i have not seen a snowflake melt to say that it melted for you

and i have not strayed so i could tread upon a golden leaf - a crunch - in autumn hues 

       - or snow capped mountains in all their pride,

         or the baldness of a winter tree

            because you might say to me

that i could've looked and looked, in winter boots and foggy breath - and thought

of you and me; 

    Yet

        still God gave me words, the Sun and the day, 

the night and the stars and the wandering voice of baked-skinned street vendors

coming my way

     and an embrace, or someone's whispers into a listening ear, a smile 

     and the honking cars, and Living streets, perhaps a garland-selling child

and scents of spices and flowers climbing up the wall of my own backyard

                                                          (they fold perfectly into verses) -

i have not less, i need not more

for a thing like love could never be lonely; the skies will clear and the birds will sing

and for beautiful hearts, there'll be beautiful things

 always, my love -

always.

A Letter To No One.

Dear You,

Couldn't I just be perfectly ordinary? Couldn't I just answer unasked questions with a smile and laugh at every joke that comes my way? I could listen and I could listen. I could look and I could look and sit cross-legged on familiar floors, in company of other crossed legs, and feel every bit of wonder hurled my way by pairs of eyes and animated hands that might not even know that they could be Great, and that they were created nothing less. That they share something truly amazing with people who were Great before them, and have been Great in their time - that they were created by God. And God? He wouldn't, couldn't create you and me anything less than wonderful. We can be Great, you know.

But I'd rather stroll on sidelines, let my gaze stray, smile once in a while and sit down with much grace, and with one of those beautiful sighs, that pretty girls in pretty movies sigh. Peace comes and it goes. And sometimes I'm the one closing doors on peace. Because I've known love, and known it by heart, but I choose to clothe it with misery when I need everything to sting. But I do not need everything to sting, and sometimes I can't make myself understand that. But God knows. He knows that I grow out of it. A better person each time. And how would I know about where to go if I do not go wrong. It is all quite alright. Wherever I'm going, I'm on my way.

God also knows that my heart grew ears when I sat cross legged yet again, last Saturday, but I was not required to speak. For I'd been hearing of reward and mistakes and of the people of Alhamdulilah. Those who struggle for their cause in rows after rows, and tower above them all like a Wall in all their being, never faltering. God knows that I have wanted, that I  have craved for the strength to be dignified in what I do and that my mind wanders again and again to the promises I'd been promised - the success of Now & Then. Infinite success. And I have longed for the courage to put up a good fight against all Bad that will not cease to grip me and my Good, and for the courage to struggle. I have wished for Infinite Success and I have wished for the courage to attain it. You and me, we could struggle and we could struggle for good. We could.

I believe in words, I believe in greatness. I believe in those pink-cotton candy clouds that cloud my brain every now and then to eventually make way for new words and sounds and thoughts and scents. A new day. I am grateful for new days and smiles. And I dreamt of losing the ability to sleep, so I must let the world know that for sleep and blankets and prayer rugs, I am infinitely blessed.

Thank you for listening.

Love,
Me.

i will watch in secrecy

while Time prolongs the End

- to watch myself as i fall

each time, with more intent -

(i have learnt to imitate the air of

indifference, but of a different kind )

i give, you do not take and

 i break for breaking's sake

but what are you? what have you?

that i sleep walk unto my ache

and like the scarcely lit sky

barring day from night

i will not be, but i will be there

i will not care that you do not care

or know; 

solace - perhaps, up in a tree

with a wooden flute that belongs to me

i will sing  of you and me

and i will sing solo

A Letter To No One.

Dear You,

It's been a busy Saturday. I see my dupatta soaring on the clothing line and the slightly disheveled cat looking at with great interest. Even though the winter winds are being stubborn, Noise has learnt to intervene and it isn't quiet anymore. It's been rather loud, and the kind of loud that I am grateful for. I could never hate the tinkle of laughter adorning the rattles of a sewing machine and wonderful faces and souls to accompany every bit of joy that comes their way.

But I am to grow, and I am to feel and learn to ache. I am to spring and wilt and shed myself away in words, because that is what everybody says. Come what may, I am never going to stop believing that all the Bad in the world exists only in itself, that it is detachable and that it can never devour Me or You as a whole. Because there is good. And God created it permanent. In me. You. Us. And that I can hear it and see it if I listen and I look.


People and places have been on my mind and it is sad. It is sad when you know they are there but they've grown blurry and distorted inside of your thoughts and you can't see them. But I love their silhouettes, still; it is enough to remind me that I've shared my sunshine with them, and that it felt beautiful.

Maybe I will let loose and you will know me as the girl who rode the breeze and grazed her knees because she shut her eyes and ran. I could, and I would, run and I'd run till someone called me back. But that is a dream and I must remember to dream it when I do not have piles of homework to conquer.

Today brought me a heartfelt narration of a grief stricken woman, who I imagined to be wrapped in a brown shawl with sequins falling off. Ammi said she'd been crying because she said the doctor prescribed her a medicine that cost her two hundred rupees. And she did not have two hundred rupees. And it made her cry. God works in strange ways and He puts people and places in perfect order, so that they come and they go just in time. Nobody should ever forget that there is God and He listens, because The Woman In The Brown Shawl got her medicine and she prayed because she was happy.

For everything; for books and sounds, for two hundred rupees and for the roof above my head - I am infinitely grateful, I am infinitely blessed.

Thank You for listening.

Love,
Me.

3-2-2012.


"And I've traced out brilliance in people. It lives in their smiles and it laughs in their words and you know it when you see it. And all such brilliance stares me in the face and I wonder if I am a part of it, too. Because I know that I tend to be a bit like a sentence left unfinished; but I think there is someone or something wonderful living inside me. It speaks and I hear and nobody knows a thing. And I feel brilliance within that can and will never be part of the words I speak and the ones I don't.

Because I looked into the mirror, I stared into my own eyes and I felt strikingly aware of the skin stretching from my head to my toe. And I looked. And I looked. And I looked until I felt that I did not belong to myself. I looked until I felt I was living inside me.

I've been told of beautiful souls - and you and I, I think - we're faces, voices, hands, feet and smiles for our own. And to have been sculpted by the God of the winter breeze talking in hushed voices on a starlit night - our souls have been nothing less than beautiful.

We're miracles, you and I. I have put all my faith in the day when we un-belong to everything that was never ours. Something comes along, and restores my belief and all my hopes in Forever."

but have you known me?

have you known me at all

have you loved what you had but hadn't at all

have you lived for the night, have you died in its wake

have you withered and bloomed, have you sprouted at all

have you belonged to a story you have written yourself

have you scripted the ending, have you read it at all 

have you known that i live, that i breathe what you breathe

have you seen yourself in me, have you seen me at all 

31-1-2012.

"But I heard sounds today. I was very keen to hear them to avoid my own silence. Jumps, bumps, rickety rattles were speaking volumes to me and I heard every word. The sonorous journey opened up sight after sight, colour after colour, sound after sound, as we made our way through infinite beings, hard at work and hard not at work.

I could've let go. I could've stopped clutching at the seat so that I would have fallen. And I could see myself falling to the floor of the bus with a quiet thud that wouldn't sound quite as loud amidst the noisy traffic. And I would've rolled onto the floor and onto the grey stairs that awaited me solemnly beneath the gaping hole in place of where the door should've been. And in such a pitiful state of no-doorness, I would've landed in the dust, and I would have coughed and spurted and I would have been bewildered for a while. Or a minute, or an hour, or maybe two. But I would've eventually controlled my tears and I would've brushed off the dust and wandered.

Wandered. I would've, could've wandered in those broken down, uproarious streets and I could've joined the ranks of the tea-selling, car-fixing, busy-looking people walking right and left and all around among crowded colours that were blatantly plain in all their dustiness; like someone dimmed down the rainbow. And I would've been part of that picture that no one took and I would have, could have melted into a beautiful scene that no one painted."

A Letter To No One.

Dear You,

I have been in a dilemma of sorts lately, because I do not quite know how to feel. I feel like I could be quiet for the rest of my life and just Look. Just look; stare intently at a motorcycle whooshing by, or carefully observe a man examining a cricket bat right in the middle of a street. And I feel like I could quietly let thoughts consume me, all of me - then I could say a prayer and blow them out into the air; and my thoughts could be blown out petals of a sweet smelling rose, carried by the breeze because I let go of them. I find the courage to let them go, sometimes, you know. Consequently, they let go of me, all of me.

But that does not mean I do not have a million things to smile about. Because I do. You must know that I have been blessed with blessings that I recognize, not simply know. I always find myself in awe of how I feel a fair bit of difference between things I know and things I recognize.  I recognize Baba's footsteps when they approach my room, I recognize the sound of the bell that rings exactly at eight 'o' clock every weekday, bringing in a regular visitor and I recognize the look of amusement playing across Shazra baji's face just before she cracks a ridiculous joke. Oh, to recognize all the little things, to call them mine, to miss them when they are not there and to not simply know them, but to know them by heart. It is all very wonderful, isn't it? It is, it is.

My friend's grandmother told me that winter would stay until March. I hope that she is right. I don't think I could ever hate winter or the silence that it brings. And I have to share a secret with you. You must promise not to laugh at it or think of it as juvenile. But I feel it so strongly, I really do. Dear You, I think I am growing old inside these sweaters and these socks. There, I said it. I don't mind it, really. It's a bit turbulent, but how can I be Great if I do not grow up? So it is quite alright. And I've found that everyone learns to live without things and people they are afraid to leave. Acceptance is kind, and it settles in and shakes your hand solemnly and waits for you to realize that you can, and must embrace it. And you do. It's inevitable, I think.

Every now and then, I hear something from someone that would make a great dialogue in a children's story book. It amazes me how the words that affect me the most, or make me smile, seem so very nonchalant. And I read somewhere how someone thought that all people were poets, and only a few wrote with words, and to tell you the truth, it is wonderful realizing that it is true. That people are walking, talking artists and some even walking, talking poems.

There is good in people, be sure of it. The Man Everybody In My College Screamed For When He Entered told the principal when he was on stage that he was willing to pay for someone who could not afford College education. Which reminds me, I have to tell you about the last dialogue of the Urdu play called 'Saiban' that took place in our auditorium. Bilal, a character who was initially depressed about the condition of the country and had made his decision to go to Canada to pursue his career, changed his decision in the end and said, "Apna saibaan aur apnee chath bhala koi chor kar jata hay?" ("Would anyone (want to) leave their shade and their home?") To which the audience that I was part of replied jubilantly, "Naheen!" It touched my heart. There is good. There is good in me, there is good in my country and its people.

God has been kind to me. Everyday, something comes along and makes me smile and everyday, I am reminded of how my efforts to be nice do not go to waste, however futile they may seem to me. Because God repays me with double the kindness, even if I do not deserve being repaid. And for that? I am infinitely grateful, I am infinitely blessed.

Thank You for listening.

Love,
Me.

underneath the sky we share

tonight i weave, i say a  prayer

from heart to heart; moonlight's kiss

on the crimson lips of dawn..

oh, the heavens hear, the heavens see

and hopes and dreams kneel down with me

to find you somewhere i can reach; the places

love can go

and if the day is kind

and the night benign

you must know..

i wished it just for you

A Letter to God.

Dear You,

I hope this letter turns out out to be all that I want it to be. I know that You know that I am grateful but I am not sure if it is enough.

It is safe to assume, I suppose, that you know how I am feeling. And probably more. And why. I can't believe I am as foolish as I am. I can't believe I forget my purpose, dear God. But you must believe me when I say that I do not mean to. I think You are wonderful to send me a thought or two to whisper to my other thoughts that they must direct themselves elsewhere.

Hope is a good friends to have, dear God. And you created it benign. Because it always lingers, smiling whimsically when I take a wrong turn. To be a friend to Hope is even better a miracle. Dear God, you know that I am capable of surprising myself and the thing about surprises is that they are rather surprising. And I am a confused lullaby of good and unintended bad but You take me as I am. I beg of you to guide me as I am because You know I will need it for as long as I live.

To find You when I cannot find anybody of my own is always a bit selfish of me, but maybe I lose my way to find yours again. Again and again. Each time I find myself more determined and each time the determination dies away. What is this madness, dear God? And here, I must tell myself that my faith is Fragile and a thing of beauty always is. I hope you find me beautiful in all my fragility, dear God.

And lastly, I must tell You and the world that there is a surge of a desire within me to be more brilliant than I have ever been. To parade with all my fears and take the lead and march on toward the End, where ever it is and what ever it is. I trust in where You will lead me, dear God, and I have learnt to trust my trust in You. And to everyone who underestimates the power of their prayers to You, I must tell them once and for all that there are miracles breathing in the air that surrounds them, only waiting to be Found. Because when you learn to find the miracles, you'll find that Dreams aren't quite distant to the One who carefully crafted the people who dream them in the first place. I have faith in the prayer of a heart, dear God, because in all the right moments, the prayer of a heart will find You and only You. And therefore, I believe, You must have no problem finding it in return.

Thank You, dear God, for everything that is and everything that is not. I might not be able to thank You enough, but I hope I keep thanking You all the same.

Thank You for listening.

Love,
Me.