I'm not so sure where to begin, but 2011 has been pretty odd to me. It's a year of metamorphosis, from a person to a roach, or vice versa, as how Kafka put it. It's easy to say time flies at a flutter of the butterfly's wings as soon as you reach the exit and the rest are placed on the antique shelves at the back of an attic. Because when you were in it, it felt like forever but it's all in your head and I remember the 28 year old male traveller with the same purpose who came over to my table at a rooftop restauran in Jodhpur telling me that there is no prison in the universe, not even physical ones, as the only thing that keeps you behind bars is your very own mind.
Generation Y has completely evolved from Generation X, W and the previous. Generation Y has a choice. Our forefathers did not. The day they were born, their lives have been divided according to the norms and systems built by their forefathers for the sake of convenience and to ensure every possible person, from pariah to blue blood stays under control. And remains that way. But not us. We completely fractured the whole balance. If there ever was one. If balance, as defined by them was even politically correct. We have a choice. We recognize the fact that we have one. But it's even more complicated that way because it runs infinity down the list without exhaustion. Either we grow big like a reborn phoenix or we fuck up in the ashes and get blown away to nothing.
Indeed, it's a disturbing thought because demons are everywhere and in one way or another, you're bound to be taunted by the boogeyman who will feed on to your dry bones. It's a moment of how long you'll manage not to flinch.
And I'm probably writing this, sitting on a huge boulder by the flowing river, at 9 in the morning, in a small Bhagsu village near the Himalayan range, surrounded by mule shits and little Buddhas, just because...
I'm in the midst of a quarter century age old crisis. Time to morph.
Voices ache to whisper In the ceaseless night To endings that seem like never We ponder upon flights Of staircases To mazes Of infinite abstractions Fateful decisions Lost in transitions In an awkward stage whisper You'll remember The murals of episodes We both painted All tainted, tinted Against the colourless sky And I wonder why We're never on the same leverage Oh, my.
Oh, how she dreads the morning The glaring sun and the cold shower A day after another In the same, preppy suit The worn out glasses And the life mortgage The world waits for no one As the streets are full But life runs empty Like the night before Where she recalls the day She used to sit still in class Just so she could pass And be another lass In that same, preppy suit And the glasses that help her read Till the day she stumbles And awakes no more And in the gray blue black A boy touches her on the left heel Then he kneels "You can never sit still Among the sounds that Flow through your veins So be the next kill Drive up your own wheel" She flutters her lids Feels the air with her fingers Listens to the stillness Cranes her neck Sees the world the way she wants to see Lifts her chest, with pain But lifts it anyway Touches her tender waist Stretches her legs And tiptoes in the dark No more stillness in the night As she dances it away Oh, how she dances From the hips to The tip of her fingers In rhythm of the drumbeats From her pounding heart The whistles from the wind The imaginary lyre Breaks the stillness of the night The stillness of her joints "You can never walk straight When the road bends" In commemorating, she dances She dances while the world waits While her tears drop to the floor
'Thank you' is said within a breath. Even less than a second. It's simple, basic manner and one of the few magic words that could make a difference. But its purpose is more often than not, neglected. I can't remember the last time I said those two words to my parents. Maybe I'm still angry. Maybe I'm still awkward. Regardless, we all utter and hear the same phrase here and there for each day. So, 'Thank you' gets boring. It becomes meaningless.
That's not, however, the case in UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). When someone there thanks you, it bears a different meaning. Because each and every one of them goes through much harder battle than you do.
I would always remember a one, fine day when a Pakistani refugee spoke to me in Urdu: "Thank you so much. You are an angel. I would always pray to Allah for your blessing. And when my children would ever make it to Malaysia, I would tell them to pray to Allah for you, too." I, like the rest of the world, find gratitude as a mere courtesy but that moment kept me in silence for a while. Within split seconds, my mind whirled like a vortex. In my 24 years of living, I have never been bothered about religion. And here it was, on that day, I just found out that someone, a complete stranger, is willing to pray for me when I, my self am not even willing to pray.