2020, By the roaring waves!, Passages

University and some

maria_randomlyabstract

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.

Standard
By the roaring waves!

Eight years? Bus?

Oh haaai, happy wordpress-versary to me. It’s been EIGHT WHOLE YEARS OH MY ALLAH!

I mean, that’s a lot. I just saw this notification and felt compelled to write a post. How much I have changed in these years and so has this blog and my relation with it. The PEOPLE, most of all. They were all such stories.

I don’t know, it was different back then of course. My current state is somewhat like my last post. My current hobbies are different than the old ones. Today I talked with a friend and after so long felt so free to speak whatever I had in mind, zero filters. I really needed that. It felt liberating even when I was being so vulnerably weak-ish. It is important, I guess, to have someone listen.

She was very surprised to hear that I don’t read books anymore. I don’t know, it doesn’t feel that bad to me. I’ve accepted it. I can’t.

I wrote a darkish story after a long long while and I’m so glad I did. I had stopped doing that COMPLETELY after two ridiculous comments. That was liberating too.

Today I really wanted to write. I would have, but I lost inspo somewhere in between. But it would have kinda only been an effort to go back to this place in my mind so I’ll just read it and leave you with a link:

♫heart·strings

Yep that’s all. End of weird post. Who still blogs?

Standard
2018, raw and rough

Frozen

Aik bohat bara khait hai jahan faslain tezi se jhoom rahi hain. Taiz, taiz hawa me jesay urr rahi hun. Aur zindagi isi dagar pe dourr rahi hai. Yun jo fast motion pictures hoti hain na? Bilkul wesa hai sab, jhapak jhapak me aas paas badaltey badaltay sab aik lagnay lagta hai. Jahan se shuru hua tha nuqta waheen aa kar teherta hai. Aur ye khait, wasee o areez lehlahata jhoomta hawa me urta khait… aik khud se bhi bohat bari baraf ki sil me qaid hai.

Frozen in an ice cube. A gigantic ice cube.

So being frozen within something so huge that is frozen too, doesn’t feel much. Until the ice breaks.

I dread the breaking time.

Standard
2018, By the roaring waves!, Photography, Proses

This place, this time.

Some evenings are so breathtakingly stunning you don’t want them to end. Ever. And as everyone else is packing their stuff back in the car while some are already reserving their seats — so ready to return to their homes — you run back to the sea and the sky and the sand asking for one more infinite minute. That is your home.

Standard
2018, raw and rough

random blog 496

It’s so frustrating when you’re tryna find something but mil ke na de. I spent some hours I think, right now, just to find that journal first and then those papers from it. Matlab aasman kha gaya zameen nigal gayi. Pfft. It was this thing I wrote and I so badly needed it right now but looks like I tore those pages from that journal lest it gets lost in the pile (I have LOTS of js), and kept them somewhere where I would’ve thought back then ke yahan tou mai dekhungi hi. But now I have that journal and not those pages. Major sigh moment.

I also have thousands of papers so it’s not possible to check them all at least rn but what are my safe places? My drawer? Some folder? Gah man. There aren’t many options. Like I have some bags, this book cabinet and drawer (aka house of mess and treasures) and I’ve checked them all. I couldn’t have given it to my teacher even though we talked sth about it. What could have I done? Where. Tap tap tap.

I did find lots of poems though. Some letters. Doodles. Many lectures. And that kind of writing where you are simply jotting down your complex mind’s oodles. Is oodles a word? Looks like it is. But it doesn’t seem to fit here. You get the point though, no? My university journals are like history books. They contain so much randomness from my life because they had those, um what do you call it, segments kinda thing and I would use one for myself in each because even though I kept a separate notebook at first I realised I didn’t need to keep my journals JUST restricted to notes. Aaye such long sentences do I even make sense. Right now in front of me I have 10 pretty, spiral journals. Or notebooks, whatever you wanna call them. They’re diff sizes but all of them have beautiful covers. Random, traditional, artistic, that sort.

M said make dua agar wo cheez loutni hui tou miljaegi. Y also said ab wo achanak hi milay gi. So I’ve paused my search operation for now and instead wrote about it. Sigh again, isn’t that how we people deal with loss or things that hint of being/becoming unattainable?

Okay whatever. Too late now. Toodles.

UPDATE: FOUND IT. I SUDDENLY REMEMBERED IT WAS ANOTHER JOURNAL, LIKE THE SAME COVER BUT A BIGGER ONE AND THEN I WENT TO MY LIL ART ROOM AND IT WAS IN THAT NEW DRAWER. SAFE AND SOUND. Alhamdulillah ❤

journals_randomlyabstract

I should’ve posted a better photo but you know what time it is?

Standard
By the roaring waves!

Letting go

Hello, you.

My friend texted me to say she saw me in a dream and misses me. I couldn’t help but feel awfully helpless remembering I saw you in a dream too. How I wish I could tell you.

I want you to know that it’s been immensely long but I am going strong, and yep, it’s because I crafted another challenge for myself of which already a large part has been spent but still, still your name comes up everyday in my mind, and though I’m trying, I cannot forget you enough because I heard enough means letting go.

Letting go means cutting open and slicing out a part I’ve kept so close.

It’s amazing how this is! Because there’s no real string (like a real tangible truth) binding these. These, as in, this thing in the heart and your place in the…heart? and the future that holds neither. Wow, what a thing to bear.

Hello, you.

The only way this can really reach you is when you claim it yourself. Which is another way of saying: agar wo pooch len hum se kaho kis baat ka gham hai// tou phir kis baat ka gham hai agar wo pooch lain hum se. Oh okay, I just added this one because it wouldn’t leave me otherwise. You get the point.

I sometimes search for you amid crowds When I write again it won’t be about you.

Standard
2018, Proses

#490

It’s night and still hot. I am sitting cross-legged on the balcony’s floor, this black diary on my lap, and vibrant blues, orange and yellow underneath it: the colors of my shirt. Before me is a silent city even though it’s only after-dinner time. It’s only too soon to be writing this.

Or is it?

I am almost tired of using different words to say the same thing: I miss you. Here, take it from me. Jaan jati hai jab uth ke jatay ho tum. 

Standard
2018, Urdu musings

Khatam Shudd

Darwaza khula chora tha meny. Chahtay na chahtay nazar uth uth ke jati thi, wehem ne dil ko yun muthi me jakarr rakha tha ke sirf takleef milti thi aur us se bhagnay ka koi tareeqa samajh hi nahi ata tha. Tum se bhagnay ka koi tareeqa samajh nahi ata tha.

Mujhay lagta tha tum aogay.

Jantay ho, har ahat par chonk jati thi. Har shor pe tufaan uthta tha. Sab bikhar jata tha, mai samait’ti thi aur phir bikhar jata tha. Maine bohat koshish ki ke jo umeed phool nahi kaanta ho, usay zabardasti hi sahi kheench kar bahar nikal dun. Apnay aap ko bacha lun. Lekin mujhay darr lagta tha ke aisay zakham gehra hojayega. Aur ab nazar ata hai ke khula chornay se tou ye naasoor banjaega.

Standard
2018

Click clack

Just thinking about each letter and writing either the first thought or some important/unique memory associated with anything starting from it. You can do it too 🙂

A. You might rot in hell.

B. Weird memory just made me laugh. You were annoying and someone else noticed too. Even teased me about it.

C. In my first school ever. Probably one of my earliest memories. There’s a corridor type thing. There’s your name. There’s your embarrassment.

D. You and your brother. How old were we? Five? Climbing the gate to the garden after school. My sister and I were afraid we would get caught. You two were so used to it. It was amazing in the end.

E. The phone call. The news of death and not knowing quite well how to be dramatic enough to express that it mattered a lot.

F. Letters. I didn’t know I could do the letters thing with you but it was kinda supportive.

G. A flashback, a horrible cry like in the book. It was a little bit of enormous back then.

H. The walks, the talks. One casual debate when a stranger passed a hilarious comment causing us to stop in our tracks. Your death glare. Then that time a cat popped up beside you out of nowhere. I remember fun and warmth.

I.I felt safest here. More than I do in my own city.

J. It’s always hurtful when someone you’re so close to cannot be happy about your success, and cannot hide it as well. I know it wasn’t your fault but it wasn’t mine.

K. When we were vulnerably honest about some ideas, emotions, and even public issues.

L. Trying not to. It’s hard because somethings we just have no control over. Like can you decide what to or what not to see in your dream?

M. Helps me draw. Sometimes needed to shut out every other voice.

N. Senior ex-friend lol

O. Someone else’s hell perhaps

P. Most things I’m passionate about

Q. Respect. Admiration. Aur afsos.

R. Wonder how moms mostly just know which friendships are unhealthy. You are good but as I grew up, I understood what I got saved from.

S. I spent a good time to end up with a no-line

T. Player

U. Physics and Chemistry classes, sharing a hands-free and listening to one of our favorite songs that I can’t recall now. We were so close. But we’re all also so temporary.

V. Last year, so typical. This year a joke

W. Thank you for lending me your watch during exam!

X. Where we get stuck in name-place-animal-thing game?

Y. The Kashmiri poem you sang. I shared an Arabic/Persian mix.

Z. The most special meet-up in a city that was neither mine nor yours. From this place right here to several memes, poems, problems, and some promises.

Standard
2017, Event

The End

Tomorrow is my last day at university! That is, last class ever. And then I have like (last) five exams (ever) and a thesis to submit and then it’s all O V E R.  Khatam-shudd.

I think… I miss it already. I know I will. Ughsdsd.

 

P.S.

  1. The moon looks stunning sorts atm.
  2. I cannot explain anything about the university feeling yet but it was worth saving hence the post.
Standard
2017, Proses

of invisible second chances

I could have given a better answer,  I thought to myself just a while  (longer than a moment,  shorter than minutes)  after having exited his room.  I could have given a better answer.  How many times we find ourselves thinking, feeling, living this — I could have given a better answer. Could – but didn’t.  And to learn to live with this little regret – one that amounts to literally NOTHING in the Grand Scheme of Things;  to painfully watch how it unfurls inside of you,  then finds a way out,  crawls on your skin until you are covered,  completely,  in its inglorious cobweb-y silver thread. You are itching. Continually.  I could have given a better answer, and I must stop thinking about it.

Standard
2017

(s m a l l)

Sometimes you feel like pouring a bucketful of ice on your head or shrink  to the size of your toenail or drop pills into your mouth—whether to numb or to feel you cannot tell. And one day, one after the other, you want to do all three.

Words take their route from the heart to the fingers onto the screen, unsympathetic, only covering space.

What a funny way to fight.

Standard
2017, Passages, raw and rough

Just Another Night – not.

I close my eyes and consciously direct my mind to rest. Settle, nerves. Breathe. It’s okay. And while they are closed, I let them see just black. Black that is absence but black that is peaceful right now. Breathe. There’s nothing to worry about, you know that. You are used to this.

The air is actually fresh and not bitter. There’s no weight on my chest, or maybe just a bit. Isn’t it funny how you have started to visualise him when he’s not actually here? Is it? However, this is just a phase and phases change. Like people change and well, they don’t come back like that. You will learn it with time. It’s been a lot but just some more.

Sigh.

Open now.

 

“You—you stayed?”

Standard
2017, Passages

She held his little shirt in her hands for hours. Sometimes she would put it to her eyes, as if its warmth could soothe those burning coals. Then she would rub it across her face, inhaling its scent again and again, even though it was now stale red:  of dried blood. Most of the time she would just hug it, in grave silence or passionate tears, so she could maybe feel him there. And only if she could feel him again, hold his body, swear to God she would never leave! —God knows this. But he still called him up.

loss

Aside
2017, raw and rough

strang(l)e

A heavy mess you can’t vomit out.
A tight knot in your stomach that limits the entire storm starting from the hollow, constricting feeling in your chest, into this one body. And just inside, so only you can know its intensity and nobody else. Of course we can have universes inside us, sometimes it’s just a black hole.
Why is the air here not enough?
You created art and destroyed it just as soon, thinking, “Now it makes sense.” But what makes sense? — you won’t even ask that twice. (Hidden) 

Standard
2017, raw and rough

kāˌäs

The  solid  mass  that  a  jungle  of  scribbled  lines  create.   That  shapeless  bunch  of  black  with  white  gaps,  that  disorderly  pen  creation.   That  is  what  anxiety  forms in heart.   Just puts it there on the floorthe weighty bundle of chaos. I  was  wondering  if  I  could  put this emotion  into  words  while  I  felt  it.  And  if  it  would,  in  any  way,  lessen  it.   Guess  it  didn’t~

harmonize

Standard
2017, raw and rough

01:01

A shadow of a portion of trees falling on the road, moving continuously with the wind. And I see two yellow bulbs hanging from the lower branches. For no reason, it makes me think of you.

It rained recently. It was so beautiful, started something around five in the evening. The best, best part was the beginning. You stand there and look from your gallery, and it’s this powerful shower and this serene noise, and this washed green, and happy faces; busy, happy city. It’s the kind of chaos you want to melt into.

I have mixed night and day here in the writing. But it’s kind of like that these days. So mixed. I try and fail, cannot hold any end of this string. It’s not bad but it’s not good either. More like the “middle” of a process. Boring, slow, confusing, but not extremely pathetic. Because you know what comes from a thing like that and well, you’re looking forward to it…

Standard