Musings on Monday Mornings

Bruce Springsteen always united Ami and me. First there was Dancing in the Dark and then this. Today I stuck a tape in the CD player, which in itself is a visit down memory lane in this digital-infested world, and hearing the song felt the strongest urge to fall in a puddle and get a hearty weeping. How did she do it? That gentle swaying between the feet like a footballer getting the blood flowing to those knotty nerves, while she clicked away on the fingers, head rolled down at an angle and eyes closed. I recall that she always tried to pull me in tango style into the dance but I was too self conscious to let my self go. And then she would grin, goofy style (my mother, she would grin goofy style) and sing the lyrics out of tune and often wrong. And today as the song blared at an obscenely high volume and I looked out the curtain-less window onto an unusually darkened, somewhat melancholy back yard, was reminded of all the missed times when I didn’t dance. Some bugger sang it right: “I...

I went to the wood because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience and be able to give a true account of my next excursion

Having moved out of home, I often think of the places that I have been and that I will be and am reminded of a line from Out of Africa: "If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?" Maybe I'll wander without ever touching anything, or perhaps these things will beckon of me once I am gone?

The time you won your town the race We chaired you through the market-place; Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high... Smart lad, to slip betimes away From fields where glory does not stay And early though the laurel grows It withers quicker than the rose... Now you will not swell the rout Of lads that wore their honours out, Runners whom renown outran And the name died before the man... And round that early-laurelled head Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead, And find unwithered on its curls The garland briefer than a girl's." A. E. Housman

Word of the Day for Sunday March 12, 2006 parvenu \PAR-vuh-noo; -nyoo\, noun: 1. One that has recently or suddenly risen to a higher social or economic class but has not gained social acceptance of others in that class; an upstart. adjective: 1. Being a parvenu; also, like or having the characteristics of a parvenu. But the favourite's power and influence provoke intense ill-feeling among other courtiers, who regard him as a sinister usurping parvenu with ideas above his station, or perhaps even a sorcerer. -- Francis Wheen, "The whole truth about Peter's friends,"

Just finished with Kennedy’s Unfinished Life , which most ironically was left unfinished for the better part of the year. Finally though, yesterday the last chapter closed with his sad, yet by this time very predictable death in Dallas. (Love that about fiction—the hope that maybe he may live, become a single-woman kind of guy and live happily ever after with his delightfully charming American-royalty wife Jackie. But alas! Only in fiction.) Have now started with Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Know . So far, so good. Even while writing things in a medium as public as this, one thinks in one of two ways. A) I am brilliant, my work is brilliant. I will get (relative) fame and recognition from the (two) people who (actually) do read this crap I occasionally spurt out (Azam Noon and of late, though serious Nancy Drew tactics Amal Khan {though I don’t know how much the latter reads. The former has no choice. He is blood. I will hound him with sagging butt skin and fake dentures till he’s 80 ...

There's a big date today at 3.30pm with Destiny. But like all desirable women from whom we want something, she'll keep me waiting. And when I finally get my time with her, she will be dismissive, evasive and indifferent. She doesn’t know of all the people standing outside in the line that stretches to eternity and often beyond. There I'll linger with the other enthusiasts who have come to her to drink their bit from her well. AndI assume I will be unprepared. Still my shy self, troubled by the soul bearing that is mandated for the interview. She'll coax me into doing what she wants, even though my teachers have instructed me in the art of asking for what I want. Is it I who wants it? Is this what I want? And I will stumble through my speech, appear incoherent and at the end of the interview assume she understood what I had asked for—cherubim flesh with eyes that shine adoration. It was I love I had, a longing for Destiny to play her course with me. But it is the ravens ...

She smiles. Its always the little things that matter. A perfect picture with a glimpse of a tear on a smile, a hollow look, a turned cheek. Something read between the lines. It drizzles outside...and little tears fall down the pane, tracing gullies of dirt down a shadowy path to the point where it trickles outside the vision. What are they crying for? The depressive calm of grey outside the window is strangely reassuring. A leaf out of place, a whispered breeze may break this calm. And the rush will come, with the storm raging its heart out. Till then its silent, with the drizzle drumming a gentle beat of tears on the pane. It continues. But still she smiles on. And this perfectness we assumed would continue, that it would not come...the day when tomorrow was too far away in thought and even further in sustainability. Today is a burden even. She knew it but she never thought about it. Was there much peace bought on the hope that it might last? At least the smile was accompanied by some...

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good.

And so it is Just like you said it would be Life goes easy on me Most of the time And so it is The shorter story No love, no glory No hero in her sky I can't take my eyes off you I can't take my eyes off you I can't take my eyes off you I can't take my eyes off you I can't take my eyes off you I can't take my eyes... And so it is Just like you said it should be We'll both forget the breeze Most of the time And so it is The colder water The blower's daughter The pupil in denial I can't take my eyes off you I can't take my eyes off you I can't take my eyes off you I can't take my eyes off you I can't take my eyes off you I can't take my eyes... Did I say that I loathe you? Did I say that I want to Leave it all behind? I can't take my mind off you I can't take my mind off you I can't take my mind off you I can't take my mind off you I can't take my mind off you I can't take my mind... My mind...my mind... ...

One often realises that real life is pretty hard to deal with. All this time we had been lamenting about what happened in America with Katrina, but subconsciously pleased that this was a result of America's wrong doings in Iraq. That God punised Bush ... then what happened in Pakistan. Are we being punished as well. Who are you to decide who is right and who wrong? Beyond a moral sense of right and wrong, remember that when the axe falls it always breaks something. Tragedy is tragedy anywhere, with or without oil. Feel for all humanity. We are the children of one maker.

Working as someone who is online 24/7……fine not 24/7 …… 10 hours every 6 days, the computer offers an interesting view of the time line across the world. All right, I confess, I am slightly obsessed with msn (as the only programme I do keep on) and everyone who comes online. The day starts off with the Aussie’s or the late night Americans. Slowly the Paki’s creep in, often to be disconnected repeatedly owing to back network connections or just plain lack of funds (READ: Azam). Then come the Brits and other Europeans, hours or minutes within each other. And finally we cross the Atlantic to the early mothers and young responsible adults in America. And strangely enough the cycle runs through out the day/ week/ month and (yes 11 months later) the year. Sitting like a fixture at this desk with the occasion contract-required running between production and marketing, one gets the feeling of everyone running about you in a buzz of activity. As it is, writers are cursed with reading too much i...

I've realised email is a curse. When people write you're not happy and when people don’t write you are down right miserable. Either way no win. I need more personal mails and less work-related mails. Am sick of reading generic things. Am lacking the warm and individual attention that comes from 'real' people. I want to go home and have my mother fuss over me, I brothers fawn and flatter me and people in general talk just about me and my life. Am lying at the bottom of an abyss, feeling murky and terribly self indulgent with pity. Want people to recognize me and share a smile because they know who I am and where I come from. I want aunties loaded in diamonds and wearing fake LV shoes and bags to judge me as to why I am wearing this or that, if I am happily married or not and why I still don’t have a child. I want Ashraf's Tikkas and chomps, where Moeed and Shanza go often with their friends. I want the pseudo atmosphere and pretentious appreciation of all the drug ad...

To me it has always been the symbol of the tide ... the floating like sensation of a Gump-style feather choosing its own fate. The causal-yet-cool shrug of the indifferent, feeling the concerns of the ‘broken,’— but fearful of the vulnerability ‘concern’ brings with it. Then again it’s just out of the norm: Who’s to say? There is that gnawing cat-like sensation strumming at the base of a low octave, somewhere within the single-cellular dimensions of something previously referred to as “My Heart.” There is was again. In the past many a wandering issue, invariably taking post outside my particular window have been attributed to this, but sadly now with age one must consign REAL meanings to issues. Hate all this objectifying of intangible feelings. Who really wants to know anyway: It’s not as if anyone can make any real suggestions. Then why need for perpetual rationale … to the self even? It was (wrongly) assumed that apple pie with cinnamon may take the twinge of melancholy away. Even a...

The ‘Twilight Zone’ was on of my favourite NTM (yes, this harks back to the days before cable) programmes. People caught in limbo in a nasty phase of their lives (horror, mystery, murder inclusive… GST + cover charges – go figure!!!) And it was sold to susceptible viewers (myself) as prime time entertainment. Now it scared the socks off me, but watch it, I did. The TV was in ami baba’s room and ami, dog-tired from a day of many responsibilities would be sound asleep. Baba (I get this from him) and I would watch it together. Every Thursday at 11.30 pm. Back then Friday and Sunday used to be holidays at the Convent. Aitchison had Fridays and Saturdays off, but we had to go in on Saturdays to take another holiday the next day. But someone said the “nuns do it better” and so we stuck to the nuns. One time the governor died on a Saturday… maybe it was a nun, I forget… but we got three days off together. Never was I so happy about someone dying. The weekend must have been spent in trivial pu...