Making ones peace

Sometimes I wonder if God furtively looks down upon the human race and sheepishly marvels at man’s helplessness in certain occasions. I have been compelled to speak my mind as the noises within are too loud and I can’t pin point where they emanate from. Last week I met somebody for the first time, a distant family member and it filled me with immense gratification when he mentioned that he was ninety years old. That is the beauty of existence; you see someone as was with this person, old, healthy, wrinkled but with the funny bone intact and you tell the person ‘good show man’. The very next day on a very hectic work day I get a SMS, stating that a work colleague whose father had passed away a week ago had lost his three year old son to some medicines backfiring. This person had only rushed to Isloo last week for the burial and another calamity had befallen him. I know this person well enough to know that he is a very amiable person and very well liked. The information overload within a space of 24 hrs was too much for me to digest. Here I was, only yesterday night, celebrating the resilience of the human spirit with this old guy still living it up and the next day my soaring spirit gets its wing tips burnt and reality sets in. My first reaction was to call up this colleague and offer consolation. But then the reality hit me that man made words are weak building blocks to build a dam against the emotional tidal wave inside one. The realisations hit me harder that I can only reflect and that I can not feel his pain or share it with him. I messaged him expressing my deep condolences but my words seemed amorphous and cold. The fact that soon thereafter I went back to the vagaries of work life and that I had chicken biryani for lunch made me feel this extreme guilt of sorts then as time rolled over me. Maybe emotions too have a shelf life.

Sehri Histrionics

Sehri is a kaleidoscope of moods in our house. I sit close to Abba on the dining table and with half closed eyes it is very difficult to manage hand to mouth coordination leave alone taking the early morning small talk to a higher level. I admit here I am a very sound sleeper; to substantiate that I have under my belt an achievement where as a child my folks had to break open the main door as I refused to wake up amidst countless door thumping, bell ringing. My Abba struggles to wake me up every morning and just when he thinks I have regained consciousness. Ha little does he know I am still drunk on sleep and within minutes pass out. What follows is a duet where my mom and dad shout from the dining table to dig the pathway into my auditory tubes and reach my brain. The only recollection I have when I wake up is the threatening call from me mom when she says ‘ Theek hai naheen uth rahey hu naa, bhunkey piyaasey roza rakhna’ ; just want to detract a little here. For time immemorial our parents use negative stimuli to coax children; naheen? ‘yeh naa keru bhudda baba aa jayee gaaa’ or ‘yeh naa khaao pait mein dard hu jayee gaa’. But you have to give it to my folks, it does work. The first thing I lookup is the time and put in some dirty math to see if I am not being woken up early, considering I take 10 minutes to gobble down food and five minutes for brushing and wazu.
My parents are sweet; with both me and my younger bro working we get less time as a family to sit together and chit chat. But you’d empathize with me, early morning one can not be too cheery and indulge in the ramblings of work. I can hardly hear my dad and the text most often than not is reproduced by my mom if it is addressed to me. Three sentences which always make me smile every year and have always been part of Abba’s sehri regime since ever is ‘juldee juldee khaaao, time kum hai’; ‘khooob saaraa paaanee piyu’ and ‘haddi chour du aur chicken lai lu’ :D

PAF Museum - Elevated Spirits

"My existence, with all that I have revealed and hidden concerning it, appears to me like an atom in the sigh of a small child, a moment that trembles in a void stretching from Creation to Eternity." (Kahlil Jibran)
Unkempt, bearded, smelly, weird are the first impressions I picked of a certain Sohail; one of the main volunteers’ spearheading earth quake relief work at the PAF museum. Little did I know that over the course of next few days he will leave an indelible mark on my personality. I have always been a great fan of the human spirit especially the resilience aspect of it. The initial few days at the PAF museum witnessed fanaticism and blind faith to just assist people in putting relief goods aboard planes and trucks. We were the same people who lined up cars in long queues waiting for their turn to park cars without any audible traces of honks in the air. Men, women, children being shoved and jostled; all in good spirit and the amazing temperament people showed at times made me feel like a foreigner amongst them. I tell you forget about whining about missing out on the lunar eclipse that occurred once a century if you are the sardonic sort and if there was ever a chance of feeling good about being a Pakistani this was it!
Back to Mr. Sohail. Entrepreneurs I have noticed live a life of whims and generally are decisively opinioned about what they feel about issues surrounding them. There less self-conscious and bring a certain child like exuberance to their every day work. Mr. Sohail is a small furniture manufacturer in Liaqatabad, in his mid thirties and has put all his business at a standstill owing to his participation in the relief efforts. What makes his effort grander is this is the peak time where he procures his wood from abroad before the wedding season kicks in and he chose to put in this time here at the PAF museum 24/7. Eyes are windows to the soul and Sohail’s eyes were deep pensive ones that could draw holes through you when he spoke passionately about living for today. I could not help think about a training session I attended few weeks ago where the trainer spoke of radiating positive energy and here there was this guy who did not know any other way.
It is always good to meet such people who can elevate you to a greater level of understanding of existence and break shackles of the ordinary lives we live where one day is no different from the other.
"It was but yesterday I thought myself a fragment quivering without rhythm in the sphere of life.
Now I know that I am the sphere, and all life in rhythmic fragments moves within me." (Kahlil Jibran)

Multan - Travelogue

Scene 1, Act 1, 7:40PM: With two of my colleagues i just obtained my boarding pass for Multan and find ourselves comfortably seated in the lounge waiting for our flight which still has an hour to it. The lounge seems fairly crowded and infront of us a middle aged well dressed man is fast asleep on three seats with his small bag nestling close to his feet. Announcement " Passengers to Lahore boarding PIA flight PK319 are requested to board the aircraft from gate number 14". The annoucment brought about little vigour in the stationary lounge residents as i figured most boarding the 8:00PM flight must have made their way to the plane.
Steps in a middle aged lady dressed in PIA uniform trying to wake the sleeping beauty from his slumber. Her concern was that he might be oblivious to the fact that he would be missing his flight. The poor lady fighting her inhibitions to the hilt was trying to poke the guy with a roll of paper fearful of touching him. I thought of helping her, went to the guy and nudged at him; no movement. I am not kidding i jolted him, shook him yet he was sound asleep. A casual inquiry behind me made me realise i had a sizeable crowd behind me now. In walks an important PIA official who fiddles with the sleeping man's upper pocket and reads his name. To his dismay his name matches the name of the one passenger yet to board the flight and has withheld the flight so far. Suddenly i realise the sleeping man's breathing was shallow i ask the PIA officials to get a doctor around, maybe he is unconscious, maybe he suffered a heart attack etc. Casually they called for a doctor; i grabbed a nearby cup to get some water and returned to find no doctor around as yet and splashed drops of water on his face. Slowly the guy opened his blood shot eyes and took his bag and moved towards the departing gate cutting through layers of onlookers.
I felt terrible after the episode. Have we in general become so callous and cold? Does a human life constitute nothing for the citizens of Karachi who find regular killings, deaths etc every day to not fancy their interest any more? To westerners in their reality shows saving animals from high rises etc..are they mocking us? I guess the way God created us our values, things that surprise us etc have a tendency to dilute when exposed to the same things too often. People die once but their values erode over a life time.

Lahore - Travelogue

How many amongst us can have it in them to break all inhibitions and initiate a 'no threads attached' conversation with a total stranger? Many of us look forward to sitting opposite a cute stranger on a flight and talking to him/her is synonymous to a all conquering feeling. Its only half as fun for somebody who likes to believe their an extrovert and picking a random conversation does not mean you get to rehearse the first few lines. I do not give the aforementioned folks an ounce of credit because courage is not the absence of fear, rather courage is having fear yet doing it.
A work colleague and another close friend were sititng with me at a lunch table in my hotel in Lahore. We were discussing modalities pertaining to how Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) can be big in the public service sector companies such as KESC, local townships etc. The call centres here could provide job opportunities to thousands and customer complainst could be tracked and monitored at a federal level in Islamabad. Suddenly this guy sitting alone at a distant table shouts 'you guys from the call center industry as well?'...Our first reaction was silence and second close was who is he asking. I explained to him we're just having our random morbid conversations. It turned out he was an American born Indian consultant and two minutes of distant shouting we exchanged our interests, if we were single, where the economy was going etc. As he left there weren't any afterthoughts regarding the BPO discussion but what lingered within us was do we have it in us to tie a stranger in a thread of conversation without any motives. Maybe its an individual personality trait, a function of our upbringing etc or maybe it is a cultural thing for us where we delve alot in privacy infringement thoughts.

People in mental bins

Proverbially speaking we all have a RELATIONOMETER, very akin to the conventional mercury thermometer. Although I’d like to assume family and blood ties are not applicable for usage on the relationometer because our emotions associated with family are innate and not acquired. We all unconsciously dip people in the relationometer every now and then and delve in the findings.
The calibrations on the relationometer start off with passive acquaintances. Facets of anyone being a passive acquaintance is occasional handshakes, not recalling their names making it embarrassing for you especially when you have to reciprocate adding them in your cell phone address book. Mind you many of them I am sure are amazing people but it is unfortunate one party or the other never gets time to get to know the other because maybe fate destined that way or maybe it was an individuals’ choice.
The mercury rises for someone who is an active acquaintance. Needless to say one recalls their names and their usually good lunch out colleagues whose claim to fame is their ability to align everyone on the corporate gossip, sleazy jokes and are generally deemed laughter companions.
Further up the gauge you have friends. I guess anyone whose life inherently we track would find the mercury inching up to the friends’ index on the relationometer. Individuals here in most likelihood would be people we have known growing up, academic days especially school. One keeps abreast on their movements in academics, career, marriage etc. The other day I met a host of people from my A-levels and it is amazing even though I rarely talked to them it was fabulous to think of them as friends albeit so much had changed; the now reflected the hoarse voice, receding hair lines, shrinking arteries yet expanded wallets and highly decorative pretty wives. I guess it has to do with the knowledge that it is these same people who form the two pillars of the bridge connecting the past and the present.
Bosom friends on the relationometer I feel are not even friends in a proverbial way. Their people you know who exist as beautiful celestial bodies in the higher scheme of things orbiting around you and have this amazing gravitational pull in your life. A pull so taut and profound, rendering it impossible to encapsulate their existence in a word, that would reflect how their presence affects us. Their movement on the relationometer starts from the ebb and every graduation comes around as a result of investment required of every relationship. The investment comes in terms of developing mutual trust, coming good in trying times, connecting etc. These are people you pluck out in your walks in the garden of life at various stages of growing up. Anything in your life is bound to affect there’s and feelings and emotions cease to remain an individual phenomenon and become shared miracles. Once anyone reaches the bosom friend mark, the mercury levels for them is an act of permanence; you get warped in your life, talk to them after ages and you realize time surely can be bent and squeezed with no implication of the quality of relationship going down.

Palate Obsession

We as a nation have a palate obsession. They say if you want to form an opinion of a nation, observe how they behave on the roads. I want to better that and say if you want to form an opinion about a nation observe how they dig into their food. People never cease to amaze me, but generally speaking we as Pakistanis behave most interestingly when we’re having food publicly. I’d start off with my work example. We have a decent cafeteria which serves lunch daily. The catering is outsourced so we can not complain much about the usually drenched mobil diesel oil qourmas but Allah kaa shuker hai we get to evade the Karachi heat. Days when we have biryani a regular comment that comes my way is ‘Arey dieting ker rahey hu..itnaa thoraa leyaa hai’ and I’m like ‘I can get my sorry ass there again and get a second helping’. The chicken piece aka BOUTEE nestles pretty on top of the rice mountain and the serious business of bringing it down begins. It is hilarious, today this colleague sitting down pondered for two seconds staring at his plate wondering where to begin from, rotated his plate a touch and found the perfect angle.
My job is a hybrid of a white color and a blue color job. I tell you I have traveled extensively across Pakistan and if you thought cricket alone sans cultures and backgrounds you were wrong. Food unites us like no force known to man and with all the demographic disparity, our eating habits generally speaking are the same. I sometimes have to eat alongside the trade, staff reporting in to me etc and I give them this, the fact that there unfortunately less educated then we are nonetheless the eating fiasco gets more interesting here. The other day I saw one of my supervisors break a substantial chunk of the roti and then fold it thrice. Yeah thrice, try doing that with paper if you’re low on imagination :D. Anyways this was’nt a rare phenomenon, the block sized piece of roti then is made to scoop the curry. Here is the catch; kids do not try this at home. One has to have a good hand to mouth coordination to swiftly lift the roti mound and release it in the mouth, lest you drip the gravy all over you. Then the ‘roti gola’ joy ride begins in the mouth, its going stay there for a while doing iterative rounds of the molars and the canines. If imagining it is a tough ask you might want to make your life simpler by conjuring an image of a cow chewing its cud.
I still recall as a child, what my younger brother and I enjoyed most whenever a family shaadee kaa video was being watched anywhere. It was the footage where they show people having food. We use to do lip synching for people thinking out aloud while they enjoyed free food. Fishing for the right ‘boutee’ oblivious to prying eyes behind your back at the serving table, is a brave thing to do. The most interesting people are the ones who get their food and make sure they stand close to the action area for fear of the food getting cold during the walk from their seating area to the serving area. Nonetheless I can not take spite at any of the aforementioned as most weddings I go to is solely for the promise of good free food.

Visual Silence

The spinning top for as long, as I recall has held my marvel. Right from the inception where the thread releases the top, breathing in it the kinetic energy it needs as its life line. The poetic concentric movements appease the eye, which is designed in a way to appreciate symmetry with few variations for the brain to process. Behold the onlookers smile as it starts fading with the first signs of the top movement slowing and life oozing out of it, before it finally blends in beautifully with the visual silence.
My life off-lately is akin to the spinning top. Work consumes me completely and I spin on an axis with a focal point being my work. My movements are so fluid and no amount of friction such as my domestic commitments, sports, social life or things that excite me seem to slow down the swirling me. The worst is that I can’t detach myself from my scenery and have a quiet conversation with myself and find out about the life within. A good nights’ sleep is a major redeeming factor as days blend into nights and vice versa. Suddenly you start thinking of buzz corporate clichés, ‘burn out’, ‘work life balance’ and start empathizing with your old man who worked hard all his life and scavenged for words like ‘I know, I understand’ at home but rarely found them. From the corporations’ perspective the scene is a pretty one as I spin, fueled by my deliverables, empowerment and company goals. Spinning, analogous to movement is a relative phenomenon and you realize people around you, your friends etc seem freer as their orbital movement has slack that allows them to contact you every now and then and ask to meet up to unwind. Unwind I will, the top is slowing down already and the reality around me seems augmented with tell-take signs of introspection breaking in.