بلا عنوان

جو حزن اس کی آنکھوں میں ہے
وہ اس کی زبان سے نہیں جھلکتا
صبر اس کا ایسا ہے
جو کسی بہلاوے سے نہیں بہکتا
بات تو عزم کی ہے
انگارہ تنہا بھی ہے دہکتا
دور آسمانوں میں ستارہ بھی ہے چمکتا
فرصت کسے ہے
وقت کے ہاتھوں قید ہیں سب
خواہش کیا بلا ہے یہ کوئی نہیں سمجھتا
وہ جو اس کے وجود سے ہیں بے خبر
اسے کیا معلوم کے سارا چمن اس کے وجود سے ہے مہکتا
انجام کیا ہوگا ابتدا کیا تھی
سوال کرتا ہے وہ جواب نہیں دیتا

The man who knew that he knew nothing

It was 11 in the night, when he started writing, writing about the times that could be something; times that were great and brought a lot of joy to him. His happiness was real but today mean the present his now is sorrow so, the good past haunt him a bit more haunt him because it makes his present a bit more unbearable.

In those days he knew a girl. Remember it is always a girl. Knew is inapt, he loved the girl. However, he also knew that that girl was surely out of his league. He thought of telling her about his feelings, once or twice but as he knew that he will be rejected or set aside thus he never spoke. On the other hand, the girl always waited for him to say. You know, girls are this way, they want to be loved, to be cared and to be told how much lovely they are, how much care they deserve. She was the similar type not like the girls of today who do the talking by themselves. So, she took the matter in her hands and told a friend to tell him to tell her that how much he loves her.

He upon listening was red faced not with anger or anything but because he felt like somebody has just called his bluff or caught him stealing red handed. He told the emissary that it is all just a figment of her imagination and he never loved her.

How twisted it may sound to you now but in his head then all this was enough. Knowing she loved him or if not love, want him was enough for him. He realized that what he knew about himself was all wrong; the thing was that he never knew himself. He never loved her; he just wanted her to notice him. Just to know that he existed, getting more than what he hoped for was a bonus and he was happy with the bargain.

Now, when the reality has kicked in the loss seems to be irreparable because now is never was. Now when he knew that he knew nothing, the time to learn was already gone.

He while writing realized that a thought needs a face of words for it to be seen and he never knew the right words because inside he never knew the answers because he never knew the question. Now when he can tell you many words those words have lost their meanings and impact and he is left only with the knowledge that somewhere, sometime ago, some girl had some emotions for him. The knowledge which was once his pride today is his biggest regret.    

An ode to insanity

They say life is a circle but in actuality it is more of a linear progression with some usual stopovers. We all live a life that is decided and moulded and is imposed on us like some punishment.  The day we are born to the day we are going to die; we lead our lives according to a set pattern. Little deviance fetch us criticism and tags and titles like abnormal or insane.

What is insanity? It can be defined as the state of being foolish and irrational or being seriously mentally ill. You are sick to be different.

I am not trying to justify unnatural behaviors which are against the natural norms. What I am trying to plead here is that being a bit different is not that bad after all. All the diversification we see today is because of that little bit of non-conformity. This trait makes us humans otherwise we are just robots who defecate.

I do get that that total deviance is not right but deviance, abnormality and insanity in right proportions is good. 

I believe that insanity is not that all bad. If you find this statement wrong then ask Mr. Zardari. What sane have done to this world, one wonders what insanity would have done to it? I mean the sane have made all those utensils that can be very catastrophic in the times of insanity. The sane gave us a bomb; they did not stop there and added more bombs to the arsenal with very cool prefixes like atom, hydrogen and napalm etc.

The world we live in today wanted us all to be sane but I question that what is wrong in a bit of insanity? I envy the insane sometimes as loneliness is for us-the sane while being insane you can weave a world of your own, can have likeminded friends and can debate with them on matters of your liking. Above all those friends always have time for you.

Sanity has bought hate. They say no one in his/her right mind can hate, demean or loath another human being but the irony here is that all who have ever hated, killed in its name were in their right minds and have found many supporters who supported and abated them in their heinous crimes. This example suggest that sanity in actuality is just a choice and we make that choice daily in our lives by doing what is expected of us.

This means sanity can be a zero sum game; opting for one sane thing is done at the expense of leaving out another sane thing. This also means that there is a greater sanity also and you can prioritize sanity according to a situation. So, all those who supported Hitler were not driven ideologically towards him but it was something that was sane thing to do at that time with him being at the epitome of power in Germany. However, still there were some “insane” enough to resist his draconian rule even at the price of their lives. Dilemma here is that who is sane here those who conformed or those who resisted?        

The world of today owes all of its growth and development to that person who in his moment of insanity dared to question “why” and that why has snowballed into today’s how. We owe so much to not to act normal. Deviance is not always bad. You should let go yourself sometimes. Do not burden yourself to become someone that you are not.

In a world that is full of depressed and anxiety ridden souls, knowing that you laugh a bit loud or shedding a tear in open without being judged can be a bit of relief. Allow the people to be a bit of abnormal. That mould is not for everyone. The freedom to say why and not yes is a blessing. In a world of today, where there are only right answers, the pleasure of being wrong is cannot be accounted for. So, cheers to all the insane of the world that dared and kept the ball rolling.

بے نام

اس کو اپنے نصیب میں کیسے کرتے

دعوی محبت تھا ہمیں

دعوی خدائی تو نہ تھا

ہر اس دکھ سے اجتناب ہے ہم کو

جس کا ہم سے وعدہ نہ تھا

یہ قلعی ہم پر بعد میں کھلی

ہمارا اس پر اختیار ہی نہ تھا

مخلص سب ہیں سب سے

وفا شرط ہے

پر وفا کرنا لازم نہ تھا

ہم نے ان سے سیکھے ہیں آداب عشق

جن کا پہلا درس تھا

کہ معاملہ عشق میں

کوئی اصول بھی لازم نہ تھا

This is how it is

Let’s just tell lies to each other

I am going to live for another hundred years

And you for hundred and one

There would be happiness all around

Like the one children feel

Like the one that exist somewhere that is nowhere

I will be the guy you dreamed of

In love with you and alive

Peanuts in winter

Lemonade in summer

Vacations every year

A life promised

Without pain and wait

No sorries and no worries

But you know all these lies cannot beat the single fact

The fact that is I love you

Like a normal person do

With all his strength

And with all his weaknesses

No truth or lie can hide them; the weaknesses and the strengths

Nor no love  

This is how it is

شہروں کی کہانیاں

اس شہر کے مرنے کا
دکھ سب ہی کو کافی تھا 
پر اس بچے کو سب سے زیادہ تھا
جس کا دادا یہاں جنما تھا
اس کا سارا بچپن
اس شہر کی کہانیاں سنتے گزرا تھا
جب یہ شہر توانا ہوتا تھا
ہر دن یہاں سہانہ ہوتا تھا
نیند سکون کی ہوتی تھی
بھوک تھی پر روٹی مل جایا کرتی تھی
بارود کی بو سے خلق انجان تھی
تب اس شہر میں زندگی رواں تھی
اب جب جاڑا آئے گا
وہ اپنے دادا کی گرم چھاتی سے لگ کر
کس کی کہانیاں سنے گا
ان دونوں کے دکھ کا کچھ تو حل کرو
اس شہر کو پھر سے زندہ کرو
تاکہ دادے اپنے پوتوں کو
اپنے شہروں کی کہانیاں سناتے رہیں

The promise of Me Too

(This piece was originally published at the Dunya Blogs on October 19,2018)

Me Too movement is a movement against sexual assault and harassment. It went viral in the October of 2017 as a hash tag but soon it turned into a platform for the victims of sexual harassment to name and shame their assaulters. Many big names of the American entertainment industry found themselves in the middle of this movement. For the last few weeks this movement is knocking at the door of our neighboring India and many famous politicians, writers, journalists and media person have been accused of sexual harassment. This movement can turn out to be a watershed moment in the struggle of achieving women empowerment and curbing violence against them.

My primary reason for supporting this movement is very different from the rest. I know many in west and here at home will not accept it but these Me Too stories have vindicated Islam and the limits it imposes on men and women. The sexual liberation has turned out to be just another weapon used by the powerful to exploit the weaker gender and here by weaker gender I do not mean women alone in some scenarios (whose possibility and probability is less) men can also be the weaker gender.  I do not want to get into the validity of these claims but I believe that this is what all those men and women deserve who crossed the moral, social and religious bounds; bounds that are deemed as regressive but in actuality they are the guards that protect both the sexes and the bounds upon which our whole social system stands.

The common misconception here is that Islam limits a woman to her home and confines her to homemaking; the notion of “guli surri laash” gets its roots from here. First, the notion is wrong and secondly, raising the next generation- the future is not some easy task. It deserves a lot of hard work and conviction. Thus in the name of empowerment and emancipation we have made women more vulnerable and susceptible to exploitation. By offering her the so-called freedom we have made her a slave and a commodity.

I am not a sexist and I seriously believe in women empowerment but here in our part of the world women empowerment is reduced to mere symbols; these symbols talk of shunning duppata and barring one’s midriff. Still the concerned and the champions of the cause of women empowerment have failed to indigenize feminism, they have failed to bring the social change instead they have provoked and antagonized the related corners by opting for above mentioned gimmicks. Their actions closed many windows instead of opening new ones. The need here is to identify such social practices that act as impediments in achieving the goal of women empowerment and then remove them. Here many preach to change the whole social system instead of correcting the irritants that cause the problems. Resultantly, we have failed to achieve the desired change and it still hangs in limbo.

However, here arises a pertinent question that whether this Me Too movement will be able to play any part in liberating women and making this world a safer and better place for them. At the moment the answer can only be assumed and the optimist in me wishes the answer to be yes.

Me Too campaign’s main job should be looking at ways through which awareness can be created among the masses about the importance of treating women well and as equals, more importantly how to treat a woman that is a working woman and at ways through which the work place can be made safe for them but I fear that this campaign may end up only sensationalizing sexual harassment instead of sensitizing the masses about it. The main reason of my apprehension is due to the big names that are attached with this movement and all those that are being named under the umbrella of this movement. The names might hijack this movement for their self-glory and for garnering sympathy for themselves instead of the victims. It is very important that nobody owns this movement. Nobody should be the face of this movement.  It is very important that the campaign stays on the right path and purpose. Otherwise all the promise that this campaign makes will be lost and above all the golden opportunity will be lost to bring in all those who used their power to exploit and harm the weak.