Memoria est eternus

When you exhale the smoke takes life of its own, wrapping itself around your imagination to make the past come alive. It forms your face, only for the briefest of moments. Your eyes are half open, mine half closed. The smoke trails off into elegant, hazy tendrils and like a man high I can see everything in them.

Our lives are memories, exhale and you can see where you come from. Friends, family, love, childhood, laughter, tears, rain, sunshine, victory, defeat...all are alive for us to live again. Maybe I live too much in the past at times, but I can't help it. I'm fond of things I've known and I can't break free of them. Lives lived, moments cherished, laughter shared and friendhips forged. I would be nothing without them, and neither would you.

Why is it that we are rushing blindly ahead? Why is it that we are told not to live in the past, after all its our past that made us into who we are. Memories are my fondest friends in solitude, I pick my brain for the right ones to suit my mood and I always find what i'm looking for. I remember, its what makes me what I am.

You remember them too, right? Of course you do. How many inconsequential details do I remember? Countless. Googly, your hair had a garland of white flowers in them and you were laughing, deliriously (like you always do). Gogi, you were running from wall to wall toting the "world's most electrifying move in sports entertainment". Kamal, you were grinning all the while through our "Dadu Tum" jig. Zooms, you would walk into my room late at night and we'd just talk about nothing, and you'd do your muttley impersonation. Mum's chu-chu and Dad's sheikh saab (of Chili) and even Phopo's Aliya japani topi and all. It can't all have been meant to forgotten.

It's all like an endlless dream from which I wish never to wake up, and it just keeps going on. Osman's declarations off "Scene, On Ho Gaya Hai!" and Sharif's "Doh rupay ki thi". Samay, always doing the mock imitations of laughter followed by her eye-rolls. Jabi, you always used to light up like a light-bulb when you laughed. Monty would always say the phrase "Tu bohat harami hai!" like a compliment. The twins who always failed to see the point but would never let that stop them from laughing about it never the less. Waqas, you will always be such a matyr to be picked on: "Pindi!" Mazzy, the Jaime to my Tyrion (and of course the elder sister to my hunter). Did I forget someone? Nah, I don't forget, remember.

You can't be sad, you've lived so much and you've got so much to remember. A memory for each step you'll ever take, another one for every breath and yet another for every smile. We're all richer for the lives we've lived, yes everyone. If you can remember that look in your mother's eye. If you can remember you father's embrace. If you can remember glances that held meanings deeper than words. If you lose your breath over the past, then you have lived.

I ran like the wind
Chasing storms of fantasy
Fearless, thunder beneath
And I laugh for every drop
The storm spent

Kissing death with fury
Loving life with passion
Jumping for the sky
Reaching for the ground
Always falling, always rising

Memories guiding my way
Running forward, looking back
Dancing with measure
Loving without
Words to live a life by

Memoria est eternus

One Song, Glory

Erratic strumming, fingers too eager to pluck a new cord that they don't let the mind catch up. No words for now, at times its best that way. Just one instrument, it has to be that way...can't let someone steal your show. It's your song, after all.

Sing, you know you can't stop yourself. Don't search for the words, you've been dying to sing this song for all your life. What's the word going to be? Not any word, the word, the one that gives it meaning. If I choose love, then i'd be singing about life and that's been done, still maybe I could do it better. But see i'm thinking, that's not it...i'll know the word when I see it.

Close your eyes, you can't be here when you sing it. Your song isn't meant to be shared, it's just yours. So close your eyes and sing, and whatever you do, don't stop.

Sing. Sing. Sing.

That's what my life will come down to in the end, a song. I think anything that can be expressed in a 900-page densely packed tome, can be summarized in one word. I could tell you how I feel or I could just smile and you'll wonder what you really learnt more from. Words, emotions and people just work that way.

They say anything but the girl, dammit what's there left after the girl? She smiles and you swoon, she frowns and you cry, she looks your way and you can just read those eyes, Ocean Eyes. Mysteries, they're great because you can never quite guess what's next and every step you take towards unravelling them only leaves you deeper in their trance. Skin doesn't tingle at touch, it just goes numb much like the mind. It's nothing, hey there's a word 'nothing', I wonder if that'll be my song.

Burning, some songs will go that way, Cobain's did, and who is to say that isn't a good word. When you've done it all, you've shined too brightly for this world so its time to shine somewhere else. I'd never do it, I'm a slow learner so I very much doubt i'll get around to doing it 'all' anytime soon. People live lives in a day, you see so much that you feel 60 at 16. You even get that weird wisened look in your eyes, the glaze of knowing.

Wisdom, now there's one I wish I could make my own. I think my granny used to be like that, she just looked at you like she knew too much. I think if i'd asked her a question, she'd have just smiled at me. Wise people never tell secrets, its your secret to learn they think. Don't quite get it eh? Yeah, not there yet...not quite there yet.

What if I don't have courage to sing it? Everyone looks at you, and suddenly you start wondering whether you had it right all along. Maybe it's not your word, maybe you borrowed it, it doesn't feel right now. They'll judge you, that's what everyone does, they judge and then they never think about it twice. I think i'll get off the stage now, they're snickering at me...wait. Snickering at me?! I'll show them a snicker, godamn i'll show them a sneer and then, then i'll sing my heart out.

Euphoria, when the words come out, it'll be your heaven on earth. The words won't seem your own and you'll just sing transforming from that cocoon you never quite grew out off. You'll sing it the day you know you've come home. This is who you were meant to be, and you'll know it.

One song, glory
One song, to leave behind
My word, my only
My heart, to set at peace

One kiss, glory
One kiss, to remember you by
My smile, true to me
My breath, true to you

One bow, glory
One bow, to show love
My One, Almighty
My life, mine be

Teardrops, sighs and lullabies
Songs, words and smiles
You'll never know who you be
Sing it, maybe you'll see

Turing Test

Q. How are you today?

A. Troubled, my wife left me today. No, it wasn't for another man even though that seems to be the popular theory. It was much simpler than that, we didn't love each other.

Q. Why didn't you love her?

A. I didn't say I didn't love her, I said we did not love each other, there is a difference. A one sided love is merely a prolonged infatuation, infact that is exactly what love is in the one-dimensional sense, an unending infatuation. She didn't love me and because of that I was forced to sleep with another woman.

Q. Didn't you say she left you?

A. Well, yes...she was the one unhappy with the arrangement, I loved her enough that I would've continued our rocky relationship. She was a very selfish woman.

Q. Let's change the subject, where do you see yourself going from here?

A. No where, absolutely no where. I'm destitute, you moron. Without money there is nothing in this world, no place left to go, no sense of worth, no happiness, no love...you can't buy a woman what she wants without money, god damn materialistic world. When they are wearing pearls and furs they love you and the moment they are fed a skim meal, they hang you out to dry.

Q. Were there finanical difficulties in your marriage?

A. Difficulties?! Godammit you're a f'ing idiot. You can't put two and two together without someone telling you to. Ofcourse there were financial difficulties, that was the crux of the issue. If her good-for-nothing father had left her the share of wealth which was due to her I could've cashed in on the easy life years before. I was deceived, and the damn wench wasn't even willing to fight for her rights. You know, she had the gall to ask me: "But aren't we happy now? Why do we need money?" Well, i'm sure I showed her a thing or two about happiness...damn, right I did.

Q. Did you use abuse her physically?

A. What the fuck are you trying to say? Abuse?! You make it sound like a crime, yes I hit her damn it, I hit her real good and then I raped her little sister...damn bitch had it coming anyways, with the kind of clothes she wore, and the number of male friends she had. Had made by honest home into a whore house. Good thing, I did her in.

*******************************************

Ralph: Hey, thought i'd give you guys a heads up, the Big Guy is headed...

Big Guy: That was amazing! I just heard it over the broadcast channel. I can scarcely believe the work you bastards have done, 2.0 is actually connecting coherency fragments together in a logical manner! I mean granted...

Zimmerman: Uhmm Doctor...

Doctor: ...granted that the links its making are somewhat outrageous and I found its way of responding to the questions rather indirect, we'll have to work on that. Also, what Morals and Ethics module did you load the test up with? 2.0 sounded positively barbaric, at times but that's still remarkable...

Ralph: Doctor Steinberg, that wasn't 2.0...

Steinberg: ...remarkable. I especially loved the witty wordplay it was displaying with the meaning of love...wait, what did you say?

Zimmerman: I'm sorry, Dr. Steinberg. I wasn't expecting you to be back so soon, I was just playing the audio from my psychotic neighbour's trial, he was convicted of raping and murdering his wife's younger sister.

Steinberg: Remarkable, I would have never thought of that.

Steinberg leaves the room beaming like a madman. He rushes outside to greet the rain which is pouring down in earnest now. It's not invertible...the Turing Test is non-invertible, or is it? He relishes that thought for a moment. Oh it IS invertible, we just don't want to understand what that means. He writes down the words on hand and then stares back to admire them.

The Steinberg Test: "If a remote observer cannot tell whether a human being is responding to his queries or an automation, then the questioned is indeed, not human."

Humanity, is not a birth-right, its a privilege.

Of Sweat and Dust

I remember lying in my bed, damp with sweat, hovering somewhere inbetween being awake and hoping to fall asleep. 'Load-shedding' they called it, and i'm not sure to this day whether this was a witty innuendo being made on how this country was straining under the weight of its population. Inside the concrete walls, submerged in the darkness I could see perfectly. If I concentrated really hard, I thought I could here the entire nation breathing, the majority sleeping in peace since the majority were as Mohsin Hameed put it 'un-cooled'. I allowed myself to become amused then, amused at all the aunties tossing and turning in their beds because they could not sleep under their winter blankets in the dead of summer. At times, i'd even laugh a maddening little laugh for them.

The first time I walked home from school it was because my driver had neglected to inform my mother that it was time to pick me up. My mother was doing chores, clothes i'm sure you understand are the mark of a woman in Pakistan; right up there with jewellery and how much money their husband gives them as 'pocket-money'. 'Tis was not a short walk I assure you, but for some reason the idea seemed as natural to me as bhangra does to the music of a shaadi dhol. The sun rose to its greatest height to get a good vantage point on my journey. The whoosh of passing cars mocked my progress and the ricksha drivers questioning looks almost made me regret my lack of finances on this venture. It was hot and humid, basically, another perfect day in paradise. It had rained yesterday, a false pre-cursor of a monsoon that would never truly arrive that year. Puddles of warm, dank water sporadically lined the roadside and had I been a pedestrian wiser to these streets, I would have put two and two together.

The first two, a speeding Toyotta Corolla came veering down Sher Pao bridge driven no doubt by a 14-year maniac who thought that depressing a pedal took great skill. The second two, reflected back the sun's rays as if sharing a smile with the sun at having guessed the punchline to this slapstick event. Drenched as I was, I remember laughing rather than feeling angry. I guess it takes a lot more drenchings before you fail to see the humour in these situations.

I don't think I tired in those days, getting tired is a concept young boys are immune to, I believe. As I finally neared L.C.C.H.S it started to rain, I've always liked rain and I took pleasure in its company as I walked the last leg of my journey. I received an offer for help from a motor-cycle driver but it was politely turned down, after all I was so close now. When I finally arrived at the gates to my mansion, our hired help was confused to see that there was no car in sight. I still treasure the look of disbelief on my mother's face, but what I cherish more was her amusement rather than distress at my feat. She was my mother and mother's have a way of knowing their children, but I think I was still somewhat of an anomaly to my mother. Where one of her children insisted that she felt disgraced by having to ride home in a Potahar (our government assigned bright blue jeep), the other child would soon find it perfectly normal to cruise about Lahore in Rickshas.

On my first visit to 'our' village, I felt like I was being taken to a strange land of which I was apparently king. During our tour of the fields in bloom, I remember my younger sister becoming distressed as to why the local school did not bear her name instead, I didn't know exactly what to make of the revelation that it was named after me. My elder sister went running about the fields, hauntingly similar to idyllic visions of children running with glee in green fields, exclaiming in disbelief: "This is all ours? Woooooow!" I think we all wanted to share in the happiness that this place brought to our father. He was from here, these were the roots of the greatest dad on earth. He wanted us to like it so much, that we did...through sheer force of will, at first but that changed all too soon.

I remember sleeping under the open sky for the first time, the buzzing of the insects, the hooting of the crickets and the shuffling of critters somewhere nearby. But what I remember the most, is how clear the sky looked then. Lying there, on a charpai staring up at the stars my mind was slowly taking it all in. You never really feel it until you leave it behind but a city is alive, even at night. Ceaseless in it's drone and buzz where as the village slept at night. And in the middle of nowhere, hours away from civilization as I knew it, I felt at peace.

I looked at the silhouette of my father, and it was the first time I understood that I will never truly know this man. I still do not know what to make of the love shown by the elder women and men who worked for Sheikh Ihsan Tariq, the old croons would kiss my forhead as if kissing their own child. I keep thinking that they had to, after all would my father not take offense to a lack of affection for his sole heir? It seemed genuine though, and I felt unworthy. I also felt more than hesitant because these people were as strange to me as surely I must seem now to the people that I study with. And the irony in that is not lost one me either.

Old man Bashir, Baba as everyone called him, came to work for us one day. He's worked for so many of our relatives that whenever guests came to our house somehow...someway, they'd always ask him: "Baba, kaisay ho?" Everyone knew Baba and Baba knew everyone and their children. I like to think, he did genuinely like me as a son though i'll be honest, it seemed wrong that someone old enough to be my grandfather was working for us. He was a brilliant cook though, and Mum needed all the help she could get because as the Pakistan Housewife's RuleBook states: "You can never have enough hired help." I will say that perhaps he was treated with the respect due to him, and maybe that is what inspired his sense of loyalty. I think he still tells stories of how 'Ali beta would never let him carry anything'. 'Ali beta' was a young man, and should have cut his wrist if he couldn't carry his own bag a few more steps to his room.

My younger sister, missed me terribly whenever I was gone from her life. But never till her later years ever showed any affection when I was around. Like a prized collector who only misses his plastic-wrapped trophies when something goes amiss. I was, I realize now, naive to think that. She would, at times, come knock at my door late at night and come smiling in as if completely oblivious how rudely she had snubbed me infront of her friends (I was universally adored amongst my sisters posse, much of which had to do with the fact that I can crack amusing/embarassing jokes about their friend which they were not privy to). In our late night talks, i'd mostly listen but there was one thing that I never said to her which i'll remedy the first chance I get. My sister at that time, with all her trivial superficialities, was the coolest person I knew. A poet, a writer and a friends' friend. I think she moulded who I wanted to be in more ways then even she knows, and I care to admit.

When I met you, I changed so dramatically that most of my peers are to-date still in shock. I learnt about love from my family. Not the many extended relatives which insist that they used to carry you in your arms when you were little, those I disowned long ago. But from the way my mother cared for her children, the way my elder sister let me sleep in her lap when I was young. The way my dad would, even when I was young, treat me as an equal. When you finally arrived, life became something that it was always meant to be. It became the difference between knowing and knowing. I remember everything from our quarrels to our silliness. From the restaurant hopping to the abrupt goodbyes which you'd almost perfected as an art-form. I remember the tissue papers and all the waiters which would take pride in escorting you to our table (I also remember you always being late, and i'll admit that I never did mind waiting for you). Foremost, I remember the heat of the city around us, ever impeaching on our trysts as if only showing its presence to tell us that our secret was safe within its suffocating confines.

I remember Friday prayers, where the world it seemed would collect upon one canvas to give homage to their God. My grandfather would always try and convince my father that he should say his full prayers, not just his Farz. But the heat was unbearable and we could always complete our prayers at home. I didn't always listen. It amazed me that at my first Eid prayers, complete strangers hugged each other without qualms and hesitation. The west would have branded us all as having restrained homo-sexual tendencies, and I still wonder about it when I recall the times spent with the 'Boys'.

We were not quite men, and certainly not children any longer. The lazy cricketing afternoons, the insistence that we play video-games just a lil longer (I was horrible at the former and brilliant at the latter). The soul-searching conversations and ofcourse the lewd comments which became an education unto themselves. Boys will be boys after all. I remember my education at friendship, an on-going affair taught by a teacher whose patience to put up with an obsessive, spoilt brat has left a 'lasting impression', to quote Tasslehoff Burrfoot.

The bonds, forged in the unbearable heat were cast so strong in those days that they have become etched too deeply in memory. The lessons learnt while choking in the dust have so harshly burnt the skin that their presence has left marks of identity. I am born of sweat and dust, and I shall forever carry its scent.

Chaos Theory

I dreamed a dream. I think it was real, I remember thinking it had to be, but now i'm not so sure, no wait I am. In the dream peace reigned, and I hated it. Peace reigned, everyone hated it.

Eat well, work hard
We're watching you
Sleep well, are you happy?
We know you are

Everything had changed, we didn't fear any longer. There was no change, no unpredictability, no decisions and perfect happiness, fate was telling us what to do. All we did was follow, follow like white rabbits throught the looking glass. There were some people unhappy, but there are always some. There were some people dying, but there always are. There was no blur, all lines were distinct. There was no doubt that we were in utopia, we had made it by shaping our destinies with the iron will of order.

Everyone was equal except those that were superior, but there always are some. Some were inferior but we never heard much from them, I wonder what happened to the inferiors. We were told that we were better off than everyone out there, we were all superiors relative to them. We were a super race. And we were being lead by people who were more apt to do that sort of thing, people were forced into leading...nobody wanted to it, we were told.

We showed you to live
So you are good
On your own, who knew your way
So, are you good?

People didn't have friends, friends are only temporary. They happen to be going through life at the same time, place and experience. We didn't have relationships either. We had marriage, it is a social contract, there is order in marriage. There was no love, love is fickle and unpredicatable, thus it is clearly chaos. We didn't have choices, choices are unpredictable. We had rights, rights can be defined, what is defined is predictable. We had laws, they were broken at times but we were told that they had to be. Everyone was the same under these laws, except the superiors and the inferiors, obviously.

I broke a rule
Oh what are you to do?
Your law I obey not
Boo hoo, boo hoo?

And then...from within order, Chaos reigned. There was choice, there was unpredictability, there was love, there were friends and there were no leaders. Everyone was different, people had different rules, everyone their own master. There was fear. There were those who were lost, yet some had finally found their way.

I dreamed a dream. Chaos reigned, and we were free.

Chasing the Cheese

I'd like to think we all had our priorities straight once. I'm pretty sure it wasn't chasing after the greenback, yet like all rats that are newly joining the race the whiff of cheese is in the air and before we know it we're off, in frantic pursuit of a goal which stands to gain us little and may help us lose everything.

For people of religion, we have shown that we are truly the ones who have been blinded. Even as I write this out I wear my blindfold proudly. I understand the necessity of all that the paper marked as the bill of trade provides but then again I did say I was blinded didn't I. We're being brought up day-by-day to be more practical individuals, to understand the importance of money, to be thankful to our parents for providing it and helping us in accessing futures that will enable us to earn it.

Money is a source of life; it pays for bread, water and the roof over your head. It doesn't make any sense does it, why would we be told not to hoard this precious commodity. Over time as our goals change we won't do it for need any longer. Because money is also the mark of success and after all a little healthy competition never hurt anyone...or did it?

You know, if everyone was brought up with a carebear mentality (say it with me, 'I care!!!') then eventually some exploitive harami, with a troubled upbringing and abusive childhood, would come along and ruin our utopia for us. We have to learn to embrace the game because we are NOT living in an ideal world, it is forced upon us and therefore we willingly become its slave. Look at us all, isn't that the sorriest looking bunch of victims you've ever seen. To quote an old mentor: We're all 'simply pathetic'.

How much ambition is too much ambition? How little is too less? At what point does quitting from the rat race not label us a with a big L (either meaning) on our foreheads? In this society, which preaches that winning silver actually meant that you lost gold, who truly decides the winner? Ironically, a race which has no finish-line can only be won by a determination of who got the farthest before he/she croaked. You're welcome to your gold.

I have found and lost what I live for more than enough times in my very short life. At times, it's been because plausibly the goal seemed to far but the key has always been that distance is a relative issue and if I thought it too far for myself, then it well and truly was. Anything that you want more than your life is worth running after; running till your lungs burn, your legs ache, your muscles twitch and your heart bleeds. No matter which goal you find, you'll find that pitter-patter of small feet and the smell of cheese will always accompany it but nobody says you have to run the race.

Fables aside, The tortoise and the hare both got to their destination. What if the finish line had been a little sooner for the hare? I bet that though would have traumatized us as children (especially the 'big-boned' ones) but as adults we can learn a useful lesson from it. Being all that we can be is immensely important and something that we have had ingrained in our heads since youth. But what is more important, is when to learn to stop being all that we can be and becoming all that we wanted to become.

Following the golden brick road
I reached a branch in its wake
I thought about taking the one less travelled
For all the difference it would make

I thought about cutting my own path
I dreamed of sprouting wings and taking flight
I considered just sitting still, breathing slow
I even considered treading back, the way I came

I waited, others waited not
They hurried along with nay a tarrying thought
All off to see the wizard, that none had prior seen
Then I saw the glances, thrown back at me

So I pitched me a camp, I knew I had arrived
For my heaven lies beyond the starry skies

What I Am to You

Slow and soft, music and words are best said that way. Especially words spoken under the illusion of love. A pessimistic smiles at my comment, a knowing smile shared by two aqquaintances which have shared a greater truth. I bet he's confused when he sees me smiling back...not at him, but instead through him. I fear for people who think they've guessed the game to early, they miss out on the best twists.

Love is an illusion, simply because it is nothing substantial. It is not life, not desire, not a volcano nor the sea. You have to find what it is for you and maybe we can share the knowing smile that the pessimist was attempting to share with me. When you find it, you'll find out that you might not have wanted it but never the less you can't go back to being ignorant. Once opened to the sun, your eyes can't just go back to seeing in the dark.

You'll never find what you're looking for because you're not looking for anything. If you think there is a scarcity of intelligent, charming and beautiful out there then I suggest you take the blindfolds off because they are everywhere. Yet still, why can't we find what we look for? It's all present in the beautiful mistep of your first love and if you've never had one then you can stop kidding yourself.

If you can remember back far enough in your memory to barely recall her (excuse me ladies) then consider yourself blessed. If the memory still burns deep like a dormant volcano then allow me be the first to say: 'Don't worry, it's not going to get any better.' But if you can remember at all, then you know of the illusion that I spoke of because you conjoured it once...you know you did.

The illusion constructed that you would never find someone else. That this was the single most momentous time in your life. That you would always remember her scent. That you would never be able to move on. That she is and would always be The One for you. The kind of stuff bred in by repeated listenings of Black when hurt. The Catch 22 being that if you believed it, the illusion took on a life of its own. It was true, simply because you cannot deny something that you want to believe that bad. An illusion that powerful sometimes doesn't shatter, it can perpetuate into a living thing that haunts you in moments when you just want the world to move on without you.

If you're still fascinated by the pretty lights, you're a very lucky man. Grab a parachute while you can, it can be a long fall from those heights. If you're smiling, just hold it for one breath because we're not quite there yet.

Don't hold yourself like that
You'll hurt your knees
I kissed your mouth and back
But that's all I need
Don't build your world around volcanoes melt you down

What I am to you is not real
What I am to you you do not need
What I am to you is not what you mean to me
You give me miles and miles of mountains
And I'll ask for the sea

You were fighting a losing game because you were looking for the wrong answer. Even now, if you're looking to break the illusion you're on the wrong track. If you allow the illusion to exist then you can live within it. Within time, it will become your truth. The greatest of mountains were seabeds once and just like that, you'll realize that you want the illusion to exist so that you can act like the matyr who saw the sun for a brief moment. No one gets hurt, we all get what we want and if you have the courage to see that the illusion is the next best thing, then you'll find the courage to turn your mountains back into a sea.