What matters ...Not.

Thoughts locked in some solitary late hours of the night, they ramble from one loose end to another of a tangled up existence. I look around me , and all I hear is the shrill echo of silence that darkness brings along with her, the silence that always provides too many answers for a question. Noise irritates and disturbs you… but silence? It confuses a ‘thinking ear’. There are always these voices in and around your head… just like these eyes that hound you, from within and thither…some comforting, some brimming with wet malice. You look right into them and they disappear… till you can look no more, and they disappear no more…
When its days of nourishment, metamorphosis inside your private cocoon, watching down from a private hill with time perpetually corroding and eroding everything around you. You feel everyone and everything around you , but it fails to stimulate any impact on you.
Its kinda tough to realize that no one and nothing at all is indispensable, not even yourself… but I think I get it now. It makes you feel less important, strips you of your fancy bows and airs, confuses and hurts you a little to realize that life goes on… you go on… even if the people you love become non-existent; that life goes on… all the people you love will go on… even if you become non-existent. It traumatizes you a little to swallow the realization that- all that matters, really matters not much if it didn’t matter anymore. I wish it could all have been some other softer way, but it seems this is the way the world revolves.
…and while the curtains on the window glow from the growing radiance of a new day outside, where the final echoes of the screeching night trail in the silence of deserted streets, I wonder about the eternal strangeness of life… and wonder how it’ll continue to awe us all..

I Choose to Live - II

... continuation to 'I Choose to Live - I'.

Aaah… I know, you might think that it’s just the rush of a young mind and that time and age will calm me down! But consider this, how ‘old’ is ‘young’ and how ‘young’ is ‘not old’? Everything is relative here. And if you relate your age to the universe, too old is not old enough. Time, as we know is infinite and a lifespan is just a mere moment. So live it. Don’t just plan to live, always planning for ‘that tomorrow’ when you get ‘this’ done and get ‘that’ accomplished….Be living it, love to live…for the truth of our existence is encapsulated in the entirety of life, not in a few fleeting marked moments. By planning up ahead too much, don’t push the Beginning closer to the End, for the End with all its doubtless realities is already close enough! Realise this but don’t despair, as that will only push the beginning closer to the end, and hence, relatively, you bring the End closer, and like I already said… the End with all its doubtless realities is already close enough.
Just loosen your collar, tip back your fancy hats and look around… observe, absorb life; don’t just speak wisdom, reach out; don’t just think, contemplate; don’t only hear, listen… its all out HERE, not THERE or SOMEWHERE, its EVERYWHERE. There’s a whole life waiting for you to live, trembling… the casket of life! The first reach is the scariest… but that’s how they all felt, before the first step on the moon, before the first ice-axe picked on the pinnacle of Everest, before the first neutron bombarded the atom, before the first wild cry for freedom, before the revelation of the first vision, before the crackle of the first fire… yes! That’s how they all felt before the first cry of victory.
Choose Life! Hah! You laugh, and I spit… and no matter if some of you or all of you choose otherwise, I choose to live life as long as I'm alive… so God help me!!!

The Uprising

Around 1,700,000 people of Kashmir marched to the streets with banners and slogans protesting against the atrocities in Kashmir by the Indian government and demanding independence. A memorandum stating the same was submitted to the UNO office here a few days ago. This is not a post reporting about the event. It's just an echo so that you become aware of this voice. Google "kashmir independence" to get updated on the event.

I Choose to Live -I

Well now… I’ve been running after the trails of shooting stars, and as one burned out, there was another that flared up in the sky. Beauty so haunting…frantic, frenzied, scary chases. Oh yes! They went speeding by, leaving behind a granular sparking trail, never in the same direction, inciting all the 'wandering wonderers' to follow enchanted. So we never got far, though it was always farther. Along twisted trails, we blazed footprints, lost to memory and time.

Yes, we might have lost some pieces of ourselves along the way, but then the gatherings too we brought back with us. I don’t judge them to find out, I just conclude on this. It all adds a spark to kindle us on our journey now. I know it does for me, at least.
If “being out there and making it back” didn’t rejuvenate us in some way, we would feel like the white ashes, maybe a little pure, but cold and lifeless, and we would feel so dead. But no! This thumping palpitation in me thrives on adrenalin, on the natural thrill of a pure life…to live… and how to live… but we’ll live to the end! Yes… I’ll live till the end… till the night whistles tunes unheard to the living dead… till the fickle minded stars keep switching their colours from hazy purple to mellow red. Alas, unnoticed to some, who only stare ahead and find no reason to gaze around…simply gaze, for the sheer unreasonable beauty of admiration, to absorb, to wonder in awe. And then, to realize the shrinking of your own ego, feeling the stupendous power of the vast cosmic expanse, and through this, finding in some subtle way the relation of the self to the universe…so delicate yet so strong, so implicit and yet so true!... my relation to the universe… the relation of my relativities to the Absolute!

...to be continued as 'I Choose to Live-II'

Nightly Evolution

-- Nights of Evolution

Naked in the auberge rated with a billion stars,
vulnerably exposed for the night with it's cruelties to char.
The Divine power, rearranging these galactic spectra just for me,
harbor me from harm, heal me with your chaste charms.

A shooting star, sailing silently across the night,
diminishing, receding, animating the cosmic carpet by it's flight.
No thunderous lightning proclaiming its majesty,
like innocence burning in the playground of hierarchies.

An enigmatic perception humming in the back of your conclusions,
you keep your questions at bay.
The carnival of life just enough for you, to ignore
the drainage and the yells of your soul.

The music yells through chords,
the night sleeping, groans and snores.
The blind tells by the echoes, the deaf through the shadows
the savior for the day, night is here, they say!

Neons decorate the night, putting up a fight,
midnight-musers shy from the light, stroll into the night,
comfort seekers hide in the realms of dreams.
Dusk, one in all, everybody's peace so it seems…

So shine, shine from your nights….grow, emerge from yourself.
An occasion for evolution be the night...
Dawn blossoms from the twilight,
from the dust orchards ripen, Mona Lisa smiles from the blues,
mountains tower from the sea, from the shore oceans spread free...
Don't paint the night red, start to heal...
Evolve beyond the human clay, grow…glow...
from purity, with purity, into purity…gush forth…
Let tonight be a ceremony of matrimony…
Let light peep into these ancient shadows of your haunted nights.

My Time Horizon

”Nobody knows where you are, how near or how far… Shine on you Crazy Diamond” hums Pink Floyd into my room through the speakers of my IBM Lenovo while some distant flashes of lightning shear the darkness of the midnight outside my half-opened windows…
I understand the TimeHorizon now, all so clearly. The relation between my existance in this dimension of space, time and possibility, and with that of the days of the Mayans, the Mesopotamians, the Vikings, the Ottomans, and the Greeks, the Neanderthals and the Dinosaurs... I see it all, like a hollow crystal, so clear and yet formless. I understand why this present is my present, and not theirs... and why their present is not mine. I understand the reason of my existance in the age when I can have the history of time in my palm. It’s all like the orbits of the revolving cosmic elements. Since time immemorial you’ve been going round and round in seemingly silly circles, never realising that your very listless wanderings were forming the centre. The moment you stop, the centre ceases to be apparent. Then its not about reflection of light, its about dispersion of vision. You see it all so clearly, and yet nothing is seen. But then you understand everything in a strange subtle way...an intuitive wisdom.
..Yes! ‘Closer’ or not, the world IS getting ‘smaller’, and humans are turning into giants, as gigantic as the human cast can let them be. Nothing more, nothing less. And it's time for me to try to grow too…
We do grown up fast, each of us with our own priorities and visions, perceptions and definitions, with our own ‘history’ and a silent dream that we carry with us. Time sure flies by… Seems like just yesterday that me and my friends used to finish our junior-school assignments, and with a small multi-coloured football rush to the nearby “Tundekhel” playing ground to spend the evenings after school. I remember those quiet, stilly early mornings when some of us would rush there during our winter vacations and the army would be exercising their horses... tall and strong, muscular with long bouncing manes...steaming nostrils... they seemed so proud and huge then! Due to the early morning frost our toes would feel stone-numb and we'd jump up and down in our Nike track suits and Adidas football boots to warm up before we kicked the ball.
… All of us, now scattered and evolved, each with our own thoughts, conscience and memories… so many little worlds within one world. Some grew up straight and strong, some broke down in our "meddles", some lost our ‘selves’, and some chosen ones found some elements more than they ever lost.
All I can say now is that I hope we all find our own pot of gold at the end of our own rainbows…

Caught the Homeward Wind

- from my "On the Road Again".

Whew! Finally got to Old Delhi…”The City Of Djinns” as Dalrymple baptizes her in his book. The city that never sleeps, never tires… always moving, hustle and bustle forever. I glanced at my watch and realised that I had less than 30 minutes to make it to the station before I missed my bus home. I got an auto-rickshaw to the Tourist Station at 30Hazare from the outskirts of Old Delhi. All along the way, I was thinking of a back-up plan if I missed the bus …it was that close!
When I got to the tourist station I sought out the driver, a rugged old man in a worn-out khaki suit, and inquired as to how much time we had before we roared off. “Paanch minute baetee”, he answered with the typical Delhi slur. Five minutes! All the while, I had been sweating like an ice-cream melting in the Sahara. I strolled into the backyard. “Toilet-Only Staff” it said. I looked around and quickly slipped inside and latched the door. I stripped in record time, took a shower, dried myself as much as I could with my handkerchief, aired my jockeys and then…out! All before you could say “Obaid! You desperately need a bath!!!” Since the last four days, I had been continuously travelling by rickshaws, auto-rickshaws, the Indian Railway, the Metro and now I was to board an inter-state tourist bus.
The air cools down a bit as if to soothe my morning rush as I light up ‘half a ciggy’ with a bottle of chilled ‘mountain dew’ and try to jot down some sleezy lines before the engine roars to life and off we go again like a projected cannon-ball. “Well darling! Love has caught the homeward wind now”…
…Watching the world unfolding as we head on, fading thoughts flash through my mind, milestones whizz by, the summer sun shines high as banyan trees bow over my blazing path sheltering whatever remains of me on my way home. Sometimes, I wonder…How far is ‘away’, and how near is ‘home’… which turn is ‘right’ and which not.
A map of life, a map of life,
Where can I get you for a dollar and a half...
These lines spring up in my mind. Hmmm… "Map of life", I try to push it into my long-term memory as the title for my next set of lyrics…
… A long road stretching out before me, an engine roaring to life beneath me, a sky that opens out above me as a doorway to the cosmos…a part of the world around me, a beautiful destination ‘open all’ just for me, a light in my eyes and the peace of the heart, some titbits... I guess it doesn’t take much to make me happy!

The Journey to ‘Ordinarity’

...The midnight-darkness trickles into these quiet streets where fancy frilly faces dance in the day time, and as softly as it seeps into my days, it passes as gently, without a trace, leaving behind a whispering twilight that escapes from me even more deftly.
... A little laughter, a few hidden tears, ... a few kicks, a few licks, a few thrills, a few drills... what more could one want from these crazy hours that slip by so easily. No scores to settle, no forced promises to keep, no dark secrets to hide, no reason to not-be-yourself... I lie mesmerized like a baby, too amazed at my own coordinations, entranced like "Alice in wonderland", at a world that unfolds so mysteriously; already too colorful to redo, already too beautiful to complain, already too crazy to try to put sense into... and the midnights never fail to come... so punctually, so dependable... bringing with it a pause that never fails to "enlighten" us a little bit more about the daylight that whisked by... a momentary pause to prepare for yet another daylight drill...
A strange struggle, to become an ordinary instance of existance with ordinary ways, an ordinary human with ordinary desires and chases...ordinary days with ordinary secrets, ordinary downs with ordinary highs, ordinary days with ordinary midnights, ordinary joys with ordinary battles, ordinary carelessness with ordinary fears, ordinary crowds with ordinary estrangement, ordinary charisma with ordinary ugliness, ordinary questions with ordinary searches, an ordinary direction with ordinary waywardness, .... And it took me a long time to get here.