Nani Jan ka Aangan

The first four blooms in my Jasmine plant brought a strange sense of calm this morning. A night that was laced with nightmares, waking me up every few minutes and an extremely early morning on a Sunday which could have been avoided sleeping cozily till 9, became blurred with the beauty and fragrance of the white flowers. I had been checking every morning for the last four days, waiting for the delicate buds to uncurl and give birth to one of my favourite local flowers. They take me back to where the story started from - nani jan ka aangan. I remember the little girl gazing open-mouthed at the frangipani tree right outside, the clear blue skies, the friendly Christian neighbours talking outside the gate. I remember the sunny afternoons when everyone would be asleep but that girl would stay up during the warm afternoons, carefully filling up her smock with the white blossoms strewn on the pakka farash of the courtyard. The rows of evergreens on two wrought-iron stands, the Quaid-e-Azam look-alike (in her opinion) grandfather keeping an eye on her from the verandah out of sheer over-protectiveness , the house sparrows chirping gaily and often perching skeptically on the edge of the wall and the Jasmine bush! Oh the Jasmine bush! The delicate ivory blooms, the heavenly fragrance, the divinity! Her world was so complete - phool, chiyya, Tadoo, ghar! Chiyya being the birds she was friends with, Tadoo the Godforsaken nickname given to her which she did not find very flattering later. All those wonderful people who doted on her, left one by one. Some gave in to sickness, some to old age and others just to relieve themselves of the pains that life inflicted upon them. She often wondered, how is it that this particular family saw more death than many others she knew. But then she was told that it was only a select few who are so dear to God that God likes them with Himself on the skies, so she was content knowing the fact that her loved ones who were gone, were happy with God, in a special place.
Nani's aangan had a special meaning to her. It was her playground, her adventure park, her happy place. There was always so much to do in that square piece of land: setting traps for the sparrows, setting them free after a few minutes of triumphant pleasure; running after the occasional frog, then shrieking hysterically when it would leap near her foot; lying flat on her back watching birds fly past, playing hopscotch on a crude hand-drawn chalk grid and making garlands. Yes, every evening she would pick Jasmine flowers from the bush that now reached the upper floor, and carefully run a needle through them, turning them into a fragrant gajra for nani. Nani was a petite figure, always wrapped in a pristine cotton sari and a neat plait. She once roamed the aangan keeping it immaculate as herself. Now confined to her takhat and a wheelchair, she still had an authoritative air about her. She was a nani straight out of a storybook , with her paandan and takhat with white chandnis and gao takyas (bolsters). And then she had countless stories to tell. The first brush with koh qaaf ka jaadoogar, alif laila, uran qaaleen, and the likes was all due to nani. And then there were fact-based (according to her) tales of pacchal peirees a.k.a. churails, that chased either her or her friends or some cousin back in India. She was born in Gorakhpur, a name that fascinated the little girl till she finally got to visit the little town at the age of seven, maybe eight. To say she remembered vaguely would not be correct. She remembered most of it. The cycle-rikshaws, the pigs roaming around, the Hindu and Sikh girls from the mohalla whom she had befriended. And when it would rain, which was almost everyday as the trip had been taken during the monsoon season, the girls in the neighbourhood would arrange for a huge swing on one of the trees. The swing could accommodate about half a dozen girls in one go. Her mother's aunt, nani's sister, owned the fields right behind the house. Often she would accompany pappal nani as she chose to call her for some odd reason. The monkeys that used to sit on the walls, visiting frequently because of the guava tree in pappal nani's aangan were never forgotten. And so the little girl's story went on from one nani's aangan to another nani's aangan till one day she grew too big to be playing in either of them. She did however reminiscence often and dared to share her romantic associations with aangans with the only one who would understand.
The rest remained in her memories, her dreams, her heart, and perhaps another heart that shared her passion for ties with the past...

Because you dared to reimagine...

What good is this life if we don't dare to dream, if we don't have the courage to move past all hurdles, if we don't reimagine?
You dared...
The little girl who liked looking out the car window at the balconies in the old area of Saddar, reimagining them in pristine condition, died a slow death; or so you thought. Perhaps she never met her death but was in deep slumber. Perhaps she just needed to be awakened with gentle love. Perhaps she chose to close her eyes till the day came when she could open her eyes to a sight worth seeing. And awakened she was! And the sight was everything she ever dreamed of. But it wasn't for her; it wasn't hers. Was it a delusion?
People appear what they aren't and you know that. You know what they really are. People warn you, they tell you to be wary; but the world seems like a better place with them and you ignore all warnings, all signs. As you move forward with them, you realize you are not really moving forward at all but are stuck in one spot. But the illusion, oh so beautiful! There is no way forward, no end in sight, nothing to hold onto; yet you grasp onto a tiny shred of hope with all your might and just don't want to let go. You know deep down you are not the first, you know you will not be the last, you know you were not the only one; yet you hang on. You know what people tell you is true, yet you hold on. You know there is nothing special about you, yet you hang on. You know no one will ever return, yet you hang on. It's humiliating, heart-breaking, like someone twists a dagger through your heart each morning and wrenches it every night. Your mind and heart are in a constant battle everyday. You spend your days with a new hope and nights with a rapidly deepening sense of hopelessness and sorrow. Till one day you decide to make a choice, bury the dreams and close all doors as tight as possible. You move forward with a vengeance, refusing to let anything dampen your spirits. You try to build new dreams, but all you see is haze. You still move ahead with a determination never to look back! You banish all memories from you mind to the darkest place in your heart. You refuse to acknowledge the face that lingers in you mind. You turn to your heart and urge it to sing a new song, full of hope and love. You peep into your heart and gather happy moments to fill it with. You make yourself  believe that you were justified in making the choices that you did. You continue to blame others for treating a poor heart like a plaything. But you move ahead. You keep your pace. Your stance changes however. You lose the chirpiness, the patience, the composure you were once known for. But you do move ahead. You put on a brave front and go through your daily motions almost mechanically. And you try to find joy in brief moments with a few special ones. And you try to let go... yes, you try hard. You try to erase the familiar face from your thoughts, your mind, your heart...you try so hard! What went wrong? Or was it wrong from the very beginning? Did it even exist? So you die with countless unanswered questions?
And all because you dared to reimagine life....

There's always a catch...

The choices we make in life, good or bad, all come with a price. And life itself? I call it crazy, twisted but it's so much more than that. Like a big black hole that just sucks everything in.
Sometimes I feel it's all one big game for Him. He places us where he pleases, then just sits back and has His fun. But then He can! What are we but mere puppets! For He chooses to make us play the role of puppets. And one after another, He springs surprises upon us, watching us smile, cry, hurt, writhe in pain. And then with everything that we are granted, there is always a catch! Nothing is granted just like that. There are always two sides to everything; what we see, and what He sees...
What if we look at life from another perspective? From His perspective. Can we?
I sometimes feel that I have left my physical form and just floated out of my body and am able to see a different view of the world. We all experience that at some point in our lives whether we realize it or not. Or perhaps we do realize it but are not willing to acknowledge it.
I witness so many bizarre happenings around me. Strangers become soul mates and once soul mates, become strangers. It's almost as if those hundreds of days never existed between the two. You spend more than a decade figuring out the real meaning of life and then just give up. You feel tired, your feet refusing to take another step and you just let yourself go with the flow, knowing there is no end in sight, yet hoping there will be one. What other choice is there? He wrote the script; He pulls the strings; He runs the show. And you thought you made all those choices? What fools? So just move with the rhythmic motion and let Him take you where you're destined to end up. What good is fighting it? Go with the flow, let yourself be taken into what the future holds for you. Let fate decide! There will always be a catch! There always is! Every time you think you have conquered the world, stop right there! It is He who has made you believe that you are in charge; but you're NOT!!! The world at your feet is a delusion! You being in control merely a figment of your imagination. The correct choice infact is not the correct choice, but if it makes you happy for now, so be it! It has its price, and you will pay! What you left behind was not the correct choice either. There IS no correct choice! There never IS! So be content with what is there, and brush aside what isn't there. Be content, be content my heart! You have a long, long way to go. Do not let the demons pull you in abyss! Fight them with all your might! Let them know that you have the will to banish them to the deepest darkest corners of your mind. Let them howl and wail all they want. Be strong my poor heart! For you have a long way to go!

Dreams tucked away...

Sometimes it's best to wrap away your most special dream in your trusty old trunk and put a big padlock on it. And once you do that you get your first night of dreamless sleep in ages. Sleep still doesn't come easily, but when it does, you for the first time, do not see that familiar face that you did every single night, and what's even better is that you don't see the baby boy who pops in for a surprise visit every now and then. You do wonder however, the significance of the dreams that have been part of your nights for such a long time. Will they still come and haunt you? Blocking out thoughts has never been more difficult, but it is still achievable like everything else in the world. But will it be difficult at the other end also? For the sake of easing pain for others, one can only hope it is. But then a small part of this selfish heart also desires for a tiny shred of memory to remain in the other's heart.
What a crazy twisted thing this life is! And what surprises it bears! And the difference in desires. Some desire  wealth, some desire fame; a few wish for nothing but love and yes I do mean JUST love! All the money and fame in the world cannot make them let go of this desire. And when they do get it, sometimes like a fool they don't know how to take care of it and let go; at other times they grasp it with both hands and cherish it forever. These fools usually always have one thing in common - they always want reciprocation. They want the same amount of love in return if not more. They want their own love to be acknowledged and cherished. They want to hear things and they feel the need to be held quietly with no words spoken sometimes. They need to be loved! And when they don't get that, they get shattered, in thousands of tiny pieces which cannot be put together. But the strong ones put up a brave front, gather the shards, put them all together, taking the sharpest one and piercing it through the heart to remember what they had done and what they had stepped on to eventually find happiness and go on with their lives; finding peace and happiness in the moments of companionship and pushing back tears when alone, for those tears were never meant to roll down the cheeks when one has passed on that heartache to someone else in order to buy happiness.
So here I am today, gently wrapping away all the dreams and desires that I had cherished for so long; the desire to dance in the rain, to be dragged out when it snows; the dream of Bosphorus together and that of the city with the smoke signals. I wrapped away my dream of finding a five leaved clover and wish for just one thing that I wanted more than anything else; I gave up my dream of walking hand in hand down the beach quietly. I released the fireflies, free to attain their dreams and not be part of mine. And yes, I wrapped away many dreams I never dared to share; the one where I'm taken to the winding streets of Cambridge and I gape at the the architectural marvels and someone mischievously leaves me there till I realize that I'm alone and am in tears till I see a familiar face at a distance with that beautiful smile and I run to be held in a warm embrace, never to let go. I gave up on the dream of visiting Toledo with someone equally mesmerised by things that intrigue me. I shed no tears while I put away all my dreams and desires in the dusty old trunk. I did so with a heavy heart, tight-lipped but without a single tear. I tore away a piece of my heart and put it with those dreams to keep them warm but I didn't shed a single tear. I tore a piece of another's heart and put it inside to keep my heart company, but I did not shed a single tear. I felt a strange numbness spreading all over and felt grateful for it and I remembered how I had been praying for the last few weeks that may God take me down the road that turns out to be the best for me and my children in the long run. No need to shed tears. I took the safer route. No need to shed tears! Tears are for weaklings! No need to shed tears when you are at peace most of the time and have love to find solace in. No need to shed tears because no one asked you to burn that trunk; it's safely tucked away. There was a bonfire though; to burn all the art to be enjoyed together and the books to be read together and moments that were spent together, but let's just make room in the trunk for all those too. I might not dare to open that trunk but the other might someday.

Of dreams and desires

I realized two days back that I have never seen fireworks; at least in real life. I now wonder what it must be like. The deafening sound and the sight; like hundreds of stars have shattered into thousands of tiny pieces. It is these small, probably insignificant experiences that I want now. Not to say that I have had any great, significant experiences in my life. Never climbed a mountain, NO Sir! Never went bungee jumping, are you kidding me? Never jumped off a plane for what they call sky diving though I did dream of it once and it was beautiful. Never went cruising or jet skiing or snorkeling. This makes me seem like such a sorry little creature doesn't it? But I'm not. I have an excuse for every single one of these. Bungee Jumping? Oh I have Vertigo. Sky Diving? I'm afraid of heights. Snorkeling? I won't be able to breathe, in my head at least. Jet Skiing? What if my hands get tired and I'm not able to hold the rope like thing, whatever it is. Cruising? Umm, sea-sickness! Mountains? I'm no climber! See! It's an endless list of excuses and I'm very good at cooking up some.
I have been for para gliding once and went on a banana boat ride which in my world, was heroic. But that is the extent of my adventures and I did pat myself on my back after I accomplished these arduous tasks. Oh and I have also killed a teeny tiny baby gecko once with a wiper and then screamed my lungs out even though it should have been the gecko screaming. I have also had the not so delightful experience of riding a camel and well, umm I recited the first kalma loud and clear for all the onlookers or bystanders, whatever you want to call them, throughout the ride. What!!! I told you I was afraid of heights and in my defense, I was very young and the camel has a very unpleasant manner of attempting to stand and to sit for that matter.
Anyways, back to the experiences that I WANT to have. I want to be able to dance in the rain again, to explore the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, to join the large crowds on foot at one of the most important cities of the world that just one person was able to guess, to feel the adrenaline rush when I finally witness a heritage building being restored to its former glory, to be able to go on a very long drive with someone I can talk to without uttering a single word. I want to be able to finish reading all the books on my very long bucket list; I want to stay up all night gazing at the night sky lit up with the twinkle of the stars. I want to walk down the beach for hours, quietly, and to sit under the shade of a tree and read in peace. I want to travel the world and see it as I have imagined it to be and to admire the architecture of the eras long gone. I want to run like a little girl trying to catch butterflies and feel the tiny fire flies enclosed in my hand. I want to see the rainbow and walk through the clouds. I want to sing the whole day while sitting by the lake in Skurdu as I did two years back. I want to lose myself in colours and music and love. I want to write up a storm and leave lots of stories behind. And yes, I want to die knowing that I have done all of these insignificant little things in life because I wanted to. For I want to live my life!

When it snowed...

She had never seen snow before. She wasn't expecting to see it now. She was already living her dream, being where she was and with whom she was. Growing up, she never once thought of going to a place where it snowed. She liked warmer climates; they were so much more comfortable and she hated the cold anyways. But all of that changed. It's always about who you are doing things for and who you are doing things with. Things you had never wanted to do before, places you never desired to see, dreams you never dared to dream; all of that changes. But here she was, and it was beautiful! Like a fragment of the most beautiful piece of imagination, like a moment that one wishes for to freeze.
Sometimes she wondered why people wasted so much time over-planning special moments. Special moments are scattered all around us; in tender embraces, in silent companionship, in moonlit walks, in gentle whispers. And then sometimes you get this entire sphere of special moments altogether; like that day when she first saw snow. Watching the white flakes fall from the sky was not special; watching the white flakes fall from the sky with him WAS! He dragged her out excitedly to feel the powdery softness of the snowflakes. It was heaven. Tiny white specks on his hair brought out a tenderness and warmth in her that she had never felt before. But she needed a quiet moment, away from him; just a few minutes to absorb all that she was experiencing; the overwhelming feeling of being with him, the butterflies when he wanted to see the look of wonderment on her face, the gratitude, the sadness, the reality. She looked at him and he understood. He let go of her hand and she quietly walked away, her head bent low, hands in her pockets. She went further away from him till she could barely make out his silhouette; drew in her breath and turned around. As she reached closer to where she had been with him, she saw him standing, looking at her, waiting quietly for her to return; as he always did and always will. Her face lit up, she ran to him, losing herself in the warm embrace that said more than he had ever said to her in words. She felt loved, secure, cared for. She always complained that he didn't express what he felt. She didn't need those words anymore. His still being there said everything. They walked in the snow hand in hand, never to let go of each other or that moment again.

This piece of writing is a fragment of the writer's imagination and and is purely fictional. Resemblance to anyone would be purely coincidental.

My Ordinary Life!

I am no ordinary woman; I am even more ordinary than the ordinary woman! While she would like to shop for designer lawns and try out every new, hip restaurant in town; I would spend that same time wrapping a tatty old table's legs in rope and decoupaging it to turn it into a coffee table. I live a somewhat simple life or so I would like to believe, and I'm striving to make it even more simpler. I have seen the highs and lows as we all have, and I know there are many more to come. During the lowest point in my life I am constantly reminded of all the beauty and goodness that I am surrounded with. The plants that I tend to, the brief period in the morning when I water them; the amazing works of writing and art that people prolifically produce and I'm able to enjoy; the feathered visitors that come regularly to take a dip in the little pond out there in the balcony, the special moments with my children, the most amazing line of work that I am in, the wonderful people I'm surrounded with, the talent that inspires me, the steaming cup of tea every morning that Mushtaq the tea boy makes, the silence of the night, my quiet time, the crickets chirping outside, a few beautiful memories, my plant stake windmills whizzing away in the breeze, the delectable flavours that my taste buds are often enticed with, the sound of the bamboo wind chimes, the fragrance of Jasmine, the sight of my office every morning and how it excites me when I'm just a few minutes away; the list is endless.
I spend my mornings watching the sunrise and pampering my plants; my day working on something that gives me more pleasure than any other work could have, and my evenings enjoying the little anecdotes that my children come up with. Nights are another story though. That is my time that I love to spend reading or doodling on my notepad while trying to figure out what I want to work on more, a graphic fact-based fiction piece on parenting or one on a group of patriotic, optimistic, courageous youngsters. So I scribble and I doodle and I write and then doodle some more. Somehow the crude sketches always turn out better in my head than on paper. Then the writing bit - I don't really write much, I type; so I doodle on the notepad, then scribble two lines, then feel overly exhausted by the strenuous task of scribbling those two lines and then just take the easy way out and type away on my laptop that really truly needs a break. If I think about it, I don't do much apart from what I have mentioned above. My modes of entertainment? Cinema, theatre, books, art, friends and a little music. It just makes me realize how limited my world is and how similar all my interests are. I would love to be a more diversified kind of a person but I'm just not. But you know what, I'm satisfied with my ordinary life because I get to do what I truly want and enjoy. So this one is to my ordinary yet content life :)