Because no one is like you - I

We are six months old today. Six incomparably beautiful months of my life. Six months of uninterrupted togetherness. Countless hours spent in each other’s arms. Conversations that often led to passionate lovemaking; Lovemaking, that had no track of time, as many of our days were all about being in bed. Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Istanbul, Athens, Rome… seems like a dream, no?

I remember the night we got together. You were wearing that blue shirt, your eyes glowing like I had seen never before, your face, calm. Fourteen hours of conversation, thousands of miles between us, completely unaware of what is to come in next few months. That was New York – Wageningen my dear, soon to be Karachi – Wageningen.  While I was flying back to Karachi, I had absolutely no idea how long are we going to last; how many times are we going to see each other, with so many of societal, familial limitations around us. And then, a strange sense of nervousness… ‘How it would be to meet her in person?’

Ahhh…

Kahva was simply beautiful, wasn’t it? We connected instantly, and then over and over again, seeing each other eight times in three weeks of my stay in Karachi. Is that a lot? Well, to set some scale, I met my best friend twice (for fifteen minutes) and all my other friends and relatives  just once during this period. We ended up watching YJHD thrice in cinema, that too in Ramadan. Hahaha. I have never in my life seen a movie thrice in such short intervals, let alone in cinema. But well, was I ever watching the movie? I don’t think I even remember the story or all the characters.

……….

I am about to reach my stop, soon to be with you. But I will write more. This, I figure is going to be a series of posts… a celebration of us.

I want to end now saying that this journey, with you my love has been one incredible experience. So full of emotions. You are my sunshine, your laughter makes my life brighter, your words make me feel so, so special. I feel so connected, so much in love with you that it is practically becoming extremely difficult for me to imagine myself without you. How is it ever going to happen.

Love you.

Like I have loved no one else.

Noor. 

Train to Amsterdam

Here I am, heading to Amsterdam, then to Brussels, then to Paris. The way human mind functions is such a mystery. Bizarre. Or perhaps mine dwells in abstraction more than some sane ones around. It didn't allow me to write for months, entangled, in and with its own complexities. Sowing seeds but not letting me water them. When others tried to, it simply rejected. Stubborn. And it likes to yawn, once in a while. Bored of simple questions, and complicated answers. Sometimes four in the morning, sometimes five, it begins to yawn so wide  that out of my fear I have to shut it down, and let it sleep. Else I fear, it might just gulp me in. 

God, life, destiny, universe has been incredibly kind on me. For I get to travel often now. Love, that I was waiting for since so, so long is with me now. Every time I board a train, every time I see her face, every single time it kiss her lips... I feel blessed. I don't know if this is what I have always dreamt of, as my dreams are all part of a bigger orchestra inside my head, but this, what I have today, you, and this enabling freedom... is special. 

I can't wait to see your loving, lovable face again.

Noor.

10:43 PM

Waqt kath-taa bhi nahin

Waqt rukta bhi nahin

Dil hay sajdey mein magar

Ishq jhuk-taa bhi nahin....

Bus hay itni

Khuwahish dil ki

Ksh -mou- ksh na ho

Kaash ki

Your answer

The story of conventionalism is very much localized. For your distinction may not have anything to do with how humanity dwells in the regions where you have never lived. If you do not belong, you can not be unconventional. Perhaps out of place, at best. And someday, while crossing street or just conversing with friends, or being trapped by the proverbial schedule of confusion, you will realize how difficult yet desirable it is to be both relevant and unconventional, together, at the same time.

It is indeed your own setting, your own habitat that defines conventions.

Have you ever thought, what makes someone intriguing, more intricate than others.

..........

Integrity.

Courage.

Humility.

Simplicity.

quiet Confidence.

Perseverance.

....

Look around.

What...

...do you see.

And this, my friend...

..is not a question.

Perhaps, your answer.

..when you wake up to such emails!

I am heading to bed after watching a really depressing movie about Algeria's independence (for a class) and writing a page and a half of my econ paper. I smoked a cig tonight, but not to get away or anything. I just wanted to...don't know why. I miss you, really.

Every few minutes, I get urges to pick up my phone and tell you what I am up to, despite knowing you would not read it until after several hours. My paper is still incomplete and I didn't finish the movie or reading for any one the classes I have tomorrow. I will wake up early to finish the paper.

After getting back from the meeting, I spent a good couple of hours just missing you. It was difficult to come to peace with the knowledge that I would go to bed alone second night in row now.

I hope you are sleeping and dreaming very well.

Love you so much.

March 14, 2013

04.35am

I can't sleep.

I can see the daylight.

It is that time of the night.

I miss you -

Manzil mushkil tou kyaa...

Dhundhla saahil tou kyaa...

Tanhaa yeh dil tou kyaa...

Old friend, why are you so shy?

Ain't like you to hold back or hide from the light

“The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the Music breathing from her face, 
The heart whose softness harmonised the whole —
And, oh! that eye was in itself a Soul!"

While you were hanging yourself on someone else's words

Dying to believe in what you heard

...

I was staring straight, into the shining sun...

“I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.” 

- Pablo Neruda

You will be loved.

Honth pe liye howe

Dil ki baat hum

Jaagte rahein ge aur

Kitni raat hum

Mukhtasar si baat hay

Tum se pyaar hay…

Tumhara intezaar hay…

Hemant Kumar’s voice has created a strange stupor, a silence that is calm, but also feels incomplete. Fading light of the day has entered my room through the window; I can now see my thoughts floating in the air, at times like a cloud of tiny particles as if smoke, undulated, doing a sinuous dance of rise and fall. Her pictures are all over my desk, every glance makes more ripples… my essence feels more scented.

More than ever I can say now… that my dream of ‘us’ is rooted most in my admiration for you. To think of you, is to think of love, but tonight I wish to disengage this bond… bring hope and future and thoughts and emotions and every single desire of my avid being to the periphery.  

Tonight it is about you and no one else. Not even me, or us. Someone awe inspiring even before love conquered like this. An inherent disciple of Rumi, a soul so untainted… devotion so intact, making poetry of ordinary living. Delightful like a child, affectionate like a mother, a friend like no other, a lover so refined… distilling, crystallizing every form of expression, sometimes passionate as if fire from within, but also subtle as if a gentle breeze… a book I can read all night, and every night of my residual presence, a poetry I already recite, often unknowingly to every person I meet… a song I can sing endlessly, without ever stopping… even once.

Have you ever noticed how talking to you all night, brightens up my day. What is, if not this radiance, that ecstasy Sufi talks about?

My incomplete, incoherent, and restless self every so often, like all those, begins to trample you I know. I have my own share of broken dreams, a baggage full of abandoned emotions. I am sorry for all every single of those moments when I hurt you, made you feel less beautiful.

But know, that you will be loved. The way you want to. The way you deserve.

Know that something special is here within you.

Happy birthday

Noor -

I have this yearning to love you.

Is it not the one you're looking for.

Am I, not the one

Yours.

O breeze

...in this direction, does my darling prince live
from this direction, blows a fresh and cold wind...


Sublime and familiar. These words, and the melody.  My soil... the place where I come from. Place where simplicity is beloved and being together is considered sacred... where lovers are never loud and giving is the only way to seek... where someone's trouble upsets you, and his/her happiness makes your day. Where most powerful always becomes the host, the entertainer.. and being good is the most cherished, delightful  possession....where success belongs to everyone, and quiet confidence still thrives.

My love.. the more I talk to you, the more I feel.. that you belong to this place.

..another conversation

And here we are, a typical Dutch afternoon, dark pouring sky, hundreds of students around us from over a hundred nationalities.. [well this is what they say, I have never tried counting myself], our individual project meetings scheduled in about thirty minutes:

..and then she goes

‘Oh I saw her picture, I think she is really pretty’

‘Yeah?… I think so too!’ I surely do.

‘I like this black bean sauce… ever tried? My first attempt to redirect conversation.

‘..you never told me how you guys came to know each other’

‘You really wanna know that?’

‘Duh?’ Raised eyebrows.

‘Well… I used to read her blog’

‘She writes?’

‘Yeah..’ and hers is the only blog I read.

‘And so do you right?’

‘Call it rambling rather’ That's me, always!

‘..yeah yeah’

‘And where does she study exactly?’

‘Near Boston?’

‘She got an scholarship too?’

‘Yup!’  Oh I am so proud of her.

‘And what is she gonna study in Amsterdam?’

‘Law’

‘Ohh…’ She is thinking, has she found an other connection?

Few minutes of silence, the only Chinese among us, our food, prevails.

‘Noor..?’ ..and here she goes on again.

‘Yes, sweetheart?’

‘You know.. it all seems so nice to me’

‘Yeah I know you like Chinese’ Lameness takes over.

‘Nooo, I meant what you have with her and how you talk about her’

…okay so she wants to talk about this more.

‘..yeah?’

 ‘Yeah… from how she looks and whatever I know about her… I feel she’s a really good 

person, and you two are a fine match’

‘..really? But only an hour back you called me an idiot!’ But she did!!.

‘That you are! But seriously.. you know that you stand out right’.

‘No I don’t, tell me? Rather ‘educate’ me’. I wink.

This time she ignores me and goes on

‘..and this whole idea of being together in Amsterdam, Paris and all these places, far away 

from home doing what you love to do…sounds soooo perfect.’

‘...yeah … still few months to go’

….she does not reply.

‘So Noor, would you be doing your thesis in Amsterdam then?’

I look at her, such a broad smile on her face.

‘We will see.’

We both laugh.

Hope

"The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned [from Crete] had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same."

As the time slipped away, and moments, one by one carved their way toward infinity… as decayed timber, broken images, and withered underfed impressions were replaced, as sight of one shore was bartered for anticipation of the other, as we, and the ships were reconstructed part by part… something more than the structure, less tangible but more perceptible also changed. The necessity to exist, and its relevance with the reason, widened up to a point where it all became insignificant. And then there was nothing but a small black dot marking the end of journey. Deathbed; you have finally reached the other shore.

What if all the planks and images and impressions could be gathered and used to build a second ship, or the second you; the new, the older, the earliest of you? Would you recognize him?  

………….

Quite often I think about my grandma. How when reminiscing, her wrinkled face would lighten up, and then within a span of few minutes, how that broken smile would evaporate… unforgiving facts always resurfacing, trials becoming more visible and more unsettling every time. When my father passed away last year, she would fondly talk about his childhood, how good he was in school, what food he liked, how early in his life he started working… difficult to calm her down then; and to contain her tears.  Some day she would talk about her husband… With a twinkle in her eyes, she once told us, ‘tumhara dada mujhe kuch kaam karne nahin dete they, sab khud karna hota tha unhein…’. And then she went quiet, lost in nothing but recollections and endless voids.

Parents, husband, siblings, son…

What is our capacity to lose?

Is there a limit?

………….

‘My breaking point is fast approaching…I am there, it is here.

I will not rise again.’

I might not know it all, but I do, that you have been hurt. Your trust broken, trounced by insensitive and inconsiderate mediocrity around. I say this because we are connected in ways difficult to verbalize, but so strong that I can almost tell every time when something goes wrong with you. There is nothing more important than your happiness, an expression I can and do revisit several times, every single day. My idiocy, my eyes, pearls, smile, short hair… my singing, this blog… devoted so naturally to make you smile. And when you do, my world lightens up. When Kafka mentions endless togetherness, without interruption, and a grave to clasp and hide… I think about you. Rumi’s sleepless night, and Faiz’s night of union, and hundreds of other lyrical illustrations… they all come to life when you are close to me. As Hafiz had foreseen, I find myself asking today… how can I be more kind, how can I love more.

You don’t feel like talking, and you are exhausted…but all I want you to know is that I really love you. That you are a beautiful, beautiful person, who knows how to love, and to respect relationships. That yes your experiences have shown you the other side of it, but you deserve all the affection all the love. Because this is what you give out to the world.

I do not want you to be, but even if you are going down, I still wish to be with you. As what we have created together, I believe in all my sanity, has that strength to bring us up again.

No matter how much time it takes, it will bring us up again.

I miss you tonight.

His willingness to put trust in people, his extraordinary sense of hope… or perhaps I should say, everything that is about him, can be explained by the extent and manner in which he has suffered over the years. Paradoxes, beliefs so fluid that lasting mutilation is improbable… they always get back to where and how they belong. For him, being trusting is as, if not more important than being trustworthy, and being loving is as desirable as being lovable.

Do you know how it feels when a mother gets slapped right in front of your eyes? Your mother.  And as she comes closer you can see those finger marks on her face... a sight that cuts through, humiliating you in a way that you almost become numb. Deadened. Emotionally so charged but thoughts completely anesthetized. And then the sweltering tears burn on your skin for years and years to come. 

“Only do not forget, if I wake up crying
it's only because in my dream I'm a lost child

hunting through the leaves of the night for your hands....”

Are you listening?

..yaaram

When two particles meet, or two objects say two billiard balls, the result is almost always predictable; a distinct arrangement of position, velocity and mass. Simplest of interactions where either nothing ever changes or changes radically in a way that it never becomes the same again.  How different it is with us? When two people meet, their encounters and the outcomes, depend almost every time on the path that they have taken to arrive at that point. By this token, the subjects may not be at the center as they are not independent in the truest or any possible sense. How they think, perceive or feel is, in one way or the other, always tied to their histories; intricate and not so stochastic. My history, inclusive of all the roles that I have had to play, real or fictitious, revolves mainly around passion, pride and pain. Or perhaps this is how I think of it.

This love that I have for you is not all fantasy.  Experiences, those innumerable encounters may not give me the liberty or desire to paint a perfect picture. As I have come to understand over the years that, acceptance of each other’s imperfections is the best gift we can share; and that we may have our own struggles, those moments of insecurity, disconnection and unrecognizable agony.  Every time we are together, we as subjects remain no longer as important; our interactions, these daily stirring encounters take up the center stage, transcending us to a place where words and phenomena such as fantasy and perfection become somewhat insignificant. Acceptance becomes so easy here, a process so natural. There are times when I can identify patterns, cues that we may have taken the same path. Times when I feel that this is one thing, more than any other, that connects us so beautifully. Times when I feel that our histories do recognize each other; that they smile, and that they want to make love. I don’t talk about it often, or perhaps not at all, but there are times when what you say and how you love makes my heart smile so hard, and makes me so happy that I could cry. Every inch of my body yearns for it. Every dimension of my existence, be it passion, pride or pain, feels so coupled; satisfied. And let me say this again… my love for you is not a fantasy. You and I are here in a very real sense. Few days back I said that I want to take you away and just disappear. Yes, but not in the sense of hibernation. For how we are, we will not be able to love and reside in peace while our cities and people burn. I want to go out and face the world with you; live with you. See the world, and make an impact.

I get really scared when I think about losing you. I never mentioned it, mainly because it would have brought both us down, but I have dreamed of it more than a few times in last couple of weeks. You being away… and that intense, palpable pain.

Coming back to you every night is like coming back home.

I don’t want to be a wanderer all my life.

I get exhausted.

I really don’t want to.

I love you. With all that I have.

...

Together they had overcome the daily incomprehension, the instantaneous hatred, the reciprocal nastiness, and fabulous flashes of glory in the conjugal conspiracy. It was time when they both loved each other best, without hurry or excess, when both were most conscious of and grateful for their incredible victories over adversity. Life would still present them with other moral trials, of course, but that no longer mattered: they were on the other shore.

 Gabriel García Márquez

You and I

...palms rise to the universe

as we... moonshine and molly

feel the warmth, we'll never die...

...we're like diamonds in the sky

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”  

- Pablo Neruda

.......

And there are times when I wish to take you away; and just disappear. Few days, few months, few years. I can't exactly say when but someday, the world would finally forget us. 

That day we would melt into an ecstasy.

Love. Emblazoned on our hearts.

"You see, I divide men into three categories: those who have a lot of money, those who have none at all and those who have a little. The first want to keep what they have: their interest is to maintain order; the second want to take what they do not have: their interest is to destroy the existing order and to establish one which is profitable to them. They each are realist, people with whom one can agree. The third group want to overthrow the social order to take what they do not have, while still preserving it so that no one takes away what they have. Thus, they preserve in fact what they destroy in theory, or they destroy in fact what they seem to preserve. Those are the idealists".

- Jean Paul Sartre

“…I can’t think of any greater happiness than to be with you all the time, without interruption, endlessly, even though I feel that here in this world there’s no undisturbed place for our love, neither in the village nor anywhere else; and I dream of a grave, deep and narrow, where we could clasp each other in our arms as with clamps, and I would hide my face in you and you would hide your face in me, and nobody would ever see us any more.” 

― Franz Kafka

Don't go. Don't let me go.

Chah na rakheen

'Ishq te aashiq doho barabar.. atey ishq da ta vadera..'

.......

I am watching the snowstorm outside. She's going through my playlist. Exploring, shuffling... never at peace. A pattern so recognisable, an impression so palpable. And then she gives up, keeping my phone aside, succumbing to her quiet self; yet again. There is no more music, the room is filled with her quintessential silence... I must speak before this silence becomes too loud. 

'He says.. love and fire are the same..'

'But love hurts more, no?'

I take a sip of my coffee and turn to look at her. She expects my answer, but I am not sure what to say. Her naive anticipation almost makes me smile. 

'I don't know really...  not so experienced with fire'

'Hmm..' she looks down. Seems to me as if she grew ten years in past ten seconds. 

'You know.. loving is trance.. perhaps almost the only thing that makes me feel good about myself'

'Isn't trance a delusion?'

'...perhaps that is why it hurts more?'

............

Aatish paani nal bujheyn di

Ate ishq da daaru kehra..

From where I am standing right now, some twenty five thousand feet, I can see almost everything. Or perhaps, almost nothing. It is so quiet, as if the God's speaking to you. You question the cold, the darkness, the melancholy... and then the realisation. Yes you have brought no one but yourself up here.

Karlovy Lazne. Prague. There you would find him tonight. His last in the city of Kafka, his first of this year. It is strange how time never stops, never withdraws existence like every other thing does. Love, as people abandon you. Love, as you abandon people. God, as He ceases to exist at some point in your life; as soon as you begin connecting with the darkness within and around you. Hope, when it dies with the diminishing light of your father's eyes.

May the perpetual light be, if there is any, with those departed.

The year 2012. Love. God. My father.