dear chicken,

i learned a salutary lesson from u that day… well, that was really more than 2 months ago now… actually the same happened twice, but it was only the second time around that i woke up and realised what i ought to hv seen… still, better later than never…

the first time around, i sent u an urgent message… u told me before to call u if i felt faint and needed help… so i did… the vertigo was coming at me fierce those days, probably becos of all the stress i was going thru at the hands of ur beloved skank… i had a fainting attack while i was trying to clean the airconditioner ledge in my bedroom, and i fell from the ladder… no it was not high, but i did hurt my knees… i cld not get up and i panicked, so i messaged u… but u were too busy fucking ur skank to bother… u just brushed me off, like a mosquito buzzing in ur ear… her dog’s ass was far more important to u…

the second time around, that was when i finally woke up from my somnambulistic naivety… i had overdosed from a half-hearted suicide attempt… tramadol… of course, us privileged few who suffer from lifelong debilitating illnesses always hv a ready store of drugs, dont we?… and i was emailing u… i told u… but all u did was tell me go rest…

what did i learn?… i learned that that was ur measure of friendship – that that was all i was worth to u…

a simple lesson most others wld never take this long to learn… but i m not most others… i m naive and clueless but i love with dogged persistence and give from an ocean store of selflessness… the MOST lethal combination, far more lethal than any drug, is this cocktail of pathetic innocence, dogged persistence and foolish generosity…

i learned tt i m worthy of my own love and care… i learned tt i shd never put myself in such foolish vulnerable situations again… i learned tt i can and shall walk this journey on my own…

thank u… for ur chicken droppings of revelation…

On a more trivial note, I suppose, I have to plug a few things. I haven’t posted on new albums and things in awhile, so I’ll take a few lines to spread the word on some notable releases.

First of all, if you’re a Drive By Truckers fan (and if you aren’t you should be), it’s a pretty good time to be one. Patterson Hood, co-founder and one of the lead singers/guitarists for DBT released his second solo album two weeks ago, “Murdering Oscar (and other love songs)” and CNN is already calling it the best record of the year so far. It’s a great album, backed by a full band on most tracks (unlike the at home solo recordings of Hood’s last non DBT outing). All are great sounding fully formed songs that are lyrical character studies of a wide range of humanity. Great music with good lyrics. Pick this one up the old-fashioned way (you know, at a record store), because the packaging is nice and the liner notes are very insightful. The record should hold you off until July’s CD/DVD combo release of DBT’s “Austin City Limits” live show and the upcoming fall release of a DBT B-sides, rarities and outtakes compilation

Also noteworthy recent music albums are the great power pop rock songs from French rockers Phoenix’ third album, “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.” Also, for seriously bouncy perfect pop music check out “Manners” by the band “Passion Pit,” a throwback to 80s synth pop that remains sounding fresh. And, Morrissey’s latest album “Years of Refusal” may very well be the best and most cohesive work he’s put out since leaving the Smiths almost two decades ago.

In other mediums, if you are even a casual comic or graphic novel fan and you aren’t reading writer Jason Aaron and artist R.M. Guera’s excellent “Scalped” series from Vertigo/DC, you are sorely missing out. It’s available in 4 collected volumes (Indian Country, Casino Boogie, Dead Mothers, Gravel in Your Guts) and new single issues come out every month. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever read, a completely new and wholly American noir tale. The only thing giving “Scalped” a run for it’s money on intensity, depth and originality is the relatively new “Unknown Soldier,” another Vertigo title by writer Joshua Dysart and artist Alberto Ponticelli. “Soldier” is a thoroughly researched and eerily visceral take on Uganda and Congo political, war and civilian issues complete with child soldiers, violent civil wars and the re-imagining of the old DC character, the soldier clothed in full bandages. It’s available monthly, the first collected trade is scheduled to come out on September 1st, so mark your calendar and earmark your ten bucks because it’s more than worth it.

Last of all, with movies like “Star Trek,” “Wolverine,” “Angels and Demons,” “The Hangover” and “Transformers 2” raking in dough hand over fist, (good as some of them may be) it’s evident that the months of big, dumb, summer movies are upon us as the critical darlings are held back for the fall and winter. These big flicks are usually fun popcorn fare (Wolverine and Hangover were, I can’t speak for the others I haven’t yet seen them), but if you’re an indie, old-school horror or ‘80s underground film fan don’t forget to show director Sam Raimi a little love for “Drag Me to Hell,” his messy grand return to B horror schlock. I’m catching it this weekend hopefully, we owe him a bit of support for the “Evil Dead” films (even if he did drop the ball on a few aspects of the Spider Man films when he went big budget).

That’s all for now.

Note: The text ahead may make no sense whatsoever and tht’s pretty ironic since it’s all about logic….so if you’ll read ahead with a mind to understand something then think again

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Was listening to a team mate of mine as he explained how the different musical instruments were mixed after recording using that signal mixing console. I asked him about adjusting the ‘bass’ and ‘treble’ levels and that what in God’s name were those two knobs for.

He launched in on a summarized explanation of how the low, deep notes like that of drums are controlled by playing with the ‘bass’ while high pitched, shrill sounds sometimes like that of guitars are smoothed over by the ‘treble’…As he carried on about how the inputs should just match the range set for any of these or other options…my mind flicked through the graphs and figures in  Digital Signal Processing and the responses of various filters that we studied in them.

I smiled in spite of myself coz i had always loved those subjects that made logical sense   I remember i was in eternal awe of ‘Digital Logic Design’. A friend and I were making ‘4-way traffic signal’ for our DLD project and for the life of me i couldn’t understand how to convert the zeroes and ones into blinking , working lights…..until the journey from deciding logical states to truth tables, then equations and k-maps gave us our circuit…amazing!! the natural highs could be so damn exhilerating!.. The world of digital electronics has always mesmerized me because at the base of it lies the simple concept of presence or absence of a signal, very precisely timed. There is that software to hardware interfacing along with the tiny wonder machines called microprocessors and Digital signal processors that could do something as simple from sending a signal to an LED to acting as a complex speech transaltor… but at the base of these all lies the logic which tells when to or when not to send a signal.

In mathematics it’s a zero or one, in Computing a bit and in physical world a mere switch that turns on or off according to the defined patterns and that brings me to the wonder of having just the ‘right’ pattern…the proper sequence can regulate something as ordinary as accounting, tagging and shelfing of books to something as complex as booting of a pc…so at the apex of it or at the root of it all lies the sequence in which one command follows another.

I’m so keyed up now that i can’t even put together a decent and literarily respectable sentence to express my admiration for the magic, the tricks that logic and numbers are capable of…. I dont know if there is even a central idea to this post…it’s just a random set of words to pay my ode to virtual world of bits and frequencies that are making the companies run, control engineering the milk that goes into tetra packs, refreshing your monitor every fraction of a millisecond and ofcourse teaching u to be v careful and sure coz small mistakes in this environment mean big troubles in our world!!

The reason I gave up on Accounting and Economics was that I just could not stand the thought of measuring the worth of everything for its monetary value. Calcualting the goodwill and efficiency of an employee and adding it to the company’s gross income filled me with disgust for all the subjects of finance…..but lets not be too hasty to judge my point of view….for, a thought process a few days back had somewaht smudged my sharp opinions.

Money has never been a thing of prime importance to me and wanting to be in possession of new toys, gadgets or accessories never been my habit…yet this can easily be owed to the fact that I always get the things of basic necessity and continual luxury unasked for. My Baba and Amma have made sure that there is nothng left in life that their children could say “Ah i Wish…” for and to that end sooner or later all sorts of things have been provided to us. It is said that you can seldom know the importance of anything unless you have experienced the absence or loss of it…so Alhamdulillah not having experienced those deep pangs of craving for the material things, i have always thoughts the people who are running after cellphones, old, cars, ipods or what nots as….well silly. I thought they did not know that to be happy you just need to have around you the right people at the right time and a lot of creativity.

But few days ago, with this crash in the value of Rupee i had a revelation on me…what if the dollars account really did freeze and people who have their paychecks coming in the foreign currency could not get their month’s worth of dough to buy their bread and butter?? ….. A person who earns and i mean earns faithfully…collects each penny almost literally at the expense of a drop of perspiration of his/her brow. So what if a month’s salary should be held back?…

What if a fan bought by a peddlar’s collected tens and fivers suddenly breaks down?

What if an old, old beggar finds enough strength to buy himself a rs 25 bun kebab and he falls somewhere and loses his sole source of sustenance down a drain??

What if? and these what ifs can ruin the peace of your mind but alas they keep you conscience and common sense alive. It is this thought of losing the things that are vital in life to be able to live respectably or simply…just live that makes ‘money’ such a holy obsession…because it’s money that buys…and though it can not buy happiness it can atleast buy us the articles that may induce that feeling.

I still don’t find it in me to give money that apex for being the propeller behind a smooth life but i do respect it’s stature and am scared of it’s power….It’s is no man’s friend.

So whenever i am allowed to exercise my right to choose the little comforts of life i ponder, assess and analyze the resources and then apply it to the fullest …because today i can tomorrow i may not….Yet i try never to make them my means to survive….they are because of me, i am not because of them!!

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Thought of the Day by Me

Things of temporary and fluctuating values can never be held on to…and i believe human can always adapt so let’s hold on to something timeless and eternal….like faith and love!!

Over to take a break from the long and monotonous task of creating the IRIS user manual I open up DINA (Dawn’s Internet News edition ) just to scan the headlines…(I do so forcefully since I am no newspaper buff) as I quickly browse the small extracts of the main news, Noori’s “Muhjya Roko” plays in my ears… All I see in the newspaper is the news about terrorism, political chaos, verdicts of jirgas, accusations and meetings of the diplomats and beaurucrats ….I feel an urge to write out what ought to b said truthfully and bluntly…try and stop me

 Needless to say I end up being frustrated why it says that a decision in some  tribal area gave away two under age daughters of a man in marriage to over aged men to settle a ‘Karo Kari’ issue…I mean what sick minded, pervert lunatics settle the issues of Izzat by punishing young , innocent beings who probably do not even know what the word ‘marriage’ means! If some relative of the kids did something wrong then what justice is it to take out the wrath on another channel..no wonder the human justice is badly tainted and marred withour petty prejudices and limited understanding.!

 ”Mjhy Roko” shifts over to “I want to live like an animal” by Savage Garden and I feel myself wanting to spit out all that is shooting worms in my mind….

 It’s sad to know that Afghanistan is accusing Pakland for attacks on it’s embassy and then again we weren’t very loyal to our brothers when we gave our basis to Uncle Sam to attack them….what can we say. Then we have the series of blasts and the political leaders putting up a nerve wrecking comedy up there … savage Garden stops soothing my mind and Linkin Park jusm in with “Numb”…ah what timely songs my play list contains now doesn’t it???

 And aaargh the diplomacy of other nations in pretending that they care about us or we for them and would like each other to come out of miseries is so fake that if we believe that then I am sure you can also believe that I am the queen of England (with all due respect).  I don’t want my rationalization to be checked by the warped state of affairs although I am not sure if I am any more rational then the people out there and they definitely have an advantage of being driven and active too….Bon Jovi starts crying “It’s my life” in my head”  and I chuckle…sometimes somethings just fit…fine…from chaos emerges order…and then again how will the news paper become sensational if all this sad and unfortunate, heart wrenching events don’t occur…nopse it’s not a warfare of nukes or anything that drastic at all…it’s simply the game of screwing up the mind peace and psyche of the masses…Nickelback starts crooning “If everyone cared’ and I decide to get back to work now….Hope still keeps burning like that famous John Elton’s song’s phrase says…

Like candle in the wind!

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God does not play dice

So if events are not a probability of mere chance then there has to be a pre defined pattern for them…..an architecure, a flow, an outline designed for them……

Now THIS pattern is what i try to understand….interseting turns and interesting choices…yet there is just one way you’ll eventually go because others are just too impossible to follow….but what if u decide to be crazy for just one moment and jump……..

a jump that seems as random as the casting of dice…..and yet…….you know…God does not play dice!!!

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Pic from www.deviantart.com

By Brian Wood (writer), Riccardo Burchielli, Nathan Fox, Viktor Kalvachev, Kristian Donaldson (art), Jeremy Cox (colors)

To sum things up, Friendly Fire is Brian Wood’s version of Rashomon. We have a horrific event taking place where hundreds of silent protestors in the DMZ are killed in a bloody massacre by US forces. And while it’s hard to tell who instigated the hostilities, there’s no way to deny the loss of life. It’s a PR nightmare for the United States, who intends to hold a tribunal against the soldiers caught in this mess. Because of his experience within the DMZ, Matty is tapped to investigate and report his own separate findings.

Most of this book follows Matty as he interviews a handful of soldiers, survivors, and even top brass regarding the events of the now infamous “Day 204″. With so many contradictory reports, it’s hard for him to draw his own conclusions. Eventually, he realizes that there’s no real winner to this outcome. The people within the DMZ want their own version of justice. If the soldiers involved are put to death, does it really quench the thirst for justice? Will it really change the outcome?

The questions (and answers) posed by Brian Wood are ones to be pondered. Reflecting many current events happening in the middle east, it’s hard not to distinguish the parallels this story draws. As much as I hate using the “social commentary” term, that’s exactly what this book is about, and it does it so well. The scary thing is, if continued down our current economic path, it’s very easy to see this country falling into the same trappings of the country portrayed in this book. Do yourself a favor and pick this trade up. It’s not the best DMZ story, but it’s one of the most profound. (Grade: A-)

- J. Montes

I was wondering if the beating of a heart really does signify that a person is alive…I have seen too many people with their hearts going beat…beat…beat and yet their eyes so dead and vacant…..smiles so empty….no spirit and want of happiness in them….

What good is a human with no ’self’ ….I would hate to turn into a zombie….I hope none of you out there are one of these too…..God bless!

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Note: Pic from Deviantart.com ..

No, I know it’s not Winter and infact it’s not even in the air anymore….if anything, Winter has passed away with a chill and a wave….Even so I am hibernating….no! No! I haven’t shifted to Australia either …btw does Australia has bears????….I know the cute, cuddlyKoalas are there, though I’m not sure about their being cuddlesome…I’ve only seen Koalas on NatGeo and animal sticker sheets.

 So anyway I have totally digressed from what I originally wanted to say…I wanted to say that I have been and may even continue to be ‘hibernating‘ for a while….You know how they say if there is a problem then ’sleep on it!’ I’m literally trying to do that ….. and Ya besides lethargy being my lifelong friend I have , like other people, stuck the same bumper sticker on me: “Sorry I am very busy now a days”….(Whatever!!*!$)…

This last Saturday our company arranged for us to attend a Time Management session by one Dr. Hanif Mohammad….despite it being a Saturday a working day, the session went quite well, thanks to Samra, Preeyaa, Basit and Nida….and even myself for our continual quips and remarks throughout….However Dr. Hanfi said that if you are unable to complete your tasks within a given time frame then you must be slacking somewhere and that you should take each task as an ugly frog which you have to eat.

He said: “Suppose you have to eat a very big, extremely Ugly frog everyday….When would you eat it?”

Almost all of us agreed that it would be early in the morning…Bingo!! that was his point anyway….Our tasks are our toads and we must try to do away with them as soon as first ray of sun manages to fight itself into your eye…Oh man! wouldn’t Fear Factor guys would have simply loved this? One thing…infact two things which rung a bell somewhere in the remote depths of my mind (where there is certainly not a vacuum…or else I wouldn’t have heard the chiming) Two things were:

1. 
    Brainstorm hard and think, what is that one thing that is most important in your life and that you want to achieve……Squeeze out atleast 30 mins each day to work on towards that goal!!
2. Take out five to fifteen minutes each day in the morning and ‘prioritize‘ your tasks…needless to say start with the tasks that would fall in the category of ‘Urgent&Important’, synonymous with ‘Critical’…this way tasks that are left wouldn’t be that important anyway…..

Dr. Hanif also told us and we calculated on that, that each of us atleast waste an hour of our office working hour which when divided by out monthly salary and then multiplied by number of weeks in a year…gave the company a loss of atleast xxxmillion Rupees, God! that’s huge….which reminds me I should get on with the web setup of Iris (our company’s internet banking and much more ,utility)…I dropped by here while the Oracle10g Client is installing itself with me occasionaly clicking an option here and there..besides with me having the advantage of coming in early today

So anyways, what I really wanted to say was that, that I might be hibernating for some time and then again maybe not but even so, if this DayBreak seems to be taking a little longer than usual kindly do not think that I got lost in the dark somewhere…I’m BUSY

 …..

 ………

in trying to find the land of the rising sun (metaphorically speaking ) 

Warning: Quite a dark and a dreary piece of text ahead  

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The reality of life is simply ‘uncertainty’….one moment you are there and the other gone, vanished….turned to a mere cargo packed in a coffin being transported in the luggage compartment of a plane. The last two years have been portraying this ‘age of Aquarius’ concept to me. Blasts, fires, buildings falling down, suicide attacks, sudden deaths, deaths from drug overdose and what not…. Death is inevitable and try as we might we cannot deny it, but seeing the clutches of mortality tightening so blatantly makes living all the more surreal.

During my junior year at university, a sophomore guy got killed by his own gun in the class…. I had not known the guy, but my brother did and many other people did too….for them he was a live, walking, talking human and for me merely a name…yet his death intermittently haunts me especially now when I think that this would have been his final semester and that his parents would have proudly told everyone that their son was going to be a ‘Telecom Engineer’….I got to be one, but he never did. Another guy died when a football hit him hard on his heart during a friendly game and yet another senior of ours died of a brain tumor. And he was an only son, that too of elderly parents. 8 people were incinerated in the horrifying Berger Paints factory inferno few days ago and an Airforce plane crashed in the GIKI campus killing the pilot, co-pilot and a gardener tending to the little plants carefree of all the cares in the world. Heath Ledger, one of my very much admired, actor died of a drug overdose…

I remember how mesmerized I was by the movie “Final Destination”….Being alone, I had watched it in rapt attention forgetting the assignment I had been working on. It’s been like 4 or 5 years since I watched it but after that it often comes to how thin a border exists between breathing and getting a straight line on the cardiogram…….Last year I had gotten addicted to this song by ‘Junoon’ and I had listened to it almost in a recursive loop, it said:

“matti main mil jayen gay

Bhoolo na, bhoolo na

Geet hain jo teri meri saanson main

Khwab hain jo teri meri ankhon main

Saray mitti main mil jayen gay

Bhoolo na …bhoolo na…..”

And yet we wonder why the smell of the wet earth attracts us so. The other day my friends pointed out a building burnt to black soot during the 27^th December riots and upon looking at it I had instinctively said “Wow!”…it really wasn’t a piece of art  but come to think of it, what a stark combination the brilliant raging fire is to the black and grey it leaves behind. Some place which  pulsates with the mirth of bustling activity is turned into ashes…becoming history in a matter of  little time….such is the ‘uncertainty’ of the coming moment….unless we break away from the ties of gravity and mass and see the future itself..

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According to the essay that I had read about the “age of Aquarius” during my high school years…this era in itself marked the penetration of anxiety, dissatisfaction …..’Uncertainity’..since it was being ruled by the water

…Water, the magical element is fluid, never stops, doesn’t know its own shape, it flows wherever it finds an opening….and we are caught in between the troughs and crests of its waves….highs and lows…yet always being swept away from one point by the flow….

Finishes the strange year of 2007 also marking the finish of our trip and a very timely end too. We’ve almost depleted all our resources going crazy with all the shopping that we have done… 

The dim lights in my Chacha Jii’s lounge and the slightly cold weather has made me want to ramble on about my trip so here goes 

• I  hail theVisa Debit card….it’s been a lot of fun taking out Dirhams from the Arabic ATMs.  
•  I  have finally bought the PS2 for us three siblings and this has totally depleted my SCB account but why it does feel grand to be able to play the Oldest sister sometimes
• I’m now looking for suggestions for cool strategy games to play on it in the likes of CSI etc
• Al Ain makes me feel as if I’m living in a fantasy town, one that you see in the Tom and Jerry cartoons
• Mubazzira and Jabl-e-Hafeeth, the green and rocky picnic spot is my favorite place over here. Last year we climbed an easy hill but this time our heroics went a step forward as we hiked on a steeper and a dash more slippery slope.
• Though every other person here drives a Land Cruiser, I still like a sporty Charger, Merc or a Porsche better.
• I wish I could have gone on a desert Safari too but God willing I’ll do that some other time
• We are wondering on our mode of transport to home from Karachi airport tomorrow…I wish the Taxis have started running again…otherwise I’m thinking how many days more will it be before we’ll finally be able to reach our door step by foot!
• I shall miss having to sleep in the fairy tale like room with ceiling to floor French windows and through whichi could see the moon travelling as night turned into day
• One thing which impressed me about Al Ain and which I didn’t notice last year is the way the natives always dress in their indegenuous clothes…and despite the ladies being covered entirely in the black abayas they have too much grace and poise…pretty impressive.
• I observed to my Chacha Jii that how unfortunate it is that these filthy rich Arabs may never know how much fun it is to eat a plate of ‘chaat’ or a dirty ‘bun kabab’ sitting by the road side
• Being in a foreign land makes you crazy enough to buy a stupid thing for 15 AEDs just because it’s simply of 15 bucks even though it is 16.50 x 15 in your own currency.
• It’s good to be going back to your home, it makes you appreciate the little things in life…for example you remember to thank God that He has made you fortunate enough to be able to go so many places and learn so many things.
• Dear Allah Mian jii please make this coming year a blessing for our country, our people, and everyone around…and help us through these times darkness and despair…. Aameen
• So before I set to fly home ward….Fee Amaan Allah to ye all and have a satisfying New Year!

There is only one thing wrong with being logical……you have a rational answer for every situation and though you may want to dwell in self pity or sweet dreams sometimes your calculated responses will not let you.

 Now that could be a big bummer sometimes …..

……but oh well it makes life so much less crazier than otherwise it would be!

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p.s. Hina I don’t know who else could understand what I wrote but I know you are the other person who can totally idenitfy with this….so this one’s for you

Aye Jazba- e- dil gar main chahun

Har cheez muqabil aa jayay

Manzil kay liyay do gaam chalun

Aur samanay manzil aa jayay…

I love this ghazal and I often hum it to myself to help myself out of the blues or inspire myself into action. You try , you do but you may fall and your morale crumbles but if you really, really want to do something, all you need is to WANT to do it.

It’s amazing how when you want to get something real badly all the obstacles pop up from somewhere and there is a road block at every corner BUT if you flinch and give up, you lose out on lot of things because there actually is a solution to everything and once you work up enough courage to get the solution no matter what, you’ll see that all the traps simply vanish. Just like once you find the magic button all the doors to reach the next stage open up.

Abb kyun dhoondun who nazr-e-karam

Honay day sitam bala-e-sitam

Main chahta hun aye jazba-e-gham

Mushkil pas-e-mushkil aa jayay

One of my favorite stanzas from the ghazal, makes me realize that it’s the iron will which will make BIG problems appear small. In this battlefield of life, it is only you, yourself who has to fight against all odds, somewhat like this song “Boulevard of Broken dreams”by Green Day says:    

I walk alone……I walk alone 

 My shadow is the only one that walks besides

 And I  walk alone…I walk alone

         Albeit your loved ones are beside you as your comrades but what YOU are here to do is only for you to do otherwise what’s the use of us even being here? And this is another of those points about this Ghazal which make me like it even more….destiny, the reason to be here. There has to be a destiny which we strive for but I wonder how do we know where it is? What is it? How do we know it is the juice of our whole life, our aspirations, our goals? Maybe there really is no one destiny, there are several and everytime you reach at one, you rest a while, soar….and then move on. Else what’ll you do if you reached the ultimate….I guess it is all about knowing what you want and then to go for it, haha now this is,how should I put it, like the dead Professor’s holograph in I Robot(nice movie, this )  says: “That…. is the correct question.”

…I’m sort of addicted to this song by Linkin’ Park:

I wanna heal, I wanna feel

What I got was never real

I wanna let go of the pain I felt so long

I wanna heal, I wanna feel

Like I’m close to something real

I wanna find something I’ve wanted all along

Somewhere I belong…

……………………..

Yes you and I need to find somewhere we belong!

 I could say a score on the disturbed political system of my country and bad ethical conditions and how we are so dead and morbid as a nation but frankly I’m too tired of same old wives’ tale, of too much talk and too little action…also when I know that it is a well understood truth but not necessarily the entire one. Maybe I’ve entered the twilight zone where nothing registers anymore…but the half sun is always shining….that’s me…the strangest pessimistic optimist ever….

Well 10 years down the lane and with perfect periodicity we are on the route to the martial law again (I wish I could search the graph of the martial laws in Pakland but I’m too lazy to do that right now). Democracy, dictatorship, are simply words found in the D section of a dictionary. Right now all I care about is the peace within my land. I fear for the economy, the crash that may ensue. I’m afraid of strikes and rallies and suicide bombers and I most certainly detest the concept of our own brave young men fighting and killing our own brave, young men.

Too early to say anything…the doves are straining to fly south, the eagles have spread their wings and their sharp sight is looking for prey….but most satisfied of all, are the vultures smugly perched atop trees and waiting for the first drop of blood to ooze…

“I shall rise….rise…..rise…” 

Echoed the thoughts in young Rashid Minhas’s head as he stood looking at the sky surrounded by a dense population of towering evergreens. Few months later he crashed his Miraj onto the grounds of Karachi simply because he refused to cross the border after being hijacked by his instructor.

 “Maa, main nay khuwab main apnay aangan main aik bohat baray chand ko chamaktay huay dekha…” 

Said Major Aziz Bhatti to his mother one frosty night as his mother adoringly took his face in her hands and listened to him. Almost a month later the war of 1965 broke out and this brave soldier kept his front guarded from the opposition for the whole length of a week until a firearm hit him in the chest as he ran out of cover to judge the enemy position. 

“ Sir ap khan tou kha lain..” gently prodded the captain’s steward onboard submarine Ghazi, the captain replied in negative saying that once the mission is completed he will….

 Unfortunately the captain and his crew incinerated within the submarine just minutes after laying mines under the waters around Bangladesh, as a mine, miscalculated for direction and water current came and hit Ghazi…..making the brave men within “Ghazi Shaheed” of the war of 1971. 

 M.M.Alam swooped through the skies of Pakistan, taking down a record of enemy planes down during war of 1965 and returned home, a satisfied soldier. Major General Sher along with his battalion kept the enemy at bay during the Kargil war and was martyred during the feat.

 A young soldier was martyred somewhere in India during the ’65 war, in front of an Indian Sikh soldier….that Pakistani soldier’s whereabouts were never  known…..The Sikh soldier, who was afterall a human at heart searched high and low for 40 years to trace the family of that young soldier and tell them about their son, husband and father.

 The ambulance drivers valiantly drove into the roaring of guns and arms to pick up the wounded and take them to hospital, while doctors stayed on red alert as the 12^th May rampage continued 

 Many men die, many live with the horror of war within themselves forever but none regret what they did because they did it for others…..and no life is gone to waste if it is lived to give…

  This is a tribute to all those men who have the courage to move on in the carnage, and care not what becomes of them, just of what they ought to do…..And these men  are not just soldiers though I quoted only about them but they are any one who is ready to face the bullet in order to save one who is behind him….and these men are not just within the borders…they are everywhere, across the world. 

We all hope to walk the line, only few have the mettle to do so….. and as some poet rightfully says:

             “…Muhabbat mjhy un jawannon say hai….sitaron parr jo daaltay hain kamand!”

Over the years I have come to appreciate the importance of being recognized….being recognized for who you truly are. This means that you are not just being defined by the labels that are initially stuck to you but are being understood for the real being inside. Needless to say this is not an easily achieved luxury, for I would like to call it a luxury since it gives you a strange sense of liberation. Luxury and liberation, the two nouns which might be exchangeable in the context, portray that when you are being liked or even disliked for the inner person you are, then you no longer have to don on those masks of pretence. Shakespeare says, and I am not quoting exactly that this world’s a stage and we are all playing parts. So naturally if once in a while you could simply kick back and relax and just be yourself, like in with your friends then there is no bigger luxury than letting off your guard and be at ease….ah the liberty!

Recognition comes from many things, from your way of communication, the way you carry yourself, the way you eat, sleep, drink, whatever but you know as they say: “ you are not what YOU think you are but what you THINK, you ARE!” and this thinking is reflected to the world through your art of expression.  Having the ability to express yourself is a wonderful blessing of God, for it enables others to have a sneak peek into our souls, given others have that ‘red’ eye to analyze and infer. This point might be debate able, for more often than not we prefer to be veiled inside our cocoons, hidden beneath the layers and layers of makeup to hide what’s vulnerable and easily hurt but what we all want in all actuality is someone who understands. You, I, we all want a mentor, a guide, a savior who will help us out of our own woven webs of confusion and the raging storms of questions…so we make efforts to express our thoughts through the skills that we have….slightly smudged, slightly dubbed, but our thoughts and emotions nonetheless!

Expression of thoughts, is an art; writing, poetry, acting, dancing, music, scientific inspiration, sports……the tones in these, happiness, comedy, harshness, aggression, passion, melancholy, pacified, slow, fast, bright, dull all these define what’s cooking inside your brain. And when someone goes beyond the obvious show and into the implied meaning of, say a piece of prose, a portion of poetry,  the speedy whirling  of a ballet dancer, the abstract  splash of colors on a canvas, it’s then that the other side of the picture starts to get clearer. It is then that who you are, what you are starts to come into being because unless you are not able to truly be yourself, you are not really existing at all like…Sean Paul, Pearce Bronsan or Daniel Craig are no macho, savvy high tech private eye, they are no James Bond…they are different people altogether, all playing the same role at one point or another …sadly though THIS became their identity and they live as ghosts in the shadows of this projected image. You don’t want to play just another part, you want to be yourself and your power of expression gives you that luxury and liberty to be recognized as such. So this is what it all wraps up to, there is a great importance in our lives of being recognized…being recognized for we truly are….

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Abraham Lincoln said: “if I were two faced, would I be wearing this one?”…. I think am I wearing the right one? May we have the courage and opportunity to be who we really ARE!