Samandar-e-Bemaina - The Abbasnama

shola tha, bujh gaya hoon, hawaein mujhe na do
mein kab ka ja chuka hoon sadaein mujhe na do

jo zehar pee chuka hoon tum hee nay mujhe diya
ab tum to zindagee ki duaaein mujhe na do

aisa kahin na ho ke palat kar na aa sakoon
har baar duur jaa ke sadaein mujhe na do

kab mujh ko aiteraaf-e-muhabbat na tha faraz
kab mein nay yeh kaha tha sazaein mujhe na do

quit it. its not helping you. you don't need it. i don't need it. and strong as i try to be, i'm no superman. there are things i can't cope with. there are reasons why i've satisfied myself with a second class relationship and yes, i know the blame is all squarely on my shoulders and yes, you're fully entitled to hate me for it but there is a limit to the pain relieving capabilities of denial. and after that it harms you more than it helps you. for christ's sake you know this way better than i do. i mean who's the survivor and who's the masochist?

don't do this self-torture thing. you hurt me more than you hurt yourself.

Posted by Xill-e-Ilahi at 4:03 AM | Permalink | Comments

the human capacity for briefly forgetting depression is amazing. just got off the phone after a pretty long conversation with nasir - something we've not done since he moved to london. nice talking to old buddies especially when it turns out they're still buddies and haven't drifted away yet.

also a meet up with the stud and the turk is bound to be fun. even if its an iftari at seaview of all places. for some strange reason we kept coming across the same battered 1963 corolla all afternoon and evening (and when i say battered i really mean battered. it was like a moving scrap heap. i swear the bonnet and trunk were on the same side) and we ended up having a race - us in reverse (i kid you not) and the poor guy going straight. the glory of iftar time is the empty roads that enable you to actually get into such a situation. we would have won if we didn't have to avoid the traffic undas loitering around looking for advance eidee.

the rest of the evening was spent around tariq road in a pointless attempt to see if it is possible to buy a black kurta on eid which doesnt look like its come out of a seventies musical a la saturday night fever. its not. also we spent an hour listening to a lousy track debating over whether the lyrics were in spanish or japanese. no consensus was reached.

loads of fun.

could've been perfect though. you could have been there.

Posted by Xill-e-Ilahi at 12:46 AM | Permalink | Comments

that, i suppose, could be the new cool, scientific, dispassionate way of saying you're about to cry. "honey, that scene was so moving. my ocular humidity level is way up there..." or "i was laughing so hard at his joke that my ocular humidity increased to precipitation levels". who knows, it might just catch on.

sometimes when i'm talking to you my ocular humidity level increases to the point that i am in danger of being disqualified from the alpha male persona i keep trying to assume. not that you ever fitted me into that stereotype but then you get the picture. yeah old memories make me want to cry. sometimes. most of the time they make me want to kick myself for giving up on a good thing. and that might just be the understatement of the year.

why did it have to end so badly? i don't know. there is, of course, the argument that all things end badly otherwise they wouldn't end. so why in hell did things have to end at all? i don't know. if they had to end why did they ever start? i don't know. i remember a ramzan day eons ago when i was asked if i could carry this through to the end. " - warna abhi khatam ker do." when i couldn't why did i say yes? i don't know. what good is anything if it has to end in grief? is it really worth it? i don't know. i don't know. i don't freaking know.

it was awesome. every last second of a doomed relationship. one which took away all that life had to offer but still left us richer in its loss. ok that's a brutally honest admission. a thousand different yesterdays could have made a thousand happier todays but i wouldn't give mine up for anything. so whatever it was: temporary insanity, miscalculations, masochism or divine intervention it doesn't really matter in retrospect. the end remains the same. juliet pretended to die and romeo killed himself. only in our case it was julio who did the pretending and romiette who took the poison.

god. make me move on.

na paa lena teraa aasaan, na kho denaa teraa mumkin
musibat mein ye jaan-e-mubtila yun bhi hai aur yun bhi
(jigar muradabadi)

but thats me. and then there's you. the stories go on but the curtain dropped a long time ago. finita la commedia. makes sense actually. after all nothing really ends, does it? a man is born. he lives, he dies. then there is nothing. bullshit. he lives on in the millions of places his name existed. in the cancelled reservation at that family restaurant. in the yearbook picture no one belived was his. in the hotmail account microsoft closed down three months later. in the meories no one will ever be able to close down. so harsh though the wind is, the flame is still there. or maybe "flames" states it better. two candles lit with the same match. the legace of that match exists in both flames and in every other fire kindled by fires kindled by fires kindled by fires kindled by those flames.

even if they burn up the wax of different candles fighting different drafts of wind.

bulleh shah says,

heer ranjha de ho gaye melay (heer and ranjha are already one)
bhuli heer, dhundendi belay (but confused heer still searches the forest)
ranjha yar buhkal vich khelay (her ranjha is with her)
maenu sudh rahi na saar (and she doesn't even know it)

stop thinking. life goes on. i remain, yours forever.

Posted by Xill-e-Ilahi at 4:55 PM | Permalink | Comments

i have this versace teeshirt which i bought in the summer of '99. its grey, with some italian gibberish on the front which starts of with the heading, "certificato di autentcia"; certficate of authenticity i presume. the writing is all faded now so i only ever wear it when i'm going to sleep or when i'm just lounging about at home. a friend for seven years, its adapted to the changing contours (ever-inflating?)of my body in a way that nothing else can provide me as much comfort.

except maybe for the sound of a voice saying "hi" behind me as casually as if it were just another day six and a half years ago. i suppose you all noticed the moony half stare behind my thick plastic lenses. i wonder if you sensed the storm behind the sunken in eyes.

but feeling comfortable by wearing the versace doesn't bring aftertastes of guilt with it. it doesn't make me wish that the years had never passed. it doesn't fill me with surges of wild, irrational hope or spear me with red hot spikes of regret. hell, its just a shirt. an old comforter, a personal favourite, but still a shirt.

and its competing with a voice whose magic has bewitched me these past eight years. the one which has the wierd effect of making you feel like you've just had a perfect swallow of the chocolate syrup on your caked alaska every time it hits your eardrums. ecstasy in stereo. its the voice that... oh hell. lets not go there.

i was talking about that old song last night. the one in french i always understood but didn't know the meaning of. i was browsing through my computer looking for an mp3. it turn out i have both that and a translation of the lyrics.

comme si je n'existais pas (as if i didn't exist)
elle est passée à côté de moi (she passed by me)
sans un regard, reine de "saba" (without a glance, the queen of "saba")
j'ai dit aïcha prends tout est pour toi (i said, aïcha, take everything, it's all for you)

voici les perles les bijoux (here are pearls, jewelry)
aussi l'or autour de ton cou (also, gold for your neck)
les fruits, biens mûrs au goût de miel (fruits, ripe to the taste of honey)
ma vie, aïcha, si tu m'aimes (my life, aïcha, if you love me)

j'irai où ton souffle nous mène (i will go where your breath takes us)
dans les pays d'ivoire et des baignes (in the countries of ivory)
j'effacerai tes larmes ou tes peines (i will erase your tears or sorrows)
rien n'est trop beau pour une si belle (nothing is beautiful enough for one this beautiful)

aïcha, aïcha, écoute moi (aïcha, aïcha, listen to me)
aïcha, aïcha, t'en vas pas (aïcha, aïcha, don't go away)
aïcha, aïcha, regarde moi (aïcha, aïcha, look at me)
aïcha, aïcha, réponds-moi (aïcha, aïcha, answer me)

je dirai les mots les poèmes (i will tell you words, poems)
je jouerai les musiques du ciel (i will play music of the sky)
je prendrai les rayons du soleil (i will take the rays of sun)
pour éclairer tes yeux de reine (to illuminate the eyes of this queen)

elle m'a dit: "garde tes trèsors (she told me, "keep your treasures)
moi je vaux mieux que tout ça (i'm better than this)
des barreaux sont des barreaux, même en or (bars are bars, even if they are gold)
je veux les mêmes droits que toi (i want the same rights you have)
du respect pour chaque jour (out of respect for each day)
moi je ne veux que de l'amour (i don't want anything but your love)

aïcha, aïcha, écoute moi (aïcha, aïcha, listen to me)
aïcha, aïcha, t'en vas pas (aïcha, aïcha, don't go away)
aïcha, aïcha, regarde moi (aïcha, aïcha, look at me)
aïcha, aïcha, réponds-moi (aïcha, aïcha, answer me)

"so?"

so i really am mad, na?

Posted by Xill-e-Ilahi at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments

according to the modigliani-miller theorem, if there were no taxes, or bankruptcy costs or assymetric information (between parties to a transaction), and if it were operating in an efficient market, the value of a company would not be effected by its means of finance. the irony here is not that there are so many unreal assumptions in such a practically used paradigm. uh-uh. the irony is that the two idiots who came up with this piece of crap have both won nobel prizes in economics. that tag obviously means that the theorem is now sacrosanct and you can't attempt any question on capital structure without understanding its dynamics.

and to think i once thought that talking about investment appraisals and costs of funds and hedging of investment risks and capital asset pricing models gave a guy a kind of classy and cool (in a very worldly way) touch. should've known better. now i think there is nothing more boring than the stuff on cnbc pakistan when one egghead questions another on the ideal way to manage his company's working capital. to make sense of this stuff you have to be the guy who read the financial times in the eighth grade while you were ogling at sable's swimsuit pics in the wwe magazine.

this is a rather roundabout way of saying that i have been studying strategic financial mangement for the past five hours without a second's break. to pass the exam i have to be as comfortable with discounted cash flow as i am with the two times table. i don't know what scares me more, the prospect of succeeding or the prospect of failing.

"save me from the nothing i've (planned to) become..."

Posted by Xill-e-Ilahi at 2:44 AM | Permalink | Comments

penalties...

i had no idea these rules even existed in cricket. awesome. this is the closes the "dull" game of cricket can get to football.

Posted by Xill-e-Ilahi at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments

as dj shadow would have said....

at the starting of the week
at summit talks you'll hear them speak
it's only monday
negotiations breaking down
see those leaders start to frown
it's sword and gun day

tomorrow never comes until it's too late

you could be sitting taking lunch
the news will hit you like a punch
it's only tuesday
you never thought we'd go to war
after all the things we saw
it's april fools' day

tomorrow never comes until it's too late

you hear a whistling overhead
are you alive or are you dead?
it's only thursday
you feel the shaking on the ground
a billion candles burn around
is it your birthday?

tomorrow never comes until it's too late
tomorrow never comes until it's too late
make tomorrow come I think it's too late

until i actually checked in the paper i had no clue what day it was today. i guess life is getting a shade too monotonous. i only hope this bloody chartered accountancy thing is worth it..

Posted by Xill-e-Ilahi at 3:35 PM | Permalink | Comments