A Page from my Diary - Antimony

It’s like I’m surrounded by a chaos of silence. How contradicting, right? I wish I could comprehend this state of mind. I’m hampered by sugarcoated handcuffs. I’m running freely in a bounded park. They’re stopping me by using irrational logic. I can see the way out but I’m so emotionally attached to the people inside the boundaries of this park that I fear I won’t get back in here to see their faces, once I got out. I’m scared of the freedom. This is the phase when sentiments encounter reason. I want to say I’m happy. And happy I am! But I want to know what’s lying there in the back of my head that doesn’t want to agree with it. I want to fast forward the time but I want to go back to the old time, as well. I want to agree with you. But I don’t want to disagree with myself. I want to fight for peace. I want them to see it through my eyes but that’s a farfetched thought.  Rather, I’d want them to let me see it, without trying to blindfold me with the beautiful sceneries. I want you to let me want it. 

Me. Uni. Time. & then There are These Awards

I used to have time and creativity. My brains used to have the capacity to think and contemplate. Then I got admission in the university. A flurry of events have happened since then. A couple of months back, all I would do was read and eat and sleep, then repeat. Now, I don't have time! All I get to think about is tests and projects and presentations. I miss myself. I miss what I used to do with my time.

But, anyways..

This post is basically for two sweet personages Aqsa & Tanya

Guys! Thanks a lot for the awards. I'd have loved to play that little award game but, well, it's gonna consume my time and that would be the last thing I'd want to do.

If you're neither Aqsa nor Tanya, let me fill you in. Aqsa thinks my blog deserves a Liebster Blog Award & Tanya thinks I have a Creative Blog. That's sweet of them. Let me post the awards here:

Thank you, 2012!

I’ve been meaning to take out some time to reflect at what 2012 has done to me. I’m not sure if I should call it a good year or should I render it 'just another year', gone by with the wind. My doubtfulness isn’t anything new, though. For me, it has always been like that. I just can’t seem to pick one option. But I guess I should not deny the fact that 2012 had been a very good teacher to me. I got to learn a lot in 2012. Ironically, the reason behind all that learning was my decision of taking a year out from studies. I know a lot of people that perpetually taunted me for my decision of taking the year off. To them, I have wasted one complete year of my life. To me, I have learnt things that I could never have learnt if it weren’t for that decision of mine.

The year commenced with laughter, preparation, travelling and practicing. The first ever wedding celebration in my family took place in 2012. I travelled from one city to the other to get all the wedding shopping done. I had a lot of laughing sessions with my cousins while practicing all those dexterous dance steps for my sister’s wedding. 2012 brought me all those lovely times with my cousins, siblings and my amazing brother in law. The never-ending celebration that went on for weeks until my brother in law finally had to fly back to where he came from. That feeling of having received all that happiness altogether, of knowing that nothing possibly could go wrong with my life, and then confronting the reality, knowing how hard it is to say goodbye. That’s how this year started. While I was having the time of my life with my loved ones around me, my friends were applying for different universities. By the time, the normality of life hit me again, my friends had already started going to their universities and I was sitting at home not knowing what to do with my life. The wasted hours of my life stemmed the feeling for applying in any university that still had its admissions open. I tried to apply for different subjects but had to let go for one thing or the other. Time went on. I applied for driving classes, one of the many of my wishes it was. I learnt to drive in the scorching hot sun of June. My dad still doesn’t acknowledge me as a certified driver, though. I didn’t actually drive on the city roads after my classes ended. Nonetheless, 2012 made me a certified driver. I got to read some amazing books, the best thing I needed to utilize the otherwise-wasted-hours. I read a lot. I wrote a lot. I got to know what the world was up to. I got to know where I was standing in the multitude. I learnt a lot. I tried to bring out the best in me. Hard, but satisfying. I learnt to fight many feelings. 2012 made me grow up. I actually grew up in 2012. I realized how wrong I was about some of the things.

Years come and go. Every year we laugh, we cry, we go on with our lives. 2012 had been so different, in the same way. 2012 was something that I loved and didn’t even feel sad when it finally left. I’m looking forward to the New Year now. I’m looking forward to a new set of joys waiting for me to get them. I’m looking forward to goodness. I’m looking forward to experience newness. I’m looking forward to all those blessings I’ve been dreading to have. I’m looking forward to see smiles. I’m looking forward to kindness. I’m looking forward to the right time. I’m looking forward to that certain moment. I’m looking forward to challenges. I’m looking forward to better days. I’m looking forward to get it all done. I’m looking forward to 2013.

Over a Bowl of Soup

Through the open door, I see her standing in the kitchen. It’s one of those dark, muted, chilly, rainy, curl-up-inside-the-blanket sort of December evenings that makes you lazy to the bone and you think over a hundred times before finally deciding whether the task that requires you to come out of your warm blanket is really worth the effort. I spend these winter days (and evenings, and nights) the same way; tucking myself inside a blanket wearing my dad’s over-sized, ultra warm jacket with my one hand holding the book and the other shoved inside the warm, inviting pockets of the jacket. The only time I take my hand out of the pocket is when I have to turn the page of the book. It’s then when the hand that’s holding the book goes in the pocket and I hold the book upright with the other, already warmed-up hand.

But right now I’m sitting at the dining table, still looking at her. She is too busy to notice me gawking at her. I see her stirring the spoon in a big wok set on the stove with puffs of steam coming out of it, then whirling around to find some spice on the counter behind her. I see her chopping the carrots and shredding the boiled chicken pieces. Occasionally, she immerses the spoon inside the wok and blows the inevitably hot liquid before tasting it to check if the soup is lacking any ingredient or spice. Doing that, she reaches for the spice rack, sprinkles in the needed spices, balancing the taste and then tasting it one more time to ensure that the soup is being cooked up in its best flavor. She always does that; pouring her heart and soul in what she decides to cook. During this whole period of watching her cook passionately, I don’t so much as go inside and ask if she needs any help. This is why, after a few more interminable minutes of sniffing in the aroma coming from the kitchen, when I finally see her coming out holding a big, black bowl with clouds of steam laden with the aroma that augments your appetite, I furtively thank her and sink in the bowl to pour down the soup, that is inevitably going to taste good, in my mouth. I thrust in my spoon, ready to get soothed by the hot, tasty soup on a crisp winter evening. The soup is very hot so I perpetually blow off the heat, until the steam stops coming out from it before I slurp it down. Perfect. Just how I like. Every time I dip in my spoon, it comes out filled up with a few shreds of chicken and some corn seeds floating in the spoonful of soup. I chew the al dente corn and the shreds of chicken and gulp it down, savoring its flavor. I love it. I love her. Not because she just cooked me soup. But because she intuitively realized that a bowl of soup is what I’d like the most on this biting winter evening. She always happens to know what I want. I envy her instincts. Even when I’m not around and she can’t see me, she ends up bringing a smile on my face by providing me with what I want. I remember once I was coming back home from college, starving. Hunger pangs were plummeting inside my stomach. I reached home, pushed open the gate and got welcomed by two blessings in my life; her smiling face and a platter of fries in her hand. I felt like dancing with joy and asked her how she knew I was craving food. She smiled and said that she just did. This is how she brings joy in my life. She understands my needs. Tries to give her best to make me happy. I’m still sipping my soup, mentally thanking the Creator for blessing me with a mother. Mentally praying that she and her blessings remain with me beyond eternity. She’s looking at me with a probing smile pasted on her face. “Do you like it?” she asks, eager to hear my answer in affirmative. Like it? Of course I like it. I love it. Too busy to speak, I tilt my head to the side, my eyes wide open below my raised eyebrows, showing how much I’m enjoying it. I do the effort to fill my spoon with the residuum of the soup, guzzle it down, look up at her and say, “Wonderful.” Her eyes sparkle, a grin showing off her teeth plasters her face and she utters one word: “Really?” There. That’s the price of her long hours of standing in the kitchen. That one word pays it all off for her weary hours in the kitchen just to get me a bowl of soup. She smiles a contented smile and with that all those little traces of tiredness hiding behind her face run away. I shoot her a smile back, thinking a mother's heart must be composed of the goodness of the entire universe. But during the creation of my Ammi, Allah must have poured in heaps of sweetness in her as well her while He was at it. I love Allah for that. I love her. 

She Can't Live Without Her Hair Straightener

People say, albeit I refuse to believe, that they can’t even stand the thought of living without a specific someONE. But what amazes me is to see those people who fail to think about moving on with their lives without a specific someTHING. Of course I refuse to believe that too. How can people just get so sentimentally attached to their belongings that they don’t even want to consider their lives without those things. Man is a selfish piece of flesh, isn’t he?  When he says that he can’t live without something, even that includes his personal interest, his selfishness and wanting to have his belongings remain with him, forever.

Lying down comfortably, I was flipping through the TV channels when I heard someone coming down the stairs. Someone plunged inside the room, taking in long teary gasps. Before I could manage to disturb my comfy position (not that I was planning to do that) and see who it was, the figure stood before me like a pillar with a cracking yet loud voice. “Have you *gasp* seen my hair straightener’s *gasp* adapter?”

Alright now, mind if I demonstrate what I saw before me?

My sister, of course my elder sister since I’m the youngest duck of my family, was standing before me. Her damp hair, since she had washed it just a few minutes before, was covered in a towel and she was looking down at me with her eyes that were glistening with tears and had gone all red with severe crying (I bet a blurry image of me was what her vision could make out) and her face was all – ALL as in ALL! – soaked in tears. In one hand, she was holding her hair straightener with its plug’s pins aiming toward me, and the other hand kept cleaning her tears from the soaking face of hers which, quite frankly, was of no use since as soon as she would clean a dribble of tear from her cheek two more would pour down giving the effect of a small lake finding its way down through the path of her cheeks.

Ok yeah so I looked at her and I did this great effort to stifle my laugh after seeing that ‘situation’ in front of me. So I held back this deep desire to laugh like a mentally impaired and retorted to her in as normal way as I could help out. My response was simple and clear. “No!” I said with a shrug and no sooner had I spoken that one rusty word than another fresh stream of tears came down and washed her face. She cried. I laughed. This time my reaction was spontaneous and I couldn't help it. I stifled my laugh into a smile grin though and asked her what was with all that crying. She sat down before me and broke down into yet another sea of tears and gasps and sniffles and started whimpering her worry to me which sounded nothing more than gibberish to me. After a while I finally figured out what her impossible-to-decipher teary voice told me. Apparently her straightener's adapter - and well this straightener’s  plug has those alien pins that go in none of the sockets in our house so the plug was capped with an adapter because the adapter’s plug can go easily inside the sockets - had gone missing and she couldn’t search for it ANYWHERE (according to her) and that of course meant that the piece of electronic equipment she was holding in her hand was totally useless without it so when her search for that adapter failed completely, she started to cry.

“Why are you crying this way?” I had to ask. “Stop crying alright? It must be here somewhere. It’s somewhere inside the house. Chill.” But that didn’t help a speck in controlling her tears and she just looked around the room in such helpless way that I couldn’t help but start working my mind to help her in any possible way that could just rub that look off her face. Apparently, the help didn’t involve just the usage of my brains. I had to disturb my comfort-ness and get to my feet. I told her to check out this other adapter and see if the straightener’s plug goes in it. But, like a stubborn brat, she refused to get up. It seemed to me like the end of the world for her. I reckoned as if she had accepted the defeat and was waiting for the misery to befall totally and completely and absolutely on her. She just did not get up. For a moment, I felt like ok it’s not my problem that you just cannot seem to find that freaking adapter and now totally surrendering to make yourself look miserable more than a starving 2 year old gypsy kid. But something about that wet, teary wrecked face and the inevitable reason of me being a human being with emotions and a sense of nobility that couldn’t bear to see her miserable face and listen her shaky long gasps without budging myself to do anything, just anything to stop making her feel this way, made me stand up and search for an adapter, that could fit in that straightener’s alien plug. Frankly it just took me less than a minute to find it and give it to her and ask her to see if that would work. For a moment, her gasps stopped. THANKFULLY. And to my utter satisfaction and her ultimate survival, it WORKED. She stopped crying. I threw upon her that condescending look. For a minute, it occurred to me that she felt a little stupid for that little performance of misery she gave not very long ago. Out of the guilt, she even refused to show that feeling of ecstasy that she was surly having, to appear on her visage. But I didn’t mind that. I was contented to see that her wrecked looks had actually vanished. Getting back to going through the ever boring session of flipping through the channels, I picked up the remote control once again. She silently went back upstairs with the new adapter and her straightener, and left me wondering about my firm belief on defying the overrated statement that says “I cannot live without *insert whatever that could be*.”

I am now starting to have second thoughts.

Just Another Day

It's Eid today. It seems like it. But doesn't that mean celebrating the day? Then what am I doing here, writing?
It's Eid today. Shouldn't I be saying it with a joy in my voice? But believe me, I'm just saying it, coolly.
It's Eid today. Shouldn't I be flaunting off my shimmery Eid dress? Why am I tucked in my bed in my plain clothes, then?

Somewhere, while growing up, something must have gone wrong. Because when I was a kid, Eid really was something. Back then, I'd wear my shimmery dress weeks before Eid, kicking off a small Eid dress rehearsal of my own. I used to wait eagerly for it to come. I used to peek inside my shoe box one hundred times in a day, just to see my new flashy sandals lying there, smiling back at me. All I wanted was to fast forward the clocks to the big day - the Eid day, back when I was a child..

So where are all those feeling gone now? Is that what growing up means? Getting deprived of the real happiness? I want all of it to come back to me. I dropped it somewhere while climbing the ladder of ages. I haven't even replied to any of those Eid texts yet. I just don't feel like it and I'm hating it, having to feel this way.

I'm not sad, trust me I'm not. Frowning on the Eid day would be the very last thing I'd want to do. All I'm trying to find is the way to get back what I used to have. I don't want to spend it like just another day. I don't want to fake my feelings either by saying how excited I am for this day. The excitement is gone. It has vanished away. I'm missing my old days. I'm happy because I have a weighty reason for that: my family. My mommy, my daddy, my sisters. I joked with them this morning. In fact, we didn't have one serious talk since I've woken up. I hugged them. I ate vermicelli - the traditional Eid breakfast. Oh I don't like calling it vermicelli. It's sawayyan. It always has been. My mom has cooked smoked chicken and biryani for lunch, well that adds a dash of it being a special day. But now what? They're couched in front of the TV watching those cliche shows with celebrities laughing and dancing and telling the viewers how they spend their Eid day and I sneaked into my room because I don't want to hear their stories. I have my own story to tell. I don't care if anyone's interested in it or not. I'm glad I can give vent to my feelings.

It's Eid today. Is it really?

Cynicism

Fondness for a certain something dares us to dream and this is how it all starts. This venture of life; it all starts from dreaming. This little word holds the weight of an entire universe. Or maybe even more. It makes us invent our future and we credulously do as it tells us. It lures us and pleads us to hold on to it, and we dutifully take a blindfold and wrap it around our eyes and cover them to keep us from seeing anything else. Blinded by our dream, we kick away those far better opportunities that come in our way and hang on to that very specific dream that we grow up in hopes of achieving. We clench it in our fists. Clench it with such strength and vigor that the pressure starts turning our knuckles white. And our hands get so crammed with that intangible future plan we hold in them that it leaves not even a speck more space left for something else. Something that might be better than what we are holding in our fists. Something that might not necessarily require that much of strength and intensity to be held. Something that might provide a better prospect or a better possibility for future than the one we’re already tightly holding on to. But we don’t even consider accepting that something. We don’t want to consider accepting it. We don’t want to know what great progress might loom before our eyes if we accept that chance. Back in our heads, we realize that it’s quite a venture that we have embarked on by choosing what we fancy in lieu of choosing otherwise. But we kill the thought by not feeding it. We jerk any such notion before it wakes up to take any action. The opportunity comes after us, wants us to hear it, to permit it just once so that it could apprise us of what it wants to tell us and show us. But the peril of its unwanted intervention hastens our stride. It quickens its pace to keep up with us, to tell us it’s got better future in store for us. But we refuse to listen to it. We start taking even larger steps. Larger and quicker. We don’t want it to reach us. We want to outdistance it. We pace up to be unreachable from its vision. But it keeps following us. It keeps on trying to reach us, to tell us what we are going to miss out and to plead us to only consider its presence because soon after that we'd realize that it wasn't wrong all along. But we keep thinking it as a dream snatcher. We think it would mug away our dreams from us so we start running away from it. We run. We haste. We take long steps to leave it behind. Not only behind, far behind. So very far behind that, so that it can't even catch a glimpse of us or of our precious dream that we're still holding, rather clenching in our hands. We take care of our dream like we take care of precious jewels. We hold on to it like we hold on to the reins of a horse galloping at its maximum speed. We never let go of it because we think it's only a matter of time before we'd have it blooming in front our eyes. We reckon it as our best asset. Even though, all the way, it only turns out to be a liability, nothing more than a liability. We like how it feels like holding on to it. We keep our hopes high and wait for the right time and while we think about all this asset-liability theory of our dream, we don't forget to keep running. We run as if the world behind us is materializing to dust. So we run for our life and our dream. We run to the point where we finally see that we’ve lost opportunity and it’s nowhere to be seen now. So we finally halt. Tired and weary, we fall on our knees. Short of breath, we draw in long gasps, get in fresh air and make ourselves ready for what lies ahead, or rather what lies inside our fists. Anticipating the feeling of triumph, we take control, get ourselves together and finally open our clenched fists. We open them anticipating victory. We open them in prospect to see what has been there all along and what caused us to start this weary journey. Ecstatic, our heart beats with excitement. Gradually, we begin to uncurl our fingers to see our valuable dream lying inside. Something peeps from under our fingers as if anxious to come out. But as soon as we open up our fists, an arrogant man pops out and hit us right in the face. He tells us his name is reality. He, wearing stiff smug expressions, makes us realize how so very helpless we are in front of him. We ask him where did he come from and that where is our dream that we have been holding all along? Standing in front of us, it smoothes out the creases from its coat and raising its eyebrow, he throws his arrogant look upon us and his mocking silence answers our question. Terrified, we get up and do a pirouette to look around, to find something else other than arrogant cold reality. To find something we can hold on to. That opportunity! Yes, that concerned opportunity that’s been following us throughout this venture. We can hold on to that. We scrutinize the same path that we have come from to look out for opportunity  We call out its name only to receive a scathing silence in return. We cry out for its help, telling it we’re ready to take it, to accept it. We scream and tell it that it was right; this has been a scary venture. It’s now that we realize that we've come out so far. We realize that there’s no going back now. We realize that we’re lost in the labyrinth of life. Frustrated and defeated, we sink down on our knees with our face hanging down and our thoughts running savagely inside our mind. Reality then screams right in our face with two bright words that pierce into us – “FACE ME!” it says.

Helpless, we lift our head. Face it, embrace it and go on.

A Proposal for Calamity

On Thursday, September 20, as I was going through the newspaper, I read a headline that said, “Youm-e-Ishq-e-Rasool to be observed tomorrow (Friday)”. My sudden reaction as a Muslim, after the absurd profanity regarding my religion that the entire universe had witnessed, was quite overwhelmingly joyous, as the day was being observed to raise our voices as a nation for the sanctity of a man for whom, us Muslims, hold profound respect. As I flipped through the pages of that newspaper, I read this other news under the heading “Three ministers oppose the Yaum-e-Ishq-e-Rasool proposal”. My sudden reaction after reading that news was quite infuriating. I thought why anyone would oppose this great proposal of voicing our religious rights. As I read the details of the news, I got aware of the fact that the proposal about observing that day was suggested by our very own interior minister, Mr. Rehman Malik. I got quite impressed as I realized that Mr. Rehman Malik can actually come up with some fine proposals. Anyway, like every other concerned Muslim, I began looking forward to the outcome of this great step taken.

The next day, which was the day in question, everyone saw what everyone didn’t see coming, except those three cabinet ministers who foresaw what danger was bound to come along with it. Their reason for opposing the proposal about observing that day was due to the peril of law and order situation that might, and we all saw that it actually did, arise. It was then that I realized that albeit the proposal seemed so fine at first, the trifling precautionary measures that were taken to control the law and order situation terribly vanquished throughout the country, as the agitated protestors poured in. Little did I know that it would turn out to be a proposal for calamity?

Now, as I rewind and watch the whole situation, this is what I see:

A big time Islam/Muslim hatemonger named Terry Jones, who is a Pastor of a nondenominational church called Dove World Outreach Centre, and according to Wikipedia, is known for “Qur’an Burning”, celebrates the 11^th anniversary of the very sad 9/11 incident by supporting and promoting trailer of a movie called “Innocence of Muslims” on YouTube, ridiculing our Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). The trailer erupts the sentiments of Muslims, which was completely legitimate and pretty much anticipated, and the justifiable anger, manifesting into protests, flows throughout the Muslim as well as non-Muslim countries demanding US to put an end to these sporadic attacks that keep coming in different forms i-e: burning the Qur’an, publishing profane caricatures of our Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), and (the latest one being) releasing blasphemous movie ridiculing our Prophet. The inevitable results of such heinous attack of hurting the sentiments of Muslims worldwide continue to hold the demonstrations throughout the Muslim world. Pakistan, being one of the biggest Islamic countries actively takes part in such protests. After a series of erratic protests carried out by different political parties, we are told to observe a day, nation-wide, to show our reverence for the Holy Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) by raising our voice as one nation. The day that was supposed to bring a positive outcome comes and we as a whole nation, in lieu of lodging our voice to be heard, go out in the streets to loot the buildings, torch the vehicles, destroy the petrol/CNG stations, ransack private properties and kill our own brothers who came out on the street for the same purpose as ours. Thus, to come to the point, we do our best to destroy the image of the greatest religion by showing exactly opposite to what it teaches us. The day takes the whole country by storm and ends up leaving behind dead bodies, scathed bodies, deep signs of destruction and heavy losses. And with the cherry on the top, to end this overwhelming day, we hear the news that one of the biggest international fast food joints, KFC, decides to close its outlets in Pakistan. Now before you start judging me about how sad I am for the shutting-down of a yummy food spot, let me get you aware of the fact that Pakistani youth is already suffering by a great percentage of unemployment. Now, if more than 60 outlets are going to shut down, thousands of people are going to face unemployment among which include a great number of speech and hearing impaired, that KFC helps provide employment to.

We, as a nation, presented ourselves as a joke to the entire world. We killed our brothers in the name of a protest, which was nothing but a contemptible view of an intolerant and uncivilized nation. We helped our youth get unemployed so that they could go down in the pits of depression because that’s exactly how a country thrives, and that’s exactly how a nation’s youth is supposed to be. As the day, which started to achieve the goal of showing respect to our Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) by lodging a peaceful protest, marked the end, the Pakistani nation earned nothing but distress and a great deal of loss both in private and public sectors without even getting their protest properly lodged while that pastor sat there in his church, unaffected.