In Pursuit of Lightness

I used to have this recurring dream about a woman guiding me out of this maze of ruins. I could remember looking at her auburn hair shining in the orange sun as I followed her left and right. And then when I look away, I used to be outside and free.

(A bunch of stuff I backspaced)

The Portrait of Usman M. Khan looks dark and unfinished but I can make out the hint of a smile.

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I've noticed that talking out actually helps. Even if the person talked to is looking at you with the blankest stare, it just feels good to let out something that's been in knots in your brain for the longest time. And less stupid than when you do it alone.

Keeping stuff inside just makes it fester until the the buzz of the flies feels makes you want to claw your brain out.

Scores need to be settled, apologies are to be given. Perhaps eulogies.

If it wasn't me, it'd just be someone else. Not now, then later.
Who knows, maybe worser?

Some people had a tremendous amount of influence in shaping how I operate. I wish to apologize for making them know me through the process. I was and still am most uncomfortable to deal with. I hope in some karmic way, I too can be a source of intention and perspective as you are to me. Without you, the Portrait would have been boring and gray and wearing a check shirt.
Thank you for showing me a bit of the way, especially when waters were murky and signs, undecipherable. And for adding layers to a stubborn consciousness to see just a bit more than before.

Hand of God

03532103022011, It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) by Bob Dylan playing

Based on empirical observation, I can safely say I have never worked hard in my life. My father could testify at length to that in a grand engrishy english speech. My high school teachers used to say that too but when they say it, they're really saying "Ma'am your son here is one dumb motherfucker if I've ever seen one". But the D U D E in my A Levels was definitely a lesson in not studying a night before. A lesson I haven't figured out. I wish there was a switch you could turn on to get that healthy anxiety going at a reasonable time. The kind that makes you get up and about and work towards a long term goal. The kind that makes you turn off the procrastination switch. Routine has never been much of a friend and usually ends up being quashed by sporadic periods of grasshopping, and its sister, planning, is akin to control and control is a tool that we exercise to get a sense of definition in a universe amidst chaos. In short, it cramps my style.
I like to think I'm lucky. So at the very terrible risk of jinxing it and with the disclaimer, "Nazar mat lagao!", I'll like to write about the machinations I know as the Hand of God. Not to be confused with the famous hand of god of Maradona, and definitely not marijuana.
The Hand of God is that stroke of luck that puts the cogs in place as to get by or even thrive. It'll just happen that the text you didn't study for the next day's Final doesn't end up being included in the syllabus and that list that you were trying to cram outside the hall, a minute before the paper, is just asked for. With marks for examples! That is the Hand of God, ladies and gentlemen. The Hand is what you hope happens when you habitually sing in your car; and you're really trying to not sing when there are these hot women you don't know very well in the car but end up singing anyway, first muttering and then increasing volume with proportionate confidence until that moment where you fuck up the lyrics like a dirty scratch on a record, rather loudly too; and everybody hears the fuckup but keeps ignoring it silently because let's face it, everybody's been there and done that BUT you do the worst thing possible and look around, making that uncomfortable eye contact which erupts in laughter centered at you. The Hand is severely missed.
But it happens often enough and I've gotten so reliant on this system of blind luck that sometimes you're hoping for it. But if I'm expecting the Hand to occur, it wouldn't be the Hand of God and if it wouldn't be the Hand of God, then there is no Hand of God. As in the case above. Whatever it would be, it'd be predictable. And human.
I was sitting in my car, unwrapping a rather large sandwich when I suddenly got this bad feeling that I may have dropped some outside.
Thoughts at the moment:

1. I should check if I've dropped it.
2. No I'll just sit here and complete my sandwich. I'm rooting for the Hand.
3. Oh no! I've predicted the Hand so the Hand's not gonna happen and I should get out and check.
4. But maybe this is the Hand fucking with me, making me think it's not working but it really is. That clever ninja!
5. Oh fuck, why'd I think of that!

So I got out and checked. Everything was in its right place. I was just outside the usual park and there was a nice breeze reminiscent of a winter tragically missed. I finished my sandwich and rolled out and as soon as I did, I saw a Mehran with five burly cops inside looking like a clown car pass the exact place where I was enjoying the toils of nature. Then on Sunset Blvd., instead of taking the usual left on the 7th street, I ended up talking on the cell and missed it. I took the longer alternative route and again, cops at the exit to the road I usually take. Again! With enough sandwiches for a bloody picnic, I was rightfully grateful for these near misses and just passed the boys in blue, hand in salute. That is the Hand of God. On an ironic note, paranoid but pleasantly un-annoyed.

International Gorillas

Slackistan almost became that movie that people talked of so much that you no longer want to watch it. It's not like they talked about it; just how they weren't able to see it anywhere. The censor board apparently have their knickers in knots about a story of young people figuring out their lives and have banned the film in Pakistan. But if that Islamabadi girl I knew of from school could end up on the internet without her permission, why couldn't this movie too? I was under the impression that there was no sort of intellectual property that you can't pirate on the internet and I used to smirk thinking that when the grand time did come for I and all my ego to find the movie, we'd find it. The 15th page of "slackistan torrents" had me quitting and checking "dealing with failure" instead.
The incident reminded me of another time when I was looking for another desi movie that was proving itself hard to find. It was International Gorillay (1990) starring the who's who of Lollywood back in the day. The quest for this movie led me to the shadiest part of Rainbow Centre and even then I couldn't find it. It was available for $15 from a guy in Arkansas who dealt in cult but he would take cash only and that kinda killed it.
The premise was kept rather simple where a band of crooks and thieves reform themselves and then set out to kill ... Salman Rushdie. This Salman Rushdie is like a crime kingpin who is hell bent on destroying Islam as we know it ... by building casinos and making Babra Shareef dance. This Salman Rushdie also dies at the miraculous hands of ... the trinity of holy books ... that shoot lightning. Now this could be the work of opportunists who rushed to take advantage of the anti-Rushdie fervour that was spreading at that time OR I had acid and dreamt all that. Unfortunately for all of us, it's probably the former.
If anyone does have the film or would like to meet a paranoid dude in Arkansas for this brilliant cause, you know where to find me.
Next topic: Whatever happened to Babra Shareef? And can her dance really kill Islam? Stay tuned...

Toilet Humor

The bathroom: say what you will, it still remains the most inviting room in the house. More often than not anyway. It's that one room where you truly appreciate the sanctity of privacy, that one room where you're comfortable enough to sing like American Idol gone bad. My bathroom has also became a temporary home for the laptop, the only place from where it gets a decent signal from the neighbors' router. Contrary to my friends believing the bathroom to have become a squalid porn den, it's the only room in the house with internet. Thus me sitting on the toilet seat, lid down ofcourse, trying to type from a foot away.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited has decided to fuck itself with my DSL line. Like a man unable to come in terms with his erectile dysfunction (pun not intially intended), PTCL has refused to even admit there's a problem. So until complaint no. 135, 287 and 315 get sorted, I'll just have to keep using that annoying neighbor's bountiful internet. Yes, I just put in annoying so I wouldn't look so bad stealing a tax payer's internet.
But regardless of the presence of a computer noisily downloading torrents and alleged questionables, the bathroom still plays a versatile role in a young man's life. Some uses are as follows:

• It's that welcoming friend in the darkest and most desperate of times. Dark, as an expression.
• It's one of the best places to have a sandwich. It can be made airtight so the sandwich retains its delicious flavour and also has an electronic exhaust system for easy evacuation, should the aroma be not needed in an emergency.
• It's also the place where you can get your best reading done. Many a visits to my ghusl khana have prolonged to cover an entire chapter of the midterm syllabus. It's got quite the academic air about it. And wind.
• Talking to a girlfriend in the vicinity of hovering parents. Be wary of the all-revealing echo though.
• That last place to look for immediately needed stuff. My keys usually turn up by the sink.
• The perfect place to keep that secret pet.
• Appreciation of life. You don't know how good you have it until you defecate in a smelly hole in the ground.

It is, obviously, not restricted to these and it's interesting to think how other people would use their bathrooms in an non-obvious way. And while we're all not as innovative as the guy in Saw, it's seemingly hard not to be fascinated with this humble jack of all rooms.

Triptic

I have never been comfortable around tea. The very smell of it makes my skin crawl. Not the green kind. I love the green kind. I'm talking about the black one. To think of even coming into contact with such a hideous enemy makes me want to hurl. Or made my skin crawl and hurl. No preference in the order.
But then it happened. Countless times I've seen tea spill on people and I knew all that laughing I did then was going to get me in the bad with karma. The cup shook for a fraction, my life flashed before my eyes, it dropped with the loudest bang and in an instant my jeans...my precious jeans...were soaked in doodh patti. My worst nightmare had unfolded in a second. Now if I was in my room, I'd make a GASP!, then try to overcompensate by a fake grunt and then run to the shower. But we were in the middle of the desert and 20 minutes away from the comfort of running water. The running water in my bathroom that is. So I did what any other sellout would have done: I ran all those happy chai commercials in my mind and just kinda accepted I was being stupid before. You don't want the utter dissonance of the situation to get out of hand so you pretend to see the rationale of it all. Tea's not so uncomfortable anymore.
:(