Brew

Water warms up in gold,
Unknowingly, twisting,
Round and round,
In eddys and currents,
Swimming in times the
Past, Present, Future,
Warm water turning hot,
Bubbles, pops and
Impatient eyes and hair,
Hesitant clocks,
With twisted slow arms,
That take time to slave,
Round and round,
The hot water's pilgrimage,
Unborn intoxicant,
Ready to be born,
Under gold, thoughts and
Spilled untidy dust,

Night purloins gold,
And water purloins sight,
Clocks hesitant no more,
The human almost born.

Paw Prints In The Sky

Upon a candy colored sky, hung candy fluffed clouds,
Vanilla bits that drooped slightly against a sun-lit blue,
Trees on the ground flew to make themselves seen,
Against the candy sweetness of the white fluffed clouds,
Giggling music of children floated to the company,
Of clouds above, hanging on in the sky as if by strings,
And against the azure, in tiny canine steps, can be seen,
A step, a hop and a stroll along the ocean in the sky,
Paw prints, in nature’s recognition treaded the worldly roof,
Walking from a pool, wet and dripping, one puppy
Who stops, dries itself shaking, walks on,
Printing in the history of the sky, a dog’s story,
Of a walk where it pleasured himself living,
Of a walk where it relieved himself upon the sky,
And the paws told further of how finally it lay down,
The dog, to sleep and snore sounding in nature’s sounds,
So what people hear of the breeze is the puppy’s slumberous breathing,
And what people see as the lone moon is the eye opening to the world,
This puppy, whose paw prints dance upon the sky,
Lives a lovely life in the lovely skies,
His only companions, the celestial stars and the celestial moon,
The celestial reflection of the sea and the smiling face,
The puppy lies in sobriety, its day’s work complete,
And as it sleeps, the puppy, the breeze blows gently by.

The Dream He Thought Was Reality

She came to me while I slept. In a dream, I thought was reality. I was walking down the road, a safe hearing distance from my dorm, when the car passed me. A black Honda City with two people sitting up in the front. The driver had a beard, the only distinguishable feature I could see from the other side of the tinted windshield. A short white silver tuft of hair that hung down upon his chin. Looked 40, I thought but then revised that age to 55 realizing I had never been good at guessing ages. But it was not him but her, who sat beside him, who enchanted me. Took me to a dream within the dream I thought was reality. Even with the tinted vagueness of the glass, I could see, half dreamily in the dream and half of sane mind, what attracted me to her. That sculpted face, sat stonily behind the glass, hair covered under the canopy of a dupatta. A rebellious black strand escaped the censor of the cloth, dangled down her ivory skin-soft cheek and rested at the sides of her half parted lips. Lips of light pink, colored behind the black and white of the glass. In the second I took to see this dream within my dream, and in the same second it took for the car to pass me, I saw more than what a second would have ever allowed me to see. Maybe because it was a dream, I could perceive more than time could allow. But I didn’t know that. So I assumed what I had heard from other people. That time stops to let you live a moment of truth or a moment of love, a few seconds more.

Bewitched, my feet kept walking even while my eyes tracked the car behind me to a turn. A turn at whose side, the black car receded from sight. I shook my head and felt the dust of enchantment fall gently from my shaking head. My feet quickened the pace of their steps. To a destination I had suddenly forgotten I needed to be at. It took me a whiff of the air in my dream to realize I was supposed to be in my History class. A history class discussing “Gender in the British Empire”. A class, my watch told me upon a glance, I was late for. I hurried. Past fallen red orange leaves. Past small colored flowers I didn’t know the names of. Past grass, verdure, verdant in diamond dew of the morning. I passed the beauty of the morning, without so much as a glance. Probably because I had already perceived beauty enough for a morning. In a trance, I didn’t know I was in, I reached the brown washed doors of the auditorium which held my history class. Remembering I had a response paper to recall from my head for this class, I shook my head once again, took a deep breath, and looked back as if by an old habit. Doors, people and books. Sighing, I opened the door and walked in.

Remembering a class, when you have already lived the true meaning of your life can be daunting. Therefore, I remember nothing or almost next to nothing of the time that passed next. Except for the British accent of a British Indian teacher, the glaring tube-lights I walked my eyes into and the feeling of floating in air. I came out with a squint then. Tube-lights in congregation can be very annoying. More annoying can be the habit of not learning by doing. Adjusting my eyes to the open colors, which the breeze brought in, I put my hands in my pockets and started walking. It wasn’t the walk I started my day with. It was without purpose. It was the roaming walk of a man who does not know where he is going or where he is going to end up. It was the walk of a man who could no longer see anything that could surprise him. Or touch him. A plant. A plant walked across his path then. A small burgundy pot harbored this plant. My ignorance of vegetation came to the fore once again. What was it called, I questioned my helpless mind. I knew the answer wouldn’t come. Waiting a few seconds for the silence to become unbearably uncomfortable, I shrugged my shoulders and continued my aimless walking. It became slightly ironic to me, as I kept walking. That having found out the meaning of life, I had nothing more to live for. Nothing more to live for, my mind repeated in my head. I kept walking. The minutes of the day became a stream. A stream which ran into hours and then into nightfall. My aimless wandering had left me lost. It was then that I actually looked up and took my hands out of my empty pockets. Night. And the road, I had begun the day at. I couldn’t see myself. I couldn’t even feel myself but I knew that in the darkness of the night, I smiled. One of those small smiles that make you feel alive. I could hear the people in the distance shout; echoes of which floated towards me in intermittent sounds. I tried to listen closely to the echoes because the pervading silence around me had suddenly become too suffocating for me. I heard a cry. Or I think I heard a cry. And laughter. And squeaky voices prattling in excitement. And then a roar of enthusiasm, which became more than individual echoes. I could hear that distinctly. Confirmed that I lived in the same world as those voices. It was then, that I heard the sound of that car. That car. I froze and felt time stop around me as the engine of the car approached. The echoes and the roar fell silent. Under the cloak of the night, the car broke the negritude through its head-lights. Head-lights against which I squinted. Head-lights against which I looked through the windshield in the dark. Dreams can make you see through the darkness, through headlights, through everything. I did not see her. I saw the white silver beard. Even felt wrinkles on the face that nurtured the beard. Yet I did not see her. Time, which had deceived me in stopping in the first place, did not prolong its rest. And in the second I had seen the world, I saw headlights and a white beard. Gradually the black Honda City became one with the night. The echoes and the roar came back. Rustling the ground beneath my feet, I thought for a while. About life and about her. Biting my lip, I thought. Seconds passed, echoes passed and life passed. Taking a look back into the nothingness of the night, I started to walk back home, in my dream.

The Human

I saw him walk home,
Lonely, forlorn.
I called out,
But he did not hear,
For in his ears,
Silence domineered,
On a forgotten road,
He disappeared,
His voice left behind,
I followed him,
His voice my guide,
I took steps,
And more steps,
Towards his rambling,
But he had gone,
Far away,
And in mortal time,
His voice too faded,
Leaving me abandoned,
Stranded, I realized,
Time had took,
My human away.

Today

The Day of the Genius ( A Day Late )

Mona :)
Originally uploaded by ahad.

There has never been an artist who was more fittingly, and without qualification, described as a genius. The definitive polymath, he had almost too many gifts, including superlative male beauty, a splendid singing voice, magnificent physique, mathematical excellence, scientific daring ... the list is endless.

So here it is. A tribute to the great man. A tribute a day late :p

On being blue

It was last night that I took a walk. It had been coming. I could it feel it all day that I was going to a take this stroll. Almost as if I had made up my mind that I would be feeling blue. Walking in silence can be a catharsis. A cleansing that can be understood better if you actually felt it rather than reading it off someone else's blog. So there I was last night. Alone. Walking in silence, under a sky painted in shades of black and blue, interspersed with the silver of stars. There was a gentle breeze blowing. It was the perfect night. One on which you'd wish you had someone to talk to. I wished. In the negritude of the night, I could almost see my wish form words before dissipating into the night. Then I remembered a night as perfect as today could also be used for something else. Walking.

It's interesting what a despondent mood can make you feel. More importantly to what it can make you think. So i thought about the Pakistan-India series. I thought about Arsenal's FA Cup semi-final against Blackburn Rovers. I thought about the lack of effort I put in my writing. I thought about calling someone up. Anyone. Most of all, I thought about feelings. And how emotions are humanity's flaws. If only men could unlearn feeling, they would become gods. I was appalled by the skepticism of my own ideas. Of my sudden cynical view about humanity. I reminded myself what I stood for: Idealism. A never ending hope in the goodness of man. Of his ability to love another person, to appreciate the subtleties of beauty and art and his passion for living life. I shook my head silly in order to convince myself. That's when I realized the seriousness of my doubts.

Being recently disillusioned by a hope (a dream, call it whatever), I had a comprehensive thinking-through of my life. Of what I lived for. And of what I wanted to do in life. I realized, that you can believe in something so much that it becomes a part of you. However, it doesn't mean your belief in that something is necessarily correct. You could be believing in the wrong thing for the right reasons but the fact of the matter is, you are still believing in the wrong thing.
Completely mired in the thoughts of my head, I took a deep breath. Silence can do that to you sometimes. It can give you too much to think about. That's the thing about silence. It's like a patient listener. The less he speaks, the more you do.

Life is an act after all. And here I was playing the role of the despondent Ahad. The despondent Ahad walking underneath the dark, passive canopy of the world. The despondent Ahad who'd look up to wonder. About his place in this world. About feeling so small in a world that already makes you feel so small.

I shouldn't brag but I think I have a very special talent. I can smile my way through trouble. This smile is like a fire exit you can keep in your pocket. Wherever you need a getaway, just flash the damn thing. Sure it lets me get away with feelings that I should deal with right away but it is the only thing that has kept me relatively sane. Other people have other ways with dealing with their troubles. I have my smile.

So I smiled yesterday, feeling on my face the cool breeze that blew through the swaying trees scattering its whispers to the quietude of the night. Then I sang "What if God was one of us". I sang the lyrics I knew and hummed the parts I didn't know. I had thought enough for the day. Being blue isn't such a bad thing, i thought. It can be perfect for walking alone late on a beautiful, ethereal night.

A Whisper

This whisper lived within a heart,
For a moment that stood too long,
Nurturing an existence that knew no future,
Waiting for a chance, one sombre day,
That it would meet the coolness of the breeze,
And accompany it to the edge of existence,
So what thoughts it ever had,
Or what words it ever formed in air to speak,
Would find a way outside the heart's prison,
In a world, where flight becomes freedom.

One sombre day, the heart in despair,
Looked at the dungeon of love, empty,
For the heart knew not of escape,
Of what it had vowed to grasp for eternity,
The emptiness of the heart filled,
The vacuum that the whisper had left behind,
And the heart then beat slower, knowing,
From the breeze's guilty silence,
That it had been an accomplice in escape,
Of the imprisoned whisper within the heart.

Ages past, the sun rose and fell,
Nights chased days and darkness hid light,
Dawns kissed the hopes of hidden desires,
And sunsets took down with them, the same,
The heart grew wise with time, in absence,
Of what had been its reason for bearing time,
It had finally been convinced of a truth,
That the only breeze worth life itself,
Was one that blew boths ways in times,
That spanned the hearts of two lovers.

Grew weak the heart of time,
For time is an imp of nature,
Parading itself important when it is only,
In importance, a mere nuisance,
The heart old, lived and lived, feeling,
The emptiness that now filled the vacuum,
Time had almost convinced it, of unworthiness,
Of something the heart waited till death's bed,
But before God asked His angels to end time,
The angels' duty became the whisper.

Time ended in an explosion of white, then nothingness,
The heart though in duty's way beat louder than forever,
Immersing itself in an inundation of joy,
The heart beat slower then, slower, slower before it stopped.

The Man in the Lab

There lived among screens,
Chairs, paper, lights,
And mice and alphabets,
An unseen man.

Who stands by chairs,
And peers into screens,
Who reads the paper,
Touching untouched letters.

He walks in rooted time,
As syllables drop to floor,
As hummings become a hum,
And beating hearts freeze.

He is the catcher of hopes,
A thief who purloins a while,
Before he returns,
Letters, hopes, and time.

Absences of time

There lives in our lives,
Absences of time,
Gaps in our past,
That we have not lived.

Bottles of spilled milk,
And cups of stained tea,
The green sunlight of day,
And lazy slumbers in its wake.

There is in our minds,
Moments, time absconded,
Former selves; it betrayed,
Not dead, but unborn.

In the absences of time,
Men become eternity,
Affected feeling Gods,
Helpless against nothingness.

And there lies in that nothingness,
A forgetting of unlived hopes,
Of beings immured,
And of a life, too shortly lived.

The beginning

Beginnings are only illusions,
That attire in hopes,
The endings of dreams,
Unfaithful, adulterous dreams.

Hence, my life entails none
Of Beginnings, only endings
The mature endings,
Of faithful, loyal dreams.