Dear Zainab

Dear Zainab,

One year ago, today, your mother had proudly went back to collect her degree from her university. As she attended her convocation, she passionately spoke of her dissertation on ongoing extremism in Pakistan. Nothing could make her feel more passionate than an attack on Army School kids which had left countless innocent dead. Brutally dead.

However, on 21st October this year, as you opened your eyes in her arms, she realized far better and a stronger reason to combat extremism than any else. For you.

If what and how I feel for you is how those mothers felt for their children, I can't even begin..

And hence. Dear Zainab. I still think there are still two kinds of Taliban in our country.

While I still visit a Shia friend,
my heart sinks somewhere in confusion.
While I still extend a hand to an Ahmedi
my brain stands in vagueness
While I still grieve the APS victims
my faith still reminds who is an infidel
While I praise the Army
While I condemn the ISIS
While I change my display picture for Paris
While I write for Syrian refugees
I still defend Muslim countries inability to accept refugees.
While I condemn the preperators of APS attack
I still turn a blind eye to ideology that motivated them
While I support the operation against Taliban
My mind still isn't ready to acknowledge the ideological extremism penetrating the nerves of 180 million.
While I am shocked at how an IBA alumnus could be behind a terror attack
I still don't find anything wrong in religious circles teaching me how I am right while the rest are wrong.

In the name of God even today, I am bought and sold at the hands of traffickers.
In the name of God even today, my religiosity is confused.
I am to defend Islamic image of peace worldwide while I am to attend circles that teach me the infidelity of the rest.
I am to talk peace and grieve the victims of APS today and next week I am to argue how celebration of Prophet's birthday is wrong.

When the world, when the minorities beam with excitement as I join them in public expressions of religious tolerance. Inside somewhere my heart sinks because back at the circles back in my home country I am taught I am the only one right.

Perhaps that is how the heart first must have sank for an elite institute's graduate as he took his step to believing his religious narrative to be the only one right.

Perhaps this is how he was trafficked. Perhaps this is how those trafficked attacked the kids last year today.
Perhaps this is how religion is bought and sold.
Perhaps this is how I am bought and sold in the name of God.

There are still two kinds of Taliban in our country Zainab. And we need to fight the one creeping inside us. They creep through denial, ignorance and refusal to accept the soft extremism. We are to combat ideology that imposes a single version of faith, fights over Prophet's birthday celebration, discouraging others and declaring verdicts against them. For they often lead to how APS attack happened. For that is when we go beyond simply living our version of faith and start imposing on others.

There are still two kinds of Taliban in our country and we need to fight the one creeping inside us. To help us become less ashamed of what Humanity has become. To help us answer you when you ask of Humans and Hope.

Return.

On the Spectrum of Light.
There is a Cause. An origin.
It causes an effect.
An effect turns into a smaller cause.
Leading to another effect.
Cause effect cause effect.
Copy of a copy of a copy of Original.
Somewhere on the spectrum, the subsequent effects move away from the Ultimate Source Cause, and in their moving away, they keep veiling in colors. From Light to Darkness.

Amid the spectrum; stands a dervish. Whirling to the rhythm of the Cause. Yearning to defy the effects and meet the Original Cause. His struggle however is not linear on the spectrum. In his yearning, lies the circular struggle. He travels between Light to dark to dark to Light.

A figment of Light enlightens his moment, just as he loses himself in the shackles and confines of obsessions and worldly effects. He then again struggles and yearns to meet the Cause. The struggle continues.

All on the Spectrum of Light. Spectrum of Spirituality.
Origin and the Return.

Inspired thought: Mulla Sadra/Khalil Jaffer.

Closest that I could ever be

I dont know what I've been blessed with.

Juggling with her in my arms on the right while struggling to type from my left as she dictates.

From thoughts to blog running every feed session, I feel my only blog has become this little one in my arms.

Despite wanting one, despite praying for one, despite expecting one and despite delivering one last month; despite all these despites, I actually dont know what I've been blessed with.

Staring into these eyes and realizing how a human rejecting all arms and efforts of others is crying her lungs out only to cling to you is a very very intense and deep realisation to conquer. Imagine, at the age of 28, in this whole wide world, there's a human who doesn't want anyone besides you. Now recall. Has any human ever needed you so purely before in all these years. Nope. This need. This pure need is intense. Addictive. Impending a heavy sense of 'Here I am' but hesitant as arms of weakling mere piece of flesh accepts a strong piece of existence in her arms.

As I hold her, the distance between sultana as a mere human prone to mistakes and Sultana as a mother that a pure soul is clinging for is immense.

Sultana as a mother puts sultana as a human in backseat. Crushing the guilt of all these years of wrongdoings, Sultana as a mother takes charge to be the best self to this little one. Without even consulting Sultana as a human. Sultana as a human is too far ashamed to hold this blessing anyway.

I don't know what I've been blessed with because I don't know how God can bless the purest piece of His creation into arms of mere humans filled with years of dust, dirt and distance from God.

Perhaps then, Zainab is not dependent on me. She infact is merely dependent for her worldly needs. Sultana on the other hand feels immensely dependent on this little guide that in mere 30days has already and strongly crushed and selfishly burnt all past years of everything. She seems to be already challenging and realigning the concept of Humanity and Love.

She is deep and intense. Her gaze converses far more than my years of knowledge.

I, I am weak and fragile. Ashamed of existence in front of the purest.

Even my realisation is shallow. She cuts through the worldly crap to reach the Human I never knew existed.

In between diapers, poops, endless crying sessions and every hour feeds, she guides my words and dictates my thoughts and pens down in my heart what I have never known.

Strangely. She tells of worlds and thoughts so peaceful and beyond the mundane.

Nope. I don't know what I've been blessed with. I know as of now she stands as the closest connection to Him. Far above and beyond the limiting concept of a mere result of biological reproduction. She seems to speak of Peaceful worlds, of mystical sense of some entity all encompassing and Magical.

To the world it maybe blabbing of a new mom, to me every bit so rational so logical yet so mystical.

The closest glimpse of what Life is and could be. The closest whisper of Absolute Purity, Joy and Humanity, her existence telling tales of universes unknown.

She is the closest that I could ever reach God.

at least be free in this world.

Hurr (Arabic for free thinker). He was the man responsible for stopping Hussain's caravan in Karbala and restricting their water access while waiting for further orders from his seniors. Night before the battle, he finally gave in to his internal struggle and surrendered to Hussain, joining his forces to wholeheartedly fight for a cause. He broke out of his social pressures to choose a side he freely thought to be right.

You choose.
You choose a narrative to believe in.
You listen, read, learn, think, acknowledge, choose and decide to follow a certain narrative. A certain happening. A certain cosmic event.

So today, don't tell a tale of delusional unity where you exist in two narratives. Where you believe in a war of two rights or lesser right and rights. For when two stand, one is an oppressed.

Don't convince yourself of sweet illusions of existence of grey. There exists plain black and plain white.

As striking and brutal it sounds, there exists polarized Right and polarized Wrong.

Be free enough to choose then.
Be confident enough to first read unbiased narratives, independent of heritage, childhood and lineage broughtup and read.
Then decide. Choose a side you're convinced of.

Just like today, you have come to believe how Hussain and Karbala is for all, come to believe that Hussain and Karbala existed in the Realm of striking Right while negating  striking Wrong.

In as much as Hussain teaches Humanity, it imparts the knowledge of courage. Courage of standing for the Right and fighting for it.

You can't possibly be selling 'Hussain is for all' while blurring right and wrong.

Once you say 'Hussain is for all', you are endorsing the fact that He stood for Right while the other stood for wrong.

Once you claim his notion for Humanity, you are standing up to recognising and fighting Oppression and Injustice within and outside.

Once you claim to respect him, you are joining the one who fought against him. 1400 years ago to till this very moment and beyond.

Don't make him exist like facebook Rumi where you swiftly and fluidly twist and turn his mission to fit a skewed definition of Peace and Unity.

For He is the man who stood for Peace and Unity while dying a death for rejecting oppression.

Those who understand His mission don't mourn the physical brutalities inflicted.

Those who understand His mission mourn the moment when he looked around wondering where His grandfather's supporters, followers and companions' families had gone as he stood alone asking one last time if there was anyone to help him.

He was the grandson of the man who happens to be a universal figure of Peace and Humanity and the Last Prophet of 2billion around the world.

So when he says today if there is anyone there to help him, you can't possibly be joining him without negating first absolutely all the forces and intentions that stood against him then and that work against His struggle for Justice today.

He wholeheartedly welcomed Hurr to join him. He compassionately forgave him. For he saw a free thinker in Hurr. He saw Hurr in Hurr.

As he addressed his enemies one last time, clarifying his defensive stance in the war, he said "If you don’t believe in any religion and don’t fear the Resurrection Day, at least be free in this world."

So if you really believe in joining His cause, do so while freeing yourself from the shackles of emotional biases and sweet illusions of believing in two opposing forces as right simultaneously. You can't respect his enemies or likes of his enemies while endorsing his mission. Be you then be from any sect, faith, no faith.

And that is how he stands Universal.

Process.

When you turn to the world.
The world seeks you. Bogs you down with the shackles of expecting contact. Constant contact. You don't seem to feel the conversation over the digital.

You turn back to the real world. Books, you stare at them. They are silent. The words. You recognise the words.

You remember seeing them poured out through you.

You suddenly remember the mind. Ah the mind.

You turn your gaze and stare blankly. Your blank gaze, blinking so often as if expecting the mind to respond. Where are the words you wonder. Where are the thoughts you ponder.

As if being caught in the midst of a sudden halt om some batch processing belt, you look right, you look left.

You look at the paper. Emptiness of which makes you look back at the mind.

You stand in the middle. The only source. The sole source of ensuring the smooth processing of batches of thoughts.

You try ascertaining, is it the words not passing through the belt or is the clogging of too many thoughts to pour out.

You fear a fallout.
You fear failing.
You fear breaking the process.
You fear losing the job your mind had dutifully assigned to you.
You remember of days, you pick up crunchy papers of thoughts and thoughts.
Of the days when mind seemed to entrust you.

You pick up an old one and inhale deeply. As if asking the words to take you there.

You travel in time to the day when the Mind had chosen you. Words. Thoughts. Through me? No way. You had wondered. Pondered.

With absolute fear, complete lack of faith you had started with trembling fingers.

And once you started, you didn't stop. Like a typist in the courtroom. Tuck tuck tuck. typing as it all proceeds.

You're nothing but a mere part of the process. That little gear in any mechanical working that keeps the flow going.

That little piece in the watch that keeps the time going.

But what if the piece fails. The ticking stops. For watch, the Time halts.
For the one wearing the watch, he gets it replaced. He gets it fixed.

You are jerked back to life as you hear the batch processing restart.

And there, you see. The first words, the spurt of few words. Few thoughts. Merely coming out.

Admist all this, you stand yet in silence as your fingers tremble.

Disturbing isn't it? Well. Face it.

It begins silently. Subtlety.
When a mother is told to be good and share the joy. When she is told to let others experience the joy too.
"Here, we'll handle the child, you go enjoy yourself."
"Get your child off breastfeed for a while, for convenience, otherwise your child will simply be stuck to you."
As you grow, here, go hug this aunty. aww, go uncle is asking for a cheek kiss.
That stern gaze that falls upon a little one when pressed to sit in some uncle or aunt's lap.
That awkward moment when the mother is pressed to let her child be sent to a relative's house for joy.

It all starts there.
In ways so subtle.
There is no excuse from working mother to housewise.
From educated to uneducated. To those living in nuclear to those living in joint families.

It all starts from teaching our child to silent his/her natural birth right over his/her body.
It all starts from worshipping culture in the name of 'respect'.
It all starts from snatching the right of being respected as a child and giving it to an adult.

It all starts when we visit Bangkok, Thailand for honeymoons, in our wonders of magical time, conveniently choosing to ignore the plight of children suffering amidst that makeshift dungeons of beauty.

It all starts when we change display pictures for Army Public School victims while feeling uncomfortable about the Kasur children.

It all starts from a mother trying to protect her child being labelled as paranoid.

It all starts from an old aunt stern fully gazing at your lose shirt and jeans making you realize how ashmed you should be of your body as you are taken to change into 'kameez shalwar' for that's the culture. Lest do they know, dark truths don't care from jeans to shalwar kameez.

It all starts from within.
Outside the world is beautiful. Birds chirping and singing praises of joy, as somewhere, right now, sits perhaps a child hiding in the darkest corners wondering what it was.

It all starts from within. You and I. We welcome a child in the world and let the devils unleash. For all we care, in the name of culture, society, shame, denial and power.

For all we care, even the topic makes us uncomfortable. Bitter. Sad. Rather than making us frustrated and protective.

Love.

There is emptiness within.
To ease the emptiness, we reach out to the world.

Emptiness often is the unsaid, unknown, unheard of guiding force within causing us to reach out.
Give this emptiness any name.  Any word, description, title, emotion.

When we reach out to ease it, we call it Love.

We reach out thus to humans, to pets, to children we bring in this world and to the things.
In the name of Love we reach out.
To extinguish the emptiness within.

However, in our bid to do so, we end up worshipping the lover.

We reach out to shopping. Retail therapy. Until it exhausts us.
We reach out to career. Until it exhausts us.
We reach out to political power. Until it exhauts us.
We reach out to humans. Until they exhaust us.
We turn bitter.

We expect the things and people to reciprocate the Love in the way we want them to.

We want money, power, shopping to quench our ever growing thirst the way we want it to.
It fails us.
We expect humans to reach back to us in our ever growing thirst of them in just the way we want them to.
We get frustrated.
Tired.
For they fail us.
For they fail our expectations.
We do so much for them.
They. They fail to return just enough.
They reach out when they want something.

We forget.
One basic rule.
You and I.
We began reaching out for a reason.
We began loving for a reason.
Reason to quench our own emptiness within.
A reason for my own self.

When we love others for the sake of what we did for them or even for the sake of merely loving - we are inevitably worshipping them.
Case of misguided Love.

It is only when we Love for the sake of Divine that we love without returns.

Don't love like a tradesman that expects gains and returns.
Don't love like a hopeless optimist that expects good from anywhere in the world.

Love like you love your Lord.
Evolve to Love Him for He is Worthy.
Evolve to Love others for He created them worthy of Love.

Love others for His sake. Whether a loss or a gain. An emptiness filled. A reason satisifed. Reaching out thus for His sake. Loving hence for His sake.

Know where you stand know.
Know your emptiness within.
Know yourself inside.

Fill it with Your Lord.
Fall for Him first.
The illusions of failed expectations and people will dissolve.
You'd see bigger beautiful reasons to Love and Cherish.

You'd love the hated, You'd love the selfish and You'd love the love of Humans.

For you were created to Love with just one reason.
For you were created to Love for His sake, not for your sake or not even for the sake of Love. For love for the sake of love is an illusion as it runs the error of assuming no Divine.

How could there be Love without the Lover of lovers.

I do nothing but wonder.

History narrates how years ago, on this day, cousin and son-in-law of Muslims' last Prophet was attacked and killed while he was busy offering his prayers. What he said as he was attacked is what leaves me wondering.

I wonder at this man who utters his success when his enemy attacks him.
I wonder at this man's nafs that makes him utter so.
I wonder at this man's level of Nothingness.
His passion to be who he was.
I wonder at the loss of words to express what he could or still can mean to me.

I wonder just by looking at the shape of his words.
I wonder just merely by quoting his quotes.
I wonder just at the corners of his wisdom.
I wonder just at the start of his depth of knowledge
The intensity of my wonder is frustrating.
For even after years of knowing him, I know nothing of him.

From raising of my hand in his praise to the depth of my heart, I realize of my wonder as it lies entangled in the worldly nafs of shallowness.

I struggle to know if I praise him for I side with him or I praise him for I know him.
The ugliness of my shackles stare back, whispering of my failures to realise him still.

While he bows down to His Lord and claims success as he is attacked.
I sit here wondering at my ability to wonder as much as our inability to feel.

Then I wonder at the intensity of his loneliness.
Where a water well seemed to be a better recipient of his knowledge than a humanly intellect like ours.

He was alone then. He is alone still.

While History bears witness to politics played, swinging from the pages narrating him as the closest companion of Muhammad to a lonesome disappearance from books for 25years.

While History bears witness to what the world did to him and still does to him.

While the history bears witness to the undeniable silence and unquestionable isolation he faced.
I stand still struggling to break my inner silence and listen to him for real.

While the History bears witness to the world of hypocrisy outside.
I bear witness to my hypocrisy within.

While his words invite me still to explore the depths of wisdom and knowledge.
I bear witness alone to my inability to grasp him still.

I bear witness to failing my nafs as much as I bear witness to having him teach me how to control my nafs.

And all awhile, I yet inevitably and uncontrollably end up where I first felt him right.

Where I first felt him lonely.
Where I felt felt him jolt my existing paradigms of success.
As he prostrated to His Lord and while his enemy attacked. He claimed success.

I yet wonder at the definition of success.
But then, faulty or not, with my shackled nafs, I struggle to understand his definition of success.

What more can I utter of the sickness within.

How Rich is the man that reaches across Time to offer me Knowledge still.
How poor the student I am for failing him each time.

How vast is Ali's Lord that make Ali who Ali is.
How confiding is my nafs to make me as dark as I feel.

He who offers water to his killer.
I who side with Ali for reasons yet unexplored.

The world moves on, shrugging away and brushing aside an event a mere event. A loss a mere loss.
While my ego fights and defends him on rigorous grounds.
While Ali offers water to his killer today.
While Ali yet invites seekers to his gates today.

He knew his enemies well yet so humble he remained. The epitome of Justice. How beautiful a human.
While I, I befriend the nafs within.

The world within feels the intensity not felt. For Love unexplored. For Knowledge untouched. For wisdom yet unattained.

How humble is Ali. How Majestic His Lord.
And how naive of me to nothing but wonder.

He who yet says 'Ask me before you lose me'
I who yet hesitate fighting my nafs to reach the gates of his grandeur.

I who stand poor and ugly bound in the shackles of my ego at his gates.

And How Majestic of His Lord who gives me a chance each moment.
How Generous of His Ali who makes me yet fall in love with His Lord despite my ugliness.

Don't give me religions and gods and wars and which language to call my Lord.
Don't give me people and the world outside.
Give me of Humans so humble, of faith so universal, of Peace so Peaceful, of of a man who directs you to a Lord so Beautiful. Of a man who gives you of Universe so Vast.

I who nothing but wonder at this man.

Love. Magic. Human.

There are two things we can tell others to do.
What we want them to do.
or telling them to think and dream of what they want to do.

I believe it is so much easier to invest in the first than the latter.

Although given my relationship, it would be somewhat hard to accept, yet I firmly believe, even if you weren't my Abu, I'd yet consider you the best human in the world.

As I turned around to ask you what you wanted me to be, you smiled and pushed me to wonder what I want to be. Despite heavily investing your time, energy and effort in us, you strangely and oddly encouraged us to weave our own dreams and paths.

I sense you tried raising us not for yourself but for the world.

You did a brilliant job in letting us weave our paths; however, it leaves a heavy sense of responsibility. For, it is easier to give back to a father who raises a child for himself; difficult to do it for independent humans like you.

Humans bring children into this world with hopes, dreams and aspirations. It thus seems natural for them to associate their own aspirations with their children.
What amazes me is your power of raising your own children so independent of you. The days and nights of struggle, of just somehow magically making it all happen and yet and yet, letting your children be at the end of the day

You could've showcased your daughter and let strangers come in for evening tea while inspecting your daughter for marriage.

You could've been worried about your daughter's marriage. You were not.

You could've easily ever and always told me what you wanted for me.

You defy norms and society so subtely and so beautifully.

So broad and peaceful is your vision, that it never fails to amaze me.

Since I am your daughter,  it maybe hard to believe- but I still firmly believe, we need men like you for centuries who try raising Humans and not just their own children. You're one of the Best Humans I know in this world and I stand by it. I hope, pray and wish that a Human like you blesses the lives of countless to come. For it doesn't just have to be a father to do what you did for me. 

Words fail and seem utterly cliché when it comes to describing Humans like you.

To all the days when we experienced the strength and flexibility of your Heart.

To all the moments when you defied fear in never sense.

To the Lifetime of making us feel Human.

Love you.

Benefit of Doubt

Somewhere in 1990s.
I wrote neighbor as nebor. My class teacher had ticked it right. I came home. Mom pointed it out and asked, I said my teacher was okay with the spelling. She didn't insist contrary to me. Instead, she met the teacher and realized where the overlook may have occurred.
That day, as I recall today, helped me sustain the believe, the trust that often we need as children to cherish and continue believing that Teachers are Magical Humans. They teach.

Somewhere in 2010. I met a Human. She stopped a friend from making fun of my 'outregiously impossible dream of becoming the CEO of Boeing'. Not her duty as part of teaching me Finance for my business degree. I wondered, why would she stop another from disrespecting my dream. Or rather today, I wonder, why would she go beyond finance to Teach us something deeper.

Somewhere in 2015. I am lucky enough to be  meeting her as and when Life allows.

"Sultana, remember to always give benefit of doubt to relationships, people and situations in your life" her words were intriguing enough to bring my own chain of excited thoughts to halt. Completely.

"Benefit of doubt?" I asked.

Yes. We love placing people and situations in two categories. Good and bad.

You either place people in your good books or bad books.

If a person is in your bad books and does anything for you, no matter what, you'd always tend to judge the actions with suspicion, questioning the intentions behind the person's good act- no matter how pure.

If a person is in your good books and does something not so positive, you'd always tend to excuse the actions. You'd always give the person a benefit of doubt.

Benefit of Doubt.
There would be situations, people, relationships in your Life. Always remember to try and give each a benefit of doubt. Regardless of which book they belong to for you.

It is easier to assume and react. However, a wise mind suggests living beyond mundane, giving each situation a benefit of doubt. Excusing behaviors, attitudes. It often enables you to comprehend a situation in a wider context. Reaction is easy. Patience and benefit of doubt is wisdom.

I wondered as she concluded.

Pardon my clichéd struggle with words. But her words did radiate the energy to embrace humility as a skill imperative to survival and living beyond the mundane.

It is at school that we first learn to call an elder standing in front of us as a 'teacher'. However, during the course of our school life and beyond, we stumble across 'teachers' that help us not just think but indeed live beyond the mere living. By way of just a financial course and a business degree, they introduce us to the Wisdom and Learnings of Life, they present to us Ideas and Conversations that speak of a universe, of humans, of growth that contributes to greater evolution.

They are the reason why a degree doesn't just seem like a degree. They are the Magicians that don't just teach numbers and theories. They teach Life. They teach living. They continue interacting with our paths just and when we need them. They continue sowing seeds of Thoughts, just and when we need them.

Beautiful are these teachers that sow Humanity. Lucky are the people who have such Humans in their lives.

To all the treats, table talks, ideas, conversations, lunches and beyond - Thank you Ms Hameedah Siyani for teaching me Life. I still have that dream. CEO of Boeing. And I protect it. Thank you for teaching me how to respect and protect Dreams. Thank you for teaching me how to remain humble.

Thank you Ammi Abu for sowing the seeds of believing and valuing Teachers who define Humans.

One step. Each moment

I got up and took a step.
I sighed and took another.
I had so much to do so I took another because it became a habit.
In my joy, I yet took another one.
In my sorrow, I didn't know what to do, so I took another.

Each moment I took a step.
A step away.

And in my steps away, I kept yearning for You to not go anywhere.
And in the passing of moments and feeling Your Absence each moment, I kept wishing for You to stay.

Lest had I realized.
If only had I thought of.
If only had I whispered, Let me not go anywhere. For You were there, as I took a step away each second.

Nothing makes me understand depth of the following more than when I see people wondering about others' joys and their own sufferings.

I have never seen a grumpy person satisfied with life, just as I have never seen a happy person grumpy with life. It is all about how you comprehend life, experience joys and sufferings.

We all experience our share of joys and sufferings. We all consequently infer our experiences and evolve. Evolve to be either wise or bitter. Wisdom and bitterness are alternate choices. We choose to be either wise or bitter with what we lived, live or will live.

Feels so distant yet so near.

It feels so distant yet so near.
It feels so unreal yet so here.

It happened two years ago.

I'll never forget the tweet I read. Two years ago. Today.
I'll never forget the twitter handle of the tweet.

From grade 2 speeches to undergrad documentary.
He gave me the Yearning.
He taught me how to speak to God.

From my childhood to now, it just took a bullet to take it all away.

I used to forget the way I used to walk away from killings.
I used to forget the way I switched channels from attacks.

But from the day he died, I never forget.
I'll never forget how you all stood watching.
I'll never forget the way we still stand watching.

For we are more dead than this man who seems so alive in the hearts and minds of many around.

Who continues to let the dying pain ache within.
Who continues to tell me to not to forget for anyone, lest I forget.

you call it emotions lacking rationality.
you drag the case in the courts of politics.
you drag my faith and justify the killing.
you drag God to rationalise silence.
you update statuses for Peshawar. And then you forget.

You hashtag 'neverforget' as you slowly forget.

you bury the pain and you forget.

It feels so distant yet so near.
It feels so unreal yet so here.

I'll never forget.
And I pray you don't lose a legend so human or a child so angelic to make you not to forget.

To the man I can't ever do justice to in words.
To the man I can't ever thank enough.
To the Human I can't stop thinking of ways he helped.
To the chacha, to childhood bikerides, to school speeches and conversations.
To the legend the world yet so fondly remembers today.

the ideology that killed him taught me about the tradings of God.
the ideology that rationalises the silence and lazy excuses teaches me the falling price of God.
the one who calls me an idol worshiper and kills me teaches me about the powerful idol he is worshipping.

the one who kills to the one who stays silent to the one who forgets - teach me about the idol gods of fear, power, luxury, laziness and brainwashed versions of god - bought and sold around me in drawingrooms and circles today.

It feels so distant yet so near.
It feels so unreal yet so here.

It happened two years ago.

I'll never forget.
And I pray you don't lose a legend so human or a child so angelic to make you not to forget.

Two steps. One step.

The illusion broke.
The mirage disappeared.
The shatters and confines felt.

Breaking from less, I stirred into the quest for more.
More and more led to me to You.
More and more led me away from You.
In the more and less of each moment, I began looking for You.

Where Trust in Absolute began, The Yearning Began.

With every blessing, I felt You near.
With every giving, I felt You away.

I asked for You.
You gave me the rest.
I asked for You more.
You made me busy with the rest.
I asked.
You blessed.
I kept asking.
You kept blessing.

I drove into mirages, knowing they are mirages.
In each mirage, I felt You.
In each mirage, I felt away from You.

You made me feel your Permanence in the temporality of Now.

Each Now, Each blessing. Kept me away from You.
as much as it kept me Yearning for You.

Each blessing, I stepped away from You.
Each blessing, I fell for You.
Each blessing fulfilled a part of me, as much as it widened my Yearning for You.

I kept asking for You.
You kept giving me temporary figments of what seemed a part of You.

As I struggled to accept the blessings by You.
As I struggled to comprehend the pains of sufferings and the Joys of Your Blessings.

I stepped back from You each time.
You stepped forward in me all times.

I stepped from within me.
You stayed well within me.

In my Yearning, I found You.
In my emptiness, I found You.
In my inability to miss You, I found You.
In my heaviness of silence, I found You.

I found You in the pains and joys of Living the Blessings You kept giving.

Each time, I asked for You, You gave me a figment of your reflection, And in each part of that reflection, I found You.

In each moment of Yearning to Yearn for You, I found You.
In each moment of struggling to find You in Now, I found You.
In my sadness in failure to miss You, I found You.

In the world swinging from rationality to emotions outside, I found You in me, within me, intact in the Silence of Yearning I can't describe.

Each time, I fail my Love for You, I found You.
In my little brain  I take one step back. Two forward to You.

I stepped from within me.
You stayed well within me.

In each step back, in each step forward, I find You.

Greetings from another port city - I

As she smiled broadly, confidence and elegance seemed to worship her, clad in a black abaya, just like the rest in the city, she stood within the circle yet so far apart from the rest.

I turned to her husband whose eyes gave away tales of their successful relationship. A gentleman of 78 with a heart younger and a mind fresher than ours, I could see how nobody else could have complemented him as well as the graceful companion he has.

Breaking away from my thoughts, I heard another middle aged lady compliment as she joined the conversation. A compliment rather was a thought provoking query -formed around the thought that not everyone gets a perfect companion.

The graceful one turned back and smiled again. She then looked at me and delved into a conversation which kept me thinking.

And here is what I understood of that.

Nobody gets a perfect life. I mean none of us. Every single one of us have our joys. We have our sorrows. Happinessand suffering. Pain and no Pain. We all have our share of it.

Those with a wonderful companion may have other fair share of pains to combat in life. Those who feel they lack a wonderful companion may have other joys to cherish in life.

Just as soon as the girl announces her engagement, the world rushes to wish her, congratulate her and make her feel like the luckiest. The world in its fable nativity, ends up inculcating a dream where she will be 'taken care of'. With dresses, jewellery, love and flowers from her husband, she is made to feel like the luckiest (read: emotionally laziest) person on earth. Her emotions are suddenly picked up and thrown into another human's lap. This is when a girl starts expecting a perfect bubble where she has just met a perfect prince charming who is now responsible for her 'happiness'.

My husband is a perfect prince charming for me. I understand the intensity of skepticism with which my statement will be viewed as 'I am just newly married and recently in love and haven't spent decades with him to realize so'. Sadly, as much as I yearn to express the depth of my statement, I can't. What I feel for my husband will be brushed aside as fresher love rather than giving it a chance to celebrate the togetherness of humans at this moment in Time.

But the only person who did seem to understand my view besides my own mother was this graceful lady.

From my inference of her conversation,  cherishing that little bond of pain of differences (of interests, opinions, lifestyles and weaknesses) is what makes companionship worth it. As you live day in and day out with another human, you consciously, willingly make a choice of choosing to Feel the Joy of Suffering and Joy alike or surrender yourself to the inner confinement of Ego and Misery of how my life is not perfect.

Where we go, what we do and what we have matters less and seems to fall automatically in place when you consciously make a choice of living a peaceful life within. If your soul is at peace, then the journey of two completely different individuals living together becomes a happy one. They suddenly decide to look outside of themselves.

While the whole world closely monitors your frowns, your smiles, your gaze, your tummy bump and frantically wants to associate it somehow to your husband, you can choose to lovingly take back your emotions, own them as a strong human and decide to make your life with another person in a healthy way.

As we sat at Uncle and Aunty's place with a Valentine's cake that we had picked for them, they smiled, held the knife together and laughed a laugh independent of egoistic dependence of expectations. Living alone, their energy levels defy the burden of societal norms which often bog us down.

As we stood up to leave, she held my hand and gave me a little card. With words so cliché but with intensity of gaze that narrated a true story of her long term successful companionship.

Companionship which took time, energy, effort and Love. Nothing is perfect she whispered, make a choice to respect the man he is.

It made me recall my mom and dad's words of wisdom and realized just what she meant.