i swear i would have scored... but matani is a hot head innit?

can you spare a tenner?

i think they put something in the jet sport ice lolly...
saed and i had 8 each... hehe
soon enough we were broke...
and then we started asking every passerby for money...
ended up with 265 rupees... in 15 minutes... (shame on us!!) there was me, saed and ali whatshisname (fixie)
i had orange lips and was going like "yaar, aap ke pass das ropay hain?"
its comforting to know that i can still lose it once in a while...

in other news today... scored in practice... might be going to GIKI soon... allah kare...
oYe! last time they beat up the players... its like some tradition or something... personally im spooked... but im told if i dont bother them they wont bother me (kinda like a bee)...

ole to that sistah....

THERE ARE ONLY TWO CANTONA...

Think about it… how many times has a soccer coach asked a player to take time out and practice a celebration… never!! So if anything is pure and instinctive in this world, it’s a soccer celebration… Eric Cantona (the most feared man on gods green earth or in France to say the least) would have been proud… I caressed the ball with my Dorothy red shoes and left the keeper for dead, stranded without a lifeline, helpless for all to see… I swear it felt great…and most importantly I celebrated my goal as Cantona (the great man) once did.

I pushed up my collars and glared at the opposition…they had no choice but to lower their gaze… submit before the higher power…and he shall smite the wicked and lunge them into the fiery pit…

Ole to that sistah…
Ole to that…

baba...

no history book, years of experience, and i listened... he kept calling me again and again... but there wasnt a hint of harshness in his tone... only an unspoken urgency in the air that hastened me to him... i found myself pressing (ghutna) his feet...baba for some reason, wanted me by his side... we spoke of aitchison and how 13 long years had merely whet the appetite. we both fought the nostalgia as we glanced thru the invitation of aitchisons hundred and somethinth founders day that asim ali had brought home with him. reminnecsing in the days gone by, we both remembered times when our diets consisted of nothing more than bun kebaabs and pepsis. we compared friends... i think he won.

the silent awkwardness in the air almost forced me to beg leave... but for some reason baba said stay...he started to speak about politics...he started to speak of the last three years... it is a chess game he said... pauns moving all the time... even if one looks away for the slightest instance... youre lost...

the power of the union council nazim... the conflict of interest... the mnas...the mpas...everything came up and was explained in some detail... machiavelli came up... the seat was most important, all important, according to him... i was told that history showed us that even fathers and sons were expendible when it came to safeguarding ones power... then why the different approach, i asked? because in the end we all had to meet our maker and have to do so with a clear conscience...

the fact of the matter is that eventually we all become our fathers... myself, i look forward to it... but i see some people, confused, caught up in a rut... trying to oppose a rolemodel... when they should be embracing it.

Ekphrasis...

Picture 1: The Sketching Hands.

Take your strength from those that need you. Two hands, drawing each other. One lives off the other. If not for one, the other would not be. Ask yourself, who is my driving force? Who can I not do without? You will feel strangely reassured if you ponder over the question a while, for I say with utmost certainty, that individual cannot do without you either.

When destiny calls you must be strong
I may not be with you but you have to hold on
They’ll see in time
I know, well show them together.

For one so small you seem so strong,
My arms will hold you keep you safe and warm,
This bond between us can’t be broken
I will be here, don’t you cry.

Phil Collins – You’ll be in my heart.

Picture 2: The Waving Hands.

Lunging for something, just out of reach. Calling out, begging her to stay back. Reminiscing in days gone by, resigning myself to the painful truth. Begging her to save me from the nothing I have become.

Suitcase of memories, time after some time
You picture me; I’m walking too far ahead
You’re calling to me; I can’t hear what you have said
And you said ‘go slow, I fall behind’
The second hand unwinds…

If you’re lost, you can look and you will find me, time after time…
If you fall, I will catch you, I’ll be waiting, time after time…
If you fall, I will catch you, I’ll be waiting, time after time…
Time after time…

Eva Cassidy – Time after time.


Picture 3: Which one is real, the image or the reflection?

What would you do…
If my heart was torn in two?
More than words to show I feel…
That my love for you is real…

What would you say…
If I took those words away,
Then you couldn’t make things new
Just by saying, ‘I love you…’

Extreme - More than words.

Picture 4: Landscape and the Light.

Where is she? Where is the central figure? The image seems like a postcard, matter of fact and formal without her, detached of feeling and emotion. Perhaps, the light is far too bright for her soul in its current state. She hides herself…away from this surreal, utopian setting.

And I don’t want the world to see me,
Because I don’t think that they’d understand,
When everything is meant to be broken,
I just want you to know where I am.

Iris - Goo goo Dolls.

Many years have passed,
Since those summer days
Among the fields of barley
But I swear on the days still left
We’ll walk in field of gold.

Sting – Fields of Gold

Picture 5: The Dog and the Moon…

And man called out to God. God in all his glory answered back with a thundering voice ‘which, of all my wonders, do you want?’ And man, thought a while, conjuring a request that matched His bestowing ability. “The moon, give me the moon…” said man. “The moon, it is” said God as he lowered the stairway to heaven. The line between agnostic and devotion is thin. We all wait for incidents, miracles that leave us with no option but to submit. We need not wait. If one looks with the discerning eye, you shall find his presence in everything…


The kingdom of God is inside you and all around you,
Break a piece of wood and you shall find me,
Life a stone and I am there… (Stigmata – The movie)

that smarts...

Damn the tie. Damn the Duke of Windsor, that uppity moron. Why would one, cut the blood supply to one’s own face in the name of fashion? If it were up to me, I’d come to the office in a robe and bathroom slippers. However, no was giving me that much importance so I merely slapped my face several times to get the circulation going.
There I was slapping the bejeesus out of my face when a middle aged plump lady walked into the bank. After whaling herself through the front door, she decided to cross her legs very tightly and realised only after a while that she was standing in the middle of the hall and had informed everyone of her bloated bladder. However, this did not deter her in the least and she hastened her way to the ‘whale’s room.’ ‘Its natural’, I thought in her defence and with a shrug of the shoulders continued my slapping. It was quite a while before she came out and approached my counter with an inquisitive expression. I paused my slapping.
“Young man, what brand of toilet paper do you people use?”
A seemingly innocent chuckle escaped my lips. The expression on the middle aged, plump lady whale changed. Her eyes became twice their size, deep lines appeared on her forehead and she started to speak like one of those vibrating blenders making yummy strawberry milkshake.

“OBESITY IS A DISEASE, NOT A CONSCIENCE CHOICE. IM NOT FAT, JUST BIG BONED!! WOULD YOU MAKE FUN OF A GUY IN A WHEELCHAIR?”
She didn’t even wait for an explanation. What good would it have been, she probably spoke whale, anyway. Coincidentally, it felt like being smacked by a dead fish. The noise of the slap resounded loudly and as the piscine human left I thought to myself,
“That should really get the blood flowing.”

Metamorphosis...

~Metamorphosis~



The brink of the abyss
The point of no return
All others had succumbed
Was it now my turn?

They kept gnawing at my morals
They kept beating down my pride
Principles, brought to question
All my values set aside

Is it worth the consequences?
Is it worth the hate and jeer?
Is it worth the pointless verses?
Is it worth the lonesome lair?

Life, is not that complicated
If seen in terms of YES or NO
I’ve been told by those respected
‘Only dead fish go with the flow’

The morphing will have to wait
This vessel is stronger than it seems
Much to their disappointment
Things are not what they may deem.

The days gone by have seen me through
Corrected me on things I thought I knew.
Taught me patiently, right from wrong
Told me who I was, where I belong

As I make my way through this called life
I see pain, deceit and another’s strife
But I look inside me and I feel secure
I feel not the temptation, the calling, the allure.

Room With a View...

I never knew the exact instance in time when I got to know Phillip. Maybe he was always there, at the periphery of my vision, somewhere in this haze of opaquely lit rooms that form my existence. Maybe I imagined him, to save myself from receding from reality to become one of the shadows that haunt this hospital. Maybe, it was a lot of maybes.

I suppose I will never really know.

It was after one of the most recent treatments, while coming out of the spell of anaesthesia, that I first met him. Calm and serene he seemed to be sitting, looking out a window onto something I could not see lying from the bed.
“Hello mate,” he said turning towards me with a smile, “I thought you wouldn’t make it”.

And that was it. With those simple words he became a part of my daily life.

We were comrades. Shackled by age and confined by ailments. We plotted escapes from this servitude to medicines, means to get expensive bourbon in and have one night of carefree indulgence, all while humouring each other with romances with unattainable nurses. He was my friend. He kept my spirits rallying and kept this old, tired heart beating.
But most of all he was my eyes and ears, to a world that was beyond the confines of this bed. Immobile staring at the stark nothingness on the ceiling, he told me what was happening outside that window he sat facing, where the drone of the beeping machines faded to the lively sounds of the city. He told me stories of little children playing their games in innocence of the world around them, young lovers, holding hands, or sharing ice-creams as they sat under shady trees, and of men in business suits and sparkling shoes, on phones scurrying to and fro. He saw it all and he told me minute for minute, endlessly never trying.

Time it seemed move differently.

There were frequent interruptions to our reverie. I never knew if it was hours when they came or how long they stood and nodded at the charts at the foot of the bed, brought flowers or cards - or even for that matter who they were… Men in white suits, metal equipment clanking every so slightly in their movement and their hushed tones of concern, relatives I didn’t know or recognize. I never saw them clearly. I didn’t want to acknowledge their presence. All I wanted was for them to leave, so that Phillip and I could return to our conversations. There was that familiar numbness again after the men left, when suddenly Phillip said,
“It’s raining”.
The faint smell of dust settling under the weight of rain, accompanied by the soft clatter of raindrops on the pane was truth of Phillips statement.
“Ah, it caught them right in the middle of Wesley’s goal”.
Wesley was my favourite on the 8 year olds team. He moved with a limp - left behind from an attack of rickets in infancy - and had only just mustered up the courage to play after a long time on the benches. The grimace of pain on his forehead was a contradiction to the excited smile on his lips. I’d been rooting for him for a while and today, it seemed was the day for Wesley’s long awaited victory.
“The rain can’t deter our little hero”, said Phillip, and began a running commentary of Wesley’s daring tackles, running in and out of puddles of water, around the clumpy clutches of mean bullies – deftly nearing the goal posts.
I knew it was impossible for me to clutch the bed sheets in excitement, but my mind said I was. In, out he went, hobbling to his victory, until … ‘bang’, it was a goal.

A small achievement for the other boys, a paramount leap for Wesley.

Maybe it was the bubbling excitement that did it, or maybe it was just destined to be that way. But on that odd Sunday in some obscure year, my fingers, after years of immobility, twitched in excitement at Wesley’s goal and with that went off a whole trumpet of electronic devices.
My movement was heralded as nothing short of a miracle at the hospital. The many doctors that flitted in and out from the room were amazed how any movement at all was possible. However, to cover any future liabilities, all were sceptical about further improvement. This was just put down as a freak case in medical history and I returned to my old status as ‘resident vegetable’
Yet all the while, through the chaos of the white shirts, stethoscopes, charts and medicines, my friend kept sitting in his usual place - at the corner of my eye - smiling as if he knew of other, happier endings.
The stories of the view from the window continued; of sunrises and sunsets, of tempests raging their fury on the world, to light days of spring. From summer flower to autumn auburn leaves. Phillip saw it all and recounted, it with vivid colour and detail for me. It seemed as if the world beyond had moved into the hollow confines of the stark hospital room, and cast colourful shades on all who inhabited it. Phillip had brought the world in for me.
“You won’t believe what these two pigeons are doing”, chuckled Phillip. “The fatter one of the two - the woman - keeps eating the grains, and when the poor chap goes off in another direction, glares at him to come back. He gives the words ‘hen- pecked’ an entirely universal meaning”. The humour of the situation seemed to catch up. Two podgy grey things stalking the grass for seed, driven by hunger, and still slave to female instinct.
And suddenly I laughed. A hearty, throaty laugh that came from the pit of my stomach - rising like a swelling tide. Even though I had laughed many times before, the sound seemed unfamiliar to my ears. Yet Phillip went on as if he had heard it many times before.
“A little girl with gold ringlets has joined the activity” continued Phillip. “She seems to be chasing them all over the fountain. Now he has to worry about two women”.
I itched to get up and see for myself what all was happening outside the window.
It took an insurmountable amount of energy to move my body, but I willed it on. And almost as if breaking a mould, my legs suddenly bent. The movement broke Phillips attention and he awkwardly walked over to the bed. I asked him - verbally forming words audible to my ears - to call the nurse in.
As he walked to the door he turned to me and smiled. It may have been a trick of the light, but I thought I saw a tear trickle down his cheek. He turned as if wanting to say something… but seemed to change his mind. Walking over to the bed he gave my hand a tight squeeze and then, softly walked out the door, closing is gently.
My parched throat, unused for so long, seemed to want to break into song. Waiting for the nurse, lost in my thoughts I went off to sleep.
The next few days - for now I registered the ticking of the clock, the changing shifts outside and the nights accompanying silence - went by in a daze. There were frequent meetings with doctors, analysis of progress reports and family gatherings. Through all the activity I did not see Phillip. I assumed simply he was giving me space to re-adjust myself with the change.
Sometime had passed since the day I had called for the nurse and still I had not got out of bed. This was the day I was to get out of bed once and for all to go home - no longer needing the services of the hospital.
My anger at Phillip had abated. I did not understand why Phillip never came back to say goodbye, leaving as he did so quietly without a word, but I chose rather to remember him fondly than with anger. Pulling on the tweed coat left by the side of the bed I made an effort to walk to the window from which Phillip had recounted so many stories.




………..What is it about the world of illusions that is so much more real than reality? In retrospect that is the one question I have never been able to answer. Is it the hope inspired by an idea, so much more tangible than what actually exists? It was this idea of a beautiful world that made me get up from that bed and stand at his window, but the reality of it……….

Staring back at me from the panes that formed the window, in almost mock humour was a tenacious creeper clinging firmly to a brick wall. The only view from the window - a view of nothing at all.

And Phillip………………….?

Illegally Blonde

Streaks are no comparison. One should never go half the distance and then turn back. My attempt at a poem below attempts (too much attempting) to highlight the upsides to becoming blonde.

General Disclaimer.
This poem is in no way directed toward anything living or dead. All characters are fictional and registered trademarks and property of Hupkido Inc.

Illegally Blonde…

Dying could have been painful,
Had it gone all wrong
O but it was worth it
Now she’s illegally blonde

Whether legally or illegally is of little consequence
For in both one must promise to forego all sense
Yes, for that is an attribute all blondes must do without
For then they’d have no reason to sing and prance about

And throw those pointless tantrums, theatrics perhaps
That in turn, result in rather costly mishaps.

It is of miniscule importance that they once had a marvellous brain
Once blonde my dearest sweetheart, you must flush it down the drain

Tis’ a prerequisite, for them to be exquisite
The dye has been cast, tis’ time to have a blast

Swing your partner from door to door
Out of the picture he may go,
Into the limelight you shall appear
And with a hanky wipe that tear.

A damsel’s heart, feign doth appear
Worn away by wear and tear
Its give and take with everyone
That is I suppose, how the tale is spun.

That last line didn’t make much sense,
But only to those under false pretence
For they have vowed never to understand
They sit there expressionless, hand on hand.

But how men’s heart, leap at their very sight
Without those locks, we’d get a fright
But a toast to all those, aspiring to be blonde
Waiting shall be us blokes, well built and strong

Hear my words, consider them no less that an urgent SOS
Become blonde at the earliest, beautify that knotty mess…

My words are a tribute, dedicated only to the blonde
Therefore not for me, but for them please applaud.