Pretention

Why pretend to be happy when one can be sad and honest?

Why can't I just enjoy the pain in my life and be open about it without being judged?

You!!!.

Yes YOU!!! Don't you feel any pain? Have you never been broken? Are you not... human?

Yet you can't go to the next line without feeling pity and disgust for the one who writes! You judgemental fool. Look inside you! What do you see but darkness and misery? What do you feel but pain and sorrow?

Take a fucking gun, put it in your mouth and pull the trigger or cut a vein or two for all I care but be strong enough to face the truth within you. We live in a fucked up world and you are as much a part of it as I am. So live not to judge. Instead live to rejoice the fuckedupness of our existence. Live to embrace the absolute pointlessness of it.

And you shall live fully.

A Dialgoue

Jackalovich is a youth in his mid-twenties who is full of questions and curiosity about life. He goes to visit his master Provoski who is the Makeesay of his time.

“Greetings Master” Jackalovich gestured his hand in some kind of salutation “How fare you?”

“I am well, like always. What brings you here child?”

“I am in pain. I want peace”

“Define ‘Peace’!!” the master replied in a laid back tone.

“Well peace is when I’m free of pain”

“And?”

“And that’s it I guess”

“Are you not free of pain when you are happy?”

“I am master”

“So is it happiness you want?”

“Well yes if you put it that way.”

“But hear me well child, for happiness is not peace”

“What is peace than?”

“Peace is a lack of everything but itself i.e. when there is no happiness, emotion, energy, sadness or anything at all, there is peace” the master took a sip from the cup of wine on the table and continued “You see the pure life energy exists in equilibrium and tranquility. Every now and then the life energy transcends into the material world in the form of a living being. After we die, we go back to the life energy from which we are born, and thus can be in peace. But this life is not meant for peace. There is no equilibrium here. Only struggle and pain”

“That means there is no point in longing for peace?” Jackalovich asked, obviously a little disappointed by the lecture his master had given him.

“That is not entirely true. We should long for many things and also strive to achieve them. But instead of wanting freedom from your pain, you should embrace it, make it your strength. And remember that Ultimate Peace is our final destination. So for as long you are in this world, enjoy the pain a little.”

Jackalovich nodded in silence and left the temple. He had his answer but many more questions still remained.

Bayahath Terevich: A Deck of Cards

Bayahath Terevich frowned as he let go of the last coin in his hand. He was a man born of deceit and surely losing is not an option for the likes of him. Yet it was done. The bet was lost and he was but a fool to have thought that he’d win.

It all started when the Fool came to the good town of Kuttiyanagar. The good people were amazed to see him. The Fool with all his tricks and songs; was a complete package. Kuttiyanagar was not a place frequented by many visitors and the townsfolk needed amusement just as a malnutritioned  African kid needs his vitamins. Bayahath Terevich was indeed happy to be in a place like this, where his cunning could feed upon the mediocrity of the people and yield him some coin. So he strategically placed himself in the center of the bazaar where all the streets met, just alongside the statue of the “Kuttiya” who had given this town its name.  On the sidewalk children chased chickens and hawkers shouted as they tried to lure in customers.

”Hear me O’ good people of Kuttiyanagar” Bayahath Terevich cleared his throat and then started his sermon, “ Hear me as the Kuttiya bears witness to this day where I  stand and offer something that has never been witnessed before, truly a good offer I make to you. I will show you a trick of cards and the man who understands it will get all my fortune. But if no one can decipher the magic in my hands, every single man and woman of Kuttiyanagar will give me a gold coin for my skill and courage”. The crowd slowly gathered at his feet. Some looked at him with excitement and utter awe while others displayed their hatred of what seemed to be a classic case of mockery of their wits.

“Behold” Bayahath continued “Behold this great art that I have learned from the magi of the eastern lands”. And then the fool started to shuffle his cards. He selected a young child of 8 from the audience and made the little one select a card from his deck. The child was then asked to show the card to the whole of Kuttiyanagar as they stood still and expressionless. The card was then gently put back in the deck that Bayahath held in his right hand. After a brief moment of shuffling here and cutting there, the magician clapped his hands sandwiching the deck in between and voila! The entire deck was gone. Disappeared into thin air, as it might have seemed. The crowd clapped and there were chatter amongst them. Shock and awe? “The real trick has only just begun” Bayahath announced with a mixture of sarcasm and pride in his tone, “I see that there are 52 men in the audience and each man’s destiny lies in a card that he must now face. Put your hands in your pockets you good men of Kuttiyanager”. All the men in the audience put their hands in their pockets as the women peeked with keens eyes, at the men close to their vicinity. And each man in the crowd found a card in his pocket that he took out and held high in his hands. Bayahath Terevich smiled and announced boldly, “as for the card of the child, look at the face of the Kuttiya”. There it was. Pasted at the nose of the statue just like an ugly patch on somebody’s eye. Bayahath was happy for a trick well-performed “and now for my coin if no one can tell me what I just did and how I did it”. His hopes were a shattered when the crowd suddenly burst into a huge fit of laughter. A laughter so wild that, it made his bones shiver. The one thing Bayahath failed to realize was that Kuttiyanager was a town famous for its magic and it was the birthplace of all magic in the realm of Jhagistan. Deciphering a mere card trick was child’s play for a people who could use their magic to make entire castles appear out of thin air. Alas! It was too late. Now Bayahath Terevich had to do away with all his fortune. His dreams shattered because of his ignorance. “Bloody Nasreen” he cried “You will have to wait my love before I free you from the clutches of the evil hordes of Chawalikis. Wait you must my dear… wait for me”

As We Are

Shit I'm out of words again. It's funny how each one of us has a story to tell. And words don't always fill in for us.

I want to do many things right now. I want to take a stroll down the memory lane, write a good short story and go to sleep. A long cozy sleep with dreams of you. I know mushroom dreams are meant to be broken. But that doesn't mean they don't exist. Nothing wrong with a bit of wishful thinking. Don't you think?

And oh its how I wish. I wish and I wish and I wish. I wish for so much to happen. I realize now that sometimes, being alive, is the single most difficult task at hand. This is how I am. This is how we all are. Atleast at some point in our lives. For me this point comes a little too often.

I have only this much to say. Peace.

Summer Love

Summers are fun. Even in a God damn third world country. You are sweating down your ass. And no amount of cocaine or good music can give you peace. You need shade. You need love-yah. You think you got game. You are foolish. You are a self-loathing individual suffering from arrogance. That’s how people come these days. They come in shiny attractive boxes. Low quality and huge price tags. There is no fucking consistency in the production line.

Driving around town in your old car with a half-smoked cigarette, you realize many things. Some are good and some are bad. But every realization takes you one step closer to your goal. You are hungry for something. You are hungry for love-yah. Hunger only grows. You are an animal. You want to rape and molest the world; over and over again. This is who you think you are. But you are not that. You are worse. Much worse.

And after a while... you stop giving a fuck. You know. Things run smooth sometimes. There are no speed breakers on the highway. But not everybody is driving the fast lane. There are snails in the race. Snails that you can nail. And rabbits too. Never miss a good fuck if it comes to you. But you still miss it. Coz you need love-yah. You ain’t no fucking sex monger. You want purity. You want something real.

Summers pass and you quietly retreat to your hideout. A stack full of cheap Murree beer and 70s blues records. That’s all you need.  You need love-yah. Don’t ya?

Slaughterhouse For Babies

Deep within the serene abyss of my mind, exists a slaughterhouse for babies. It has 9 chambers. Following is a brief account of what happens there.


Chamber 1:
There is a pack of hungry hyenas. Subjects are thrown in from a small window in the ceiling. The animals are skilled at their noble task. They slowly and painfully rip the subjects into little pieces.

Chamber 2:
There is an executioner with a sledgehammer. A conveyor belt carrying the subjects passes through the centre. Subjects' heads are crushed into bits.


Chamber 3:
A conveyor belt carrying the subjects into a hot tub of molten lava. What happens next, requires no explanation.


Chamber 4:
A 100 meters deep pool of electrocuted water. Subjects are thrown in from the top. They are reduced to skeletons before they can ever hit the bottom.


Chamber 5:
A conveyor belt carrying the subjects passes through a huge chopping machine. Subjects are chopped into little pieces.


Chamber 6:
Subjects are thrown into a 500 meters deep pit. The experience is meant to break each and every bone in their body.


Chamber 7:
An executioner with a small razor blade. Every hour, a subject is thrown into the room. It is the executioner's task to slaughter the subjects using his blade. He is encouraged to use his creativity in making the process as painful as possible.


Chamber 8:
The cold storage room. Subjects are allowed to freeze to death. There is obviously no shortage of ice cream here. Eat all you can, you little ones.


Chamber 9:
It has no door, no windows and absolutely no way to get out. The walls are unbreakable. There is no light. The author is locked in this chamber. He has the key to shut down the entire facility. 


The pathos must be understood. Otherwise, the puzzle will never be solved.

Ko-Hat - I

The Air Force Officers Mess (where I live these days) is a quite place old place. Almost as quiet and old as the town of Kohat which hosts it. The mess building itself dates back to the British era. According to the official records, it was constructed sometime back in the year 1924. Years of renovations and re-renovations have obviously gotten rid of any resemblance to old British era buildings that this place might once have had. But with the right kind of eyes, you can still see the old British dance parties, complete with all the Gora officers and their wives/girl-friends dancing away to the ballads of those times. And with the right kind of nose, you can probably smell some whiskey too.

Well here's the interesting bit. People tell all kinds of stories about the officers mess especially the bachelors blocks. Stories of hauntings and what not. The sort of things that you'd naturally imagine about any place with a bad paint-job. The most famous (and my personal favourite) is the legend of the Wing Commander*. 

As soon as I got here, everyone told me that the Ghost of a dead English Wing Commander who used to live here during the British Raj, roams the blocks at night. The cause of his death is not certain. There are varying stories and sometimes different versions of the same story. Some say that he was a paratrooper and died when his parachute failed to open on one of his routine para-jumps. The result was crushing. He fell head first on the ground from a height of 5,000 metres. His head split into two halves on impact. Poor guy probably died on the spot. Now he roams around looking for any living paratroopers. So anyone wearing a para-wing is bound to get his ass whooped (Luckily I don't see no para-wing on my chest). The other story says that he died while he was cleaning his pistol. Apparently a mosquito went in through the muzzle of the gun. As he tried to peek in, he pulled the trigger by mistake, shooting himself in the eye. "Never clean your pistol in the blocks Saab" is the warning that comes with this one. Another story involves him being eaten alive by wild KPK goats while he went hitch hiking on his own to the mountains.  There are countless other narrations, which I don't have the time to quote right now.

Needless to say I don't know what's the real truth behind these stories. Whether or not there is actually a Ghost in the blocks is also a matter which requires further investigation. But I'm sure about one thing and that is; Kohat is no place for an Englishman. Dead or not-dead, if the local Pathans were to find out, they would surely take him to the mountains and let him have it. The North-West style!

*Wing Commander is a rank of the Air Force equivalent to Lieutenant Colonel of the army.