite the ambiguous feelings, despite the passions incinerated in my heart, despite the jealousy, despite the delusions, despite the hope...
I'm just going to let go.

Ek woh hai jo teri chahat hai, aur ek woh hai jo Meri chahat hai. Ho ga tau wohi jo Meri chahat hai. Agar tu mukhalfat karray ga usski jo Meri chahat hai, tau Mai tujhe thakka doon ga uss mai jo teri chahat hai. Aur agar tu woh chahay jo Meri chahat hai tau Mai tujhe woh bhi doon ga jo teri chahat hai. Pas ho ga tau wohi jo Meri chahat hai.

Here God, take the reins.
As You may wish, truly as You may think better for me.
For now I feel content.  

 When the memories flood your mind, for a moment you're just taken aback. Is it really your own life you're thinking about, or are they scenes from some movie you saw ages ago, or maybe some dreams you might've had?
It takes some time before you realize its your own story.
That once upon a time, you were THAT kid.

I wonder where they all are. I wonder whether Nauman is still as intelligent and snobbish as he was back then. I wonder if Seher and Naima still fight over small things and then hide under the bed. Maybe the random person who used to fall sick during every Math class is still just as scared of numbers. Would Zohaib remember how I hid him under the desk when Ms. Sabrina came in and later cried for him when she pulled him from under the table and slapped him? Does he still have those light brown hair and apple red cheeks? Does Amna still tear out pages and then string them together to make phonebooks? Do the twin brothers still switch around just for the heck of it?

I know Zahra is still my good friend. After all these years, I don't have to invent her anymore. And she doesn't believe it, but the Sunny Biscuit stickers she used to give me are still on the wooden cupboard that lies abandoned on our terrace.

I remember them all so well. And yet I've forgotten almost everything.

Sometimes I think if we would have been friends, had we all stayed together. If after that little gurya-kee-shaadi wala din, some of us would have gotten married in real life. If those guys would have competed, not on tricycles, but in real life to win the heart of one of us?

*laughs* Improbable, but nonetheless, ponderable.

I miss those days. I miss when everyone called me ShahBano and not SB.
I miss the days when we would help each other out unconditionally; how Nauman and Zohaib had played ever the chivalrous guy by sticking the big blackboard scale through the peephole in the classroom door when the teachers had locked us in. How we used to wipe each others' tears with no problems of sending across "the wrong signals to the other sex". How Zohaib would drink my milk so that I wouldn't have to face the teacher and how I'd hold his hand under the table when he got all freaked out during class.

Those were, indeed the days.
To CPS Junior branch, Grade 1 of the year 1991.
Hell guys, I miss you!  

It's so easy to destroy something, most of all, a vulnerable relationship.

It doesn't matter as to how long you've been together, it doesn't matter whether you were best friends or not, nothing matters...

All that is needed is a little spark that will set fire, one mean comment leading to another, one misunderstanding culminating in a series of assaults and somewhere in that quagmire, you forget where you actually belonged, and it's all over.

Just like that. You begin thinking in terms of 'we're through now' or 'time for me to back out'. And just so that you can patronize your own correctitude in the entire situation, you can add the odd witty sentence like, 'I know you won't miss me, so there's no reason for me to feel guilty'.

Everything in your mind seems to be a canvas of patched up memories, different parts of which are subject to a mobile magnfiying glass at differing times. Sometimes the smiles you shared are so vibrant in your memory that your heart breaks (or let's say bends, considering I have firmly established to myself that hearts dont break); at other times the moments of loneliness resurface and you begin to think that you were never needed.

The person had so many other friends; miss so-and-so whom he would share random cups of tea with; miss so-and-so about whom he would write, (and please don't ask me why the gender specificity, you should be able to figure!) and miss so-and-so whom he probably thought of as he lay to sleep. In a sweeping gesture of self-degradation, you forget that maybe you mattered to the person as well. Maybe only at rare times, maybe just a little. But you did.

And its only fair that to keep yourself from degrading further, you step back and move out of his life. Show your back while you still have the time to. Because, after all, he NEVER cared.

 

"There's a fine line between denial and faith," Rose, in LOST says.

It isn't good on my side.

I'm in denial.

 

Obviously. Even the worst kind of hurt goes away. It's difficult to break hearts, its difficult to shatter them. All that talk is mere crap. But yes, a heart can bend, all the way to the ground against the wind, and maybe, maybe if the wind never stops, it can be uprooted. But hearts are tough. Tough like the kind of equipment you carry to combat fields.

 

Sometimes you just want to sit with your head in your hands and break down. That's what I want to do right now. Right here.

And its not for the geeky reasons either; its just everything rolled into one big excuse. I'm trying hard to see the good in life; I'm trying hard to rise beyond the banalities of everyday life, I'm trying not to complain, I'm trying...yes...but it does get difficult at times. When the wind keeps blowing against you, it gets difficult to keep your balance.

 

I'm looking for signals. Little flashlights in the darkness, the odd star or two you know is shining to show you the way. But so far the night is dark, and I tell myself the darkness is beautiful and serene, but I can't see anything and its unnerving. My faith is not that strong, I'm not that great a person. Some things can flip me the wrong way and I'm scared that in a few days, I'll either grow stronger, or just fall apart.

 

I think I should stop interacting so much; maybe I rub off people the wrong way. Maybe they don't like me and thus don't wish me well. Maybe I should keep my distance. Maybe I shouldn't be me anymore?

 

I'm not making any sense. And I need a break.

Why am I doing this then? Why am I diving in deeper? Why am I taking the plunge?

 

I think I'm overreacting.

I should sleep over this.

After all, tomorrow is another day.

 

Hearts mend, get patched up and start living again. Nothing keeps you down forever. Sometimes the downs actually help you rise higher. The small things in life that teach you how to leap to the big things.

Sometimes, though I wonder if I'm nothing but words.

Nothing...but...language.

 

All I know is, right now,

I'm hurting like hell.

And no one's here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-Patti Smith and Don Healey

 

Key: Italics = girl singing

       Bold = guy singing