My immediate family thinks I'm careless and forgetful and boring.
The truth is that I can't relate to them more often than not. And that
I'm actually just lazy- forgetfulness is always a convenient excuse.
God created you
I,
Us,
From clay
Tell me then,
If I ever (lost within the confines of the thought that I shall lose
you as surely as I love you)
Traced your picture
(with my blackened finger
And unadultered tears)
In the grey dust of urban decay...
... Would you feel my caress?
The weather outside was sweltering, and the shade of the entrance was welcome respite. They asked the mustachioed man at the entrance for his office and were asked to sit down in a simply furnished- but clean room, relaxing in the artificial breeze of the twin ceiling fans gracing the ceiling.
After about 12 minutes, at almost exactly the time that they were supposed to arrive (This man had a widely renowned reputation for punctuality- and they knew they were much more likely to be in business if they followed his example) Mustache came to escort them to his office. He led them down a hallway in the administration block of his tidy business empire.
Many different tales were told of this man. Some said that he had splintered away from his khandaan and contemptuously gone his own way. Others say he had been forced into the position. Still others said everything in between. But none of that really mattered. This was his domain, and one thing everyone did agree on was that he had earned it. Brick by brick.
The door to his office was of dark hardwood, carved into a fascinating yet minimalist symphony of curves and edges running in lanes that twined and intertwined tickling the eye and the mind. They both looked at each other and took deep breaths. It was now or never.
Mustache opened the door and they walked into a well lit and spacious office sleek with black leather furniture and dark wood accentuated with polished steel. The air smelled lightly of coffee, musk, leather, and power.
He sat upright in his chair, alert and in control, wearing a slate grey shirt over pitch black pants with his hair gelled back letting the intensity of his eyes dominate. He asked them to settle down in a surprisingly understated and polite voice. Folding his hands over the gleaming wood of his sprawling desk and giving them an attentive half-smile he listened to their proposal.
* * *
One of the men was into his fifties- almost twice the age of the individual they were making their sales pitch to, but his voice carried slight tremors that normally weren’t there, and the palms of his hands were slightly moist. He knew his gimmicks wouldn’t work here, and that he would have to be uncharacteristically honest. The man they were here to see could pick out lies from a man’s voice like he could ascertain the perfect gestures and tone of voice needed for any situation- effortlessly.
He started to make his pitch.
* * *
He was focused and direct- a killing bullet in flight shot by the most skilled of snipers. He always got the head shot. He wasn’t much of a talker by nature, but he made sure that whenever he talked, he was heard.
He often smiled to himself with how strangely he had amalgamated into his surroundings. In a place of ostentation and extravagance, he had made his mark with a certain understated opulence, of being comfortable with his wealth. He had replaced the loud outraged threats more indigenous to the area with soft but firmly succinct facts stated in a steely cool voice. He was all about cool precision and strategic dominance. His warfare wasn’t about flooding the opposition with greater numbers and better armaments- his was David felling Goliath with a single pebble through the eye. He never had to raise his voice.
So he listened patiently and silently to the two veteran salesmen in his office. They were intimidated, and they had every right to be. They were in uncharted territory after all- and their territory was one that he had long learned how to deal with on his own terms.
* * *
He watched the salesmen walk into the CEO’s room and grinned slightly, smoothing his mustache with his fingers. The boss had a way of dealing with people that defied the status quo. Age especially- a weapon older individuals often tried using on him, proved to be ineffectual in front of his polite but matter-of-fact manner.
But here was the interesting thing- despite always being in control, always dominating, the boss had a way of making the situation one in which everyone left with a smile on their faces. It occurred to mustache that the Boss was almost always referred to reverently and respectfully- although occasionally with deepest scorn by those who had tried to play the power game with him. All in all, he was respected by many, and hated intensely by few. And he played by his own rules.
Mustache smiled as he sat down behind his desk. The salesmen would get fair deals, but ones that were in favour of the Boss. He knew how to deal with them in their territory. On his own terms.
Not my best of writings but hey- i tried :P (I'm not really a prose kinda guy)
Memories of the past
Seem to sneak up on me
With the subtlety
Of the very first raindrop
To hit your eye
before it rains
And with all the gravity
Of lightening flashing
Flickering
On a pitch black night
Putting for miliseconds
Into sharp relief
All the dreams I dreamed
The crash of thunder
Is like an audience applauding
A specifially excellent scene
In a tragic, comic, cynical
play
If you're all up there doing what I think you are doing...
You dig your graves deep. You dig them deep indeed.
It is time.
So I finally have a designation: Asst. Manager of QA.
The workers generally consider Urdu speakers and educated people to be
flawed mummy daddy idiots with no practical skills.
My extended family would like nothing more than the oppurtunity to go
apeshit on me in front of my father with him being powerless to say
anything.
Oh, and I'm still grossly underpaid.
They do not know who they are dealing with.
The more you push, the more I bounce. The more you criticize, the more
I learn. The weaker you want to think I am, the stronger I shall become.
Its my time to shine.
Pizza and pizza loaf.
100% homemade. Stuffed with ground chicken, black olives, mushrooms,
onions, and bell peppers.
You know you love me. >:-)
Dear Elven One,
I'm looking through photographs of your shaadi. I can still understand
why I fell for you the way I did.
You look beautiful. Radiant. And happy.
Mashallah.
Take the best of care.
-Someone who doesnt really matter anymore.
What if I fed you
Warm sticky syrupy soft
Sheeray walay gulab jamun
On a chilly night in early spring?
What if I looked into your eyes
Reflecting the stars like
They contained constellations
within their own depths?
What if I saw a drop
Of amber syrup trail lazily
down the side of your lips?
(its difficult to eat tidily when you're smiling)
What if I told you
(the corner of my mouth twitching
with ill-concealed mischief)
That we're out of tissues
And kissed you clean instead?
Color me red
Color me blue
Color me however
The fuck you want to
Color my flesh
Color my bone
Color all the callouses etched
In this fortress that I've grown
Color my heartstrings
Color my mindlings
Color my twisted tendon taute
They are your bindings
Color my tongue
Color my eyes
Color in with merciless strokes
Eveything that you despise
Color my love
Color my lust
Color each hiddensecret crevice
So that I only me trust
Color my pride
Color my spine
Color me slowly getting up
Its my Time to shine
Color my waist
Color my height
Color every scratch and bruise
I'm ready to fight
Color my fire
Color my flame
Try and color in your every desire
You'll have only you to blame.
You may think you have me off balance, overwhelmed. But all your prods
and pokes are only stokes.
I am the flame.
It's really really frustrating. I have nothing to my credit. I am beingt forced to play the waiting game. I've been waiting for too long.
letmeshine
letmeout
letmego
patience
patience
patience.
Ali is 23 years old. He is an MBA from a halfway decent university. He also has quality management and project management certifications. He's rather well spoken, not too bad looking, and actually fairly smart.
The business his family owns is a rather prosperous one. It's doing well despite the economic situation. It's even profitable despite loadshedding.
Ali was working in a marketing research company a few years ago. Things went rather well. he was working part time (Four hours a day- including lunch break) making 10k a month, and was offered a managerial permanent position. Back then, Ali was in the middle of his BBA degree. He only had A-Levels as a qualification back then.
So he imagines that it is quite reasonable to be rather despondent that now, being 23, well qualified, and generally quite competent, his extended family offers him 10k as salary for this month. After 3 months of deliberating and not paying him at all.
Yay.
They drifted to each other. They drifted and joined like two pieces of forgotten driftwood in the middle of an ocean so tranquil that your mind makes up subtle baritones of menace just to fill in the silence. Infinite lapping waves caress one another in harmony as if each one is a musician plucking notes out of nothing more than the air around them, living and dying so quickly, and yet despite that being in such perfect harmony that they meld together like the cells on your body so flawlessly that they become a singular being. Therefore, there were actually only three entities in existence- the both of them, and the sea. This meeting, this joining had thus been inevitable from the start.
There is no destiny, no fate. There is no road, no destination. There is only desire.
They held on. They held on like the last two leaves on a formerly lush oak when the fist breathes of winter has started to blow and all of their serene green has been vanquished by the oncoming onslaught of passionate reds and oranges and weeping crimsons. They clung on with hope ever decreasing, by the half of its half of its half of its half. But you see- therein lays the beauty of halves- the half of even the most miniscule of something, is still something. So they held on, like the last two monks of a nearly-extinct order lost and possessed by the imaged of their own fading grandeur.
Of all emotions, hope is perhaps the most beautiful, and even within the myriad variations of hope itself, there is nothing as exquisitely divine than hope despite obviously overwhelming odds. There is a strange sort of poetry in hoping against hope- in continuing the battle despite everything being lost, in being the captain that goes down with the ship. All that matters in that moment is the battle itself, all that exists is the incessant throbbing in your veins.
Sometimes you fight to win. Sometimes you fight to avoid losing. In either case- all that matters is the fight.
The fell apart, but not into two- instead they came down like the tails of two meteorites like incandescent space dust that is divine yet still dust all the same. They fell, both of them, like two beautiful glasses crashing on a crystalline marble mosaic. All was shining yet all was broken, and who could tell which piece belonged to whom? In that seemingly random design of shattered glass upon unforgiving stone, a strange beauty was beheld. In the crash that signified their embrace, poetry was born.
There is no destruction, no breaking, no flaws. There is only beauty and perception. Thus every look is precious.
Why are you so afraid of silence, silence is the root of everything. If you spiral into its void,a hundred voices will thunder messages you long to hear.
-Rumi
Silence. Is that when naught is heard, or when naught is said? In either case, the messages I long to hear will be as music to the deaf, or articulation to the mute. Silence, is the root of all, yes, but do not all roots aspire to create blossoms?
Plan #1:
Kidnap midgets and sell them on ebay.
Plan #2:
Offer cyber gigolo services on Second Life.
Plan #3:
Invent productivity enhancing hardware- the first of which is a toilet
that mechanically extracts shit from factory workers hence decreasing
the time they spend shitting. Cannot be used on factory owners because
they're full of shit to the extent that their internal mass consists
almost exclusively of shit, therefore removing their shit would
involve removing all their innards.
Plan #4:
Engineer bollywood style rescue of the zardari daughters (from thugs I
arrange myself) and reap the rewards.
More coming soon.
I wrote something really nice down on a piece of paper. One of my very
few prosaic writes.
I lost the paper. :-(
