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Gabo is forgetting things….
Gabo is forgetting things…… Gabo once said that, all days are the same Tuesdays…. Am sitting now in this far eastern small town in turkey, smelling the same khushburnu chai(tea) , listening to the same old Turkish music, seeing the same faces talking to me…. its the third time i am here in this town, and it seems like life is becoming just another Tuesday….. Is it the eventual re-occurrence of things that makes us start forgetting, is it the same way we forget our breathing because of its eventuality and abundance that one day we start forgetting about life too … can life be forgotten because of abundance of…
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“Woofy”…
It was my second day in the cold, sunny Johannesburg. I was staying in a big old estate turned into a guesthouse, with alot of zebras, horses, birds and different breeds of dogs wondering around . A nice place to rest and be with nature. I saw her sitting on the stairs, staring at the birds. Beautifully white, shiny sad eyes, with an unforgettable personality. She was totally unlike other dogs. I took her as a Canadian Husky in the first place. I said to the owner of the lodge, “What a nice dog you have, so beautifully white” And she smiled, ” Its not a dog, its a wolf,…
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Neroli Lady….
تجھے صبح بازار میں ،بوڑھے عطار یوسف کی دکان پر ،میں نے دیکھا This morning in the bazaar when I saw you At old Yusuf the perfumer’s shop تو تیری نگا ھوں میں وہ تابناکی تھی …….. In your glance was that shine (Excerpts from N.M.Rashid’s Hasan the pot Maker) I am sitting now in this Lebanese restaurant called ‘Epidor’ in the oysterbay area of Dar es salam, and for no reason I am thinking of this Neroli lady i happen to meet in my trip to U.S. It was my last day in America before flying back to Africa, where my hosting brother took me to this old Pike-place…
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Hopes , fears, love , guns ….. Choices.
“I dont know how it happened that I the admirer of logic and rational thinking became obsessed with the world of feelings and hopes and love and beauty” I said to Ertyass. She smiled and said ” And you still worry about taking this decision? ” We were sitting in a beach bar in a nice big costa rican’s resort enjoying tacos with Guacamole dips and black bean souce with Zacapa. It was my first trip in the Caribbeans and i was already feeling at home in the lovely world where Marquez’s butterflies were flying, Neruda’s cherry blossom was happening and every created thing looks like Octavio’s fountains of water……
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waqt kee daur
وقت کی دوڑ وقت کب سے بھاگ رہا ہے اور ہم وقت کو کب سے پکڑتے پکڑتے کتنی اجنبی جگہوں کے کتنے خوابوں کے گلستانوں سے کتنی خواہشوں کے پھولوں کو روندتے اور کتنے محبّت کے سرابوں سے باتیں کرتے گزر چکے ہیں وقت ہے کے رکتا ہی نہی (اس وقت کی محبّت می دنیا کب تک گھومتی رہے گی) وقت سے آگے بھاگنے والے وقت کو ایک بھیانک کالا کتا سمجھ کر بھاگ رہے ہیں اور پیچھے رہ جانے والے امید کے نشے میں دوڑے چلے جاتے ہیں ہم سب سے دور ایک کونے پر جب محبّت کے مکین صراہی سے ہولے ہولے شراب انڈیلتے ترچھی نظروں سے وقت…
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Half way to Kiliminjaro
(2011 Dec. Kilimianjaro) This mountain of my mind, this loneliness,soaked in green moss. This desire, as white as snow. These little by little disappearing footsteps of life This me, disappearing in the clouds of habitual living Like disappearing of snow on this great mountain. Will it be able to forget the snow, once it is gone? Can snow, as white as desire be forgoten Can loneliness, as green as these mossy trees be forgiven? “These woody thoughts, that forgive every one, but forget nothing…”
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Mt. Kilimanjaro . Love you all from the top of Africa
It is day two of my ascent to Kilimanjaro, and I am remembering what Ertyaas said to me earlier .We were sitting in Dar Cafe two days before the climb when she said “To climb a mountain is like being in love with a strong woman….you want to be on the top (on the top she smiled) but you face allot of tears and rain, thunders and anger, rock slides and constant struggle to continue moving and reach the top… and at times one thinks why the hell I am doing this all, is it really worth all the effort? just for that bloody mountain, that woman … but she…
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The wedding night (Sheb-e-Arus)
For no apparent reason today i immersed my self with the Oudh and sandalwood oil i bought from the perfume souq in Dubai, and burned the incense all over my apartment .No apparent reason, just an urge coming from the hidden corners of my heart. And then i found out that today is 17th December, the wedding night of my beloved Rumi…..How can i forget that. I have to prepare for the “Sema” and I thought i should do it on a much bigger scale this time within my mind. (The sema is a ritual followers of Rumi perform to celebrate Rumi’s reunion with his beloved). So little by little,…
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Work Hard…Party Hard…Moonlight…
Running… Running…Running…. as if playing a video game where all the monsters are supposed to be killed, and only one life line left…. running,running notstop!…this office stuff, that meeting… this offer, those targets….we run and run and run forgeting totally about the absurdity of wasting our prime time of lives in helping someone make more money…harder, even harder… running fast, unknowingly, un consciously ,(Abba’s money money money flashing in the brains!…)) too innocently our habitual state of living letting us fall into a dark abyss; for what is darkness but a feeling of unknowing-ness that can make us shiver even in the broad daylight….. falling like a sky dive in…
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ایسا ہو اگر
دن بھر انگلیاں بولتی ہیں اور آنکھیں سنتی ہیں ایک فٹ کی سکرین پر بنتے بگڑتے نقطوں کی بکواس کان کی بورڈ کی ٹھک ٹھک کے اتنے عادی ہو چکے ہیں کے اب دل کی دھک دھک بھی سنائی نہیں دیتی لفظ بولتے ہیں پر وہ نہیں بولتے جو دل کہنا چاہتا ہے صرف پیٹ کی گردان میں گم رہتے ہیں ایسا ہو اگر کے لفظ وہ سب کچھ کہیں جو دل میں ہے کان وہ سب کچھ سنیں جو وہ سننا چاہتے ہیں آنکھیں ان کو دیکھیں جو دل میں بستے ہیں اور “اپنے ہونے کا احساس ” صرف ذھن پر چڑھ کر ناچتی خوشی کا ناچ دیکھنے میں…
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Traditions… Gender…. Equality
Last week we had good discussions on gender equality and how it affects traditions and at the end I was thinking we both were talking about two different sides of the same coin. She was talking more about fighting for one’s rights and I was more of romanticizing the imaginition-practices one associate himself with, and though everything is fair in love and war but that doesn’t mean love and war are the same things. She was insistent that women should be given even opportunities, and in sweden still most of the C-level and management level positions are held by men. I was of the veiw that although women should be…
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Dreams…
Aaah! the world of dreams… What a world… no body wants to come out it if inside, and no body allowed to enter once he wakes up no matter how hard he tries to stop the lights entering into the door of his eyes …. So it is in this world where the first time i found my self talking to you, in a room ful of smoky noises and dancing shadows. I didnot remember who you were,where was I and how I happened to be talking to you…it was as if I was talking to you for ages, as if I was just born in that fixed setting for…
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Samsara
I am becoming more and more engulfed with the lures of my physical senses these days. I become easily disturbed by the changing smells around as if these little yellow butterflies are hitting my nose reminding me of old memories and lonely moments, the other day i prefered to hear the slow buzzing of the sea and waited long to see the moon rising from the sea from my apartment, preferring the disgust of waiting for the moon more then waiting for my lazy existence to turn off the mute television showing meaningless images. Is it something to do with my living in africa for so long….Africa where the sense…
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Smelling the imaginition
We were walking in the long Dubai airport transit lounge when i see the shop selling perfumes and told her ” I want to learn making perfumes, someday” “You know their are more astronauts in the world then their are perfumers” said Ertyaas” “Yes, i know, but somehow i am beginning to enjoy these fragrances” “you have to start from the very basics i think, my dear”, she said and added..”First rule, stop infatuating with all the perfumes from these big fashion house and celebrity name brands…. specially the ones who were selling clothes and started selling these beautiful bottles carrying empty smells to make more money.” “That’s not fair…
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August….Partition…Heroshima…Independance
When I say ‘Hiroshima;, Will people gently respond ‘Ah Hiroshima’? When I say ‘Hiroshima, I hear ‘Pearl Harbor.’ When I say ‘Hiroshima, I hear ‘Chinese Nanking Massacre.’ “What is she trying to say?”,I asked the Japanese lady sitting next to me in an event remembering Hiroshima with some poetry recitals, and she replied ,”that was another partition happened somewhere in the far far east in the same month of august, the only difference is you people celebrate on the death of 500,000 people and millions de-homed and we drop a tear every august in remembrance of all the same number of stories that died,and this poem is describing the views…
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Imagining Japan from Africa
I am watching a Japanese tv channel (NHK world) alot these days. It all started when my satellite TV connection expired due to non payment and i for some reason wanted not to watch the hundreds of channels anymore and convinced my self instead to watch the only Japanese free channel coming. Strange, how the whole world starts to dance in the ‘palm of our hands’; me sitting in Africa, away from my land , and getting obsessed with a another culture of a land even farther away. I am beginning to love this channel and the whole Japanese culture in particular. The channel undertones are so serene, so objectively…
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Smells, sounds, Imagination
I was wondering if it is the imagination we associate to a certain music or smell which changes it to a music of longing, or a fragrance of subtle remembrance of life. Or is it in these invisible singing birds carrying fragrances from old times and far off places which reminds us of our mute existence and paint our imagination in their own colors…Yesterday Ertyaas was preparing a potpourri with alot of dry Champa flowers she collected from near by tree, grounded fresh cloves and cinnamon from the Zanzibar island and local sea salt. She imagines the five petals of the Champa flower as the five phases of women (Birth,…
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A sea and a river
She draws strange comparison sometimes and that’s what she did today saying, “to say a sea is to river as solitude is to loneliness is pretty much true” . We were on our ferry back from an island nearby Dar-es salam city, the turquoise Dar sea was glimmering in its usual bright colors,with small waves riding here and there, and we were discussing my recent trip to turkey and the novel by Elif shafak i recently read on the life of Rumi, when she drew this comparison.“And how come you make such a comparison, for i don’t even think there is a difference between loneliness and solitude” I asked.“Well you…
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Liquid Music
“So, my life is in your hands” , I said to erty, who was my buddy for my first dive in the open indian ocean around Dar-es-salam… she said, “don’t worry, in best case, you will die hearing liquid music all around you…” And so it was….a liquid musical world in bluescope, all around me…. though i survived the bliss…The whole episode started on a light conversation with erio and her daughter and I saw my impulsive instincts seeing myself nodding in approval even before my rational self started to think…. my sister was wining over me of doing this first somewhere in Australia and i was looking for settling…
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Women… Fiction… stockholm… More coffee..
” You know, a gentleman always allows a lady to maintain her own fiction” she said It was an unusually pleasant sunny day in Sweden and we were drinking coffee in one of the street cafés when we saw a woman passing by with tears for obvious and only reasons and Ertyass commented on her, in her usual unique style. “Come on! Give me a break” I said, “are you suggesting women live their lives artificially, knowing that they are living in fiction?” I asked. “Well it’s a matter of perspective; fiction can be as real as reality depending on how much feeling or tangibility you can give to it.…
