Terminal.

Once upon a time there was a fine young man, Ali. In his school, he met a young kid, Ameen from the primary section. This young kid was really smart. Despite being so young, Ameen helped Ali get good grades. His smartness always helped Ali through thick and thin. So much so that nobody ever noticed any of Ali's shortcomings because of his at par excellence at everything. All because of young Ameen's brilliance.

Ali had grown extremely fond of and attached to Ameen.

One day, Ameen was diagnosed with a terminal disease. Ali knew nothing could save him and that eventually one day, his young friend has to depart. It was astounding, shocking, frustrating but more so depressing. A feeling of utter despair fell over Ali. But his maturity kept him intact and strong.

Ameen on the other hand was desperately seeking solutions. Ways to heal. One day he came to Ali and revealed how he, despite being a little kid, has always been in love with a caveman who lived in the caves up in the nearby mountains. He told Ali how he has never met the caveman but always has had a growing sensation to and see him. It was an unexplainable kind of emotion he exclaimed with a sober face.

Upon his insistence in meeting the caveman, Ali readily agreed. What was disturbing however was Ameens faith that the caveman would heal him. He wanted to meet him. No matter what.

Ali was afraid. Scared that little Ameens hope might break upon not finding the caveman. Nevertheless, he agreed to accompany him. Ameen excitedly gathered his best fruits, decorated a little basket to flatter his love and set off on the journey.

Upon reaching, as anticipated by Ali, the caveman did not open the door of what seemed like a small dingy hut. Knocked and knocked but no response. Ameen wasnt disappointed. He kept trying. Kept knocking. Each evening, with undying enthusiasm he'd go. Ali would fight, would try different techniques to distract his little friend's growing obsession. He would lie, trick, force, plead and even brutally slap Ameen to shun away his wish but to no avail.

Each evening, forced by his own love for Ameen he would carry him till the caveman's hut but no response. Dead silence.

To an extent that people started labelling Ali as crazy. As fanatic. It was embarrasing but Ali couldnt help but stay with Ameen and support him.

Ali wasnt delusional, he wasn't weak but he often had no option but to stay by the side of Ameen and take him to the caveman's hut. It was as if Ali was carrying something and knowingly running after a mirage.

After a few days, finally, Ameen passed away.

We all are Alis, humans. And we all have Ameens in us- call it a brain or call it a heart. And while all our ameens help us grow, they often too fall victim of terminal diseases - diseases of whose cure they despararely look for in mirages, in unexplainable experiences. They then force their alis to undertake the embarrassing journey inviting disappointments and surprises from the world around. And while the world labels all of us as crazy, we knowingly run pick up our ameens and take them to mirages of money, success and people in the hopes of a cure.

Lost in translation.

Inspired from a recent communal gathering.

There are words often mistaken.

Paths often misunderstood.
Journeys often wrongly estimated.

All that happens when we are lost in translation. Translation of feeling to thoughts; thoughts to words. Words to others inference of it.

Al jabir is one such word, stemming from jabr, it doesn't just mean Force. Coercion. It also means the One who mends. The One who joins. Comforts. For He surely does that. He uses His force to ensure His mercy.

Mess.

There I sat, playing with my favorite bottle from the set. I loved standing on the lower shelter, stretching my hands and skillfully pulling out my favorite glass bottle from the top shelf. I loved playing with it. It gave me peace often. It was a gift.

But then, one day. It broke. In front of me lay million shattered pieces of it. Each piece reflecting sunlight in a broken way.

I stood there, scared. Unsure of whom. Squeezed my eyes tightly hoping and desperately wishing for Magic to turn back time and clean up the mess. I felt sorry.  For the mess I had created. I messed up. I shouldve been careful. Should have beautifully reciprocrated how adults enact patience. Now I wont be trusted with big tasks and responsibilities. I felt sorry for not being adult enough, I felt sorry for being a kid. Oh how I wished that day that I grow up soon.

Healing

Once upon a time, there lived two childhood friends. Ali and Bahishte. They both seemed to share a lot in common. Soul mates as villagers called them. 

Ali had a special interest in healing. He belonged to the family of alchemist. He had grown up seeing his father heal people through magical potions and mixtures. He had a keen interest in becoming like his father one day. 

Bahishte teased him often. "Oh God, you're just obsessed with healing and potions. You just see the world as so imperfect, jumping on the opportunity to heal. There is more to world." He would say. 

Ali would just laugh it off. His sparkle in the eyes won't dim even for a second when the topic of healing would ever come into any discussion. He indeed did seem obsessed. He would often bug his father to teach him the lessons. "I want to heal the world. I want to heal everyone. Imagine, everyone believing in Magic." He'd put his argument forward, enthusiastically trying his best to convince his father. 

His father, however, would always smile and say "Let the time come. You'd learn yourself. Till then, you can just watch how I mix these ingredients here. It is lesson number one. Watch."

And then, he'd watch. day after day, he'd just sit in his father's lab watching as his father would listen to people coming in; pouring their mysterious descriptions of unknown ailments. He admired his father's patience. That assuring smile that seemed capable of healing absolutely anyone perhaps. 

He would spend his early mornings in his father's lab and all evenings with Bahishte, exploring fields and mountains nearby. They'd often stop to chat with the kids from the other villages, collecting wood on the way for old ladies of their own village. 

One day, Ali noticed that Bahishte wasn't well. He seemed different. In pain. Upon insisting, Bahishte shared how he has been in pain since weeks. Unknown ailment. Possessed by the idea of helping his soulmate, Ali ran to his father's lab. Confident that he'd be able to help. 

He tried a mix of potions. He tried helping. But for Bahishte didn't seem to improve in health. Tired and feeling helpless, he went to his father. His father listened patiently. He promised he'd help. However, for Bahishte, nothing seemed to be working and eventually, the villagers had to take him to the city for further help. Ali was left behind. Dejected. Helpless. Nothing had ever torn him before as the feeling of being unable to help. He realized he did not have his father's magical powers perhaps. The ache of failing to heal his own soulmate seemed to be tearing him from within. So much so, that the pain shattered his life, broke him into million pieces within and changed his entire perception of Magic, pain and Healing. 

He seemed to have fallen ill himself. He knew he had been unwell since childhood. But he had coped it well knowing that he was a healer's son, he had kept himself intact. But now, the knowledge of his failure to heal, made me weak against his own system. With his perception of self failure, his immunity to his own ailment weakened. 

One evening, weakly opening his eyes, he felt his father sitting beside him. Warming radiating the patient smile. "Baba, what do you do when you fail yourself? When you fail to heal yourself and others? When you fail being what your really want to be? When you mess up?" 

Ali's father smiled. He took Ali in his arms, took his hand and put it on his Ali's heart and said, "You feel the pain here? You feel it. That is how you heal when you fail. When your magic fails, when your potion fails, when you fail, when you mess up, you don't let yourself die. You feel the pain to stay alive. You let it heal you. Yes, the pain heals you. You let it do its work. You breath it out by sending a prayer. By saying a prayer. Nothing is bigger than a potion of medicine as a prayer. Nothing would heal your soulmate as much as your prayer."

When all else fails, visit yourself, visit Bahishte, inhale all his pain, hold your breath. Run towards the Healer of healers. Exhale the pain in a whisper of a prayer. And watch the Healer repair what's shattered. 

Nope. Not reading.

Looking at all these unread books lying in front of me, I feel guilty. Bad. Sad and depressed for my inability to do justice to them. 

While crossing all these beautiful libraries around, while looking at these people completely engrossed deep down in a world so far away of words. I wonder. I imagine. I irresistably wonder. If only all books could be squeezed into a magical potion; that I could simply drink and know all of what's there. 

Since the last few months, I haven't been able to complete even a single book. All these pretty titles. Each time I pick or get a new book, I feel my heart skipping a beat. Yet another. This time, I promise I'll start. But somehow, I don't. I don't, perhaps, because overtime, I seem to have grown attach to books. To topics. To the whole feeling of reading and knowing so much. The feeling has grown into this overpowering emotion that leaves you completely overwhelmed. Just one page. It takes just one page of absolutely any book here to get me thinking at the pace that I am unable to keep. Just like often, we struggle to keep pace with expressing our rapidly occurring thoughts through words. Just like so, I struggle to keep pace with my accelerating heartbeat and ideas/opinions that start playing formula 1 within my neurons set. 

I then feel like that sea. One of those two seas in Palestine. The first one is fresh with fish in it. It gives life. It shares life. It perhaps is more capable. Because it gives more. It is beautiful. It is alive with flow. Receives and gives. And then, there is another one. Dead. No life. Perhaps because it retains the water it receives rather than giving it forward. It is dead with no flow. I feel like the dead one. Not because I have no avenues to give. But because I feel I don't. So after reading a page, I don't know how to share. what to share. Who to share it. I feel so high according to worldly standards that I am afraid of being labelled crazy. And hence, I curb it. I curb myself by not reading. By not picking up another book. 

Here. I said it. I haven't been reading much. Maybe someday, I'd be successfully able to reach that second page of any of these beautiful titles lying in front of me. Gracefully, maybe then, someday, I'll absorb each word and feeling behind each word so well. Maybe then, I'd also patiently sit and feel secure. Among all these books. The day, when I wouldn't need to struggle to keep up with my need to express what I have just learnt. I'd just sit and watch while the aura of literary sphere help me transfuse to the environment. 

Until then, I sit here. With my books. Some of them the best of the best titles. Life changing ones. I sit with them, inhaling deeply their smell. Wishing that I was worthy of reading and sharing in real time. 

Stolen words

(wise) postcards from London - Words of a word while visiting her here.

There are two kinds of people in the world. People who proactively want something. They know the art of dreaming and wanting. But then, there are people who haven't really wanted anything. They don't want anything. They are happy, proud little individuals living in their world with anything and everything that they can and can't have. All settled. All happy. 

Until one day, a feeling comes in. You're caught unaware. Something you never knew you'd had to feel. Something you didn't ask for.

It comes un-welcomed. Doesn't knock. Doesn't tell. It seeps into your skin and spreads gradually. Making you suffer. You run away from it. You can't. Every attempt at cure seems to fail. The problem with it is, you can't even let it be. Because the pain is so intense at times, that it can't let you sit still

It makes you feel so vulnerable, so exposed that you fear others may look at you and realize that you are infected. You can't hide it yet you can't deny it. Its weird. It comes and goes. Makes you so numb to the world happening around you. You attempt to fill up that space with other things. But it just remains. Stubborn. You feel helpless. You are disappointed at your loss.

Because you know, even if the feeling is healed, even if the vacuum is filled, you may not want the thing that fills it. For the intensity of its absence is so painful that you are too scared to face its presence. You very well live the brutality.

After this pain, only something eternal can fill it perhaps. Nothing human. Not even the reason, the entity, the being that caused it unknowingly.

Its not a feeling. Its living with cancer, not knowing when you'd reach the point of indifference. You see that beautiful pathway in the park there? You want to hold your hand and walk yourself to the point of indifference. Right there. 

A little fool

It was a bright sunny day. Just like any other. 
Little did the leaf know, it was to become the day like no other. 
A perfect little sight from the tree it hung unto
Around with the perfect city breeze. 
The leaf did not know what the world held for it. 
An hour or two passed, when the leaf felt the pain. 
The pain of separation from what it did not own. 

It felt it bad. And knew its end. From the beginning of the illusion. 
It remembered and recalled the fate of the others, while it was blossoming in its springtime. 
The leaf, a little fool, despite knowing its fate, couldn't comprehend the pain of its separation. 
The leaf, a little fool, felt insecure and ugly. Felt how low and poor it was, despite the world taking pictures of it. 
So the little fool, set out a reminder. Each day, each hour, each moment it murmured. Just a bit more and then I shall be free. 
The little fool could not. Neither give in or leave. What it felt was what it really couldn't comprehend. 

The little fool then finally met its day to end. 
But before that it had to, feel and plead its case. 
Bit by bit, it felt naked. Exposed with its vulnerability. 
Exposed to the brutal and changing winds of time. 
It understood yet failed to act on what it saw. 
It saw and it felt yet failed to combat what it felt. 
It understood the nature, it understood the time. 
But it never understood the fallacy of falling for a tree. 
Caught unprepared, it fell for a tree. 
It spent all seasons fighting its reality. 
It dawned upon it, its denial beaten, when the tree welcomed the cold winds and let the leaf fall. 
The little fool, smiled, Ashamed at its exposure. 
Exposure to the tree that befriended just coldness.

The little fool, knew, its ugliness, its position. It felt so small, so little as it fell.
The little fool tapped itself and whispered in its last breath of pain, just a bit more my little fool, just a bit more.
Nobody noticed as we all walked away. In that park in corner on a bright sunny day.
The little fool, smiled, finally. Alas, at its end. One last time, it looked at the huge wonderful tree, smiled to itself, just a bit more little fool, just a bit more.
There it lay, peacefully, its death so sweet, its bitter pain finally put to an end.

The day began to set, the little fool at peace. 

As another season passed and another fool peeked, from the roots of the tree. 

Its time, its nature, its life. 

Just a bit more to each little fool.