Stillness; Tranquility & Melancholy

I was going through my old email and got stuck on one sent to me by a good friend speaking of tranquility and melancholy.

It read:

Goya (Spanish artist) believed in the stillness of life and that purity lies in tranquility. Being malancholic is a good sign according to Shakespeare it provides one with the opportunity to learn about themselves.

The belief in the stillness of life... to preach that purity lies in tranquility...I remember saying in reply that tranquility is a hypothetical concept that cannot be achieved. And here I am thinking over it again. Tranquility...to be in a state totally free from stress and emotion.

Escape from the boundaries of stress seems relatively easier, I mean if nothing works, there is always marijuana! Enough of that and you would have forgotten all the stress you ever felt, BTW I am in no way advocating its use, for anything achieved through smoke is eventually just smoke. A temporary blimp that leads you to a greater state of whatever you were trying to escape. Anyway, escaping stress is possible, if only in the moments before you go to sleep or wake up, when you are in a state of half slumber, totally at peace with everything.

But how can we ever escape emotion? There is always some form of it hovering above our existence. From the raw to the most refined, we are always feeling them. Getting elated and then tumbling down to the bottom less depths of remorse and sadness, snarled with guilt. Every breath we take we feel a new emotion, so much so that it feels like emotion is life. The basic essence, the complete picture. Every reaction, no matter how matter of fact is somehow based on some emotion. To serve...to protect...to betray...and to abandon, just ends of the same spectrum. Then how can we ever escape emotion?

Does a person lying in a 25 year coma feel emotion? I don't know, and it would be a little difficult to ask the comatose for the answer. But me, in the here and now, and in the has and been; I have constantly felt emotion. Some variation of this jigsaw puzzle has always been at me, urging me on, tugging me along, and then crippling me and putting me aside, before even a complete blink of the eye. It amazes me how fast the brain reacts, before you can even blink an eye, you know that it's all over. You are completely shattered. The end...and the long wait to the new beginning.

So how would Goya achieve purity, for how could he ever feel absolute tranquility. Once again it's coming back into agreement with Shakespeare. To keep discovering one's own self through the mechanics of melancholy. Delving deeper and deeper into the abyss leading to complete Nirvana. But that comes at a price as well. The price of slowly, steadily becoming a recluse. Achieving absolute removal from the moving and alive...but then, nobody promised that you could buy the cake and eat it too!

There's this little gem of a poem by Mark Strand, "Keeping Things Whole" that would be a good ending to this post...

Keeping Things Whole

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

A conversation I had with myself recently

"So where are you going?"

"In search of the new and the unknown."

" Hah...where is this new and unknown?"

"Hmm...at someplace I haven't been before."

"But why the search for the new and the unknown, why not the comfort of the tried and familiar?"

"Human nature I think."

"But isn't human nature finding comfort in familiarity?"

"Well...if that was true then we would still be stuck in the stone age."

"How can you say that?"

"Well that was the familiar then, but it was the quest for the unknown that took us from there to central air..."

"But if that is human nature, then how do you ever settle down?"

"I never said we ever find peace in settling down?"

"You know, finding that perfect other, falling in love, settling down...the whole shebang..."

"If that were the case, then all the great love stories wouldn't have been tragedies."

"There must be some great love stories with your typical rom-com ending..."

"Yes, but all your rom-coms end where life begin! Name one great love story that went to a complete conclusion with that sort of an ending...better yet, no need to search for a great love story with that kind of an ending, name one person you know who found the perfect other and settled down happily ever after...it's always moving on in search of something new and unkown followed by that!"

"So what does that mean?"

"Nothing I guess...eventually all of us feel the killer need to settle down in the comfort of what we are familiar with, but our instinct says otherwise..."

"In other words...we're fucked aren't we?"

"I guess...but whatever man!"

The first of a kind

I left the States with the notion that I'd be going back in two weeks. A quick trip back home, some family fun, and then back to the work base. However three months down, all I can say is that I cannot help but marvel at the unpredictability of life! A family emergency, some changes in organizational focus, and a Ramadam later, I find myself headed for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. And the change in destination couldn't have been a bigger contrast. I have spent my last few days applying for visas, and finding out about the kind of Hijaab I would need for Alina. But the good thing is that you can still smoke over there, given that a "shurta" doesn't stop you who might go on offensive yelling "forbidden...forbidden".

But the best thing is that I can go for Umrah, and if luck sides with me, then for Hajj as well...I have my fingers crossed for that, and I have a feeling that God's calling me to His land for exactly this purpose. However there's this whole different agenda of a CRM implementation. But whatever happens, I am sure this would be an experience to remember. With all the contradictory feedback I keep getting, I am not sure if it would be an experience to cherish (about 70% of the ppl I know feel it would be that) or an experience that would make me shiver! My poor colleague who had to spend about 20 hours in jail, still shivers at the mention of it.

But I guess that can be said about any place you visit, given the direction we're taking our world in. I am trying hard these last few posts to keep away from that, for everything just seems like another futile exercise. I guess the key is to live for the completely mundane things. So right now my ambitions reside in watching Babel, buying my first SLR camera (which I keep promising Alina, I won't let her use), and having that perfect cup of coffee. And ever since Naufal went sky diving, I've added that to my list as well.

So once again I am packing all my bags, this time Alina's along with mine, and am getting ready to head off into something that is completely unknown for me. But I guess this is the essence of traveling, going into the true unknown!

Once again I prepare to leave the familiar for the totally new. It would be sad leaving the beloved roads, trees, heck everything of Isloo. But the trick is to think of it in terms of 3 months...3 months and I'll be back here, getting ready with the rest of Isloo to welcome the sweltering summers again.

Camel markets and mud castles, desert sand and crimson skies, here I come...

Optimistic fool!

Sometimes I remind myself of Candide, that foolish optimist created by Voltaire, it's just that I haven't stumbled across lands where gold and diamonds are treated like trash! But right now I am calling myself an optimistic fool because of the state of Pakistani cricket, and the fact that I am still rooting for them in the world cup!

The biggest blow was dealt to me today, with Shoib getting a 2 year ban and Asif walking out with 1 year. But the first ban is very important for me, for that would mean the end of a highly erratic (they don't get any more mercurial then this) career and one of my favaourite cricketing personalities.

Here are a couple of articles about the flawed genius I liked. Why do they feel like obituaries?

The wings, they have been clipped

A tale of intrigue, injuries and incidents

Not only has Shoib's removal dented Pakistan's chances with the world cup, it has indeed lost cricket the biggest showman it had...but still I feel there is hope for this injured side, for it is in adversary that they sail the smoothest!

Yesterday as I sat in the comfort of my home, I too felt like a smooth sailing ship. What was that ship Prince Caspian sailed in the Narnia books? Anyone? Just like that wonderful little ship, facing all sorts of adversity but still amounting to one heck of a journey. It's wonderful how this trance like feeling can just come over you for no reason at all. And then you float away in it, like in a Pink Floyd song specially if you've had some quality weed.

Right now, I am sitting at work, and am trying to recreate that loving feeling, but even though I know how it was, I really can't visualize it in my brain to recreate it. But therein lies the charm of such feelings. Their unexpected arrivals, triggered by the un-named mysteries of this world. Once you feel it, you feel like living forever and ever, just in the hope that it might come again. Like falling in love and how sweet, warm and fuzzy it felt, and then hanging on to that love in the hope to encounter that loving feeling all over again!

Next time then...

I hate being irregular!

This might come as a surprise because I have been very irregular in my favourtie pass time for the last 2-3 months! Somehow blogging hasn't come easy, and the excuse is the same, not able to blog when I want to, and then when I can, I don't want to...

But here I am now, and let's live in the here and now. The way things are going in the world, I believe in this age old wisdom more and more. Just day before 86 people, mostly children, were blown up to find one terrorist. Somehow life is a price we are always willing to pay. I wonder what we can do to increase the worth of life, for there was a time when I thought that the notion of having an ice cream in the freezing December nights of Isloo was enough to realize the it's worth. Foolish me!

So Eid came and went, and this time I couldn't indulge myself in my ritual Eid post. But it was fun, filled with family (and I mean lots of family, say 38 ppl in my little home) and a whole lot more of utter chaos. Just the way I like my Eids! Having the misfortune to spend an Eid here and there on my own in some lone corner of the world, I have really begun to appreciate all that my family offers me. Usually I am baffled by the feminine need to spend endlessly on clothes and shoes, but the dress Alina got made for Eid made me think otherwise...it was worth it! BTW am still baffled about the shoes!

And just last night I got back from a whirlwind tour of Lahore (usual excuse...cousin's wedding). In 24 hours, I managed to attend a wedding, hang out with all the cousins I was missing, treat the missus to what the Lahori's call "bun paluster" (it's an egg and chicken burger made in butter, lots and lots of butter, and you have to try it, for I cannot explain it), worked over my cell phone, tried the famous Jhelum fish (caught an hour before consumption, trust me that's the only way to eat fish), enjoy countless Kishore songs that I grew up loving, pick small cute fights with Alina, and for a change manage regular prayers in between! Even though my head is still spinning from the whirl wind tour, it seems worth all the whiles. I'll admit that it's been sometime since I have been totally at peace with myself and my surroundings, and during the last 24 hours, I was just that. It seems I need to be on the road and travel around a 1000 kms withing 24 hours to do that.

Oh yes, and my travel bug is alive again, now it's off to Saudi Arabia. Good thing is that Alina will by my side this time around, and I have heard wonderful things about the fried chicken they have there! The only problem I foresee is that the application I will be working on and all the data is going to be in Arabic, and I can't speak a word of it, but that should be fun, at least it should make up some interesting posts.

Naufal sent me his sky diving pics, and all I can say is wow! Even since I have received the pics, I have been trying to figure how he felt before, during and after the jump! I guess freedom unlimited. Even though you're still in a trance of gravity, you are free to look upon the world like the heavens.

All my friends seem to have settled into nice rhythms. Babar is settled back in Isloo and on a land buying spree, Aijaz is running around as always, all the time catching up with life (we had another discussion in the long list of discussion to make some sort of a movie), Zeeshan is on the edge with the new business absorbing all the stress like a black hole, Ali's good and "nikahofied", MA is his usual self, and it's been raining Naufal in Syracuse!

And there's something big brewing in the background, which I'll bring into the blog world when it's confirmed.

So here's to hoping that I can bring some consistency into my wonderful world as well, and start blogging regularly...

Have fun...and live in the here and now

The reason we love Isloo...

Day before yesterday, as I was lying around at around 4 pm to steal some shut eye, to pass the final hours of a fast that refused to end, I head a sound that in Isloo means perfection. The sound of thunder capped with the wheeze of a strong strong breeze. And by the time I got up (after 15-20 mins) everything outside was new. There was a sudden chill in the wind, the sky was a violent shade of crimson, with glistening clouds scattered in the sky, reflecting the pure light from the sun. Everything alive and green had miraculously found its one true color, and there were countless shades of green on display. And above all, stepping outside was accompanied by an urge to walk outside! All in all, the perfect Isloo day!

The perfect Isloo day is the one day that convinces you to spend the rest of your life in this city of wonder. That one day which is enough to counter any argument thrown by any lover of Lahore or Karachi, or heck anywhere in the world. But somehow there's more to it. I spent about 6 months in Raleigh, a city a lot like my Isloo, with the same sort of temperamental weather, and long stretches of lush greens. And I never once felt truly at home. Yes I did agree on more occasions then one, that if I were to move, I could move here! But the moment I set foot in Isloo (about 2 months to the date) after a 12 hour delay, I was at peace. I somehow knew that everything would be just fine. Whoever said "familiarity breeds contempt" should think again, because familiarity, in my case, has bred a love of epic proportions.

That night, quite late, I went to the roof of my house. By the time the breeze had gotten stronger, and the smell of jasmine (planted lovingly in our backyard by my father) was mixed in the wind, where every few seconds, you just felt like breathing in forever, for everyone who knows, knows that nothing compares to the smell of a jasmine plant at night.

But as I was saying, it was nice to have that perfect Isloo day again, and even nicer that I was here to see and feel it for myself. For even though hearing about the perfect Isloo day, and creating it in the mind, is no doubt a great activity, but it can never ever beat the feeling of actually being there.

So here's to being here then...

Breaking tradition

So for the first time in my short blogging life, I am about to copy a forwarded email to me on my blog. See normally I am the guy you hear bitching about all the useless forwards we get everyday. I am the guy who is known to have called the person up on more then one occasion who sent me a forwarded email to give my (little) piece of mind.

But here I am copying a forwarded email. I asked the person who sent me the forward to give me the name of the person who wrote this (and permission) to put this in my zoo. Unfortunately the person who sent me this did not know who wrote this, it was just a nameless forward, heck even I might have written this some sleepless night! But if you've written this, then please let me know, for I would definately want to read your blog!

Anyway enough by me...here goes.

Close your eyes.....
And go back in time....
Before Internet, VCD and DVD.
Before semi-automatic machine guns, joyriders and crack ....
Before SEGA or Super Nintendo or Video Games...

Way back....

I'm talking about Hide and seek (Chhupan Chhupaee) or Barf Panee or Dodge the Ball in the park or on streets.
The corner shop, Butter Scotch Candy, Mitchells Milk Toffee, Jubilee, football with an old can, jumping in enormous puddles, Building dams
The smell of the sun and fresh cut grass, Mayfair bubble gum, A POLKA ice cream pop cone on a warm summer night,

Wait......Watching Weekday 5pm evening or Saturday Morning cartoons... short commercials, The Tom and Jerry, He-Man, Captain Caveman, Voltron,
Walligator, Danger Mouse and Pink Panther.

Staying up late for Knight Rider, Air Wolf or Power of Metthew Star, Watching nice Urdu Plays like Un Kahi, Tanhaiyaan, Sunehray Din, Aangan Tera.

When around the corner seemed far away, and going into down town or Liberty Market seemed like going somewhere.

A million mosquito bites, wasp and bee stings.
Sticky fingers.
Walking to school, no matter what the weather.
Running till you were out of breath.
Laughing so hard that your stomach hurt!
Jumping on the bed.
Pillow fights.
Climbing trees, building igloo Ice Lollies out of tiny amounts of snow.
Spinning around, getting dizzy and falling down was cause for giggles.

Being tired from playing...
Remember that?

The biggest embarrassment was being picked last for a team.
Water balloons were the ultimate weapon.

I'm not finished just yet...
Eating raw jelly, orange squash, ice popps.

Remember when...
You knew everyone in your street - and so did your parents!
It wasn't odd to have two or three "best" friends.
You didn't sleep a wink on EiD Chaand Raat…
When 100 Rs. was decent pocket money.

When you'd get a coke for 4 Rs.
When nearly everyone's mum was at home when the kids got there from School.

It was magic when dad would "remove" his thumb.
When it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents.
When being sent to the head's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited a misbehaving student at home.

Basically, we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat!
And some of us are still afraid of them!!!

Didn't that feel good?
Just to go back and say, Yeah, I remember that!

Remember when....
Decisions were made by going "eeny- meeny-miney-mo."

"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest.
Money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in "Monopoly".

The worst thing you could catch from other person was germs, and the worst thing in your day was having to sit next to opposite sex.

Having a weapon in school, meant being caught with a catapult.
Nobody was prettier than your Mum.
Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better.

Taking drugs meant orange-flavoured chewable aspirin.
Ice cream was considered a basic food group.

Getting a foot of snow was a dream come true.

Abilities were discovered because of a "double-dare".
Older siblings were the worst tormentors, but also the fiercest protectors.

If you can remember most of these, then you have LIVED!

Welcome me back!

Let's just say that I am glad that my time off is finally over, and Thank God that it's ended in a happy ending, leading to many new beginnings. And I guess I can only blog when I am coming into work on a regular basis, because when I'm off work, the only time I turn my machine on is when I want to watch a movie or listen to some music.

This past month I have been feeling the rippling effect of life at its best and heavens at their ironic most. Where one thing leads to many other things, and they in turn do the same, and suddenly your circumfrence is filled with ripples, and you're just running around catching one thing by it tail, and colliding head on with another. And when finally it's over and things slow down, all you can do is to just collapse for a day or two hiding behind an attack of allergies, and just hope that if you sneeze and sniff enough, maybe, just maybe everyone would leave you alone!

But now it's all better since I have started coming into work again, and life suddenly makes more sense, I guess it's the comfort of familiarity that I am enjoying right now.

Good thing is that I still don't have a deadline to pack my bags and go, so enjoying Isloo from the comfort of routined life is quite fantastic. I would however appreciate if the climate changed for the cooler, because now the heat is getting on my nerves! But I guess the way we're molesting our environment, we should get used to much worse. What was the Al Gore documentary? It shold be compulsory viewing for all.

But on a much much better note, finally the Israeli offensive on Lebonan has been halted and the senseless killing ended, at least for the time being. Come to think of it we live in mother earth, and earth being life's mother, it isn't surprising that mother earth is contemplating assisted suicide (assisted by our cars and industry of course). For show me a mother who can stand so many murders of her children and I'll show you a person who has never lied.

But the trees are still green and the wind still soothing...and as long as we have that I guess we'd eventually be alright, for I guess our lives are lived in small moments of peace and utter joy.

See you soon...

And the smile gets bigger

Nothing like a trip back home to get your mood out of the gutter! I am flying back on the 2nd and everyday some more energy fills the deepest crevices of my shallow existence. Everyday I plan a little more of the things I want to do when I get home. I chalk out in my mind the places I want to visit with my family. Or where and when I want to just hang out with friends. And all the food I'll savor.

It's the little satisfactions that you find at home that light up everything. That make it all worth the while, and I have always craved and searched for these small satisfactions. Like that perfect piece of cheese cake.

Our ability to associate and then dissociate from things around us astounds me. Traveling back home is traveling to the comfort of all the loving associations you grew up with, and that's very easy to do. Even someone who hated his/her home and moved out before you could say eighteen can adjust back home easily. But we're equally good at dissociating ourselves from our homes when the need arises to pack up the bags and move on to a new frontier, always with the hope of coming back home. I think it's this hope of coming back home that gives a soldier the strength to pursue something totally senseless at the war front.

I leave my home assisted by this energy to pursue something a little less senseless, the pursuit of job satisfaction. See for me a job cannot be just something to make ends meet. It has to be more. Believe me I've tried that work to live approach, but I can't work it. I always lose interest and all willingness to work myself towards anything, and eventually it's not the job that suffers (for if there is a deadline, then it would be met), but my personal life that goes down the drain! So it's this juggling act that needs to be conducted while balancing yourself on a thin rope, crossing the Niagara falls.

But my home calls out to me everyday now, and every night I dream of it. The cool breeze on our rooftop, the comfort of my real bed, the kindness in the eyes of my family, and that comfortable feeling of hanging out with friends who've grown around you, and have seen you grow all the way.

Ever wonder why movies about coming home are always more soothing then the movies about leaving home. Because no matter what happens, unless you live in Jack the Ripper's street, that journey back is always going too be good, sweet, and nurturing.

So depressed by this world (there are still people dying everyday in the middle east, and no one seems to care), and bit by a goose (yes, true story, no one else got bit by a goose at Duke Gardens but me this Sunday), I am actually looking forward to something. Looking forward to the warm embrace of my home...

I'm leaving on a jet plane...

The misery of our times...

It's been days now since India was hit by the train blasts accounting for the end of 200 dreams and all the dreams associated with those 200 dreams. And Lebonan keeps on being hit by bombs, killing civilians going about their lives everyday...

I haven't been normal for many days now, but then I haven't been normal for quite some time now. I spoke to Girish about the attacks the night it happened, and all he had to say was don't think about it, there's nothing we can do. And come to think of it he was absolutely 100% correct, what can we do, or rather what can anyone anywhere do, but move on.

But how can one mould himself to not think about this blatant disregard for life, which if anything increases by the day. In all probability it can only get worse from here and we're running out of people like Mother Teressa, and are breeding maniacs in the line of Hitler.

I hate to say this, but very soon we'd have a date for every month to feel bad about, 9/11, 5/7, 7/11 and so on and so forth. And I am not even talking about all the wars that are being waged which practically are just different forms of genocide!

There is this constant feeling of suffocation with me, and I can't seem to break out of a sort of ttrance that's come over me. My work is suffering, and life seems to be dwelling in a gutter. I feel as phased out of everything as that angel from "Wings of Desire" longing to touch and feel, but unable to do so. However in my case it isn't the inability to touch and feel, but the fear of what you'd actually touch, and how you would eventually feel. At times like this being in a comma like daze is a blessing. But there's always a longing to touch and to feel.

There's no more escape in the movies, books feel artificial, and air is just a fabrication, and don't even get me started on TV! Maybe I'll start running again, yes I should definately do that, run off into a new and unknown direction, leaving all the towns and cities behind me, where all I hear is the sound of my feet falling on all kinds of ground, and all I feel is my lungs working over time to make up for all the cigarettes.

To reach that state where the mind becomes devoid of all thought, and just works to create more resolve...

The afterlife and eventual resting place

So after receiving an email from a friend asking me what I thought of the afterlife I started thinking about it all over again. I hail from a religious family, who practice their religion quietly and with minimum disturbance. So growing up I was instilled with strong notions of faith, and as I grew up more they were slowly morphed into a rigid set of beliefs.

Very important among them was to have faith in afterlife, and I think most of my life I liked that particular belief. In more ways then one, it gave purpose to this life, but as I grew up even more, I realized that it also laid life out as a program (not TV, but say C++) and defined it in terms of things to do and not to do. Again I have no qualms about that as most of the “to do’s” agree with the generic sense of morality that I now feel prevails on our tiny planet.

But somehow we have found ourselves in a time where the promise of a good afterlife makes you walk into places and do extremely stupid things, in the name of a goal far greater then life itself. Now that is where I draw the line. Not in a million years can I even begin to feel that, that is a path worth pursuing.

I don’t know what my exact thoughts on afterlife are, but I can at least say what I want. I would want my soul to fizzle away the moment I stop breathing. I would want it to evaporate into thin air and not become part of any cycle. Remember all the cycles we’re drilled with in class. The oxygen cycle, the water cycle, and so on and so forth. And then there’s the circle of life from Lion King (even though even that was more of a cycle)…so no part in any form of a cycle for me, just the quick and peaceful fizzle.

And I am not among those who long for the long infinite, I like the fact the I have a finite existence, just seems more manageable. Would I really want to go on forever in utopia? No I won't! Neither would I want to go on forever in the bonfire of the vanities!

I do however like the notion of being buried. But I would prefer to be buried in a wild rain forest where I can become part of the trees and the weed. No cemeteries for me please, with the well trimmed grass and neatly laid out walk ways within. It just feels so much better to become part of something dictated only by the laws of nature (rain forest) and free from the limiting limitations of mankind! And besides no one would visit to pay respects, and that would be great.

I don’t want the people who have seen me alive and laughing and breathing to be looking at a tombstone and a hump of mud and trying to relate to that in terms of me. So let me just say now, that is not me. The “me” was what you knew, loved or hated, or were indifferent to, but that tombstone and hump of mud…definitely not!

Serenity now!

So a wonderful little vacation over, and finally back into my working groove...

One would think that I'd be thinking of all the wonderful places I visited, and reliving them in my mind. I guess that'd be what a normal person (per say) would do after a vacation. Think of that wonderful tree in the middle of a park, recreate the peace of mind found in that exquisite chapel! But here I am, thinking about this person I ran into on one of the many local train rides.

Let me tell you about this person first, and then I'll get into why I keep thinking about him. So we boarded a train in Boston to head to Harvard Square, and this person comes in and sits close to where I am sitting. In his late forties, he pulls out a Disk-man (is that the correct word? Or is it CD-man? Doesn't really matter though does it!) and a brand new 50 Cent CD with it, still in its plastic wrapper. He tries to rip the plastic cover and fails, and then asks our friend from Boston if she has sharp nails. At that moment Naufal intervenes and takes the CD to help open it. Finally Naufal and I double team to rip the plastic cover by use of our car keys. And the open CD is returned to the person. Now this person puts on these hi-fi headphones (I think they were Sony), which are supposed to drown out all wordly noises and leave you with the "noise" (sorry no other word in my vocabulary to describe 50 Cent) of the album.

He listens to this album for about 15 seconds, takes off his headphones (irritated), and goes on about why one should never buy expensive headphones. Now I understand that not only did he buy a new CD, he also bought the equipment to listen to this CD on the move. So we are looking at a considerable dig into the pockets. Now with every passing moment this person is addressing us in a louder and louder tone, and the surprising thing is that he gets louder in high-spirits, as if he's chasing his overjoyed puppy around the park! It's as if he's had a few too many happy pills. Anyone who commutes frequently would understand that this particualar situation can get quite uncomfortable, you know when someone barges into your space and takes over like he's known you for ages and you're the best of chums!

So we do the only polite thing, and start talking to each other in Urdu, and block out everything outside. See you don't always need 50 dollar headphones and a 50 Cent CD to do that. And our ploy works. Now this person focuses his energy on a kid sitting across from us, who unfortunately rips the corner of a meaningless advert on the train and starts rolling it into a ball (an action not at all in the good graces of our person). And this person takes on the kid quite agressively. Again in a lively and a "game show host" kind of a way. A minute later he has the kid showing him what he's carrying in this carton he's carrying. And the poor kid is taking out things from a professionally packed box to utilize minimum space with maximum items. The saddest thing is that the kid is doing this to convince this person that he doesn't have anything in the box that would blow up! And you know that once he takes stuff out of the box, he won't be able to pack it in again.

At the next stop the kid gets off, and now I am wondering if this was his actual stop, or did he just get off the train for te sake of getting off! And before we can onbserve any further antics of this person, we also get off at the next station.

Now one would say, why do I keep thinking about this person. I don't keep thinking about this gentleman for the things he did and said, even though they weren't all to gentle, but it was just the way he did all these things. In a bright as sunshine sort of a way. As if he'd just come out of the Munchkin land of Oz. Or rather he's in some sitcom where even the saddest of moments are dealt with (in)appropriate punch lines.

I keep thinking about him and wondering what needs to happen to you to bring you to that stage in life. Where you're close to hitting the big five O, and are struggling to become beer buddies with the people on a train in a city where everyone is in a hurry to get off the train and head to their own little egg shells.

I think of this as a big tragedy, and a future that might be in store for any one of the people I know, including myself. I tried to ask my friends if you were asked to write a story about this person, that would end with this person sitting in this train, trying to rip open a 50 Cent CD and ripping a kid apart just because he could, what would your story be like? Would it reach this stage with a Scrooge like indifference, with the three ghosts of christmas past, present and future about to make their visits? Or would it be a tragedy of epic proportions, where a person dissolves into oblivion by the incessant cruelties of our just society? A society which is moulded to honour never standing out (remember the Perfect Citizen by WH Auden)!

And I can't stop thinking about this person. I keep making up these different stories in my mind that all end with this person sitting in this train, doing these particular things, and the camera fading away into a night, shifting from a close to long shot of the train, going off into the night...

And with every story comes a completely new set of causes and effects and their very own retributions. But I guess the biggest fear at the back of my mind is that, am I headed in this same direction? With my baggage of failed relationships and failing relationships, would I be sitting in that train, doing these strange and encroaching things, as the camera fades away into the night! How am I to make sure that the choices I make today, don't take me closer too that tomorrow.

I guess I just want the Frank Capra ending over the ending of say "The Black Narcissus"...

As Cosmo Kramer would say ... "Serenity NOW...Serenity NOW...Serenity NOW" ... I would be willing to pay a considerable price to just be thinking about the falls and the food right now, but I guess you are what you are...

Next time then!

Four cities; Four days - And Go!

And finally I am back, after a small vacation, which I consider was long due for me! So here I am sitting in front of my computer, with soar legs and a stiff back. My head is still a little dazed, and I guess some part of my brain is still at work trying to digest all that happened since Saturday...

So I started out at 3 am on Saturday, with a hot shower and a close shave. Thankfully the cab arrived on time and I checked into the airport terminal on time, for a flight, which was also on time! Everything was so on time, that I nearly missed my flight when I decided to have a little breakfast before boarding the plane. So eventually I had to run out of the terminal, waving my hands furiously, to stop the air hostess from closing the airplane doors. But eventually I made the flight, and when I landed in Rochester, good ol' Naufal was waiting for me at the airport! Again on time!

(This is like describing someone else's trip, as my trips never go on time)

So we drove from Rochester to Niagara, and were at the falls by 3 pm. I guess the gods were in a good mood as the day was bright and sunny (even though the forecast said rain). The Maid of the Mist and Cave of the Winds were great. I guess the ferociousness of the falls can make a believer out of anyone! There were moments of absolute Nirvana on the tracks that flirt with the falls taking you closer and closer (but never any cigar), where the soul is lifted beyond the grip of the worldly realm. I guess a picture of Naufal that would always stay in my mind would be him on his knees, sitting under the spray of the falls (Hurricane point on the Cave of the Winds), for a moment just disconnected from everything, floating away without a care in the world...

The falls seemed very different from what I remembered. I really don't think they could have changed the falls that much, so it must be the difference in the pictures a boy retained in his mind in the year 1989, and the pictures the pudgy bald guy stored in his head come 2006!

Another interesting person I came across there was this spray-paint artist, he had a disability in one hand, and was working with his son. Using stencils, blades, and hands, he would make quick pictures of the falls, interpretted in different lights, and I guess even on different planets...I bought one of his pictures for Alina, let's see what her artist bearings say about the hurried work of art!

So completely drenched, a little cold, and totally exhausted, we left for Syracuse. I remember that by the time we got there, it was an extreme effort to head into Naufal's dorm of sorts. I say dorm of sorts because it isn't a dorm, just a little house, practically on the SU campus, packed with "gaanjed up" (I think that's the latest expression) students, going through education at its best!

So after barely 2 hours of sleep we left for Boston. This time the drive was much longer, and in bigger patches of inactivity, where you just get on a highway and struggle to stay awake!

Now Boston was a surprise for me. It's like one of those towns you find in fairytales, with uneven roads, and little homes popping up here and there. At least that's what I got from the place where our hotel was. It was like we suddenly drove into those little spots they talk about in Europe, where life is preserved against time...

This is when we met up with our guiding angel in Boston. Now our angel didn't really know the exact routes and roads but she always had an idea of where we were headed. See she hasn't been in Boston for long, and I guess when you're doing your masters in some form of multi-media, you don't get much strolling time! And if ever there was a strolling town, it's Boston.

So led by our angel we took a self guided tour of the Freedom Trail, walked though a serene park, ate in the hustle and bustle of Quincy Market, walked on the harbour where you can taste the water in the breeze, and had a nice little meal sitting out in the open in some nook of Harvard Square where this guy played songs out of the 60s and 70s on his guitar. O and we also visited a lot of churches, with amazing windows laden with Gothic art. To sum it all up, I think I fell in love with Boston, and all it took was a day.

What's so great about the town, well hundreds of small restaurants that aren't part of any big chain, history going back to the time it all began in this part of the world, uneven roads with unplanned construction, glistening harbour, and a small city breathing life in general!

Very reluctantly we left Boston the next day for Syracuse. At least this time we were able to sleep for at least 5 hours. The drive back to Syracuse was followed by a quick university tour provided by Naufal, whose every third sentence was "I don't know what that is". I guess Syracuse is the kind of a campus that grows on you after a while, but I wasn't there long enough for it to have had any real effect on me.

So this short tour was followed by a long bus ride to NY City, which as expected was packed with people from all over. Times Square was the same as I remembered, even got the exact same feeling I used to get there, and Gray's Papaya hot dogs were still the best in the world. The trip to the Guggenheim was very refreshing. Even though Zaha Hadid's architectural scketches didn't make much sense to me, paintings by Kandinsky, Pollack and Van Gough were as entralling as ever. This was the first time I saw the works of Kandinsky, and his "Landscape near Murnau with Locomotive" is for me one of those painting that can draw you in, and then not let you go. It's like the landscape explodes out of the canvas.

The trip was eventually concluded by our missing the bus, and in turn my missing the floght back to Raleigh! And of course we only missed the bus by just 5 minutes, so the missing of the bus was preceeded by mad dashes into and out of subways, running madly on the roads, bumping into everyone, requesting people to let you through, and so on and so forth...

So here I am eventually, after an 11 hour bus ride, still a bit dazed, but more relaxed then I've been in a while...all in all, a great holiday comes to an end!

Next time then...

It's finally time!!!

The fact that I was born in 1978 and Richard Donner brought Superman to life on screen that very same year must mean something. It was six years later that my uncle brought home a video for us kids to watch, and the title just had a triangle on it, with a big "S" inscripted inside it. I am amused when I think of the VCR we had back then. It would auto-eject the video every 20 minutes, and it was one of those pop out players, with a remote control with a wire! And the small screen of the TV, always flickering and whobbling (bad picture tube they said).

But the next two and a half hours or so were and would always be beyond words for me. Let's just say they were followed by years of jumping off of my parents cupboards onto the bed yelling "Supperrmannnnnn", and always landing with a thud, never taking off.

My love for Superman only grew when I saw Superman II, but somehow it lacked the wonder of the original. As I would grow older, I'd realize that II was just the hacking together of Donner's vision by a completely short-sighted studio puppy. But never the less, Superman I & II helped me get to that wonderful place in childhood, where all unreasonable dreams can come true the very next day. I don't really remember when I realied that I might not be able to fly like my buddy Kal-el in this life time at least. But yes, some of the wonder of Superman was lost on me when I eventually saw the movies they called Superman III & IV. After I had seen III, I was of the opinion that they couldn't possibly do any worse. And then I saw the Quest for Peace, and a very important human trait dawned on me. Human-beings can always do worse! There's great wisdom in realizing this little snippet. However I do own both III & IV on DVD, I mean if Reeves, Kidder, and Hackmen agreed to work on them, then who am I to complain!

The timing of my entry into this world should have made me a Batman fanatic, and Burton perhaps single-handedly created a complete and unique universe. I really liked Batman, but my barometer for super heroes was already set, and even though Keaton and Basinger were good, they were never Reeves and Kidder. And Nicholson could never bring to Joker what Hackmen brought to Luthor! So even though I liked Batman, I still dreamed of myself as being Kal-el, just waiting to find out that I am a visitor from another planet. Heck I was so motivated that I still have excellent reflexes. I am the best person to have around if you drop something and hope that it's caught before it's shattered...

Such was the love for Superman that I actually started reading. I read every Superman comic I could find, until I was seduced by the world of X-Men and Spidey. Over the years I progressed from the world of comics to the worlds created by Dostoevsky and Dickens. I would stop reading comics eventually, and be excited only by a book that would call out to me from a shelf, but that comic lover would always live on. I realized that every time I drift to the comic book isles in airport book shops, and every once in a blue moon, even pick one out!

And then, in this grown-up mould, I read the news that they're making Superman again. No I heard this exact news more then once, but this time, what excited me was the associtation of this person called Singer with the project. And then more and more things happened that got me more and more excited and jittery, like a drunk waiting for his glass to be filled again. I found out that the musical score would be brought forward, and the new music would base itself on the original's roots. I found out that the movie would pick up after II and we would all try to forget III & IV ever happened. I found out that Spacey is the new Luthor, and Luthor would finally be bald through most of the film and not wearing wigs. All these facts were exciting for me, slowly building my frenzy to boiling point, counting down hours to the showing of Superman!

But rest assured, I have my doubts! Even though I am overjoyed by how much Routh looks like Reeves, there's always a voice at the back of my mind when I watch the trailer..."too young...".

But my biggest doubt is the Kidder replacement in the form of Bosworth. Even though on her worst day she can't possibly ravish the character like the Smallville series did, but can she be that cynical, chain-smoking and all the while mesmerizing woman from the real days of Superman? And believe me, no Superman can work without a Lois Lane that rocks the show.

But tomorrow night, I'll make my way to the theater for the first showing of Superman Returns, breaking my rule to not go out for too long on a working night. I'll get there half an hour early to get that seat in the middle row and middle column, and would excitedly wait for the magic to begin. During the wait I'll keep picturing Superman catching Lois and the helicopter, and saying to her don't worry, I've got you, and Lois firing back, "you've got me, but who's got you!"

See I won't walk into the theater to be convinced that a man could fly, Donner already did that for me, but I would walk into the theater to feel a love in the lines of the love I found 22 years ago, in front of a whobbly television with a flickering screen, and a manually tuned VCR which would pop-up videos after every 20 minutes or so. The little screen would be replaced by a giant curtain, and mono sound would be replaced by Dolby Surround. And the effect of the movie won't be shattered every twenty minutes.

But the person sitting in front of the screen would be much more cynical and bitter then the kid who would jump to pop the video into the VCR every time it popped out, all the time shaking with excitement...

My mind wanders...

...as another week whizzed past me. It was the same amalgam of work, rest, restlessness, and brief encounters with insanity. And I am looking at another weekend, about two and a half days of really nothing to do. Away from home, and living out of your suitcase in a hotel, you learn to live with that quite efficiently. A rhythm is found, and is slowly practiced into routine, and eventually a life-style.

I have dedicated a few posts to how I am sick of the routine, and a scheduled procession of affairs that repeat themselves like night after day. But if I really do hate that, how do I keep finding myself in a procession of repeatable, mundane acts that formulate my days and nights, and eventually my life. If I really look for excitement, and the satisfaction of not knowing what the next moment may bring, why don't I, as Nike says, Just do it!

But then how does the adventurer feel about his life? Does he not feel that the constant of excitement in his life has become a routine thing...

I think we as a species relish in routines and our dissatisfaction. And combine these two qualities and you have the 21st century man. Always bickering and blaming everyone from God to the roach infestation in the kitchen cabinet.

I have always found myself at places around the globe, where I wouldn't generally expect to find myself. I've lived in a foot of snow, scorching deserts, the comfort of small towns, and the madness of metropolitan centers. Yet, in all these varied places, I have discovered routines and followed them, like a zombie at times. These routines have varied from place to place, as if out of the lives of completely different and un-related people. Some commonalities throughout though, like a good book, and fairly recently, this blog. From what I've seen, I guess the place you inhabit defines you as a person, you live by the unspoken rules that govern that particular pie of the world. You discover things you like doing under those rules, and find the things you have to do to get by, that you eventually become indifferent to.

For instance would I be thinking these very thought at this very moment, if I were on the opposite end of this globe? But that's an unfair question, whose answer is always limited by circumstance.

The purpose of this diatribe is not to reach any conclusion or even a satisfactory moment, but just to document how I feel right now. At this very moment. But even this moment is governed by where I am in life, philosophically, theologically and most importantly (based on what I see it right now) geographically.

In all our efforts to break free throughout our history, we have always found ways to bind ourselves to principles and rules that dictate our existence. Be it the creation of a religion, or Nietzsche and his existentialism, or the geographic divisions we put up, these have all been in so many ways, ways to formulate rules to command our lives.

I guess it all boils down to relativity. Be it that you lead your life by principle, or lead it by breaking all principles...you are in effect just obeying principles, just principles of different natures...

Have a nice weekend!

Perspectives...

So yeserday was a very interesting day, where specific events got me thinking about completey unrelated things, which I wouldn't have though about if the events hadn't happened.

Yesterday Raleigh got its share of Alberta. So while the Hurricanes were planning to play against the Oilers to take the Stanley Cup (which wasn't to happen, at least not yesterday), hurricane Alberta was saying hello to the general public. It wasn't like trees were blown out from their roots by gnashing winds, it was more of a long laborious downpour, coupled by fairly strong winds. Nothing that Islamabad doesn't train you for, as a matter of fact, I have seen much much worse there. But what got me thinking...lets get to those events...

(BTW this doesn't mean that at all other times I am not thinking, I am a thinker, just that I am not thinking about the things that I was thinking about yesterday)

Well first the electricity in our office premises went out. And it was pitch dark, except for a few generator powered lights! And then power kept coming and going the whole day. And if that wasn't enough, the roof at our office started leaking. And no I am not kidding!

So the whole day went by, with no power, and dripping ceilings. More then 500 man hours down the drain! Hailing from a third world country, I am used to these things. Even though the roofs don't usually leak there (see we contruct using brick and concrete), but power is quite often the issue. But when this sort of a thing happens there, we are prepared, with emergency power supplies, and planning, like using laptops instead of PCs, giving you 2-5 hrs of electricity independent computing power. Over here the situation was completely different. The whole day went by and nothing could be done...

What I got to thinking as a consequence was why do 3rd world countries remain 3rd world? Is it a lack of resources, or is it something a lot deeper and sinister. I think we have ample resources there, but like the power supply, the enthusiasm and commitment to excel is intermittent. What impresses me most about my american friends is that they're stable, and extremely consistent. They would keep going, like a pair of Duracell batteries. While my friends in Islamabad may finish 5 days work in 1 day; they might also spend 5 days doing nothing. Here they would just keep on working consistently, and in the long run this is what would seperate us.

When the electricity goes out here, the servers all crash and work is halted, and no one does anything for one complete day. But they would return the next day to pick up where they left off. When the same thing happens in Pakistan, we would bust our guts to get work done on the insane day, come up with brillant solutions to keep the wheels turning, but by the time the next day arrives we'd be drained and incapable of doing anything.

So next time I get an email from our Kenya office saying we'd be out of contact today due to power failure, I'd interpret it differently, and look at the whole situation as one big balancing act.

I am not really sure where I am trying to get with this, but I am sure that there is somewhere you can get with this discussion, a place that would hold the key to why there's so much of a difference withing the communities on this planet.

Always in awe...see you later...

The kickoff

So finally the 2006 World Cup is underway. As expected Germany crushed Costa Rica, but to be honest the game wasn't as one-sided as I expected it to be. Just says that I have to go eons on the road to football wisdom. But my favorites remain the same. For me, it's going to be a Brazil-Italy showdown on the ninth day of July! But my dark horse of the tournament are Ivory Coast. I am sure that if they get out of their Group (with Argentina and Holland), they would at least make it to the last four.

It's quite shocking how diluted the World Cup impact is in the States. This morning, in a conversation with a co-worker I said, "So the world cup's finally begun", and his response was "Huhn?", and I said, "Well the football world cup...I mean soccer world cup...", to which his response was, "Well this is Hockey country..." and that was that. SO...so much for my plans to be part of some football (no I will not call it Soccer) hooliganism! But there's hope. At least 3 guys in the office worked from home today, and guess why that was...

I have been in an unusually great mood these last few days. I guess weather has a great effect on me, and it's been great. Specially today, it's one of those picture perfect days that come around a few times in a life time, where something special always happens. So far it's been ordering the wrong lunch, getting into a little spat with the wife, and missing the opening ceremony. But I have hope, the day's just too great to not pick up. So I sit on, waiting for my miracle.

It's the kind of a day on which Raphael painted, the guy whose paintings were so perfect that they some how seemed unreal (to me at least)! The sun's out, a light breeze is blowing, and the temperature is just perfect to sit outside, and heck, maybe even have a bar-be-que! I guess I'll just find my way to some Brazilian steak house tonight.

Saw this wonderful little movie the other day called "The Puffy Chair". I believe it was an entry into the Sundance festival, and was probably made on a month's salary, but it was just one of those films about the journey which just make you want to make movies. It's incredible how rare this sort of cinema has become. Hey I don't mind the X-Men's last stand, I am actually really looking forward to the new Superman movie, but every once in a while, just give us these little gems, that make you sit through the end titles. As Mastercard says...priceless!

So let's see what this weekend has in store for me...I've taken on this habit to drive away and get lost somewhere, and then get directions from all gas stations on the road to make my way back.

Have a nice weekend!

The return journey

Illness isn't good, it's perhaps one of the 5 worst things that happen to us in our lives, and the worst thing is that an illness can take so many shapes and forms. Physical or mental, whenever you have it, you feel like the bottom of a well that hasn't been cleaned since the end of mid-evil times.

I have been down and out for the past 8 days or so. Even though the illness was nothing too serious (just a nasty flu and high fevers), it was extremely inconvenient. See no matter how comfortable your bed maybe, you can get tired of lying in it. But whatever your illness, the most interesting part of it is the return journey. I feel that when you fall ill, you start traveling into a dark, cold, uncomfortable hole. And every passing day takes you deeper and deeper, until you start losing track of time and reality (of course both these entities are extremely relative).

And then begins the slow process of recovery, a.k.a. the return journey. Slowly and not too steadily you start finding your way back. There are many wrong turns, which take you back instead of forward. But eventually (if you're lucky enough) you find your way out of the hole. This coming out of the uncomfortable darkness is the healing of the physical being. But then the light around you suddenly blinds you, and your brain shuts down. You cannot see, you cannot breathe, you cannot even begin to fathom this place you've emerged to. And now you begin the mental part of the healing process. The mind slowly makes up its mind to face the light, and slowly you open your eyes, and learn to keep them open. Suddenly you become as perceptive as a 4 year old, taking in everything you see, observing even the minutest details, all the while bringing yourself up to speed.

And then, you are at the same pace as the world around you and start making up for the time lost. This in a way ends the mental part of the healing as well. So in terms of both practitioner and psychiatrist, you are healed.

This is how I've felt every time I fell ill, and recovered. Up until now I have been lucky enough to find my way back. Wait luck isn't the right word. No, I have been gifted enough to find my way back. And even though I detest falling ill, I love this journey back, which brings with it some small moments of total enlightenment, or Buddha moments as I call them, where everything just falls into place, like that perfectly timed cover drive on a seaming and swinging cricket pitch!

Let me just be thankful right now, for keeping me in synch. I would just wish that these small moments (the basic essence of life) would last me forever...

Someone wrote me about the special bond they share with their brother, how they just know, without having to say anything. I just wish this bond could be made our global village, and not some hi-fi telecommunications company, that takes over everything with their cheap cell phone, cheaper talk plans, and vulgar adverts.

I am thankful though of being aware of such a bond and that it exists. I guess hope is the answer to all our follies and inadequacies as the supreme race on this planet. Our supremacy only overshadowed by our stupidity!

Have fun...

Is it possible...

So I was thinking...

Is it possible for two poeple, let's even say strangers to meet and form this link where they understand each others thoughts, and can communicate without talking, or even minimalist gestures. I am saying not even a change in the expression on the face! And yet a full and meaningful conversation takes place.

Don't take me wrong, I am not on the lookout for some psychic abilities of reading minds, I don't believe in that. However the way this could logically happen is:

A meets B. A thinks about what B is thinking and replies to that thought. Now the thought that A thinks up for B is totally on the money. B meanwhile imagines A's reply (which also happens to be completely correct), and responds. And we go back to the beginning and continue from there, and so on and so forth, until they say goodbye, or no, they don't say anything, just walk away.

There a pure moment just lived.

Is this beyond the realm of possibility or is it just a procession of perfect coincedence...it think it's the latter.

Heck it might even happen to us many times in a day, we just never find out, I mean we can spot a person looking our way, lost somewhere, and for a while we look their way, getting lost in-turn in our thoughts, thinking up their thoughts!

Well this was too nutty a thought to not blog about...

Next time then!

The in-between time

So I have been away for over a month now, and in-between I have been up to a lot of things, refreshing and sweet! So I spent about 3 weeks of my absence on a trip back home, and well the people who go home for a little while after quite a while would agree that there's nothing better then that. My trip home included some much needed family time, a bit more on that later. As a matter of fact, I went out to meet with my friends just twice during that period, and that too for only a couple of hours.

The first was a trip to meet Aijaz (who was still in a full leg cast, having broken his ankle attempting some stunt in a hotel lobby in Cairo), and the other was to visit my school friends (a bachelor party for Kashif, another of my friends ready to take the leap of faith)! And apart from this, it was all family. Trips to the homes of my cousins, uncles and aunts, and of course my in-laws. Wonderfully cooked meals, and long talk sessions with the people I love and cherish so much (every time I leave home my realization of love for them increases).

And then there was a 2-day trip to Gharial (for those not acquainted, it's a rest house a bit further from Murree), and it was great. The walk with Alina on the terrace would always stay with me, one of those little memories that remind you of how great it is to be alive! And then there were the impossible projects that I undertook in the time I was there, and fortunately they all came together at the last moment. Long live Gudday bhai, who's always there to walk the extra mile with me, in the sweltering heat of a pre-summer in good ol' Isloo. I don't know how I can get anything done without him besides me...

And of course, finally it was time to leave again (for another stretch of 3 months that go on forever). And leaving the second time is always tougher then leaving for the first time. The walk from my home to Zeeshan's car leaving for the airport was perhaps one of the longest in my life. It's so surreal to watch the faces of your family disappear in the rear-view mirror...I can't think of many things sadder then that.

Thankfully the return journey was very un-eventful for a change. No delayed flights, no missed links, just 30 hours of airport transit and the claustrophobic economy seating-cabins in the airbus. And of course the airplane food, which is specifically designed to make you want to look forward to the meals beyond the journey.

So finally I reached Raleigh, jet lagged with blood shot eyes (see I cannot bring myself to sleep in an airplane). And slowly things are getting back to normal, I still get up at 4 in the morning, and just want to drop dead at 3 in the afternoon, but I am coping with it. But the worst thing of all is when I sit in the hotel suite and go through the TV channels, just missing the hell out of my family, and the food, and the roads, and the trees, even the burning Isloo heat of the pre-summer!

This time I did a lot of watching at the airport terminals, I mean just choosing a spot in some corner, and looking at all the passengers running in and out. For me the Dubai airport is the best place to take up this hobby. It is ideally designed to watch passengers coming in and out of terminals. And they never seize to fascinate. There would be everyone one from the hyper excited by air travel and the possibility of new lands to explore, and the zombie drone, going through the motions in slow motion, not really concerned about the destination or the journey, just going through it, like a mandatory breathing exercise...

BTW Raleigh is just spell binding at this time of the year, and even though we've been moved from the comfort of individual rooms to the discomfort of office cubes, I still get to look out of the window, off into a sea of greens. That is one blessing I am really thankful for.

I also saw some interesting movies recently. I would recommend "Friends with Money" to everyone, but just don't walk into the theater expecting it to be a comedy, for it is not, what it is, is a very personal study of relationships and friendship, and the human reactions based on that.

I also saw "Water" the end to a sort of trilogy by Deepa Mehta (Earth and Fire the first two links to the quasi trilogy), and in some weird way, the movie reminded me of another great movie, "The house of green papaya". It's not nearly as good, but you can watch it for the performance of Lisa Ray and Seema Biswas, and some beautifully shot moments (I really want to go to Sri Lanka now, that's where they shot it, due to the protests in India). And I still don't understand why this movie was considered so controversial, anyone remember "Prem Rog" that movie made by Raj Kapoor about widows in India, and not only did he take swipes at Hinduism, but he didn't even spare the caste followers within Muslims.

And of course I saw "The DaVinci Code" and no matter what the critics tell you, the film is an excellent adaptation to the novel, and as far as novel adaptations go, this should be ranked very high, for it stays true to the source material. And heck I can watch Audrey Totou in any movie and I'll always enjoy it just because she's in it. I meangive me Fast and the Furios: Tokya Drift with her in it and I'll sit through the film with a smile on my face. For those curios, go and rent "Amelie" and "A Very Long Engagement".

Well enough for now, hopefully I'll be back sooner this time!

An ode to "Wings of Desire"

I was in a very strange place yesterday, I guess I am there today as well. And it was soothing to read some excerpts from a German movie called "Der Himmel Über Berlin" or in English, "Wings of Desire".

I'll just copy them here, and let you think about them as well...I'll copy them in the order in which they appear in the movie, for I guess that would seem more appropriate...

And what do you have to tell?

Cassiel: Sunrise and 7:22 a.m. Sunset at 4:28 p.m. Moonrise at [....] Twenty years ago today a Soviet jet fighter crashed into the lake at Spandau. Fifty years ago there were the Olympic Games. Two-hundred years ago Blanchard flew over the city in a balloon.

Damiel: Like the fugitives the other day.

Cassiel: And today, on the Lilienthaler Chaussee, a man, walking, slowed down, and looked over his shoulder into space. At post office 44, a man who wants to end it all today pasted rare stamps on his farewell letters, a different one on each. He spoke English with an American soldier--the first time since his schooldays--and fluently. A prisoner at Plotzenzee, just before ramming his head against the wall, said: 'Now!' At the Zoo U-Bahn station, instead of the station's name, the conductor suddenly shouted: 'Tierra del Fuego!'

Damiel: Nice.

Cassiel: In the hills, an old man read the Odyssey to a child. And the young listener stopped blinking his eyes.... And what do you have to tell?

Damiel: A woman on the street folded her umbrella while it rained and let herself get drenched. A schoolboy who described to his teacher how a fern grows out of the earth, and the astonished teacher. A blind woman who groped for her watch feeling my presence. . . . It’s great to live only by the spirit, to testify day by day for eternity only to the spiritual side of people. But sometimes I get fed up with my spiritual existence. Instead of forever hanging above, I’d like to feel there’s some weight to me. To end my eternity and bind myself to earth. At each step, each gust of wind I’d like to be able to say "Now!," now and now and no longer say "ince always" and "forever." To sit at the empty seat at a card table and be greeted if only by a nod. Whenever we did participate it was only a pretense. Wresting with one of them...we allowed a hip to be dislocated, in pretense only. We pretended to catch a fish, we pretended to be seated at the tables and drink and eat and we were served roast lamb and wine. In the tents out there in the desert, in pretense. Not that I want to beget a child or plant a tree right away, but it would be quite something to come home after a long day like Philip Marlowe and feed the cat. To have fever. To have blackened fingers from the newspaper. To be excited not only by the mind but, at last, by a meal, the curve of a neck, by an ear. To lie! Through the teeth! To feel your skeleton moving along as you walk. Finally to suspect instead of forever knowing all. To be able to say "Ah" and "Oh" and "hey" instead of "yes" and "amen."

Cassiel: For once to be enthused over evil, to draw all of the demons of earth from passers-by and chase them out into the world (Damiel blows). To be Savage!

Damiel: Or to feel, at last what it’s like to take your shoes off under the table and to stretch your toes, barefoot, like that.

Cassiel: To be alone! To let things happen! To remain serious! We can only be as savage as we are absolutely serious. To do more than observe, collect, testify, preserve! To remain a spirit! Keep your distance! Keep your word!



When the child was a child

When the child was a child
there was the time for questions like-
Why am I me
and why not you?
Why am I here
and why not there?
When did time begin
and when did space end?
Isn't life under the sun just a dream?
Isn't what I see, hear and smell
just a vision of a world before the world?
Does evil really exist?
Are there people who are really evil?
How can it be that I who is me wasn't there
before I was
and that one day I who is me
shall no longer be what I am now?

When the child was a child
he choked on spinach, rice pudding,
peas and boiled cauliflower,
and now he eats it all
and not just because he must.

When the child was a child
he once woke up in a strange bed;
now this happens again and again.
Many people seemed beautiful then,
now very few do at all.
He had a precise picture of paradise
and now he can only make a guess.
He couldn't imagine nothingness;
today he trembles at the idea.

When the child was a child
he lived on apples and bread,
it was enough then and still is.
When the child was a child
berries fell into his hands and they still do.
He felt shy in front of strangers
and still feels the same.
He waits for the first snow
and is still waiting.

When the child was a child
he threw himself with spirit into his games,
and now he masters such involvement only
where work is concerned


This, finally, must be serious

This, finally, must be serious.
I've often been alone but I've never lived alone. When I was with someone, I was often happy but it seemed like a coincidence. These people were my parents, but it could have been others. Why was this brown-eyed boy my brother, and not the boy with the green eyes on the opposite platform? The taxi-driver's daughter was my friend, but I might as well have put my arm around a horse's neck. I was with a man, I was in love, and I might as well have left him and walked off with the stranger I met in the street.

Look at me, or don't. Give me your hand, or don't. No, don't give me your hand and look away.

Tonight is the new moon. No night can be more peaceful. There won't be any bloodshed in the city. I've never toyed with anyone, yet I've never opened my eyes and thought 'Now, this is serious'. At last it's becoming serious.

I've grown older. Am I the only one who wasn't serious? Is it the times that lack seriousness?

I was never alone, neither on my own nor with others. But I would have liked to be alone. After all, to be alone means to be whole. Now I can say it - as from tonight I'm alone at last. I must put an end to coincidence.

The new moon of decision! I don't know if there is destiny, but there is a decision. So decide! We are the present day now.

The whole town, the whole world is taking part in our decision.

We two are now more than us two.
We incarnate something.
We are sitting in the place of the people and the whole place is full of people who are dreaming the same dream.
We decide everyone's game.
I am ready.
Now it's your turn.
Now you've got to decide.
Now or never!

You need me. You will need me. There's no greater story than ours - a man and a woman. It will be a story of giants - invisible, but transferable, a story of new ancestors.
Look, my eyes. They are the picture of necessity, of everyone's future. Last night I dreamed of a stranger. It was my man. Only with him could I be alone, open up to him, wholly, wholly open for him, welcome him wholly into me, surround him with the labyrinth of shared happiness.

...being understood...to your son...

How difficult is it exactly to be understood? You know, how much does it take to have your intentions, needs, and thoughts to be interpreted in an honest manner?

Remember that time when everything was just jumping in the puddles, ringing doorbells and running away, eating as much candy as you could? And then came the time of ideals and perfection. Where love was true, friendship was integrity, and the biggest act of cruelty in life meant cheating on your homework. Slowly but steadily all those visions of "the perfect world" were ripped apart, layer by layer, like peeling an onion in your hands. Ripping open each layer, until you were left with nothing in your hands, and tears in your eyes.

Why is it now, that the noblest of intentions are taken into contention and ripped apart by sarcasm and this increasing sense of pessemistic negativity? Where the word "pure" can only be related to a bottle of "Le Blue" sparkling clean water.

I feel plagued today. I feel like leprosy today. I feel like a virus eroding everything, and everyone around me. I feel like a plague that would eat up humanity in one giant gulp. And that gulp will be followed by the most overdrawn and understood silence.

I feel like an Eskimo who is picked up from the poles and dropped smack in the center of the bustling roads of hot and humid Karachi. Being drenched with this sickening coating of sweat. Losing myself in the blurrs of life, complimented by the strokes of heat. Being dehydrated and seeing the world go blurry, and then like a picture tube blowing its fuse, converging into this bright white spot in the middle of the screen, and finally dissolving into total darkness.

Why is it that now, not only can I not be understood, I have also been gifted by the gift of being unable to understand another soul? Why is it when someone says something to me now, I start analysing it for the worst possible outcome. Like a paranoid doctor getting the flu, and starting out from AIDS and working his way down, eliminating the deseases in a top-down manner, from the most treachourous to the least. All the while being enveloped by his own paranoia...

I want to be able to take a smile for what it is. A simple and noble gesture, inclined to make you feel good. I don't want to take that smile and take it apart with respect to the conditions it was given under.

I want to buy a chocolate sundae and eat it whole, getting my fingers and mouth dirty in the process of consumption. I don't want to look for a napkin everytime I drop some on my clothes, or get some on my hands. I want to be there, in that moment of pure joy that came with eating a larger then life bowl of ice cream.

I want to close my eyes, and be understood once and for all, as who I am, what I want, and how I feel...

I want to close my eyes, and understand all those who love me, and matter to me, simply for what they feel, how they came to be where they are now, and who they actually are to themselves.

I want to take them as they are, without any intention of modification in terms of improvement, and I want to be accepted by them for who I am.

Do I really give a fuck about the things I think I give a fuck about? Or is it the things I have pushed aside that I really care about, but am too fearful to open the Pandora's box? Is this true for everyone I know?

I will survive today knowing that Babar had a son, and there's another couple out there who would make sure that their child will grow up to respect life, and value things that have real worth. It's the thought that their son would walk out into the world when he comes of age, and will walk out knowing that as long as people have the ability to change, this world that we, their fathers are ravaging, can change.

He would walk out from his home, with a sparkle in his eyes, and would take on all that is not right, and make it right. He would carve that little niche first, where human-beings will feel human. Where laughter would be cherished, and intentions praised for their goodness. And that little niche' will spread into the whole world like light overcoming night.

I would survive today...hoping and knowing that a better tomorrow exists, and would come. Where even I may be saved from my own fallacies. Where even my soul will be resurrected; out from the evils of contempt and hatred and into the warm shores of understanding and being understood...

The 90 hr Week

So yesterday I completed working for the equivelant of more then two weeks in one week. I guess the 90 hr week for us (that is the "I am actually" working class) is the equivelant of a double hundred scored in a test match, or a perfect game pitched in baseball.

Unfortunately our equivelant comes with twice as much labour, but no accolades. There are no record books that keep record of my counter-parts accomplishing this feat, there are no congratulatory signs put up in coffee shops. Just the good ol' feeling of being high on dope without actually doing dope. Yes that's how I feel right now. And the way things are going, I might be able to accomplish another 90 hr week in succession. And that would be a first for me. I have never before acheived two consequtive 90 hr weeks. So let's just wait and see.

By the way, I am at a client site, and let me just say that the client sites I am used to are cement plants, fertilizer plants, conglomerate HOs. So ending up in a client site which is a casino is a very nice change. So the walk from my cubicle to my hotel room includes two water-falls, about 20 shops, all selling merchandise that no one needs, but everyone buys any way, complex array of slot machines and black jack tables, and numerous couples falling in and out of love or lust! Whatever is on the menu for the day.

So yes, I look forward to this walk that I do twice a day, just for the excess of experiences jumbled up into a mere 10 minutes. And I intentionally walk as slow as I possible can, just to savour everything. Oh and in the middle of it, I also pass through the Star Treck galaxy version of the employee area. Complete with a cafeteria serving 5 cuisines, deserts, and salad bars 24/7, and the hustle and bustle of 25,000 people of every ethnicity imaginable bumping into each other.

I think a novel can be written about this 10 minute walk. It would start out with a fairly ordinary Joe getting up in the morning and dragging himself into the shower, and end by our Joe ending up in a 5x5 feet cubicle, complete with two computers and a notebook. But I am sure if anyone ever reads this novel, it would be for the things in between.

Sort of like the reason we live our lives, for the little things in between. Those rare moments of honesty that come and go sooner then you can say welcome, my kingdom.

I am missing home and my family more and more everyday, and not a single day passes before I want to bid adeu, and just walk (rather fly) away. The thought that keeps me going is that the sicker I get of all of this, the more fun it would be touching home base.

Wow! There must be a greater plan of things, as I was writing this confession of missing my family, Alina just called, and well...just made my day talking to me!

So send out your best pitcher, this batter is ready to blast it out of the park...

Till next time then.

When it rains...it pours

So it feels like the heavens are emptying their water supplies tonight, I guess they want to recycle the whole load. I don't really remember the last time I walked in such a persistent and adament downpour. One where the raindrops are thick and heavy, and each one of them hits the ground or whatever it can hit with a 'thuddish' plop. And the rain falls to the ground in a perfect array of perpendiculars, unharmed by wind.

It's the sort of rain where even after you've gotten yourself under a sturdy solid roof, you feel that you're getting wet, and those thick drops are thudding on your being, engulfing you in totality, not even sparing a single spot of your soul.

It's like all the Greek, Roman, and Hindu gods got together and decided to have a collosal water fight, and instead of throwing plastic bags full of water at each other, they decided it would suit them more to hurl complete rivers, and as a consequence all of us little fellows trapped within the insanities of this earth got drenched.

If it were a bit warmer, I am quite sure I would have found some excuse to just walk away for a mile or two in the rain, humming all of my favorite oldies, jumping into a puddle of water every now and then.

So I attribute confining myself to the hard labours of work at 12 at night to it being too cold to get wet in the rain.

Ahh...who am I kidding, I'd still love walking into the crazy downpour and witness the excellence of nature rebounding on my being, first-hand! Yes sir, no secondary account would do.

So I completed another book by Michael Cunningham today, "Flesh and Blood". I believe this is the first book he wrote, before "The Hours" and "A Home at the End of the World". It is raw (an observation I take from my good friend Girish), and perhaps the most jerky of his other narratives, and perhaps lacks in a certain finesse, but again his ability to sink into the human psyche left me spell bound, and unable to do anything for a good while. Yes, it is one of those rare and precious books that leave you in a trance lost among the characters, grieving and rejoicing in their losses and accomplishments. Simple stated Mr. Cunningham has the gift of words, which if used appropriately is perhaps even more effective then Superman's x-ray vision, and can look through anything, even lead!

So to anyone who chances by this post, do read any of the three books I've mentioned above. Let me just say that these aren't happy books, these aren't conventional books, they might even be shocking, but yes, as studies of human emotion, I haven't seen anyone do it better.

And let me end by taking a quote that was posted on Vovvi in a recent post, I don't agree with the 11-70 age difference, but yes, there is something to it!

"At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies."
-- PG Wodehouse

Here and There...gathering things

For the last two weeks, I've been down the all so familiar tunnel of over working myself. And I still can't see the light at the other end of the tunnel. So I guess the only thing I can do is to resign myself to the fact that I'll be stuck in this state of permanent exhaustion for a while to come. I am here right now, writing on my blog, courtesy of the thing I was working on, going into an infinite state of limbo! And let me just say...stay there...

There've been numerous moments in the days gone by when I really wanted to write something down, but was usually to involved in the work at hand, or too exhausted to sign-in! My only reprieve has been reading the blogs that I like to read (I will try adding a link on my blog, so here's to walking into the unknown).

I've been thinking about many things, of which I can recall some. One night I started thinking about the things that can make a grown man crumble in self-pity and dissolve into a strong current of tears. And I thought of quite a few reasons, and somehow all of the reasons came down to one thing. The loss of something dear to you. And I don't mean "dear to you" like your zippo, but I mean "dear to you" like the air you breathe in.

See the problem is that men in general are on the slower side when compared to women. OK, before all the men in the world pull out a guillotine, give me a moment to clarify. I am not saying slower in terms of doing algebra, or negotiating turns at break neck speed. I'm saying slower in terms of realizing what's important to us. I've seen so many men walk through a passage of life with someone without ever realizing how important that passage or person might be to them. On the other hand I feel that women are blessed with the ability to recognize 'that' what really matters and go the extra mile to appreciate it (which in the case of man-woman relationships often translates into the man running away).

But...getting back to the point, us men, we live through with something that is wonderful and as important to us as the air we breathe in, never appreciating it, and always appreciating a pizza or our favorite couch over the "as important as the air we breathe in" thing! But through my own experiences and of my friends, I have realized that there is a way by which we can be made aware of the glitch in our priority system. And the only way to do that is to take that thing away from us.

Now do you see why "the air we breathe in" is such a perfect example for us, the slower half of the world! Deprive us of air, and we'd know how much we need it. And when this thing, that we need so much without ever realizing, is taken away from us, we fall down, crumbling in self-pity and dissolving in tears. This is something that would make the grown man cry...

And it boils down to loss. Absolute, pure, and concentrated loss...

So here's my petition to the other more efficient half of this world. Please realize this short-coming of ours, and accept us in spite of it. For otherwise we'll be left with nothing but an endless array of potential gone bad, and moments gone by.

In the past couple of weeks I also thought about the things that make me happy, that give me the little pleasures that I guess are the fuel that keep me going. And I made a sort of list in my mind. Now this might sound a bit corny, but hey, I don't give a damn!

The List of things that make me happy in the smallest ways
(Not in order)

1) Early morning dew in the winters. I am speaking of the dew that transforms a simple garden into Superman's fortress of solitude as soon as the sun comes out.

2) Sound of a child giggling. I speak here of the giggle of the baby with no teeth, that's usually accompanied by a frivolous flow of saliva.

3) The heads in front of you in the cinema. OK, try this out as an experiment, next time you go to watch a movie, seat yourself in the back of the theater, and when you're totally into the movie, stop watching it. And just look at the many heads that're popping out of the seats, all focused on the screen. I like to do this and imagine the expression on the face at that very moment.

4) The smell in the kitchen when you're deep frying French fries.

5) The smell in the kitchen when you're baking a cake or something similar.

6) The sound of rain on a tin roof.

7) Lying face-up on the ground, looking up to the skies on a clear night, with no clouds and no moon.

8) An honest moment. I speak of the moment in our lives that comes quite often and then cuts down its recurrence frequency. I speak of the moment when you are totally spell-bound by something, and you lose complete focus for a moment.

I can probably go on with this list, and all I'd need to do would be to remember the last time I just smiled for no reason, and recall the trigger for that smile, and move back from there.

But alas "it" has returned from the (not so) infinite state of limbo, and yes, I drag my self (kicking and screaming) back to work.

O and yes, watch Shopgirl, I liked the film for its simplicity, effect, and Claire Dane's performance.

Later then.

Yesterday Revisited & The Diary of Anne Frank

It's been a while since I came to blog on two consecutive days. I just spelled consecutive with a 'q' in the middle, and kept wondering why the word looked wrong! So cheers to my state of mind!

But here I am, on a second consecutive day, blogging my heart's worth. I wonder, what people did before there was blogging? Well they wrote in their diaries. Heck even I've tried doing that. I remember I started in 7th grade, right after I read the "Diary of Anne Frank" (rare admission, I cried). But somehow that was difficult to do.

It's not always possible to have your diary with you when the mood strikes to let it out. I guess it worked for Miss Frank because she was confined to a small apartment, or was it the attic? I guess I need to read it again. But yes I do remember losing interest in eating for a while after I'd read that. Even Kit Kats didn't appeal to me for a while (ok, not for a long while, but definitely for a while). Back to what I was trying to say. So with a diary there's always this requirement to have it with you when you need it, and trust me, if you carry something around with you everywhere you go, there'd be lots of interested parties in the content. Now a laptop, now that's an exception to the rule. Specially if you do what I do. You are always expected to carry it with you. And hence the perfection of this science called blogging!

See now I can hook up whenever I want to say something, or even if I can't connect to the wonderful world of the internet, I can always write something down in one of the many word documents I have floating in my machine, and then post whatever I feel like posting when I can go online.

But the real reason that I'm back here today (yeah, like you really need a reason, I mean all you need is some free time at work) is to elaborate on what I was talking about yesterday.

See Miss Frank lived in the 40's, and her life that I am sure would have been full of enormous possibilities was cut short by the insanity of one man. Fast forward more then 60 years, and tell me what's changed?

Nothing.

Think again!

Hmm...

The way I see it, now we not only have to cope with the insanity of one person, but with the insanity of countless maniacs. Who've all somehow managed to secure places in the world hierarchy where they can effect our lives by a single sentence they utter.

See now we're just ending lives that I'm sure are as filled with enormous possibilities as was Miss Frank's. Sometimes we do it in the name of God, sometimes in the name of land, sometimes in the name of democracy. But in the end, that's what we're doing.

I think murder is deplorable in all way and forms . But somehow I can understand why one of the two people who know each other, hate each other or even love each other may decide to go the way of Dirty Harry, and pull the trigger. But I can't understand how an individual can enlist into what is essentially a boot camp, and after 4 months there walk over to some border far off, and pull the trigger on someone s/he doesn't even know!

Why would you do that? Did you ever think that maybe if you were made to sit in a bar with the person you just pulled the trigger on, and allowed to talk for just 5 minutes, you might have ended up the truest of friends. Friends who pass the test of time and situation! But no, you just pulled the trigger on someone, because they taught you to do that in the boot camp...

Miss Frank, I know the worst possible form of horrible happened to you, but you were contending with the madness of an individual, while we're coping with the senselessness, the inanity of society as a whole! In your time the whole world realized the inhumanities in the actions of the mad man, whereas in my time, the whole world has transformed into a mad man.

Jonie Mitchell's dog eat dog comes to my mind...

I'm very sorry for what happened to you, Miss Frank, but I am glad that you weren't born into this era...

In this time of freak decisions, and rapid professing of love lost forever, I just want to sit for a while and breathe. Breathe an air that doesn't smell of innocence lost, never to be found again.

So Miss Frank, while you wrote in your diary, we blog. And while your diary was recovered (by your father who who survived I believe), our blogs will probably be lost forever. And to tell you the truth, I have no idea how many Anne Frank's were lost in this incessant desire to enforce our rights and wrongs on everyone out there.

We don't live in a society that's improved! We have invented instant coffee and forgotten how to enjoy a cup of coffee. We have taken our healthcare nearly to a point where we can even battle death looking it in the eye, but we've forgotten how to value life...

Let's all just sit down and listen to Sinatra sing "strangers in the night", and let our nights be places where strangers can meet and where magic happens...ahh hope, a fool's hope, but hope nonetheless...

Maybe later.

To Bob Dylan...

Hmm...so today is another day. It's dull, gloomy, sad and depressed. The consistent drizzle, which feels like an unbearable constant from a scientific experiment gone horribly wrong. You can still hear the sound of the wind cutting through the high strung trees of Raleigh. But today the sound is entwined with that of the dogged, persistent rain...

On another day, I would have woken up, looked out the window, and walked out my room, skipping in my walk, whistling the tune of a good love song!

But today...somehow I woke up, looked out the window and I just wanted to keep on looking out. Something was pushing inside of me, urging me to stop moving, stop thinking, perhaps even stop breathing, and just watch the slow downpour merging with the world I live in. Somehow I thought of all the bombs exploding, bullets firing at that very moment. I could hear the laments of a mother losing her child, of true love ripped apart in the name of glory for God! It was like the war had moved into my bed room, and I was in the middle of an insane cross-fire, somehow shielded from physical harm. But every passing moment eroded me emotionally...

And I thought of some Dylan songs. See it's in moments like these when listening to 'Blowing in the wind' helps me find my bearing. Helps me to realize that nothing, no cause nor effect, can ever justify firing a missle! After all, the only thing worth doing in this world is respecting life in its entirety...

Dylan's probably been writing songs and making poetry forever now that appeals to the general common sense, that appeases the mind into a realization of the hopelessness of war.

Here's the song I hum in my head whenever the current affairs of our globe get too much to handle.

Blowin' in the Wind
by Bob Dylan

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
And pretend he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

I guess the answer really is just blowing in the wind...O I am sad today, and O how I want to wake up tomorrow in a world that is at peace with itself. A world that allows life to prevail. A world free of all prejudice. A world relishing in nature, humming soft cradlesongs to all who inhabit it...

Is there anything more foolish then being foolishly optimistic? But that's what I am right now, and I hope I remain this way for the remainder of my days.

Here's to you Mr. Dylan, for you've been preching something that all of us as a global community should have embraced centuries ago...