A quick post!

So! Back to bnu and writin a lil again! Had to write a short story of 750 words for my creative writing class but as usual went waaaay beyond that…also, was stayin at a cuzins place da night before the story was due so wrote it in an hour or so…pretty cliched and borin..but I tohught Id preserve it here..

AND FOR GODS SAKE, SOMEBODY COMMENT! I HATE YOU ALL FOR MAKIN ME SEEM LIKE A 90 YEAR OLD HAG WHO THINKS SHE HAS A LOT TO SAY BUT ENDS UP TALKIN MOSTLY TO HERSELF! UGH

A GRAVE MAN

“What? Ma, you’re kidding, right?” I looked at my mother in wonder, and tried to recall what date it was since, for some very bizarre reason, I thought an April Fool prank was being played on me. I gazed strangely at my mother because it wasn’t the first of April, nor anywhere near it.

My mother seemed almost paralyzed with grief, or maybe she was just in denial, so she spoke absent mindedly, “Of course not, jana, he lied to you about why he couldn’t come to your wedding. Apparently he was then in England for this. Are you going to go see him, hun?” She raced a limp hand through her silvery hair and then scratched the back of her neck distractedly.

I gave an incredulous shake of the head, ignoring my mother’s ludicrous question. I tried to formulate my thoughts but all that raced through my head were the last couple of months in various brief flashbacks. The Coke-fights in the last days of college, the slumber parties (though we called them night-overs because slumber parties sounded too teenage-girly), the ‘study group sessions’, the recent craze of memorizing Shakespeare and then trying his verses on every random girl, the pursuit and the wooing of Aaima and how Rayan had acted as the intermediary between us, how happy he had been when Aaima and I had finally hooked up, and how he had played such a huge part in bringing us together by going up to her family and talking to them directly. And all this time…all this time, I was being kept in darkness. And then finally, I swallowed thickly, that asshole had disappeared just before the wedding on the pretext that his parents had decided to file for a divorce and he wanted to go to Sialkot to try knock some sense into their heads. You lied, Rayan, you son of a bitch, you lied! You ass, ass, ass, you lied!

My insides were on fire as I groped my way out of the room blindly and rushed towards the main door. My mother’s distracted voice floated out of the living room. “Don’t tell Aaima, jana. Newly wed and face such a trauma?!”

I raced out of the house and dashed towards my Toyota. During the drive, I couldn’t articulate my thoughts as memories and apprehensions and fear and disbelief assaulted me. Finally I took a deep breath, said a quick prayer and decided my distraught mother’s word wasn’t enough to convince me and it just couldn’t be true. Period. Nothing in the world, save God or Rayan himself, could make me believe this inconceivable fiendish lie.

As I drew closer to his house, I realized I wasn’t frightened or worried anymore. I was just plain angry. So livid my cheeks were on fire and my burning crimson ears felt like they would melt away and the fury would spill out, scalding away the lie and setting aflame the liars.

Fuming, I rushed inside his house without knocking and yelled.“RAYAN! RAYAN! Where you? Move your fat ass and step right in front of me! I wanna see you walk, talk and kick my ass! RAYAN! Show yourself.”

Rayan’s father rushed out from the bedroom at the end of the hall to scream at the offender who was responsible for all the clamor. He stopped short when he saw me and took a deep breath. “Ali.” Just a statement, expressionless, quiet.

I smiled at him warmly and went up to him. “Assalmu Alaikum, Uncle. How are you? Where’s that dim wit? I heard the craziest…but forget it. I’ll just go talk to him directly.”I ignored the sob that I think I heard as I passed Uncle and went into the room he had come from.

Rayan was lying on his bed, just as I had seen him lie there so many times. I avoided looking at his weeping mother in the corner and went up straight to him. Up close, I thought his face looked ashen and his eyes sunken. I closed my eyes and almost whispered.

“Wassup, dawg?” I was adamant. Today wasn’t going to be different at all. I had been mimicking Bugs Bunny since the days we had watched those cartoons in the very same room for long hours all those years ago and now I had said it again just as I had said so a gazillion times before.I heard him smile as he spoke.

“Nothing much. Heard the latest?” I could imagine his eyes lighting up with humor and I hated him for his wit at that moment.

“No. Enlighten me.”

“Oh c’mon man! You know. Admit it.” He said playfully. I opened my eyes and glanced at him sharply. One look at my wild crazy eyes and Rayan sobered.

 “You know it.” He whispered again and looked at me straight in the eye.

My arms fell to my side and I stared at him, sitting there, propped up by several pillows, looking at me earnestly. “No.” My voice was firm.

“Ali. Look at me. See it.” Rayan was worried now.

“I can’t. I won’t.” I warned him.

He looked at me and smiled encouragingly. “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. You know that. We’ve agreed upon it.”

“No. Not till you say it. You can’t. Don’t.” I pleaded, begged, implored.

Rayan got that look back in his eyes as he saw the realization dawning on me. He smiled impishly and said, “But of course not, my knight. It’s your battle. Fight it.”

I was furious and skeptical, calm and incredibly terrified all at once. “Why didn’t you tell me before? Why?”

“Aiwaiinn.” He beamed. “Why ruin your wedding?”

“Are you bloody fucking crazy? Are you? What’s a frickking wedding compared to…compared to this?” I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud.

He smirked and shook his head just as he had shaken it so many times when he used to think I was being extremely stupid. Unexpectedly, when he spoke, his smirk faltered. “Actually, I wasn’t too awesome at accepting it either. Took my time doing that and then my guts just failed me. I’m sorry!” His face was grave and (was that my imagination?) his voice quivered a little. 

 I massaged my stiff neck, looked at him long and hard, clenched my fist tightly and rubbed my stinging eyes before asking the question. “How much more time?”

For a split of a second, Rayan’s eyes clouded over while his face maintained that obstinate annoying smile. I could see his own brief, yet mighty battle being fought and though his roguishness won as usual, that split of a second drowned me in the realization and truth of the approaching imminent doom and I cried out loud before he spoke teasingly.

“Ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.” 

Back to Heaven…

BNU opened Al-Hamdulillah Al-Hamdulillah bringing with it the tooti phooti routine that I had much sought in the vacations. Along with the routine came many of the things I had forgotten existed in BNU. Yet another semester has begun, revealing the blatant disorganization of the administration, the clothes (or non) of the BNU-ites, the sudden shouts and snickers and snorts during a lecture, the whining monotonous voices of those who argue and talk just for the sake of wasting the time, trying to be witty and funny. Everything came rushing back in a day and two and the mini Jamia Hafsa (the late Talibans) stood awed and humbled at the on-goings.As is usual at the beginning of each semester when we all realize in what a dump we are studying, TT decided to drop out of college and S thundered in with a super religious zeal and million of practical ideas of how to transform BNU into a madressa and bring about a world revolution. Mini Jamia Hafsa (JH) has successfully recruited a.k.a brainwashed a new member whom I will, hereafter, refer to as QQ. QQ has recently started taking the hijab and as obvious, is doing a bit of Jihad and winning MashaAllah as she stands strong with the iron support of her Niqabi girlfriend, the Tote.

A week has passed since BNU opened and I still don’t think I have returned to college. Mostly it’s because, being the super-organized college BNU is, our classes for the first week were scheduled at all the wrong times, the timetables dint match, we had some classes and for the others, the teachers refused to come. So in this chill, I didn’t feel like BNU had begun.

Today, though, I went to college and found it the BNU we all know and love(BY we, I mean you and me, since you have known it through me and I’m sure you’ve fallen in love with it by now too, no?). The college was full of BNU-ites. As literature students, we are blessed with the status of the reclusive outcasts so we normally don’t have much interaction with BNU-ites. But today, since we had a mixed class of different majors and semesters, the Pakistan Studies class was thriving with 26 BNU-ites (minus the mini JH of course! lol) all of different colors (thanks to the bases and foundations used!), different creeds, ages and mental  and maturity levels.

My tolerance has moved down from zero to negative in the past couple of days. I’m not only less tolerant of BNU and its ites, but also of the peculiarties and eccentricity of my own friends. No, it’s not u TT aunty; though u shud have an idea who I’m talking about.

Neway to conclude in one line:

 It’s just excellent, being back in BNU!

Restoring myself…

BNU hasn’t opened yet but (get ready for the Shock of your life!) I’m looking forward to it opening. I look forward to getting up at a relatively fixed time, getting out of the house, meeting people, doing Taleem, cussing BNU futility of trying to seem like a uni, reminiscing about my beloved school and going over friendship and love problems which are bound to happen when a small band of people meet everyday and interact. At least I will have something to do. At least I’ll start talking again.

These summer holidays were proabably the worst I’ve ever had. Being stuck with a disturbed mind and an insane oneself is torture enough; add in a couple of problems and life becomes just beautiful. But all’s well that ends well. And insha’Allah I am and will be just myself again, and hopefully better. So that’s the past and once again, Al-Hamdulillah, I’m looking forward to the future.

Opening my eyes wide and gazing at the sun…

Treasured Reminiscences

I was juat reading a couple of blogs and felt horrible about not writing on my own. It’s been a long long while I have written something with the intention of letting my mind wander on paper (figuratively!) and blabbing to my hearts content. I have justified my procrastination and laziness with various reasons but today I thought enough is enough and its time to give myself a kick in the ass!

I started writing about myself generally and ended up writing about my beloved university, BNU. The university I havent gone to in 2 months and to which I have no desire to return to any time soon. The university which gave me so much…

Lets trace my journey in BNU  from the very beginning. I was happy in the beginning that A-Hamdulillah, I went with some friends who I knew from before, so  I was saved from the initial awkward, embarrassed and quiet phase that comes when I am exposed to a new hostile environment. I changed. BNU gave me its share of things to chew over. I was in a different environment, with different people, doing different things, thinking over different issues etc.

How ABSOLUTELY, UTTERLY, COMPLETELY mad BNU drove me in the beginning can be judged from  the article I wrote a long time back and which can be found somewhere in my archives. So I’m not gonna rehash those pleasant memories.

Lets move onto what we, as a “group” of 4 abaya-clad, relatively good students and the founders of the Prayer Room Commission contributed to BNU…our university-the center of our life, the focus of our thoughts, the throb of our hearts… 

We introduced the ‘Taliban’ Movement in the poor university; we forbade poor girls who wore jeans to use the washroom in the Prayer Room; we dessiminated Anti-BNU-spirit documents to create divisions amongst the unified community of BNU; we barged into classrooms, terrorised the teacher and students alike and warned them not to play loud music in or near our Prayer Room (or else…); and we were so successful that we even took the Administration under our wicked Taliban wing and sent out letters to the parents of ALL the children that they should dress up their children appropriately and decently, a.k.a in abayas and jubbas and hijabs and amamas.

As a university, BNU has given us a lot. It has given us the titles of “Ninjas” (quite unoriginal, I must say) and bestowed upon us the honor of starting Talibanisation in the university (personally I’m flattered! We must be really awe (or terror) inspiring that we actually motivated BNU (I REPEAT) BNU FOLKS to sit down, write, print, distribute and even hang up notices of “STOP TALIBANISATION IN BNU!!!” in every nook and cranny of the uni! All this done for 4 people…Chaa nahi gye hum? )

Like I said, I owe a lot to BNU. Specially a couple of lectures we got from Someone Special on how Islam wasnt spread by the sword and Dawah isn’t the job of normal Muslims but the work of scholars. But the most cherished gifts BNU blessed me with were the series of lectures we got from “excellent, spectacular, dazzling” experts and scholars of Islam. What knowledge I gained! What insight I got into the truth and reality of things! How grateful I  was to know that abayas are just cultural things, definitely not important, and how it is okay to do with modest clothes (define modest clothes??)! How absolutely motivated I felt to change the appearance of my husband when I was magnanimously told that beards were the trend of the Prophet’s time and that my husband shouldnt keep a beard because even Abu Jehel had a beard and we so don’t want to copy him, right?

I love and miss BNU from the bottom of my heart! May it prosper and continue to spread the love, beauty and modernity it is spreading!

LONG LIVE BNU!

Happiness abounds…for real..

Ok…make all the fun you want but this was the second poem I wrote for my Poetry class.

It’s an image poem, really. If I can, I might upload the image too. I like the image waaay more than I like the actual poem, though. I guess that goes without saying. Hehe.

The story behind this poem is amazing, which is why, despite the 3/5 I got on it from the teacher (hehe), I still love it. It’s become something like a cherished memory.

We were supposed to hand in the poem one week after it was assigned to us. Probably I forgot, or probably I just didn’t want to remember it, but two days before the submission deadline, I found out that the time was almost over. I panicked. A LOT!

Now I’m waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting for the inspiration to hit me. Something to inspire me to writing it. Some image. I thought of the photographs I had, I went through some images online even. Things got so desperate I ACTUALLY considered writing my poor poor poem on Aunty Chij Bachee’s helpless little black sock-clad foot. Lol! Imagine!

Well, the last day arrives. I still can’t think of anything. I’m depressed. So as desperate measures, I ask my brother to take me out for a drive.

It was a rainy night. Beautiful. Silent. Calm. I tried to look around, visualising everything as an image which I could write about. Lots of things were playing around in my mind; ideas chasing one another, but THE idea, THE image wasn’t hitting me.

I put on music to help me dream. Fantasize.

It helped. But not really. But I guess I’ll give it the credit of setting the mood.

The drive with my brother proved unsuccessful. My Bhabhi and I decided to go out again, so as to enjoy the awesome weather. We went to Defence, Phase 5. One really really pretty but isolated area. It has these huge flowing roads with palm trees bordering them and pale street lights showing the way at that time of the night. It was an awesome ride. To top it all off with the most delightful cherry, we had that really great but hateful song on repeat. “Maula mere…”

We were just loitering on the roads when I suddenly looked into the review mirror. It reflected this empty, wet, slippery road, with some random palm trees and a street light shining brightly on the empty, almost lifeless view. As I gazed at it, sitting in the car with my Bhabhi who was in the mood to burn much rubber, I thought the the view that I was racing away from, was just like my life, my past and my mistakes. Things I run away from. Intentionally, unintentionally.

Needless to say, I had found my image.

Believe or not, I wrote this poem (???) in the car on my cell phone as an SMS.

I’m cool, I know.   

Anyway, most of you have read it, but I would still like comments!

                             

HAPPINESS ABOUNDS.

A moment dies when a moment’s born.Every moment carries the stench of hell fireand a breath of Elysium. 

The moments too slow to catch up to me,left far behind, longing, yearning, searching,

the moments trying to reach me,

the moments reaching out to touch me, embrace me

but I’m too hurried, too fast… 

Moments full of light, yet so dark

wet, like the tears shed on a glistening cheek,

yet, a part of the road to me

and a part which i shan’t wish to part from. 

Moments drained, like a half-empty glass,but yet so complete, so full.

The splatter of the rain

on the mirage of painful moments,

the shattering into million

 minor moments of anguish,

thus enough to bear

with pain and pleasure. 

Moments shrouded in darkness, in pain,yet cloaked with linings white,

Moments I can die for,

to let them live forever. 

Never again shall these moments live.Such short lives yet so meaningful.

How I wish to die like one moment

 and to be born again. 

Bards and Minstrels…

This semester at college we have taken this new course with the intriguing name “Bards and Minstrels.” Before you get too interested, it’s just simply a poetry class where we read and struggle to write something  which can be classified as poetry.

Now I’ve never read or written poetry in my entire life. Usually, I don’t even understand it till somebody explains it to me. So I’ve never really taken an interest in it.

That’s what everyone in my class says, too. Or maybe a few say that they do like poetry but have never written it. So when a few days back our teacher suddenly told us to write a poem in ten minutes during class, I, contentedly wrote my first non-rhyming, non-flowing non-poetic few lines, satisfied to know that I wouldn’t be the only one spelling out disaster.

But as my luck would have it, it turned out that most of my friends are great poets, masha’Allah! I mean, as each of them read out their brilliant work in class, I got pleasantly surprised, intimidated and all the more self-conscious about my own crap.

But obviously I had to read it when my turn came. Before my turn, I was feeling uncomfortable, dejected and even depressed about my writing. But after I read my poem, I just sat back and told myself that not knowing crap about poetry, if I had managed to even write something which other people can call a poem, that was an achievement.

So without feeling shy and self-conscious, I’m gonna post the very first poem of my life on my blog. There’s no title, really, since the teacher just gave us a word “Blue” to write about. Actually, we were told to think up of 10 words which come to our mind when we think of the word blue and then make a poem outta them. ( I thought of stuff like peace, blue eyes, immenseness-I know immensity is a better word but immenseness came to my mind first so I used it-sue me! Hehe)

I guess “Blue” can be a title but it sounds bleh!

P.s. This is supposed to be divided into paragraphs or whatever you call them, but somehow this stupid blog aint letting me put in the required space!

The peace reflecting fromthe serene warm sea.The flight of the birds

on a pleasant sunny day.

And the fingernails of the

child struggling against the freezing winds.

The cold betrayal of the

penetrating icy glare.

And the bruises left on the

naked battered heart.

The blue of the

blueness of immenseness.

And the blues of the

world I live in.