Posts Tagged Personal

It took eighteen years to locate a friend. Much like a star, the moon, a constellation and an ancient river my friend R has been mercurial, moody and elusive. Hiding one day and emerging the other week, and missing for years.

It is for the technology that enabled me to get reconnected. There is so much to ask and years to tell. A long night of oblivion that was – blissful ignorance but somewhere an image lingered, a memory refused to fade and a star never slept. Our meeting this year will be an unpaid debt to ourselves. We parted in such a hurry and matter-of-fact-ness. Little did I know that it would take eighteen years.

I am amazed at how strongly I have felt in the recent days – it has to do with nostalgia and the slowly diminishing youth..Adulthood has phases that can only be described through experience.

I will be there soon. In the city of neems, pipals and crazy auto-rickshaws.

R, please do not go away..

I was recently asked to write where I would spend my summer. For a few minutes I kept my anguish at Pakistan’s situation aside and wrote the following lines for the NEWS. Indulgent and nostalgic, it was fun nevertheless.

Hackneyed as it may sound but Murree remains my favourite destination for the summer.

Alas, the luxury of spending months at the alluring foothills of Himalayas is no longer available with the day-jobs, and other commitments. But there was a time, over a decade ago, when I lived in Murree for three glorious years. It was May when I moved there with a wild rose bush joyously waving with the (more…)

I apologise for the shoddy look at the moment.

JC, my technically gifted friend and I are working to fix this site. There were too many bugs, over-formatted corners and silly errors on the website. Well, this is the problem when an IT-illiterate such as myself ventures out to maintain a website.

Ambition, at its worst.

Please do forgive me for this visual disaster..

(Raza Rumi)

Enough of learning, my friend!

Enough of learning, my friend!

To it there is never an end

An alphabet should do for you,

It’s enough to help you fend.

You’ve amassed much learning around,

The Quran and its commentaries profound.

There is darkness amidst lighted ground.

Without the guide you remain unsound.

Learning makes you a Sheikh or his minion,

And thus you create problems trillion.

You exploit others who know not what,

Misleading them with wild opinion.

You meditate and you say your prayers

You go and shout at the top of the stairs.

Your cry reaching the high skies,

Its your avarice which ever belies.

The day I learnt love’s lesson,

I plunged into the river of divine passion;

An overwhelming gale, I was confounded and lost

When Shah Inayat cruised me across.

Source: here

More on Bulleh Shah here and here

Punjabi version is below (more…)