SIGH.....

I have lost the count of days,the endless agony of breathlessness.Each day i wake up to go back to sleep,swallowing the reality down in deep.Filling hole after hole after hole.My days are spent in running away
from the wild darkness that eludes my soul..

I used to be EARTH once.Stagnant,everlasting,headstrong.Vanity was my shadow all along
until..until I fell..a fall that changed me from within.I felt its currents grow faster..moving,shifting, everchanging
i was the WATER..

As time passed by I began to swim,unfolding my depths layer by layer.I drank it all up sparing no drop.Dancing to the rhythem here and there,fleeing the forces of outside world.I became free and unpredictable,full of flair.I was the AIR...

Passion driven I closed my eyes to the harsh realities of the world which was hiding,waiting for the ambush.
If only they had killed me in time for now i was the force unheard of,a might mightier than customs and norms.I was air no more....but a mindless heartless selfdestroyer.
I was the FIRE!!

War began,all hell broke lose.Earths and waters and winds attacked from every direction.Their rational minds and logics were an evil spell. But fight they couldnt with the heat.. Love resisted with every beat.
The pain felt was strangely sweet.I burnt everything down including my own heart that broke sending its scent up in  smoke..

Ash to ash,dust to dust,nothing remained but the awful thirst.Thirst of something or perhaps someone no longer there.In anguish my dark soul gasped and sighed over the emptiness my dead heart always denied
I was the VOID...


In this hollowness I reside now,a vacuum of endlessness.
Nothing retained but the memories of olden days
when I was bold
when I wasnt old
when I wasnt cold
when I had my  love to hold...

ETERNITY IS 'RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW'..

What is this life so full of care 
I don't have time to stand and stare..

In  our quest to becoming the biggest fools,we human beings are continuously tossed around in every direction like a pollen in the winds of past and future.Life never moves smoothly in
proportion to time. Every moment we live in, is either guided by interpretation of our past
or illusion of the future.Consumed fully in the world,fear and hope become the biggest
distractions in achieving eternity..fear of the unknown by a realist and hope for the
'unattainable' by an idealist,we are trapped in the curse of mind and heart,respectively.

But what if we ,for a moment , by living that moment, cut this incomprehensible relation
between life and time.Eternity is always misinterpreted by our shortsightedness, as
something simulating infinity.Something beyond this world.Something related not to this life
but the after-world.
In fact in the world of philosophy and mysticism,eternity means 'TIMELESSNESS'.Escaping the web of time and experiencing life without time's influence on it.Is it possible for an ordinary soul to do so?? Certainly it is, provided we recognize how time influences our present. the answer is simple and already stated earlier.every moment we live is influence by time in the form of :

1- Figuring out our past that is built on nostalgia and memories,some regretful,others
     cherishing.
2-the continuous process of evolving and burning midnight oil in the name of a 'better and
promising' future that no matter what we do remains unpredictable with no guarantee of
expiry date.

These two faces of time continuously blur our vision and don't let us appreciate ETERNITY.if
for only a small period of time,we forget the bright yellows we lost in the past and the
passionate reds that may never come and live in harmony with the present violets and oranges
and the blues.If for a moment we try to escape our past and future and recognize the
blessed present,we will escape the bounds of time and find ourselves floating in the
timelessness where only the gifted 'now' lives! Where eternity dwells.Its in this timeless
vacuum where God can be identified.
A famous dialogue from the movie 'KUNG FU PANDA'..
'Quit... don't quit. Noodles... don't noodles. 
You are too concerned with what was and with what will be.
Yesterday is history, 
tomorrow is a mystery, 
but today is a gift. 

That is why it is called the present.'

Feel His answers..be hurt no more

I hear winds bring  news
of my love,still running around
longing to know my heart,my views
a tireless effort,hardship bound...

o love,be hurt no more for being apart
As I, who could hurt most, am gone
my dear,you stay in the numbness of my heart
only to cherish ,not to mourn.
o love be hurt no more..

o love be hurt no more
I am always your mirror to tell
to tell you about the new you
unbreakable at times of farewell
now ready to fight every hell
so love be hurt no more..

so love be hurt no more
for they can never understand
that God answers not on waterless shore
you have to feel it in the grasp of hand
in the depths of sand
They try clutching it all
A few grains stick to their palm
as reminders of the rest that fall....

so love be hurt no more
for we have felt His answers
in sleepless nights behind bar
but they do not understand 'His'...
just like they did not understand 'our'...

so love be hurt no more
love be hurt no more
be hurt no more
hurt no more
no more
no more.......

LAHORE!The City Of Food ,Taste,Thoughts And Self-Discovery..

In my childhood I had heard a lot of stories from history,tales of Anarkali to splendor of shah jehan when he would come to this magnificent city of lahore and stay for a vacation in the shalimar gardens.I saw a lot of COLOURS in pictures when all knelt in front of the mighty lord ,all in one go on a sunny eid day in badshahi masjid.But never could I feel what the real Zinda Dilaan-e-lahore was, that made this city so superior.Was it just the music or the food or the water that people consumed that made them famous all over the country as the zinda dilaans..As far as I remember,whenever we planned a vacation trip,it was always the coolness of murree and beyond that caught our minds.Lahore was never considered an option.Even if a discussion of visiting the history of lahore was brought up,it would soon go vague into the phobia we had of its smoke,traffic jams and heat of the day. 

All changed when i got posted in this city that still wasnt my priority.The moment i landed in lahore ,a pity 'sensi' dull old me who had been bred and buttered like a stupid flower in the quietness and tranquility of jhelum and isloo,started searching for peace (well.. peace with a little more greenery or hilly spot maybe) .but the hustle and bustle never stopped.So i resided in my room finding it the safest and soundest of all places.Little was i aware that this was soon to change.A change in me that I would have found most troubling to cope with began to throw its colours ,the brightness of which i found 'not that irritating as i thought!'

 AND SO I HIT THE ROAD!!

Starting from the aesthetic fulfillment in Badshahi mosque and the vastness of Shahi Qilla that made me look so small,i entered the history of this city of the Kings.I visited places where the Kings went,every step i took unveiled a new image in my mind of how once this same very footstep must have been taken by the greatest emperors of those times.The elegance of sheesh mahal to a strangely cold breeze in a hot summer day that would refresh the shalimar gardens,the artificial rainbow with the aid of candles that Shah Jehan would have flattered about.The dark underground prisons in Shahi Qilla to the tomb of greatest scholar of the land Allama iqbal.And I thought how even after centuries ,these legends belittled one so much .

Next came the spiritual, journey to DATE DARBAR(ooops!pardon me for the cynical 'e'instead of 'a').i meant the DATA DARBAR the air of which was more than enough to replenish mysticism in me that had long died with time.

Finally today this city gave me the most delicious food i ever ate ..In new food street.sitting there at the table,with the white shiny domes of badshahi mosque on one side and its golden pillars on the other,miles long centuries old walls engulfed me back in time again.i saw the same picture from 16th century.Nothing had changed but the people.To top it all it started drizzling but the moment of the day was when I ate the first bout of desi food.and i realised I had so many taste buds yet to be discovered!As if they were there all this time longing to be explored.I thought and thought and the only conclusion I could reach was..

. 'Maybe indeed some civilizations are more God-gifted!others are not'

The food of old lahore is nothing but the centuries old hard work of its cooks.Its the result of ever new experiments starting maybe even before the mughal era that resulted in delivering the best taste one could experience .All the hard work paying off now.Maybe the people that lived here centuries ago and even now really are more God-gifted.Their knowledge of UTO(unidentified taste objects) and aesthetic sense is the proof of this.

After visiting the new food street ,a dazzling blend of history and taste,especially now that in a few months i am going to leave this city,I realised I have completed my stay here and got everything my limited heart could take from this place of timeless joy.this place has coloured my aura adding to my old grey , a bright YELLOW that i'll be taking away with me to some new place yet to be discovered.but i will return and long to live here if life gives me even one more day to celebrate ...I feel too small to say say anything else to this land of the kings but this.....

THANKYOU LAHORE!

PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS...

Ever wondered why some people around you are so happy and content with their lives while others are found cursing all the time.Does life treat them both differently giving joy to one and tough time to the other?? Do we have to blame life and our world and hold it completely responsible for every bad event we have to face? or is it just the 'we' who are responsible for what the outcome is at the end of the day.? Man is the funniest animal on earth.Everything we do,all the hard work,all our achievements,our struggles..everything is directed towards gaining an ever-lasting happiness and a problem-free life .In this quest ,we forget a very simple rule of our existence that nothing in the world can give us the satisfaction if we fail to find it hidden in our heart.Let me try to put it in the simplest of ways i possibly can.
                                   'Only you are responsible for your happiness'
 The events of mixing,grinding,breaking ,polishing that life makes us go through are same for everyone.No soul on this earth can ever live a completely worry-free life.its a universal law and applies to all.Though the situations may be different. we all must pass through the pain and remorse..of professional failures to loss of dear ones,heart breaking end to ambitions to tragic misunderstandings..Everything you see around you, be it living in a form of parents,beloved,friends to nonliving as big house ,luxurious cars, are just the cards used by time to try your soul.These factors can never be held responsible for our happiness & satisfaction.Unfortunately we little human beings associate our felicity with these tools and in achieving these goals,we start EXPECTING more from them to deliver us the joy and forget a very simple answer to searching happiness that it resides within us.
 But there are those who know the answer to finding inner peace and satisfaction.You see them around you giggling,enjoying ,making jokes,trying their best to have good little moments despite the fact that they are treated hard by time too.They absorb all the pressures that time and age has to offer and stand tall in the most beautiful of fashions and never let the events in life take them down.They are like those floating ducks in the lake..peaceful from outside but just below the apparently calm surface a continous noisy paddling is driving them forward.
 The counterparts on the other hand keep on searching for satisfaction in the world,money and relationships and keep on expecting more and more from these poor items of time which in the end fail to deliver them the inner peace.
Rumi puts it this way.
 THE WASP AND BEE FEED FROM THE SAME FOOD SOURCE;
 FROM ONE THERE COMES THE STING,FROM ONE COMES HONEY.
 BOTH TYPES OF DEER WILL FEED ON PLANTS AND WATER;
 FROM ONE COMES DUNG,FROM ONE THE PUREST MUSK.
 BOTH TYPES OF CANE ARE DRINKING FROM ONE SOURCE;
THIS ONE IS EMPTY,THAT ONE FULL OF SUGAR.
 Nature has been very kind in making Happiness a relative term.In a hot summer day,one may find it comfortable sitting in an airconditioned room while the other would be lying in a cold tree shade outside thanking God for His blessings.A mercedez owner will find it hard to sit in a public van while a poor pedestrian would see the same van as a blessing from God.though both will be in the same state,one would be cursing,one would be satisfied and happy.It is all relative.
 LIFE IS A CONSTANT.OUR PERCEPTION IS NOT! that is why we see such a diversity of thoughts and personalities.All feeding from the same source.But outcomes are different.Some become wise in the end if they percieve accurately .Others fall short and we judge these shortcomings in their decisions in life.
 So my friends,in your PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS,never forget that it lies within you.You just have to understand the reality of things around you and not expect from others to give you what you are looking for.Search yourself out and you'll get the
answers provided your heart is free and mind open.