Az chay me FORM.

Its been quite a while since I last wrote anything in this space.  Looks like it is about time that I spare a thought for my hungry fans … lol lol… and give them something to read. Well, to tell you the truth, I am still to figure out what my next lines are going to be, but I am sure we will discover it together and have a ball!

It has been almost a year, a little more I guess, since I first started writing. Like every other skill – if it is correct to call it that – you seem to have your moments with writing. ( Here, now I know exactly what I want to write So enjoy) I mean, one morning you wake up, place your fingers on the keyboard and the stuff really starts to ooze out, just like that. Other times you certainly have to press and deliberate more to make those black inanimate, winding and swaying, little signs we call letters to make sense. I am not sure if I am making any now. But yes, if there is one thing I am sure I have discovered in the recent past, it is the ever winding secret of ‘form’.

 

Well, that is what we call it – FORM – at least in Kashmiri. ‘Kya goi, kya goi, mia aesi aaz form.’ You can have a batting form, a carom board form, table tennis form; I even discovered a driving form! But one thing is for sure, at a particuilar moment, a day perhaps, you either have all of them or none of them. I guess, it has more to do with the alacrity of your nervous system rather than anything else; this form of ours. 

 

PS:

FORM IS TEMPORARY, CLASS IS PERMANENT.  

Said by…  hmmm… I guess someone who was fed up of not having it for too long.

The Plastic Life.

 

You don’t live it, you waste it.

The frigid breeze blows across your face as you appreciate the snow clad trees and the vast expanses of endless land covered with the white blanket of the ultimate blessing. In the middle of the panorama stands your lovely home, standing upright, smoke emanating from the chimney. It is a view that drives you mad every single time. Quite uninvited, a mosquito zips across your nose and into your ear. You hear a strange animal snore somewhere. A familiar alarm tune yanks you out of your sleep. You find that the snoring animal is nothing but your vibrating cell phone. Your lovely dream is shattered!

You realise that you are miles away from your home – the fairy land you witnessed in your sleep – and the only thing accessible is the pathetic ,possibly dengue carrying, mosquito which continues to party inside your delicious ear. Your head spins and your heart sinks as you realise that you are at the brink of a new day, a new day which has ironically nothing new to offer. You reluctantly get up. You resume your “plastic life!”

It is a life driven by nothing but money that too in plastic form. The boisterous rats inside your stomach remind you of the empty kitchen. One more day without breakfast! It doesn’t matter anymore. You coax yourself into motion as you leave for your supposedly wonderful office with a big big name and an even bigger building. You just find time enough on your way to pick up some junk food – the junk that eats you rather than you eating it. Your office is swarmed with people of all shapes and statures, accents and colours, etiquettes and habits but you can hardly find anyone who could match yours – someone who could understand your feelings, share your ideas, and suggest remedies. You pretend you don’t care. You try to concentrate on your work. You want to make it big with the quality and quantity of your work. You thrive for satisfaction, recognition, care, mentoring but alas! You get the ostensible clichés only … customer satisfaction, value addition, pursuit of excellence, duty onto death. The list just goes on and on. Your day starts with a few, it ends with a lot more. You are stuck in an environment where self centred unrealistic hypocrites use human values as stepping stones to reach to their materialistic goals. You are fed up of this mechanical world which is fuelled by the incessant desire to succeed, by- hook- or- by- crook. You miss your home ever so more. You want to live a life that is simple and uncomplicated, not a rat race. You want to amble not run amuck. You want to appreciate not be thankless at all times.

You still remember your first day at office when the faculty asked, “What do you want from your life?”  You had bravely stood up in a hall swarmed with strange people and replied.”I want to be satisfied!” Your idea dismissed in a jiffy. “You can never climb the ladder of success if you get satisfied with what you have!  You fool.” You had learnt your first lesson. The quiver of life can hold only one of the arrows, success (as they see it) or satisfaction. The question is posed to you. Which one do you prefer to carry with you? You long for the answer everytime you are reminded of the cunning world you are living in.  You stop every now and then and you evaluate. You ask yourself, “What am I doing here? What am I doing so far from my family, my friends, and my loved ones? Is my current life a self inflicted misery more than anything else?” The more you think the more you are convinced that you want more and more of the pie called satisfaction. Ambitions, success, money, nothing matters anymore. All you want is the peace of mind. You make your decision. Come what may you want to get back to your real home. You are on a lookout for the slightest of the opportunities. Finally you get one. You pounce upon it.  You are over the moon for you reach the land of your dreams – your home. You say goodbye to your plastic life. You start living life again, in the real sense.

The gruelling experience has taught you a lot. You see the world with a totally new perspective. For now you are satisfied. However there is a lot more to learn. You find people in your dream land cribbing all the time, about the most trivial of the matters. You feel sorry. You are surprised when you hear people complain about silly things. “You kept me waiting for five long minutes!  There is not enough salt in the food, I can’t eat it!  What is there in Kashmir? I wish I could move out of here.”  You want to reach out to all these people and shout; tell them how lucky they are to be living in the comfort of their homes, enjoying all the blessings Allah has bestowed upon them. You are glad that at least you know the value of what you have. You realise that your plastic life has had some benefits, after all – it has taught you to appreciate even the very little you have.

 Every now and then you meet people who ask, “Why did you come back? You gave up everything – your budding career, the possibility of a successful life. You are a fool” You become a stone. You are reminded of the typical paradox yet again – Success or Satisfaction. You are elated that you chose the latter.  However you don’t answer them, not because you have nothing to say but because there are volumes inside your heart. You wonder if there is a sentence precise enough to explain. Not really, at least not to a person who thinks, “Kasheer manz kyah chu!” (Kashmir has nothing to offer) 

Torn between sides : A HARROWING TALE

That a Kashmiri lives decades every day is no rhetoric. It is not an exaggeration either. It is a cursed truth that comes tagged with his existence. The life of every second Kashmiri is good enough to serve as a script for a billion dollar Hollywood thriller. Don’t trust me?? Read this:
His joy knows no bounds. He is the first ever in his family to have a decent full time job. It’s not been easy though. It’s been countless nights of cruel Kashmir winter with no sleep, sometimes with no provisions either, endless hours of hard work, dedication and resolve. But all that seems to have bore remarkable fruit, for now he is the proud and lone bread winner of his family. It’s finally time to give life to his long standing dreams. He always wanted to have a ride of his own. He should buy a new bike. He does. He is over the moon. However it may well be the last thing he buys before he has to buy his life back!
It is hardly a month of joyful ride when he is stopped by a group of people one day; a group wielding dreadful weapons. He is scared out of his wits, as expected. One of them waves a shining little pistol at him. He immediately stops. He has to. In Kashmir weapons are the ultimate authority. Whoever has one, has the unstinted superiority. He is asked to get down. He acquiescently does so, with no resistance whatsoever.  A moment later he witnesses his bike whizzing away from him. It is gone, taken (read stolen) in front of his eyes, and yet can’t even protest. However, he knows it is not much of a loss. He is lucky to be in one full piece, to have escaped a potentially life ending experience, to have the opportunity to meet his family once again, to be able to see another day in a set up where you go as easy as you come.  He knows that the remorse of losing his bike is no match to the joy of survival.
A day passes, he remains patient. One more, and still no sign of the bike. He begins to worry. He is cautioned by a friend about the possibility of the bike being used in an unlawful activity. In Kashmir, where most people are comfortable with a zero accountability system, even people with no fault can be put to sword. Not to speak of people who actually have incriminating evidence against them. Alarmed, he rushes to the closest Police Station to register an FIR. However, he is two full days late and the possibility of the bike having been misused still exists. He chooses to get the FIR lodged in the back date. He is asked to pay as much as 50 thousand to get it done! He is all thought. Does he go ahead with it or does he not? 50,000 is no price to pay for one’s life. He decides in favour. He is more than happy to pay.
Two more days pass and still no sign of the bike. However today, unlike any other day, is dreadfully different. His bike is actually used in a planned attack. Fortunately for him, before it wreaks havoc, it is confiscated by the police. Unfortunately for him, the people riding it are killed. From what it appears, he made an excellent choice to buy his life back from the devil.  Had he not paid the sum, he would directly have been held responsible for the activity his bike was involved in.
That night, while he is celebrating his close escape, a group of men approach his house. He is asked to come out. These are some of the men who had stopped his bike. He is told a story; a story where a man lodges an FIR. Police use the information (the number of the bike) to locate the bike and kill the people riding it. He is accused of being the man and having conspired directly against the people the group had lost that day. He is tainted as a spy.
He watches as one of the men closes in, carrying a sparkling blade probably having the capacity to cut a stone into two. What is this feeling he is experiencing? Is it fear? Is it remorse? Is it helplessness? Probably it is all of them concocted, asking him one single question: what are they going to do to him?  He is pretty sure they won’t hurt him.  He did nothing to merit that. But why then is the man pulling his hair? He watches as the blade is put to his throat. Suddenly his legs tremble and his heart sinks. He is frightened, all the more surprised. They can’t kill him! He is too young to die. Besides he did nothing that deserves death. This can’t be it. Something has to be wrong. He tries to explain. He shouts and wails and asks for reconsideration. He tries to clear the misunderstanding. It’s then that it seems to him that they may have understood; understood that he is an innocent, someone who has just started to find his feet in a cruel cunning world, who has a family to support and dreams to live. But no. The cold hand holding the blade has moved… one, two, slit. The blade grazes across his throat, tears apart the flesh and finds warm blood. He feels not a thing. They probably let him go after all. But something is drastically wrong. There is supposed to be no blood. It’s all over, a lot of blood, sprinkling out incessantly from his throat, kissing the dirt. He is choking now, holding his throat with both his hands.. Yes, he can feel it now – the kiss of death. The pain is too much to bear. But the pain of misfortune is several dols greater. He can’t believe it; they were killing him for no fault of his.  He was robbed of his bike. He was robbed of his money. He and his family were robbed of their right to peaceful existence. Nobody gave a damn. Nobody cared. But obviously that was not enough. He was now being robbed of his greatest possession – his life … and that too for no fault of his! The blood constantly drips out of his veins until the last drop is gone. It is all over. He is dead. However, before he dies, he has asked himself this one last question: While he was alive, what was he? Was he predictable? Was he unpredictable? He knows exactly what he was. He was torn between sides. He was a Kashmiri.

Kashmir as THEY see it.

A small piece I did for Rising Kashmir. Thought must share with you.

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He is shrouded in a long “phiran” and the traditional cap. He sits outside his mud house where he takes long deliberate sips of “Noon Chai” from that typical round cup.

His fellow is busy setting up the strange “Jajeer” by blowing gallons of air into it, making all sorts of weird noises. He is “Gaffar-Kak”. He is a stereotype Kashmiri. A Kashmiri that the outside world knows – for that is the way he is portrayed.
The electronic media undoubtedly has a great role in shaping up the views and opini

ons of people regarding everything. Most of the visuals circulated the world over about Kashmir have time and

 again shown “Gaffar-Kak” sipping the same cup of “noon chai” while his fellow continues to set up the same “Jajeer”. This ambiguity, as expected, has had bizarre implications. While a good percentage of people are well aware of Kashmir in its true flavour, there exist these eerie people as well, who think of Kashmir as a far flung village stuffed with not so literate people possibly earning their livelihood by pushing bulls and ploughing fields. The unwarranted unawareness that people sometimes exhibit about Kashmir leaves you flabbergasted. I still remember this incident while I was putting up at a more “reputed” town in India. A Kashmiri friend of mine was proudly boasting to his colleague about Kashmir. “You know Apples; the ones you sell with stickers on them saying ‘OK TESTED’; the ones you sell for 20 rupees each. They are so abundant in Kashmir that you will find them scattered in gutters!” He went on and on about all the things and finally hit cricket! “Kashmiris are fanatic about cricket. You know? We are excellent at it. You will find people playing cricket everywhere day in and day out.”The colleague was somehow not ready to buy this story. “I don’t quite understand….How can you play cricket in Kashmir? How is it possible? I mean, does the ball not roll down everytime you hit it????” Poor fellow, all this time he was under the impression that Kashmir was a small town located on the slope of some undistinguished hill. “It is a valley dear, remember. A valley is surrounded by those things, the mountains, and then you have thousands of acres of level ground in between.” While this kind of unawareness puts you off, it is very prevalent. Many of my friends actually managed to ask me the silliest question ever, “Do we need a passport to go to Kashmir???”
It comes as an absolute shock to people like these when they finally get to visit the “Jannat-e-Benazir”. Quite recently I met such a group from Mumbai. The group had arrived at Srinagar just a couple of hours ago. It was but obvious from their expressions that they were mesmerized, to say the least, by the sublime view, the Dal Lake had to offer. Poor guys, they clearly were getting a lot more than they could have ever expected. I felt a titillating pleasure inside me as I saw my Kashmir ravish them to bits. I asked one of them rather sardonically, “Hey uncle…How is the view?” He was lost for words, “It`s…It`s good, great…In fact, I have never seen anything like this before!” He was quite a jovial guy. We talked for some more time before he asked me a question that struck me as a little awkward, “Where are you from?” I replied, “I am a native. I am from Srinagar.” Somehow he found it hard to swallow so he asked again, “You mean you are from Srinagar?” I said, “Yes, of course.” It took me nothing less than a couple of more assertions to make him absorb the fact. We talked about the weather and the market and the situation and just about everything else before he suddenly interrupted me again, “Are you sure you are from Srinagar?” I could take no more. I shot back, “Why is it so hard to digest UNKAL?” He hesitated a little but then broke out, “I had a totally different image of Kashmiris in my mind. I could never imagine, even in the wildest of my dreams, a Kashmiri speaking English!” I smiled as I immediately understood that he was referring to our good old “Gaffar-Kak”. I said in a typical Kashmiri accent, “Welcome to Kashmir UNKAL. You will definitely return a changed man!”
As changed men they do return, only that there are only a diminutive number of them. Of the oceans of people out there, it`s only a fraction that gets to visit Kashmir and come face to face with – its reality –the charisma of its vibrant colors and the tranquility of its unending meadows; the warmth of the hearts of its people and the tales of its unsung heroes . Others, more often than not, recognize the valley only by the masquerade of strife, turmoil and sometimes beauty.

It`s all in the mind … MIND IT!

That Michael Phelps was not out of his mind was difficult for me to believe. At least not until I had personally felt what he would have felt all those times he took a dip in the water.

Throughout my life I met scores of people fanatically passionate about swimming. I wondered why? I was never a swimming guy. If I said I did not like swimming, I would be lying; I would be lying like I have never lied before. I loathed swimming! I hated it. I despised it to a level that I would often hide beneath tables in my classroom, when we were forced to jump into the pool. The motto of my school read, ‘In all things be men,’ which I honestly tried to follow. However it seemed that I apparently was not quite a man J when it came to swimming. It stung. Whenever someone would say, “From Biscoe and yet you don’t know how to swim! Shame. Shame,” it would get worse. With time I felt a growing desire inside me to conquer this unseen summit. But alas, every time I looked at the pool, my breath would stop and my heart would sink. It turned out that I was a quintessential hydrophobic…Maybe not.

When a group of my buddies went swimming this summer, I happened to get tagged along. Not that I liked it. But I had to. And then it happened! By their sweet cunning palaver, they somehow coaxed me to jump into the unknown. I must have been mad to do it, but I did. Even today I am yet to figure out why I jumped, but I did. Time bears witness that till this day I have never felt anything better than what I felt inside that stream. More than the feeling of weightlessness (which I must say was awesome), I felt a strange exhilaration, for I had done what I feared the most. Ever since I have been looking for chances to take a dip and guess what…Michael Phelps has become a personal hero overnight. Turns out that hydrophobia or no hydrophobia… the trick lies in the mind.

YOUR NORTH STAR

They call it the North Star – the core purpose of someone`s existence. When they asked me what mine was, I went blank…blank… blank. As if the memory address supposed to be holding the data had never been touched. Was my knowledge about myself this miserable? How could I not know something as basic as this about myself? I thought I was a fool. But if I was, I certainly was not the only one around. They asked the same to everyone in the hall – at least a 50 people if not more. Nobody knew!

It proved that human beings indeed are the biggest fools, unless of course they wake up from the slumber and understand the meaning of their existence. To realise why we relentlessly scamper around from morning to night every day, requires a good bit of brain mass. When someone does not know why he is living, he sets up goals – short term, long term, extra long term – closes his senses and runs mad after them. Goals finally get fulfilled, and when they do you set new goals until one day you realise that you have consumed your whole life pursuing useless goals that have left you with no returns to talk about. You have lived a happy and peaceful and satisfactory life. Great. But that was certainly not everything you wanted from it, for all that is gone as your life is nearing a close. What you have earned from the rigorous routines of our life is next to nothing.

When the flamboyant Pakistani opener Saeed Anwar lost his daughter, with her he lost a reason to live. He did not want money and fame and riches, because he already had everything. He soon found a better reason to live, the one that can only get stronger with every inevitable human loss, a goal that never lets you down. Something that alone can be your true North Star – the one that leads you to your creator and opens the gates of heavens for you, for the whole of eternity. The heavens where you need no more goals, no more reasons; where you stare at a scene for years together and never get tired!

i am not what i try to be

It is kind of phanee (funny) how we sometimes pretend to be more behaved than we are. Something that is usually difficult for others to digest because acting seldom comes naturally to all.

The last time i went to Nishat, i found this rather comic family doing rounds in the garden. With due respect to them, it is hard to stop laughing whenever i remember the trio.

It was a mother with two kids.

Pretending to be the torch bearer of the modern culture the mother yelled, ” Khushboo beta, please idhar aao betaaaaa”

But khushboo apparently knew better.

“Khushboo beta, bola na wapas aooo.”

Khusboo hardly seemed to pay attention.

“Khushboo, idhar aao warna. *%$#@*,” and the face turned purple red with the nose and forehead changing places.

“Haye khushboo watji, paye tche zange pathar, wapas kounie chek yevaan. Melis athi hai karnavai gannie shaman !!!!”

And badbooo would have been a much better name. At least she would be saved the treatment in public.

The new story of the Hare and the Tortoise.

In a distant forest there lived a hare and there lived a tortoise – not very amicably though. To decide who would enjoy the privilege of being the king of all sparrows, they decided to have a contest. The hare always knew his strengths – which one should always know. He offered (read forced) the poor tortoise to settle the score by competing in a… marathon. The tortoise made the mistake of overlooking his weaknesses and agreed acquiescently for the race.

On a fine Sunday morning the bugle sounded and the marathon started. The hare was real fast. He leaped and bounced and reached his destination but for his over confidence and carelessness. He decided to have a small nap on the slumberous Sunday afternoon under an orange tree! Meanwhile on the other end of the forest the tortoise continued to stroll slowly. He was miserably lethargic (what some people prefer to call slow-and- steady). The tortoise walked and walked and walked (should have been ran and ran and ran). It took him ages to reach anywhere close to the place where the hare was sleeping. It was Sunday, the following week, when the tortoise finally managed to cross the sleeping hare and as expected (read not expected) won the competition. The hare was shocked. He began to analyze and found that the tortoise never gave up. He was relentless in his effort. He enquired of the monkeys from the scene and they reported, “The tortoise kept chanting…..winning or losing is not important; participation is!” So he did participate and thanks to the peerless hare, it paid off and he became the king of the sparrows.

Sometime later the tortoise`s conceit took him to the hare. He asked the hare to take another shot at him. The hare agreed right away and called the event as the “revenge is here” (possibly he did not know the difference between hare and here). Once more the bugle sounded and the hare started to run, like he had never run before. He ran and ran and ran. However this time he proved pragmatic enough to step away from the precipice (read sleeping spot). Leaping and bouncing he reached the end. The tortoise was livid. “How could this miserable hare defeat me? It was a very tight contest though. He beat me just by a week and a half.” He enquired of the monkeys from the scene and they reported the hare talking to himself, “I don’t have the luxury of sleeping this time. How foolish will I look if I lose again? I must go on. I must take the revenge!” So he did and he finished the race with flying colours and swimming pencils (if colours can fly, pencils can swim).

The tortoise harbored the burning desire of beating the cunning hare, until one day he felt he could take no more. He joined a gym and spent hours together doing all sorts of exercises. From push ups to biceps to bench presses, nothing was spared. However as time went by the tortoise realized that the hare was too fast to be left behind. So he decided to look for some other way of taking him down. One day while wandering around the swimming pool he met a fox. The fox was an advocate. Although he charged hefty fees the tortoise did not care. He explained the whole situation to him and got a ready made solution to his problem. The next day the tortoise approached the hare,” Come out of your miserable hole, you whole hare. I challenge you for yet another race. However this time I will be the one who chooses the race track.” The hare did not care a smidgen. He knew that the tortoise was a totally explored territory to him. “He can never beat me, unless he invites me to his home for dinner and mixes those sleeping pills in my dish.” The hare took the challenge. On the next New Year eve the race was scheduled. The umpires said, “Play gentlemen,” and the race took off. The hare as usual leaped and bounced and reached his destination but for a huge gushy stream lying between him and his destination, the end of the track. The hare was doomed. How on earth could he cross the stream? He waited and waited and waited. He had to wait till the next New Year eve when finally he spotted the tortoise ambling in his direction ever so slowly. By now the tortoise was a changed man He indeed had grown very old. He was a pious animal now. As he approached the hare he said, “My brother hare! Time bears witness that I did not hate an animal more than I hated you. But while doing that I never found any peace of mind. On my way down here I discovered the truth of life. Now I know how fortunate I am to possess everything I do. So I have forgiven you my brother and the desire of beating you has also disappeared. I can cross the stream right away and win the race but I prefer to carry you on my back so that we can reach together. In return you can carry me on your back, you dear hare, when we are traveling on the land.” The hare was very happy. He acknowledged and the two became the best buddies ever. Aeons have passed, but whenever someone tells them,”Slow and steady wins the race,” they dismiss it outright. “It`s the fast and consistent, working in teams, that do and they do it every single time!”

again and again and again … but hold on.

The monotony of life – the repetition of same chores, same dos, same don`ts – sometimes gets the better of you. When nothing seems to be changing, when the colors seem to be dull, when excitement is at the record breaking ebb – your spirits get dampened up. The stench of stillness clouts your nostrils and the bland pace of life withers your tongue. But then does it not happen every time that a sparkling new experience happens to be waiting for you just round the corner, with open arms ready to embrace you with all its might. Just when you feel that you can no longer carry on, you discover that little something that imbibes extraordinary colors into your dull life. Over a period of time you understand that life, much like a sinusoidal wave, unfurls its beauties and tragedies one after another, in tandem. You learn to wait, that much more, for that little spark, for that little change –  a change that powers your battery, a change that pushes you on and on and on…

Choncha zindabad…

This… is me. As evident from the picture I am trying to cook. Well, you inevitably have to, if there is nothing to eat. It also appears that I am totally engrossed in some strange thoughts – maybe thinking why that apple fell from the tree. Anyway, as you can see I have not changed my clothes after returning from office. It is around 11:00 in the night and I am still cooking. I wonder when I will get to eat. I also wonder what I will get to eat. Sometimes i wonder if i will get something to eat at all – because you see, there are a lot of parameters that can go wrong while cooking. As Edison, today I know 1001 ways of how not to cook. For instance we don`t cook with an empty gas cylinder in the kitchen!

The moment this picture was taken I knew 7 different ways of cooking (read spoiling) potatoes. My buddies sitting out there in the hall will definitely endorse that. The best thing about potatoes is that you don`t need to buy them again and again Buy 5 to 10 kgs and they suffice for the full week, without getting spoiled. This obviates the problem of “Who will do the market thing”. So long live potatoes! Also long live bananas, because a couple of them make up for your dinner alright.

While this snap always reminds me of the more complicated times in my life it somehow makes me happy rather than sad. Maybe because memories are strange -  they make you cry when you remember the times you laughed and make you laugh when you remember the times you cried.