- morning -

it's almost impossible,
like the rain,
or daisies
(do you remember?),
like our hands (tracing
invisible lines on each other).
i know your secrets
(they are mine),
and there is fear,
in our voices,
when we touch,
but we will not stop,
(because it is like the rain).

there are times (i admit
everything),
when i want to keep you in a little box,
with me,
but then i realize,
that i already do.

- revised, but only slightly. it's older than you think. -


He carefully placed (not dropped) two cubes of sugar in the coffee, and stirred it until the swirls of white disappeared into monotonous, deep brown. Presently, he allowed a laugh to escape him.
"What's so funny?" Kamil asked.
"Oh nothing. Nothing terribly interesting, anyway."
"Enlighten me - I was always interested by the mundane, remember?"
"It's just funny. You, me, us - I haven't seen you for years, but here we are. And I can't help but thinking: what's the protocol?"
"Protocol?"
And Kamil laughed, too, because he realized the ridiculousness that distances create.
"You see what I mean? I don't get it. Everywhere we go, everything we do, there's some sort of order, some sort of prescribed rubric to fall back on. But where do we begin?"
"The issue here is your apparent dependence on what society thinks you should say, Ali. It isn't society's fault that it didn't equip you for this conversation."
"Oh come on, it can equip me on how to deal with the highly unlikely scenario of a sinking ship with only one more berth on it's lifeboats, and myself and a pregnant lady the only ones still on board, but it can't tell me how to talk to someone I was great friends with once upon a time?"
"You give the woman the place on the lifeboat, and wait for the water to swallow you. Ofcourse."
"What if I don't want to die?"
"Completely besides the point. The rubric you so seem to desire demands it. Now shut up and die with some grace, damn it."
A smile arched across Ali's face, again.
"Always with the grace, Ka - always with the grace."
"Ofcourse 'Always with the grace.' Take that away, and what've we left?"
"On the one hand its extraordinary how much you've changed, and on the other its incredible how much you remain the same below your skin."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Kamil said, his own smile widening.

*

"Give it back!"
"No..calm down. I just want to look at it!"
"I don't care, it's mine! You'll break it!!"
"I will not, for Gods sake."
"ALI!!"
"Oops..."

*

"I have a cunning plan."
"Do you really?"
"Ok, so it's not very cunning, but it's a start."
"Let's hear it, then."
"You desire a rubric. Here it is: tell me a story."
"A story? Will any story do, or does it have to have a certain number of dragons and maidens in it?"
"Your story - the number of dragons and maidens is wholly dependent on your experience," Kamil said,"Though I warn you that I'm not apt to believe them if they do make an appearance. Based on my experience."
"My story? You know me, dude - no story. Very uninteresting life. We went to college, I got a degree, got a job, a fucking big television and lived the trainspotting dream," said Ali, laughing.
"You're telling me we've got nothing at all to catch up on? Yes, that makes perfect sense.."
"Nothing significant."
"You didn't get married, did you?"
"Shakal dekhi he meri?"
"That not withstanding. What happened between you and Sana?"
"We broke up."
"Ha! So we do have something to catch up on. I didn't know that, and therefore there is a discrepancy between who you were and who you are."
"No...Really? You expected us to be trapped in stasis, perhaps."
"You know what I mean..get on with it."
"With what?"
"With what we've been talking about....you. Your story."
"What is it with your insistence on my 'story'? I don't know - I lived, I worked, I studied, I partied. I partied alot, actually. Drank a bit, smoked alot, and then not at all. Got a job, lost a job, got another job, and now I'm here. Happy?"
"Point taken. It just seems that it would be...simpler."
"What? To have stories?"
"Yes."
"Yes..I suppose it would. But I'm afraid I've got nothing for you - you'll have to worm it out of me," he said, eyes twinkling.

*

"Are you crazy?!"
"Are you crazy?! Saeed Anwar is ten thousand times better than Tendulkar!!"
"No man...have you seen Tendulkar play? That guy is amazing."
"You're just an indian-lover, that's your problem."
"What?! Don't you dare.."
"Indian-lover, Indian-lover!!"

*

They stared at the table for a good bit. It was getting to be dinner time, and Kamil broke the silence.
"You want to grab a bite to eat?"
"What time is it?"
Glancing at the clock above Ali's shoulder, "About ten."
"Shit..yea, no wonder I was getting so hungry. Kidhar jaana he?"
"I don't know. Does it matter?"
"Ofcourse it matters. Everything matters."
"Really?"
"Not really. But it should."
"Yea. Probably."
"Kamil..we are desperate need of sustenance, and I vote rolls."
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"My mind is nowhere near that filthy, Ka.."
"Abey ulloo ke pathe. Jafri's chalein?"
"Jafri's? Is that place even still open?"
"I have no idea, but there's just one way to find out."
"Man, that's on the other side of town. Tumhe pata he kitni der lagge gi?"
"Have you no sense of history? No sense of occasion? Look at us...the great Ali and Kamil reunited, and you're quibbling about distance to get to eat the food of the Gods."
"I don't recall ever seeing any Gods eating there."
"It was a figure of speech."
"Must have been rather dirty, unemployed type Gods.." he muttered, as they made their way to the car.

*

"Ka, uth."
"Kyun? Kya masla he?"
"Dinner scene. Get some clothes on."
"Raat ke do baj rahe hein, yeh koi waqt he dinner scene ka?"
He shrugged, "Call it spontaneous. Asif ne call kiya, abhi. Kapre pehno, we're leaving in five."
"Is my mother asleep?"
"Yea."
"Acha. Get the car, mein aata hoon."

*

"Atif Aslam?! Man Ali, I'm disowning you. Tumhe ho kya gaya he?"
"Oh shut up - you still haven't lost your sound snobbishness?"
"Sound snobbishness nothing. This is Atif, for God's sake..what happened to the days of knowing keh Ali ki gari mein Doors sunein ge?"
Ali shrugged, "Times change."
"Apparently."
"Acha don't sulk."
"Sulk? I never sulked a day in my life."
"Right..right. Not even that time when I beat you on Sports Day?"
"Man.."
"You didn't talk to me for a week...I couldn't believe it," Ali said, not bothering to control his laughter.
"Yea well..it was important to me, for some reason."
"Yea."

Silence for a while, as the lights flew by and familiar roads swept into distances known once.
They turned left.

"Oye, isn't that Basit's old house?"
"Yea..I think it might be."
"Kya huwa uss bunde ka?"
"I don't know...last I heard his family shifted to the States."
"You remember that night of double-sarri?"
"What night?"
"Man, how can you forget? The night we played from six in the evening till six in the morning. Yaad aaya?"
"Arey haan - kitni chai pi thi humne? There was supposed to be dinner, at some point..we just kept playing till the sun was suddenly, inexplicably, in the sky."
"Yea man...what a night. What I wouldn't give to be back, sometimes," Kamil said.
"Back?"
"Yea. Young...free and reckless. Those were the days, man..we were dreamers. This city was our canvas, and we painted our stories on it. Everywhere. People see schon circle, and they think of directions, but I think of the time we hid in the fountain from the tullas."
"Correction, people do not see schon circle any longer."
"That's right...bastards..how could they tear it down? The thing's a landmark, its a part of my life. Yet, with the flourish of some civil planner's pen, it now has ceased to exist. Everything's changing."

Silence at a traffic light, another mangled soul clawing at the window.

"Have you ever felt disconnected, Ali?"
"How do you mean?"
"I'm not sure - but life is so fluid, so fleeting. You and I, we're just here for a blink of an eye in the cosmic scale of things, our place here is really rather insignficant."
"And your point is..?"
"My point, Ali, is that all of this manifests itself in a distinct disconnection of the soul with life."
"Hum khaane keh liyay ja rahe the, aur tum 'soul' aur 'life' pe aa gayay ho.."
"Don't you see?" Kamil said, turning from the passenger seat, his voice more vehement, almost violent with meaning. "None of this matters...I mean we're just here for a short, short time and we make what we can of it before everything moves on, cleans up, shifts forward, and some of us are left sitting back here in a city that does not exist any longer, trying to live a fools life. It doesn't matter."
"Tumne kya socha tha keh yeh shehr humara intezaar karre ga, Ka?"
"Mein sirf shehr ki baat nahin kar raha."
"Tou phir?"
"Zindagi - have you ever felt lost in memory? It's harder and harder to come back, each time, until you find that you're returning to a present you don't even belong in. "
"Is this about coming back home?"
"Partly. But partly it's just about home being a state of mind."

*

"So."
"Yea."
"Here we are."
"Yea."
"If you say 'yea' again, I'm going to smack you."
"Yea."
*smack*
"I'm a man of my word."
"Yea," Kamil said, grinning.
"This is wonderful. You're leaving in the morning, and we're going to sit here saying 'yea' to each other all night."
"You expected something more dramatic? A speech, a heart-rending sonnet, perhaps?"
"Indeed."
"Time's up. Got to go. You take care of yourself. And always remember: Don't Inhale."
"Yea. When do I see you next?"
"I don't know..let's say never."
"Never it is."

*

"Don't you think it's time you got over that, Ka? I mean all night we've been talking about the past. Which is great..was great, whatever. We had some great times, and I'm not taking away from that - but you've got to live the life you've got, right?"
"Yeah, I know..its nothing serious, just leave it."
"No, somehow I get the feeling that it really is."
"I don't know man...sometimes I just get the feeling that we've lived the greatest moments of our lives already, that it's all downhill from here. What's the point of going gently into that good night?"
"The whole 'live-fast-die-young' thing..you're not serious? I mean yea..we've got lives now, we've got stuff to do, and hell..yea, it isn't as much fun as it used to be, but it's still life, right?"
"Life in a box-"
"-is better than no life at all."
"Sometimes I think that without Stoppard your conversation would wither away."
"Perhaps."
"I'm just...not all here, anymore. I mean, I came back here...I made a conscious effort to come back, because I love this. But I get the distinct feeling that it isn't even love, anymore. You can't love something that's forgotten your name. Everything's...just memories. Tainted. The people have moved on, the lights have moved on, and I'm standing here thinking whether the life I'd come back for never really existed in the first place."
"Nothing stops, Ka. Nothing."
"Yea. It's a shame."
"Oh well."
"Yea."
"Yea."
"Yea."
"So what now?"
"Dinner."
"Sounds like a plan. Next left."
"I remember! I'm not that old. Yet."

The road was just as crowded and the sign said Jafri's, just the same way as in memories of late nights and unauthorized escapades. They drove right by - the unlit neon and dusty, fallen shutter shaking lightly in the wind.

- new pictures on flickr -

- tell me, when will the river run green? -

a, exasperated: who are these people?
b: ordinary people under extraordinary pressure, a. what the hell do you expect? Grace and Consistency?

the insider

notes, the second

young writers face a particularly nasty predicament - they can neither afford to sound jaded and staid, for there they lose their 'edge' (as if we're all somehow hewn from rough rock. which we may be, if it comes to that), nor can they ever slip into childishness. and the trick is in finding your own niche without caring a damn whether some other young writer somewhere thinks 'what is that? he sounds fifty..', or if some old hand throws the paper away muttering 'kids...they haven't seen anything, don't know anything.'

the tragedy is that they are both right. we've seen just enough to begin our sentences, but not enough to end them - and there we lose ourselves in the space between letters.

there is no period at the end of this sentence

-

to those who look to the stars, and find salvation in their enormity and the self's own minute-ness in the 'general scheme of things', to those who fly at night when no-one is watching, and who fall only when the sun rises, i have words. they tell stories of daring, and they speak of not falling back on the sky as an excuse, but holding yourself to it's standard. there is so much beauty.

you're beautiful.

-

even broken glass shines.

-

sometimes it's alright to test yourself by fire - but there'll always be someone waiting on the crest of the hill, wishing you didn't have to. love is when they let you hurt yourself a little bit, if only so you can trust yourself a little bit more.

we're all in a cycle. hold yourself to the sky.

i have trouble believing that i exist for others when i'm not in their immediate universe. when i am not speaking to them or standing in front of them, i can not believe that they think about me. i am in denial about my own existence - i don't think you have a mental picture of me. i can't picture it. i wouldn't have one. not of me. i can't imagine i exist for anyone who i'm not conversing with.i am skeptical when people tell me they were thinking about me. 'really?', i ask. my eyebrow lifts, slightly. i couldn't always do that. but i can, now. i can do many things, but really nothing that amounts to very much. never could, never will. turned around words are sometimes more meaningful than what we say. celebrate opposite day. assume everything is backwards, down to up. see where it gets you.
you see the words, they form a train that flows through your brain, a river of thought that is either a trickle or a rage, but never nothing. everything is something. Crash.
i am worried. about many things. do you know that? did you know the number of the house was written in white? did you notice the red? probably not. i did. i always do. the inconsequential fascinates me. it is so forgotten, so pushed aside that i can't help but believe that there is a secret hidden within it somewhere where no-one bothers to look. in my universe the unexpected carries salvation, and the real punch line is that it's not even hiding, you just don't know how to look. they say that seeing is an instinct, you cannot explain sight to the blind. but it isn't - because you see only those things that you're used to seeing. the challenge is seeing things that you would not.

is that so difficult to believe? that we're wrong? we're young, or so they say. isn't everyone old?

it's quiet. i love you. but you're always quiet when the world comes crashing down, again.

when you close your eyes, what do you see?

they say its a nervous breakdown, but whats a breakdown? i mean, how do you tell? is there a line crossed, an i left undotted? as we walk, to and from, this way, there, and here - how do you tell? can you magnify my soul, because i think im getting smaller as we get bigger. can you see through my clothes, skin, flesh and bone? and when you do, do you feel, or do you merely see?

everyone's breaking down. we are in a constant state of death. so really, when i say that everytime i talk to you i die a little inside, i'm not lying. is that not comforting? sad. it seems it should be. they always said the truth was important. somehow.

they also insisted on transparency. but can you really make your skin see-through? are you able? i can't move. i am unable. or perhaps just un.

walk, talk, breathe. can't hum, don't have it in me. can't tap because i lost you. can't sing - got no soul. no soul. nosoul. luoson. the words still carry no meaning, even if you twist them and turn them, love them and lose them.

tell me, do your fingers know what it is to have memories? instinctively searching for that hollow, for that sensation. we are all sense-based creatures. we are drawn to things. hot, cold, touch. feel.

somehow from one moment to the next we never seem to realize how much things remain in flux. everything becomes - tainted.

everyone's got a little death inside them.

for psnob.

anarchy says:
for some sonrea
wheres says:
hah, all good things come in disconnected packages?
wheres says:
hah, thats not even backwards
anarchy says:
backwards is cliche
anarchy says:
im not backwards, im broken. not same.
wheres says:
and oddly looks like a cross between that disease and sonic of the supersonic fame

[remember, its all in your head.]

backspace. there were some letters and some words, some spaces and some stops, but they don't live here anymore.
prerogative has always been a word laden with harsh tones, meanings and the unexpected. the unexpected, on the other hand, happens with monotonous regularity so that this and that are almost never what one sees in the here and now, rather one finds oneself quite without words. without denoting absence, but not loss. loss is deeper, more infiltrating into one's insides, when you feel all the cliches about a broken heart actually physically tearing through flesh. which is fallible, really - wounds always heal, but scars leave behind a mental note: don't do that again. is it unwise to find oneself in the same places with different people, to do the same things with different utensils? knives are pointy, but forks will tear you up inside. like cloth, ripped and shred to pieces so that its useless to anyone. why would anyone ever do that?
anyone - you could be anyone.

[its time for a classic..]

f c d b

it must be your skin that i’m sinking in,
must be for real 'cos now i can feel.
and i didn’t mind,
it’s not my kind,
not my time to wonder why.
everything’s gone white,
and everything’s grey.
now you’re here,
now you’re away.
i don’t want this,
remember that.
i’ll never forget where you’re at.

don’t let the days go by
glycerine.

f c b

i’m never alone,
i’m alone all the time.
are you at one,
or do you lie?
we live in a wheel,
where everyone steals,
but when we rise it’s like strwaberry fields.

i treated you bad,
you bruise my face.
couldn’t love you more,
you got a beautiful taste.

don’t let the days go by,
could have been easier on you.
i couldn’t change though i wanted to,
should have been easier by three,
our old friend fear and you and me.
glycerine
glycerine
don’t let the days go by
glycerine
don't let the days go by..

glycerine.
bad moon wine again.

i needed you more
when we wanted us less.
i could not kiss just regress.
it might just be,
clear simple and plain,
that’s just fine,
that’s just one of my names.
don’t let the days go by.
could’ve been easier on you,
glycerine.

Glycerine
Bush

september was when the clouds finally gathered, when the rains finally came. it was when it all hit you, suddenly, like a brick wall, pulling itself up despite your always trying to dislodge each individual piece. september was when we dove off rooftops, dared the sky, lived in the space between the clouds, and let the rain wash us clean.
we were purer, cleaner, more faithful, then. we were never innocent, but have never been quite so guilty.
milk dissolves in slow, twisting spirals, and you suddenly find yourself sinking to the bottom of another mug, another time, another day. things become so much simpler when you reduce them to the you and i, but in the here and now we don't always remember where we've been, where we want to go.

the slow hand quickens..

treetops will watch over you as you argue, as you pull this way and then that. do you realize? do you see? do you even remember september?

[your heroes failed]

it was cold. not the way a chill wind is cold, but the way steel is cold. up your spine, fear crystallizing your nerves to the point where you can feel the world breathe.

but that was years ago. today the sun shines, the colours make poets out of pagans, and saints out of us all. underneath pure light, we can all be good. if only for a few moments, even you can be a child, again. warmth, somehow, suffuses everything. spread, like so much butter, over us all, your warmth will free you.
or atleast that's what they tell you in the movies.

fear, somehow, had never been a problem. you lose it, eventually, when it's been around for so long. like pure white noise, it blends into the background until it doesn't even elevate your heartbeat anymore. it lives behind your scenes, it breathes out through your pores.
it was cold, that night, but i wasn't afraid. or i was too afraid, because opposites inevitably blend together when you live on extremes of some arbitrarily determined scale, trying to make your life fit some rubric the writers, poets, musicians and artists of your time have written, composed, painted for you. when the music catches up with your life, when the words cease echoing with truth, what do you do then? who listens?

cold, warmth. warmth, cold. it breaks down. when you're warm, you're safe. that's what they told me. they taught me to fear the cold. and it was cold. what was i supposed to do, i'm just a product of forces outside of my control, right? i exist as a representation of everyone i've seen or known, everyone i've heard and talked to. your life ceases to be yours the moment you're taken from the womb. you had nine months. it's all over.

to stop is to break. the cycles are far too easy to fall into, and if our spontaneity is merely a part of their order (thank you, stoppard), then you may as well quit now. i can repeat words to you till the day we both end up on a road to nowhere, till the moment you turn to me and tell me you didn't want to fall. again. it's all a shambles.
one of these days i'll tell you a story.

[part ii]

through the fish-eyed lens of tear stained eyes,
i can barely define the shape of this moment in time.
and far from flying high in clear blue skies,
i'm spiralling down to the hole in the ground where i hide.

if you negotiate the minefield in the drive,
and beat the dogs and cheat the cold electronic eyes.
and if you make it past the shotguns in the hall,
dial the combination. open the priesthole.
and if i'm in, i'll tell you what's behind the wall.

there's a kid who had a big hallucination,
making love to girls in magazines.
he wonders if you're sleeping with your new found faith.
could anybody love him,
or is it just a crazy dream?

and if i show you my dark side,
will you still hold me tonight?
and if i open my heart to you,
and show you my weak side,
what would you do?

would you sell your story to rolling stone?
would you take the children away,
and leave me alone,
and smile in reassurance,
as you whisper down the phone.
would you send me packing?
or would you take me home?

thought i oughta bare my naked feelings.
thought i oughta tear the curtain down.
i held the blade in trembling hands,
prepared to make it, but just then the phone rang.
i never had the nerve to make the final cut.

The Final Cut
Pink Floyd

'lets go somewhere,' i said, 'we never go anywhere.'
he just sat there, took a deep pull from his cigarette and then let his arm drop to his side.
'is that all you have to say?', i asked.
'what would you like me to say, kid? go. you've only home to come back to, why bother leaving the house at all?'
'rubbish. you're apathetic to everything. that's another one of your problems.'
'my problems? don't put psychoses in my mind - i've got no troubles, kid. i'm doing just fine.'
'you're lying,' i said. And then, after a pause 'you have to be.'
'why?'
'because i don't want to believe you.'
'that, my child, is your problem.'
'i suppose it is.' then he picked up the guitar from his side and played a few notes. dissatisfied, he put it down again.
'the trouble is,' he said, 'that in the end it all collapses to a single point.'
'what does?'
'life. the universe. everything.'
'explain.'
He just smiled at me, and said 'I don't have to explain it to you. You go out there, roam around for a while,'
'pick up some biscuits for me on your way back,' he added, that smile never leaving his face.

*

'you were wrong,' i said.
'was i?'
'take your damn biscuits and wipe that smug look off your face,' i replied, throwing the bag at his feet.
'tell me.'
'forget it, i don't want to talk about it.'
'oh you don't want to talk? all you ever want to do is talk - this is excellent progress.'
'shut up.'
'foul. no profanity - it's against the rules.'
'what rules? it's all a shambles anyway.'
'oh so you think so too, then?'
'yes. i mean no. this..all of this is a shambles. why do you even live here anymore?'
'you never asked me to leave.'
'leave.'
'really?'
'yes.'

He rose and walked to the door. black silhoette, white sunlight streaming in, i swear it looked like a scene from a movie. i'd have let him go, if only he wasn't so perfectly dramatic. you can't live without that. life's grey enough as it is without your shooting yourself in the foot.

*

'you're back.'
'yes, i am'
'well, what do you want now, kid?'
'must i want something? could i not have come for company, words, someone to share a silence with?'
'in my experience, you've only ever come here to get something.'
half of me wanted to prove him wrong, and just talk about the rain for an hour. but he could always see through me. it really was a shambles.
'i can't do this.'
'do what, exactly?'
'be there. i can't do it. i need to go, a..don't you understand, i need to run.'
'oh i understand perfectly. you want to stay, but you've got to run. simple.'
'its not that simple.'
'isn't it?'
'no, damnit.'
the smoke rose in circles around him. it was as if the world was waiting for him to breathe.
'why don't you ever do anything?!' i yelled, as i grabbed his collar with both hands and picked him from his chair. 'all you ever do is just..sit there. you have no answers, no questions, you are..not. if you disappeared today, nobody would ever know, and fewer would care. what kind of pleasure do you derive out of this? tell me, please..i want to know. i need to know - why are you here?'
'put me down.'
'no.'
'put..me..down.'
i put him down. i could never stand up under his gaze.
'that's it, a. i'm leaving. i've had it..you've always been saying its time to take the plunge, and this is it. i'm not going to dance for them anymore.'
'looking for your exit?'
'it's funny. for as long as i can remember, you've been pushing me off.'
'it's the easiest way to go, kid.'
'yes, but what do you get out of it?'
'nothing. it's all a shambles, remember?' he said, with a twinkle in his eye.
'you're hopeless. this is hopeless.' i walked over to the corner of the room, looked down.
'don't bother getting up,' i added.

i remember seeing you, sitting there on the other side of the room, that grin on your face, when you caught me and never let go. the truth was that i had to swim through a sea of people to get to you, but you made me feel like we were the only two people in a mad, mad world that night.

i remember the morning after, and i remember the way you smell. i'll always remember the way you smell..it's like your fingerprints all over me, i could pick you out of a crowded room if you gave me nothing but a nose to press against everyones skin (not that i'd want to, but i would have. for you). i remember how your hair would come down in strands in front of your eyes, and you'd shake your head to make it swing back and away.

i remember the night we sat out and watched the moon rise. i remember leaning my head backwards and thinking of nothing at all but how warm your lap felt, how soft your hands were against my face. i remember the sunrise, the saturdays, the moonshine and the good days.

i remember the late nights and the cigarettes, the long talks and the pointlessness, i remember walking down the road to nowhere with your hand in mine, and neither of us wanted to go anywhere else. i remember kneeling down on my knees and just sitting there, and i remember the look on your face when you told me i should be in the movies.

i remember dying, lying flat on my back, listening to the grass grow around me, and i remember the day the world came to a standstill in between dancing spots of dust in the wind. i remember the taste of your skin the day you taught me how to breathe, and i remember the touch of your fingers against my face when you taught me how to sing.

i remember how graceful your step was, how beautiful your smile was, how telling your eyes were, the day you said you had to fly.