Sunday 6 July 2014

Crutches, who?


I know the thoughts I have conceived so confidently today will lose their authenticity in my own mind tomorrow. Truth will hit me; at times gradually with no sudden harm visible; at times vividly hitting and making me bleed. But let’s bet. Let’s gamble in a wild lawbreaker casino of our minds. Let’s just sleep with a hope that tomorrow morning when we open our eyes, we would stretch our arms with an air of indifference… and a girl would tie her hair up with a smile… a wife would be there with a cup of tea to offer to her husband… a newspaper with a good news perhaps…


Pop!

*wakes up from the dream*

Here I am. Here’s the mountain top; a desolated cliff at the edge of the war stricken valley. A valley where soldiers are fighting and they are fighting for what they think is right. A bunch of conscious people who are opinionated, who know what they are doing. Realizations, they say, don’t hurl your way for nothing. If you conceive them, you must believe in them. If they come to you, you must welcome them. And if they come to you late, embrace them more warmly. This fighting is a holy act, they believe. I was once among them… and I fought well… until I lost my limb in a blow…

I am sitting on a rock. Here’s the mountain top; a desolated cliff. Watching them from this height is nostalgic scenery. Around me are densely populated trees. Too many trees make a forest; trees with stumps of wood. In fact, too much wood make a dense forest. Around me, is too much wood. A material our modern world deems obsolete i.e. they now prefer steel over wood when strength is needed. Wood fashion isn’t adored much now either.


“I know the material I chose so confidently today will lose its reliability in my own mind tomorrow”, says the much evolving world. “Truth will hit me”, says the eagerness of a curious mind.


I am alone. Here’s the mountain top; a desolated cliff. To walk back, I need support. But here, only wood I have at hand; too much of nature that’s obsolete to the modern world. Out of no choice, I take out my blade, cut the wood pieces to make crutches, take their support and stumble down back to the valley of conscious people having realizations, who know what they are doing… the holy war of conscience…

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Twenty one years, I feel,
Are not enough to understand myself
Life is a year and seasons, many. 
The autumn leaves
Have been cleared off the street;
No more crispy sounds
Under my feet!
I, now, walk this path
Without the music of rustling leaves
Now, road is a routine,
Not a treat.
Feelings, now, are froth and foam
Lights once guided me home.

                                It’s like once you used to see the moon with all the depth and delight, and then one day you came to know the tides in the sea owe their existence to the gravitational pull of the moon. That day, you headed towards the sea to spend days and nights surfing the waves, relaxing on the sand and forgetting the moon itself; forgetting that the sweater of your dreams was once woven by the threads of the sight of the moon in solitude; that you felt closest to yourself when you gazed at the moon and contemplated over the wild and the tame sides of your personality; that you are missing something basic, and that hurts…

Applying the same butter of logic on the bread of relations, I too feel the sandwich isn’t as bulky as it would take us to relish the first bite as an unforgettable delicious moment. The thought that tomatoes and lettuce are accessory fillers, and mere ketchup would make it to the expected volume, has often let me down. It’s like publishing in the menu book what you don’t have in your kitchen. Fake advertisement, some say, is a part of the business… but again… missing something…

“I know the words I wrote so passionately today will lose their charm in my own mind tomorrow”, says the sufferer of changes. “Truth will hit me”, predicts the pessimist.

Transiently achieved feats may sometimes exalt you to a mindset where you think you need no further assists; that crutches are a characteristic of the weak and the gloomy. And so changes your behaviour; making your present, past; breathing at a new artificial pace; but still missing something very basic. One must see between the intricate designs of nature that at some part of your life, you too with a lost limb shall be there on the mountain top, a desolated cliff. To walk back down the valley, you will need support; but, the only thing around you will be wood. No matter how obsolete a material you deem it, you would have no choice but to take out your blade, cut the wood pieces to make crutches, take their support and walk back to the valley where people are conscious; conscious of what they were, are and learning how to stay the same; aware of the statuses when they should fight for their basics, for the conscience lives under the pursuit of satisfaction.

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True friends are God-gifted crutches. Life is a quest for the trues ones. If they come to you, welcome them. And if they come to you late, embrace them more warmly.

Tuesday 1 April 2014

Don't make me believe!

The pen that once used to race
With an undulating grace
Revealing the moments of strife
In my fantasies and realities of life
For the confidence in me ensued
The belief I have always pursued
that "Preach what you conceive at heart"
For your existence is an ideological mart
Where people come and go
In their minds some seeds I sow
Of care, truth and justice
Which I wish them to practise
Because in those virtues, I believed
And my conscience was spiritually relieved
But then, with intentions to loot
Some robbers came and began to shoot
The delicacies of my ideological mart
Those evils hit the dart of my heart
My urge to preach died there and then
And beliefs were torn by the lions in den
My pen that once used to race
Broke it's nib, like splinters in trace
And now I repent the moment I was given
The choice to breed faith that was driven
O world! don't make me believe from now on
For the days of inner beauty are long gone!

(Syed Ahmad Raza)
(In KELS short story writing competition)