View from my window

While still in school as I was just beginning to realize that there was a world outside the 'self' and everything was not an extension of my being and that the world did not really revolve around me when all of a sudden I was struck by questions all the time. They came like shooting stars, out of the blue and with flashing brilliance. I was not alone of course, everyone my age, around me had similar queries. The hows and whys of life and beyond. But whereas I was encouraged to ask I felt some of my friends snubbed these thoughts because ''Islam' did not allow them to question'! And I would ask them why and was told that there are some questions to which there are no answers and if we persist our faith may be tested...hmmm..but isn't it that every question has an answer and 'dhoondney sei tou Khuda bhi mil jaata hai' (One can even find God, if one goes out searching for Him) , and how can we have answers when the search has stopped? Isn't the cur...

Sometimes I am amazed that I can still find myself in places where when I have a headache I would not be referred to a tablet but treated with a head massage. I am also amazed that we do not even expect anything more, from people we care about, then to ask us if we have taken a medicine for our pains. We don't expect anyone to bring us a cup of brewed tea or soup. We don't expect anyone to sit and hear our woes. Its all matter of fact now! 'Oh honey do you have a headache?, I hope you took a pain killer'.

I have always wondered and I once did a philosophy course and I am not sure whether i started my wondering after the philosophy course or before but anyway, I have wondered how we learn to look at things? Do all of us look at things in the same way? Why is it that a bird is always a bird for everyone? Is that what we thought when we were babies? See when I was a kid i always asked myself if purple was purple for everyone. Did everyone look at purple and see purple? Or do we associate what we see and are told is purple tend to start associating the name with what we see. Of course after the philosophy course I know the vocabulary to use, at least some of it, to discuss these 'kind of issues' but using language of a discipline limits thinking in how we ought to think when dealing with 'such a subject'. So you wonder then about university disciplines and the tunnel they provide for your thinking by the language and research methods. They are pretty much standardized. Why s...

A mother was lying in her dingy damp room and sweating profusely. Her mouth was parched and her eyes dilating. She was writhing with pain on her bed as her labour had extended now for twenty four hours. Even dai maa's hands had started to shake now. Oddly, she noticed dai maa's shaking hands and realized that all was not going well and with a clarity of mind she later marveled at, she collected the last resource of strength and heard a bailing child. That was the last voice she heard before she lost consciousness. When she came to she saw her mother sitting next to her holding the baby. Her mother noticed her wakefulness and thrust the baby in her arms and told her it was a girl. A girl! Another girl, that's what her mother wanted, didn't she? At least when she would leave this dark room where her secrets, fears and desires were revealed, she would tell the world she was happy to have another girl. A girl to carry the legacy forward, a legacy of selling dreams- thei...

Let us take the name Sheikh Mustafa Abu Yazid and put it under the microscope. We start with Mustafa, the beloved last prophet of Muslims, so far so good and then you have Abu Yazid, Father of Yazid, Yazid is the man who killed Prophet's grandson, Husayn! Now, if there was ever a paradoxical name, here is one. Lets also explore the title Sheikh, a revered 'wise man' or an Islamic scholar. Wise men and scholars by rule construct thoughts, ideas which lead to reconciliations, better understanding and open doors for further knowledge. But when the name itself is such a paradox, one should not be surprised by the title. Do the Pakistani people need support by such people? He can very well be a treasurer, a finance minister or whatever, at the end of the day, the ones responsible for our country's mess is these very same people. They can have any number of mehrabs on their foreheads, Islam has not even entered their hearts and these outward signs are no substitute for the h...

I could see her sitting in a wicker chair in the sun, wearing a lovely white muslin dress with tiny sunshine coloured flowers which were glowing in the mid morning sun. A corner of her dupatta was over her head covering the side of her face towards the sun. From where i was sitting I could see the unveiled side. She was tall and occupied a sizable portion though her slenderness made her look fragile. Her hair was tied back but some unruly wisps had escaped and were flitting in the wind like sunbeams dancing to a tune. There were acres of green fields behind her and roses, predominately yellow all around her in the garden. She was lost in her book but every now and then her hand struck the air around her face and a slight grimace clouded her face for a brief moment. I had been watching her for some time now and I was struck by the idyllic picture she presented. My heart marveled and sighed at the picture perfect moment. I don't know how long I sat there taking in the the moments wh...

I was trying to sleep last night and in between stretching, twisting and turning to position my back comfortably I was trying to say a prayer, just a little remembrance (I wasn't planning on an extended meditation anyway) of the Almighty but i kept losing my concentration. I was distracted by things as trivial as remembering a friend i have not spoken to in a while or my teacher from way way back when i was in school, or the weather in London, it was as if my mind was like a little child trying to give excuses for not going to sleep. It was either a stomach ache or a glass of water or a monster under the bed, anything to keep from going to sleep. Why is that? We are no kids. We know that remembrance is a sure shot passport to some peace but still our intention and execution are not always compatible. Any thoughts?

I read somewhere that we don't acknowledge something terrible for as long as possible because there is a superstition that if you do then it will become a reality. I wonder why people ask this question and for the last time here is what I think. The justice giver in Pakistan was denied justice and he came out on the streets, he had a mass following, people from all walks of life, age groups, classes, gender, rallied along with him. He travelled through Pakistan. Every city, town, village he passed people came out in huge numbers to greet him and to show their support for what he stood for. This mass caused a dictatorship to fall and ousted a self delusional autocrat. It became a movement, a symbol, an idea and was on its way to achieve greater things when the brokers of power sitting in other countries got concerned (and rightly so, people have no right to choose for themselves) and made a coup d' etet against this movement. It took place in US, that much we know because though...