Nasir Kamzi: New love

Those who sang by the riverbanks - what happened to them?
Those who sailed their boats - what happened to them?

The sunrise that almost dawned, where is it stranded?
The caravans that were to come - what happened to them?

All night long I await their arrival.
The ones who lit the path - what happened to them?

Who are these people who surround me?
Those who preserved friendship - what happened to them?

Those eyes that pierced the heart - what happened to them?
Those lips that smiled - what happened to them?

The buildings have burnt to cinders.
Those who would rebuild them - what happened to them?

Misery questions the lonely house:
“Those who lit your lamps - what happened to them?”

You and I are but burdens on this earth.
Those who shouldered the earth’s burden - what happened to them?

Translated from Urdu by Debjani Chatterjee

Realities

Sometimes we meet new people purely by mistake. You come in contact though some strange workings of fate, and you simply click. It doesn't have to be a romantic click. It's just two personalities that fit together. And there's chemistry there.

But often it's not meant to go beyond those first few days. Why? Usually because both of you have different expectations from the relationship. And because you weren't together long enough to know each other well enough to cope with the parts of your personality that do not click. It doesn't work out because you haven't known each other long enough to trust blindly, and because both of you assume some things which turn out to be untrue.

I made a new friend. I thought we'd talk about work, but we didn't. We discussed Reality and Perception and Time, and our dreams. In the first three hours of our friendship. =)

It didn't turn into "Friends Forever". Because "Friends Forever" probably doesn't exist. But also because our realities were different. Our perceptions were colored by our individual experiences, our stand points. And we hadn't known each other long enough to be able to understand those stand points.

It didn't turn into "Friends Forever". But I'll miss my friend for a long time.

Make-believe

When I was nine years old, I acted in a television serial. I was this little girl who's sent to live in Pakistan, without her family. Her parents are in Canada, where her mother is undergoing treatment for cancer. Then her mother expires, and her father comes back too. The serial, among other stories, followed the course of her life getting used to living without her mother, and later, how she sets up her father with her teacher.

For the most part, there was tragedy. I had to cry a lot. When I came to live alone. When I missed my mother, and when she died. The scene where my father comes back and we meet for the first time after my mothers death was my favorite. I remember I was crying so much, I could not stop myself to deliver my dialogues.

Yup, I did all of the crying myself. No glycerin, or any such crutch. My mum taught me how to do it. Before the shooting started, she took me to a number of her friends, people who'd lost a parent to cancer. And they told me how it was towards the end, what they saw, heard, and felt. And mum told me to absorb all of that.

She told me to recall it when I needed to call up those same emotions. Mum taught me how to put myself in that precise place, and imagine how I'd feel if it was actually happening to me. So I'd think, and feel. And deliver.

My first (and only) TV serial, I was awarded the regional PTV award, and nominated for the Nationals.

Why am I telling you all of this? As a disclaimer.

I write when I'm upset about something. When I'm in the grip of some strong emotion. So it comes out exactly like that: emotional. It does not mean I have a death wish, or I'm aimless, or that I need severe counseling. We're all lonely sometimes. We all get depressed.

I'm just thinking, and imagining, and feeling; and whatever I feel, I'm expressing it in my medium of choice: words.

It's not all make-believe. It's not all real. But then, how can we ever differentiate? =]

Sad Skies

Some times the sky makes me sad. I don't really know why. It just is so damn beautiful. Maybe it's the clouds. Maybe it's the knowledge that what is there today will be gone forever tomorrow. Like those clouds, constantly forming and reforming, changing shape, dissolving into sheer nothingness. Maybe it's just me being silly.

"We have a short time to stay,
As you, or anything, we die
As hours do, and die away
Like the summers rain;
Or as the pearls of morning's dew
Never to be found again"
("To Daffodils")

After the rain. (Mine, Islamabad)

Dolly's photography (Suburbs of Islamabad)

Doors and Keys

That's life. The answer to life, the universe and everything. Its all doors and keys. The doors are generally inconspicuous. The keys may be hidden. You can stand outside, kicking and screaming, getting angry and frustrated that you're not getting what you want. You can even act unaware, and deny that there's anything on the other side of that closed place. You may believe that getting through is impossible, or that it's someone else's fault that you can't get through ....

Or you can look for your key ... and walk right in.

Pentonville Road, Islington. (Catherine Cartwright Jones)

Written and Published March 2007

Justice is said to be blind. Unfortunately, when we’re talking about Pakistan, it also happens to be deaf, dumb, and slightly retarded.

Perhaps that is why, over the decades, we ourselves have become our worst enemy. A long time back, Faiz Ahmed Faiz penned a beautiful piece of poetry: “Hum dekhein ge” {We will watch}. He talked about Indian occupied Kashmir and how he hoped we would watch it liberated one day. On Friday, the 16th of March 2007, this rallying cry rang out over the radio, as our press was attacked by our very own “saviors”, the Punjab Police.

Sab Taj uch’halay jaein ge, sab takht giraey jaein ge,
Hum dekhein ge…

{All kings will be dethroned, all rulers ousted; We will watch…}

Haven’t we remained silent long enough? We slept through the war in Wana; we slept through the American “operation” in Bejaur; and we slept through Bugti’s murder. We even slept as our “agencies” kidnapped our own people and gave no explanation. When will we finally wake up?

Now, even our freedom of expression and freedom of press is threatened. The common man has no rights, for any minister, or a minister’s family member, might fanicfully humiliate or assault him publicly while he performs his duties (case in point: Federal Law Minister who beat up a waiter at Marriot, Islamabad and his son beat up a fellow passenger on a PIA flight). And why talk about the common man anyway when the country’s chief justice has no protection, no standing?

It is time to stop waiting for someone else to take charge. It’s time to take a stand for what is right. It is time to bring a revolution in our own lives; to think like a nation, rather then individuals. It is time to fight for Justice.

Aur raj karay gi khalq-e Khuda, jo main bhi hoon aur tum bhi ho
Hum dekhein ge…

{And the men of God shall rule, for you are one, and I am too; We shall see…}

Memories of Me

My biggest fear is being forgotten. Abandoned. Not "belonging". My biggest fear is that once I'm gone, no one will ever remember me. My biggest fear is not mattering enough to even warrant a memory.

The "Happy" incident reminded me of something else, and I set about rooting through the boxes I've made for myself.

I call them "Memory" boxes. There are four of them now.

I have everything. Amusement park tickets, Bus ticket stubs, memorabilia from every trip we ever took as a family. I have every card, every letter I ever received. Even little notes passed in class. I have the sash I wore, and the tiara thingie, the "Lady of the Evening" award from our high school "Farewell" Party. And I have the (still plastic wrapped) gift from the first McDonald's Happy Meal I ever had, when I was six or seven years old.

But that's not the interesting thing. What's interesting is that there are post-it notes (or little bits of paper) stuck on and around most of these things I've collected. Penciled onto them are comments like "Meenah wore this..*blah blah*...on..*date*", or "...gifted this to Meenah Tariq on...". These are mostly on the stuff that dates to when I was around thirteen, and before that.

I seem to remember reading somewhere about "Time Capsules", around that time. What you do is, you put stuff that matters to you, with notes explaining, and dates, into a non-perishable container. You then bury it in your garden. And you wait for someone, some day, decades hence, finding it, and being awed by the person you were.

I think that's where it started. I didn't bury my memories in the garden. But some one, some day, when I'm gone, will go through my boxes. And from "My Memories", they will become "Memories of Me".