I am going somewhere....

I want to write, i have been trying to write but whatever i am feeling, comprehending and learning everyday from life just brings me to one conclusion i am going somewhere i am in a journey! In a state of transition, like a drop slowly crystallizing, like a comet moving through the vastness of space! Continuously moving, just knowing its going somewhere.

Don't know when the journey is gonna end, don't know when the next milestone will arrive, when the next small stop to get directions will appear on the horizon. Like a caravan moving through the chilly desert night just navigating its way by looking at the stars without surely knowing where its heading i am moving through each day.

You know when the chilly winter breeze blows past your face, it creates that chill, but if you stay in it long enough, slowly you'll adapt, slowly your senses will numb, you may catch a cold later but for that brief period of time your senses, your body and your mind adapt! May be the winds been hitting me long enough, may be i am adapting. But i will walk till i reach there, don't know where i am going but i am going somewhere...

Invisible Strings in The Puppet Show

Most of us have gone to a puppet show and watched those characters, they come in all shapes and sizes each different from the other but one thing that is common to all of them is the string attached to them that dictates what they will do and when! A slight adjustment of lighting and the background and even that string disappears and they seem to be doing everything by their own free will.

Shakespeare said "this world is a stage and we are all actors". With all due respect to that talented man, may be he didn't look closely enough. This world is a stage but we all are not actors we are all but mere puppets! with invisible strings attached.Look around you the greatest puppet show on earth is unfolding before your very eyes and you may even be a part of it.

The strange thing is that at the end of these strings there is no puppeteer! Our actions are dictated by our emotions,affiliations, affection, hatred and ambitions. Without even knowing it, it is us who are pulling our own strings. Yes there is a Puppeteer who's at the helm of all the strings attached to us but it seems some control has been passed down to us.

We move n dance to the tune of the music composed by our own will without even knowing it. An amalgam of feelings, experiences and our physical and spiritual needs forms the invisible string attached to every puppet.Those who let this force swing their pendulum of life remain puppets tied to the invisible string.

If i had 24 hours hours to live how would i spend them....

this is an essay i entered in a competition its mostly fictional..how i would really spend them well i'll tell that some other time......

Saturday night, I’m walking home… the moon is shining with all its glory and the cool breeze is making the night just perfect! The small pieces of cloud moving here and there remind me that we are all in a journey always in a state of transition. Just as I take out my cell phone to call a friend, a message pops up, it’s from somebody I don’t know but it contains strange information for me, it says that when the clock strikes midnight I would have exactly 24 hours to live, I laugh n walk on home. There was package at the door waiting for me I opened it and it contained the same news, and just then the phone rang and the unknown caller tells me the same thing. So now even I start thinking that well all this may be true! Now its 24 and something hours to the end! I start thinking if I indeed have just 24 hours to live how I would spend them.

My plans don’t include bringing everlasting peace to the world like a miss universe winner’s speech, neither could I invent a miracle drug to rid the world of disease nor I can find a way to bring consistency to Pakistan cricket team, I leave these tasks to superman for his last 24 hours.

Now I have two ways of spending these moments to lock myself in a virtual cage of sorrow and grief and think why me and then just die like a loser but that’s just not me! Lets see firstly I would not let anyone linked to me know about it because it’s the end of the line for me not them why should I make these last 24 hours sad for them why not spend them like a normal day rather live every moment to the fullest because that’s all I’ve got left. So I just set up a nice bar BQ fire and get to work and enjoy a nice meal under the moonlit night. Then I go to a store and buy a few post cards for some very special people in my life and a nice gift for my best friend and the most important person in my life, by the time I’m done with all that the clock strikes 12 and the countdown has begun. Now I write those cards and pack the gift which I’ll post in the morning and trusting the great postal system of ours I know it would take at least a few days for these gifts to reach them and so I would be reason to make them smile even after I’m long gone! After this I turn on the music and Tina Sani and Nayyara Noor with their usual accomplice Faiz Ahmad Faiz take me on a journey, I close my eyes and my life unfolds before me like an epic only this time I’m in the lead role.

I wake up the next day I had a fulfilling sleep, and I think when all the fear is taken away how much peace there is to life! Now I enjoy my favorite breakfast of fried eggs with parathas and a cup of tea. Then I take out the car and drop the cards and the gift at the post office, get the tank filled up and go for a drive moving through the cities and head towards the countryside I stop near a field and the yellow blossoms announcing the arrival of spring I just sit there and watch the birds flying the sun shining and the breeze containing the scent of my land and then as the sun begins to set and the birds fly back to their nests I decide it is time for me to return to my abode. When I get back home its almost dark and a few hours to go, for the first time I start to think what would happen to the people whom I meat everyday for them I would be a memory may be a reason to smile and that would be enough for me! But for the few very few people for whom I’m a part of their lives their dreams what would happen to them, I close my eyes and pray to the Almighty not to give me more time but to give them more strength, the will to live on and the courage to carry on their lives and be happy, I trust the Almighty will take care of them and that’s the only prayer and request that I have.

I have a nice dinner then go to my room and write a note about how I have spent these 24 hours and by the time I finish its almost 11:50 PM, just 10 minutes to go. I smile sit on my chair and close my eyes once again I pray for the special people in my life, for my friends, I’m not afraid to go I’m just worried about those special people but then I remember a line I read somewhere,

“Chalo k Mout sey Kartey hain Aghaz-e-Mohabbat...... Zinda Rahe tou Bicharney ka Dar sa laga Rahe Ga”

And then the clock strikes midnight!!

Carrot & Stick story...

People who read my blog often conclude that i'm bit of a sentimental emotional guy which i frankly am in some ways and i don't regret it. And to set the record straight my creativity if i have any isn't only brought into motion by emotions but then again every thing you feel finds a link to one or another emotion....so there you have it even i can't conclude that i'm not the emotional sort of guy!

So let carry on with the blog then, so what do i have to say today well its an old story yet it's so simple to relate to real life in more than one aspect. The title of this piece might get you thinking that there are just two characters to this story, namely the carrot and the stick......ahh well they are just the support cast so now lets get to the lead roles, played by each and everyone of us one time or another.... well there's a donkey and a person riding the donkey.

And as per the old custom the carrot is tied to the stick and the poor donkey keeps moving forward trying to get closer to the carrot while the wise rider always keeps it at a distance where the donkey would have to exceed all expectations to even get a small bite on the carrot. In old times the donkeys sometimes got the carrot at the end of the journey, other less fortunate donkeys got some fodder but not the carrot, not yet said the rider! With time information technology advanced enormously, and the news spread that the donkeys will keep moving irrespective of the fact that they get the carrot or not..... and after long discussions between the riders a donkey performance model was made which dictated that only horses or some mules got the carrot at the end of the journey where as for the donkeys a pat on the back and some fodder was enough......

The success of this model was noted by all and sundry and to further improve the performance model the riders decided that at the end of the journey it was they who should have half of the carrot keeping the other half safe as a motivating factor for the now depressed and tired donkey for the next journey. And the justification was simple it was the riders who were making the decisions and so it was they who should have the carrots..after all carrots are brain food and not meant for the donkeys whose job it is to just keep moving!!

Sleep Tight......

Have you lately stayed up all night, so that someone you care about can sleep tight! Knowing that you'll be there whenever they open their eyes and need you. It is such an amazing feeling; all the tiredness, all the sleeplessness, everything just fades away....what lasts is a feeling of fulfillment, one of pure joy.... a peaceful silence engulfs everything else. That smile on your beloveds face while they sleep with comfort, because they know that you are there; it is just the most amazing feeling. The clock ticks by your body tells you to rest but your heart is awake, such an awakening... a feeling that makes you special. Living for yourself is easy but what really gives life a meaning is living it for someone else...someone very very special!!!

sleep tight :)

I feel but cannot show......

There is this pain....unbearable, piercing, it's ripping me apart... its like my soul is being consumed....yet those who pass by think i am tranquil.....but that's what the beach dwellers think about the ocean.... serene and calm yet the ocean hides everything....the piercing caused by the rocks that burst open its heart......the burns caused to its soul by the boiling volcanoes.... Like the ocean i feel but i cannot show!

But then there is that diver, who plunges into the heart of the ocean, who looks beneath and beyond the surface.....and then he realizes that beneath this cover of serenity and the joyful dancing waves, lies a heart scratched and scarred, yet capable of producing pearls..... a fury powerful enough to demolish yet it chooses to create.

The ocean despite its might and resourcefulness cannot express everything, it takes that diver to transcend the depths and the myths of serenity to realize that there is more than meets the eye!

I like the ocean feel but cannot show, you like the diver realize what evades everyone else!

The Journey

Passengers meet on a platform, board the same bogey....as the train chugs on they start talking start knowing each other..........but some chose their fellows for the long journey ....they trust and support each other and so the journey begins!! the train slowly keeps moving, many stations, cities and towns pass by. Some people join this journey others disembark, but few pull that emergency chain and bring their journey to an abrupt end. When the mountatins arrive they bring with them twisting and turning tracks and long and dark tunnels, you look towards your fellows because in this shaky part of the journey you need them the most. Their is a strange feeling when you enter the tunnel with one set of passengers and come out the other side with another, but then you feel content; your fellows are still there! But; in a pitch black tunnel when you search for a hand to hold that had been comforting your hidden fear for the darkness all the way and you search and search yet find no one.......and then the first ray of light blinds you for a moment!! you try to look around and when you find that seat beside you empty and the wind fluttering through the open window....what would you feel??