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.

It was my convocation today.

Dear Little ones,

It was my convocation today.  The day we strive for. The day our ammi abu look forward to.

The day with century old tradion of draping in robe and receiving your degree. The moment when knowledge acknowledges and presents you to the world. The day when you can see the pride in the eyes of your parents and realize it was all worth it. You know the day that you won't ever see.

Today, standing here and receiving condolences, I realized it’s the day when I have failed you. When the system has failed you. When the God trafficked at lower prices turned out to be faulty.

For I stand here while you are mourned. For I could have stood up, fought and combated the faulty version of God that was fed to create monsters. For I could have stood up and saved you years before you were born.

It took your deaths to make me realise that there stands just one type of Taliban today.

The one that kills justifying the killing as revenge.

The one that refuses to condemn citing reasons of various sorts.

The one that brutally repeats the massarcre, disecting the bodies of innocent ones by presenting faulty wisdom, conditionalities and justifications for your killings.

The one that plans to the one that executes to the one that downplays your significance by getting stuck in the egoistic debates over vigils versus Quranic recitations.

The one that stands as psychologically infertile, unable to think beyond his own brand of religion.

Today, there is no good taliban and no bad taliban. There is only one kind of Taliban for me.

Dear Little ones,

It was my convocation today, the day you will never experience. I killed your chance of experiencing the day by letting the psychologically infertile minds target you.

Dear Little ones,

It was my convocation today and I am sorry for I have nothing to offer besides dedicating this day of knowledge to you. As you died, you opened my eyes to the only kind of Taliban that exists in my country today.

You died and with you died my fear. You died but gave birth to realisation.

Remembering a verse

* The words below is a piece of writing I came across recetny; amid various expression struggling to express about the Peshawar attack, this one seemed to resonate with what I was struggling to express. With permission from the writer (Zain), sharing the post as it is.  

 "More than 100 kids were killed today in Peshawar, Pakistan.

Muslims use the verse from Quran, Inna Lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji'un in times of death. This term, translating to "We belong to Allah and to Him we return" is used to share the feelings and ideology of being grateful and thankful to Allah for whatever happens.

More than 100 kids were killed today in Peshawar, Pakistan.

Perhaps Muslims have forgotten another verse, which says, "Bi ayyi dhambin qutilat" (81:9), translating to: "For what sin was she killed?", related to some young girl.

More than 100 kids were killed today in Peshawar, and ask the parents, they are crying the same verse: For what sin were they killed? The young ones - who are yet to learn ideologies.

People in Pakistan, who have soft corners for those who talk of the contemporary ideology of Jihad, and have soft corners for these brutal animals who kill kids because they believe it is a "retaliation" of the drone attacks or Army operation, they need to open their eyes and learn from Quetta blasts and killings. When the Quetta blasts happened targeting Hazara community, as retaliation, nobody was harmed, the bodies were put to the grounds asking for justice, something that is hard to get in Pakistan.

More than 100 kids we killed today in Peshawar. Would the parents or anyone else do a sit in and shut down to ask for justice? Probably not.

Shut down, sit ins, and rallies, are usually to secure political or religious ideologies. We have seen sit ins and shut downs in the case of Quetta killings in the recent past, but that was from a minority group, with a set goal of imposing a state of emergency and removing the provincial government.

More than 100 kids were killed today in Peshawar, and no, it is not the time of patience. It is the time to actualize who is the perpetrator, to find the institutions where soft corners are kept, where people confuse these as reactions to drone attacks and Army operation.

More than 100 kids were killed today in Peshawar, and if you still have any kind of soft corner or confused logic in your mind that this was a reaction to drone attacks and army operation, then you may wait till you lose people from your own immediate family and realize all this.

More than 100 kids were killed today, it is not just the time to say Inna Lillah wa Inna ilayhay raji'un, it is the time to question ideologies, to question the way Quran does; For what sin were these kids killed? To take up this verse and question those who justify killing as a reaction."

- Zain

Look around.

You see these humans walking around in the park?

See the lady in that pink jacket playing with her little kid near the swings?

See that old couple sitting and staring somewhere far on that bench?

See that young couple that just walked by, entangled in each other's arms?

That little teen in blue jacket on that bench with books and macbook?

This girl in late 20s or early 30s who just cycled by?

You see. Some of them are alone. Some with another human. Their age, older or younger.

Issue is, each one of them is gazing into the wilderness of what the other has or doesn't have.

Each wants another human, another job, another activity or something "another" that they don't seem to have at this moment in time.

Issue is, sitting here and interrupting the intensity of their gaze to make them realize is difficult.

For no matter how hard you try, it's only after running a whole track of losing and gaining people, jobs, money and other things that a human comes to a realisation.

A realisation that for you to eliminate loneliness and vacuum, you don't need to focus on what you don't have. Human, out of the shere pain of internal vacuum, often succumbs to positioning the lack, the pain, as a misery; consequently often striking a deal, getting what it wants and acquiring temporary fulfillment.

Ask that old couple sitting on that bench. Have they gotten absolutely what they wanted? They'd say, eventually yes.

Now ask them, did it come to them through how they positioned their vacuums, needs and miseries to the world or did it all come to them in its all due time?

Eventually you get everything you want. In due time. You get exactly what you need at exactly the moment you need it. Not a second more. Not a second less. Not a thing more. Not a thing less.

Trying to acquire something is different from obsessively wanting something. The first stems out of an understanding that having something doesn't make you complete. The latter stems out of a shere compulsive delusion that the acquired thing will make you complete.

We love portraying ourselves as passive victims of this world, of this society. Often a times, in our effort to bargain a better deal with the world. And if not with the world, then with ourselves. For the self pity of the words of the situation we are in soothes us and resonates the reassurance of our role as a victim.

The world is unjust. Indeed so. But doubting His justice to his people or His spread of appearant/nonappearant suffering/blessings is like confining Him in our little books of accounts.

In doing so, are we forgetting the Creator who created the very concept of Justice? In running after the world are we not trying to fill the vacuum meant for Him by everything apart from Him.

We remember Him in pain more often.

*an inspired thought.

We remember Him in pain more often.

We remember Him in missing a human.
We remember Him in that vacuum. In that absence.
In that job we couldn't get.
In that wealth that couldn't be ours.
In that opportunity we just missed.
In that past we miss.
In that time we don't think would happen.

We remember Him in pain more often.
We remember Him.
In what was said to us.
In what we couldn't change.
In that regret of what we could change but didn't.
In what we didn't say.
In what we didn't do.
Or in what we did say and what we did do.
In our failures.
In our mistakes.
In our shortcomings.
In what could have been or should have been.

We remember Him in pain more often.
We remember Him helplessly and timelessly when we fall for what is beautiful, just, powerful, wealthy and  knowledgeable in this world.

We forget that these beauties, the justs, the wise, the powerful, the weathy and the knowledgeable are nothing but mere figments of who He is.

They are the 'effect' in which we helplessly surrender our hope of living the Cause.

In all of the absences,
In all of the manifestations in worldly things,
Somewhere deep down, we realize.

We realize the Realisation of Our Yearning.
Our innate yearning that rests not well with anything but the Cause.

Thus, we remember Him in pain more often.

For pain bursts open the realities of illusions and obsessions.
For pain dissolves our hope in what was just a mirage.
For pain realigns us back to what our hearts were originally seeking.

We come home, when at the end of the day, tired and helpless, we surrender back to the Yearning within.

We come home when we stop obsessing after His manifestations on earth. We come home when His manifestations on earth become a means to be with Him. We come home when we break the idols of worshipping worldly manifestations - driven by the Yearning for Him.

And pain. Pain brings us back home.

Now I know why we remember Him in pain more often. His remembrance in pain. A step closer to Him. to Home.