So I got nikkahfied (we signed our wedding papers) and wanted to share the big news here on my oldest home. It’s such an explicable feeling – like a precious secret, a divine gift. Alhamdulillah & mashaAllah! ❤ Rem in duas, k?
Category Archives: 2020
Wedding month
Uffoh, such bilawajeh ka stress. Like not exactly bilawajeh, it’s my wedding month and all brides feel the same way agay peechay but if there’s one time in a girl’s life that is DEVOID of all that negativity (like anxiety or panic or pareshani or negativity or loneliness or some fear or some idk just fill the list) it should be her wedding. But actually it should be all the time yo. Stress comes only when it shouldn’t. When else would you invite it over?
یہ کیسی خبر
جب کھڑکی کے اس پار چیخنے کی آواز آئی
تو لپک کر پہنچنے والا پہلا شخص
تجسس کے مارے آیا تھا
بروقت امداد کسے ملتی ہے
مدد کے لیے روتے ہیں تو خبر بنتی ہے
سب کو تسکین ملتی ہے
وہ جو خبر ملنے پر آتے ہیں
اپنا حق جتلاتے ہیں
ہم ہی تو اسے جانتے تھے
مرحوم بڑا بے صبرا تھا
م ع ۱۴ اکتوبر ۲۰۲۰
Your name here
I saw you in a dream today. It was so unexpected. I think I am more shocked right now because I just now remembered it. It’s 12:33 PM as I write this sentence.
It was very real, ______. It was so real it’s a shocking REALISATION now that it was only a dream.
Dreams complete me because you don’t.
Dreams comfort me because you don’t.
It’s not a big deal. Of course it’s not a big deal. Damn me if I ever return to a non-returnee.
دقیانوس
وہ دقیانوس ہیں کہ میرا کھانا پینا پہننا اوڑھنا سب اپنی مرضی کے مطابق ڈھالنا چاہتے ہیں۔
میں دقیانوس ہوں کے معاشرہ کے فرسودہ نظام کے آگے آج بھی زبان نہیں کھول سکتی۔
A decade with WordPress! OOF.
randomlyabstract is 10 years old and I’m 24! WHAAAT! I opened this blog today to write this very old, little to-do list sorta notebook I found from 2009-10 today and found this annual notification (this one being so special of course). Coincidence much because that diary mentions this blog as well and apparently I used to mention other stuff in it like my online activity, my school activity (aka which subject to prepare for) and more IMPORTANT things I had to jot down to remember sharing with whomever it concerned, etc. Like?
I love and hate this weird rush of everything that has happened in the past 10 years. It was a lot. I run a new WordPress-hosted website now but this place will FOREVER be home. ❤ I know that I feel like a stranger here sometimes and hurt myself by backspacing a lot of things I wish I could write but on the whole, I can always return to this part of my “self” and find solace in the randomly abstract world that it is.
Moving
We came there holding baby Ibad in our arms, family awing together at the three-bedroom space, girls chattering about which room should now be theirs and then suddenly screaming because there are pigeons sitting inside!
“It’s okay, it’s okay, we’re not shifting today. The house will be clean when you come.” Today we were only seeing.
And then it was. We kids don’t know how but we know who did it. Baba. Baba and some workers. Baba and some electricians. Baba and some movers. Baba and some van walas. Baba and some plumber, carpenter, chokidaars. We only found the house ready. And clean.
Today we moved again, baby Ibad now seventeen, and one of us little girls married with kids of her own. The house is four-bedroom big, and we’re awing at it even more, but the feelings are not so singular anymore. There’s fear, there’s joy, there’s tiredness, there’s a thousand thoughts and jobs to do. A full rain and rainbow. Even Baba is now old but with Ibad and some men, he has handled most of it.
And then we’re handling the rest. We’re coping with the sweet change but also with the monstrous rain, no-signals, no Internet, no cable for a few more days. We’re also trying to manage the inside of the house and unlike our childhood, shifting and moving requires way more work than it looked like.
Anyhow, it’s also very spiritually moving, this whole experience. It’s shifting perspectives, memories, and making space for new beginnings. So when chaos lifts, there’s ease nearby.
inshaAllah ❤
Hello, safe space?
Hmm. Here because everyone else shunned ya out? Uh-oh. Okay, what brings you here where you’re not even real. But reality can be so scary, you know that already. Never judge anyone on fearing it. For not being their harmless-for-others untrue self.
Still so complicated, your sentences. Ew. Told you I didn’t like poetry. The f with you.
Acha what brings you here then? Go on, I’ll listen. Wow, ehsaan much.
I read this poem from twenty seventeen. Was going through my archives to find something to letter. I did pick a line from it that you see in the photo above. And then put the poem in the caption. Read it out:
Sometimes,
When I should be elsewhere
Inside Dreams,
I lay awake instead, and
Assemble a questionnaire in my mind:
Everything that I have now yearned too long to ask you, I would;
“This is going to be a very, very honest conversation,” I will say.
It’s our final friendly law.
A sudden surge of happiness like a reflection of seven colors on my sooted heart—
If you call me again I might at least find my name
And as we’re talking, I will ask— no harsh feelings, hey!— but why did you think it was okay to do what you did?
How many others have you scarred the same way?
Alas! In the back of my mind the colors shift
A curtain closes
Rubbing the drama away in one swift move:
How will I know if you won’t still be lying?
Idk if the ending feels as clear to me now. I remember knowing back then also that it was vague but for me the meaning was clear. How will I know if you wont still be lying, huh? Ajeeb matlab. Duh.
ANYWAY. I’m ranting to not think but I’m thinking all sorts of things. With so much speed that it’s hard to catch up. Painful that I can’t take your and your and your name. Matlab pagal hi bana diya.
Sigh. My bud-dua or yours? I remember this other poem — feels like another life when I wrote those but hey, — and it talked about the dua part will remain even after nothing else does. And then I think I mocked it in the same tone. I totally meant the mocking, you know? Because you’d think it’s a “good dua” while it might not be? And other meanings so f it too.
It’s such an important day I don’t want to use a wrong word. Especially when I’ve kept the decency salamat so far. eh tainting the image now? No please. Wont even dare.
Phew. All our issues and one. This late night. This needed apology. This lack of understanding. And not me. For once, I’m not the issue.
University and some
Looking out of my department’s window
University has been one of my favorite experiences. Both studying there and teaching there. It has a special place in my heart.
We friends loved the landscape there. Before I got admission, I remember my cousin telling me on the phone that there was nothing “stunning” about UOK but that the nature of that place, the walls and the jungle, will get to the poet in me. That there was no perfect infrastructure but there was something I would be able to relate to, and I did fall in love with it so her words were cent percent true.
I remember writing in the weirdest spaces, solitary and among crowds. Exploring trees, languages, verses, people, art and spirituality.
Without trying, I also return to thinking about a specific room in the university and a specific person who has impacted me in a way – I guess I just cherish it all but wish I could do more.
A lot of things happened in those years. Things I wish I could pull down from my memory and put in words, like how Dumbledore caught a streak in his wand and placed in the Pensieve. Alas, such memories are so elusive. But also, I am not even trying yet. They are where they are.
And that’s how I deal with memories. Revisiting, but not entirely.
For all you women out there (here)
I want to say so much to you today. I want to thank you for your resilience and congratulate you for not giving up despite the small and HUGE oppressions women in our society face everyday. It’s not just strangers who try overpowering us, sometimes we’re silenced or ridiculed by the closest ones.
Happy women’s day to you. You are not a gaali, joke, puzzle, candy, debate topic, burden, issue. You are human and you’re precious. May you only find powers of goodness every coming day. 🌟
I will go where my soul takes me
Putting my story in front of this huge canvas painting to appreciate the correlation between these two subjects — modes of art — and the spiritual connotation of each. “I will go where my soul takes me…” which I painted to show a juxtaposition of two realms, and a story showcasing the imagery of another world – with a dying man and a prophecy of eternity. ✨
Randomly Abstract 