Nothing

Purple Month,
Silver Orange.

A poem that cannot rhyme.

You

You sit there - silently numb, staring at the dark side of the world.
When the end is near we don’t even know it. Animals go home to die.
You think your soul can be pure? free? saved?
You think like a child at play. You’re like a child asking for the moon – but aren’t we all, all our lives?
You say ‘Please’ and ask the seas to part,
When seas can come between two people…lying in each others arms.

Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry & a Donkey

Today I was driving home from the airport, for those who don't know, I live really near the airport. In fact if you've ever been on the phone with me I'm sure I've often had to put you on hold till the overhead aircraft passes and I can hear you again.
Anyway, being so close to the airport I find that I am the default man on all airport reception/departure duty. I don't mind I love the adventure of negotiating the traffic infested streets of Bedian Road (the most notoriously, treacherous, dirty and accident friendly road in Lahore if not the world), I love the idea of waiting in the heat surrounded by sweaty, leering and unimaginably yet imaginatively smelly men (seriously I once stood next to a skinny little man who smelt of dead flower water and cabbages...quite a combo!).
Kher all that aside, today I was once again on reception duty receiving some friends in the middle of the afternoon, peak sun and smell time. These friends of mine were visiting Pakistan for the first time, I was highly conscious of this as I left the relatively internationally acceptable Allamah Iqbal International Airport and swerved to avoid a runaway donkey cart, a funny contraption somewhere between a motorbike and an ice-cream truck called a Quingi and a series of brightly colored maniacal Bedford trucks!
I turned to my friends apologetically, expecting to find them cringing with fear in the back seat of my suspension-less car. I was totally surprised at their looks of content delight at the surrounding chaos. They were pointing out of the windows and muttering things like 'How quaint' and 'So lovely', 'So clean'!?@#! Was it me? Have I just become hyper-sensitive after living in the over manicured Los Angeles for the last year? I was baffled! Startled!Shocked even!
'So' I said, finally having a clear enough road to make conversation, as we turned into the relative peacefulness of the Defense Housing Authority 'How was your stay in India?'

Classic Shaashisms

An Introduction to the world of Shaash.

On fashion: "It's not that I don't like Beer, it just never goes with my outfits."

On love & marriage: "Love's all the fun stuff on a Sundae, without it life's just vanilla."

"My weight is a test of love."

"I'd fall in love with a goat if it eyeballed me nicely."

"Have a few drinks it'll be fine."

"Marriage is like a fried egg, you never want one till you see someone else eating it."

On a broken heart: "I feel like a used tea-bag!"

"Maybe I'm not crazy, just pathologically stupid."

On men: "There can be no equality of the sexes until men have had hot wax near their privates!"

"All men are their mothers in disguise!"

On my friends: "My friends are great. Solid with a little bit of wiggle...Like jelly."

In General: "All this talk of dieting has made me hungry."

Corrupt & Corrupted Worlds

Somehow with so much to want and need and crave in the world I find myself respecting more and more the people who find it in themselves to value the simplest things in life, a pretty sunset, the cold water of a beautiful ocean, cold water on a hot summer day…and yet the more I find myself valuing these things and others who can appreciate them the harder it becomes to find those who can even still register them.

Is it these times we live in that have blinded us to the world and its inherent beauty or is it us who have made the world a place in which there is no room for the appreciation of the pure and the simple? Which is the corrupter and which is the corrupted or is it everything conspiring together to deprive the world of the joy it holds.

Emptiness like “the nothing” is inhabiting our lives and our souls and we all buy into it never questioning where the fantasy and the joy went…

Rules, Life & All That Rot

All these generalizations we try to create and we assume to live by; “alpha males”, “old cows” “new cows”, the “man’s man”, “this type of girl”, “that kind of guy” what are they? They are just a method of us trying to apply rules and safeguards to a life that doesn’t work in accordance to rules and safeguards. Ultimately we are trying to guard ourselves against heartache and disappointment. So the question remains how do we draw the line between living safely and living a life spend unlived. When is it safe to drop your guard, lay down your sword and experience life? And are all bad experiences to be guarded against…how would we ever learn.
It comes to point here when we say we can learn from the mistakes of others but do we ever really? Too often when one sees oneself mirrored in others one beholds the other with rather more contempt and cynicism than usual.
Why is that? Why are we so repulsed by ourselves at an unconscious level?
We then talk of bonds and soul mates and a feeling of oneness…but we seldom realize that these bonds have less to do with similarities of character and soul and more to do with chemistry and preconceived notions.
So a note to end on, are we looking for soul-mates or “Mr. Right”, are we looking to put up walls around ourselves so we don’t have to bother searching anymore…or are we simply waiting to bump into someone as chemically imbalanced as ourselves and hoping to live happily ever after.

Brownie Debacle

I now know why I have never lost weight on any diet ever! Yesterday for no apparent reason was a celebratory day so I whipped up a batch of (if I do say so myself) world-class brownies and fed them to an adoring and grateful host of friends, family and miscellaneous visitors. The two brownies that were left uneaten went in a sealed box into the fridge. This morning I bounced downstairs all bright and sunny only to discover the brownies were missing. What could have happened? There was no one else in the house? The kitchen was locked? Had I woken in the middle of the night? No memory of any such thing…a genetically modified mouse perhaps? There was only one logical conclusion, I had obviously wandered down a flight of stairs into a locked kitchen and devoured the brownies…IN MY SLEEP! No wonder I never lose weight God knows what I’ve been consuming in my sleep.

Lions & Tigers & Deer, Oh My!

Now I’m a pretty die hard romantic, I mean I would fall in love with a goat if it eyeballed me nicely, but even I seem to have noticed, that all the boys have just stopped trying!
I know all girls want to be swept of their feet and maybe guys feel this is a bit much, but dude at least get the bloody broom out!
Whatever happened to the idea of women being won over? When did the roles and the ratio’s change so drastically? When did we become the wooers rather then the wooees? Its like the deer are hunting the lions, so when we do catch our pray we end up getting ripped to shreds. Why in the world would any deer (or antelope for that matter) chase after a buggering lion? Are we mad?
I think all we deer need to make a pact, let the lions do the chasing!

Of Phones & Their Evil Ways

I think waiting for the phone to ring is perhaps the most awful feeling in the world. And as technology improves this just gets worse and worse – now not only are we waiting for the damn things to ring but also to beep, buzz, vibrate, alert us to missed calls and voice messages. Now one would think this is fabulous, now we can keep in touch all the time! But oh the rejection of no one trying to get in touch with you. Also the emotional baggage, just think about all that irrational anger directed at all the people trying to get in touch with you when they’re not the one.
Honestly having a phone is like strapping into an emotional rollercoaster. It rings, our hearts leap with joy, adrenalin courses through our veins, we put on our best phone voices – a moment of suspense – followed by a sharp stab of disappointment as irritation seeps in giving way slowly to anger and dejection. All of course utterly irrational and unjustified, we of course realize this which gives rise to a sort of chastising embarrassment which leads us to mad overcompensations and into saying things and making plans we never intended to make.
By far the worst-case scenario is when we try to apply reverse psychology on the phone. We try to leave the room, pretend to ignore it, hoping that this might cause it to ring. In fact as I write this, my ear’s peeled waiting for my phone (to whom I am currently not speaking) to ring and break the silence. Have you ever tried to make the phone ring with your mind? Or perhaps pretended to yourself that you don’t care a jot whether is rings or not in the hopes that it might speak to you if it thinks you’re not interested? That’s right I play hard to get with my phone!
But you just can’t stay mad at it! Ever tried to ignore a ringing phone? It can’t be done!
In the defense of phones I must repeat the term ‘don’t shoot the messenger’ admittedly not much comfort to the countless phones lost to temper tantrums, fights and breakups, but still.
This whole thing reminds me of one time when I…ooh goody someone’s phoning me!

Where Have All The Good Eggs Gone

You know its never bothered me before, but as I watch more and more of my friends getting married and divorced and married again, it strikes me, “Hey why not?”
Strange marriage seems to me like a fried egg you never think you want one till you see someone else eating it. Once seen, you’re suddenly ravenous with a hunger only fried eggs can satisfy.
Ok, so now that I’ve made up my mind to eat the damn things, I of course discover that there are no bloody eggs in the fridge – indeed the last of the eggs were consumed by the very person whose eggs had tempted me to begin with (perhaps I have taken this analogy too far?)
The point remains – that now I find myself looking for something I never wanted before and that I now find I cannot escape wanting. Bugger! What’s more all the girls will agree – where have all the good eggs gone?!@#