"How can you expect a man who's warm to understand a man who's cold?" - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
How can you expect a man who has love to understand the barrenness of life; a body without a soul. A purpose without passion. To wake up each morning with depleting hope. When "living life" becomes an irony. Would a man who was not as marooned be able to understand and be an impartial judge and jury?
A trial must be fair and it would not be so in his case. He had considered revealing himself and bringing an end to all the madness that ensued.
But would that be fair?
No.
Should the future be held hostage by the past?
Maybe.
Was he in prison?
In a way he was. And he had been all his life. He thought that with an act of madness might break free from his confines.
So let the world go on by embroiled in love and its half-brother, hate. He was not part of that world and consequently beyond the jurisdiction of its laws of love and hate.
His actions were driven by madness derived from love but not love. And certainly not by hate. Sylvester had acquitted himself.
And so he asks and wonders:
" Where do we go from here?
How will I reconcile to a lifetime without you?
My mind is fogged. If there were one thing that I could forsake, would it be love?
- its joys and its eternal pain.
This deciet-amour has cost me more than my breath; I will never smile again."
The city still burned. He could smell that fiery serpent; hate. Hate slithered through the cluttered streets of the city, making its way into citizens' dwellings through crack, window, pipe, gutter and door. Leaving behind a bitter trail of venom, fatality and revenge. It spared no one. The poison was spreading, the pupils dillating and the tempratures were rising in the middle of the coldest winter. Life and its ironys; associated with living and death.
Sylvester had his eyes closed but he could see everything through his pulse as it beat faster than a dragonfly's wings. It only slowed down when he heard a faint knock on his door...
Sunday, October 02, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
The answer of sensitive souls to an insensitive society (2003)
In a dark corner of a tiny room lies Amjad on the bare floor. Only a beam of moonlight illuminates the room, or whatever is left of it. The walls are falling apart, piece-by-piece, brick by brick, just like the Mughal regime in India. The water pipes are leaking, revealing the perpetual cracks in the ceiling. The door is hardly a barrier, being held up by a series of cobwebs indicating it's seldom use and lack of visitors in Amjad's life.
Except, perhaps, for one man called Rungoo, who would visit him every fortnight to replenish Amjad's supply of heroine. He was oblivious to his surroundings and the state he was living in or maybe the state that he was dieing in. He was oblivious because his mind was not in his head, in fact it was not even in the room.
It was amazing that how even a pinch of white powder could take him far away, further than America. He would bend over a scrap of foil, light a match, and then using a half-cut straw suck in sharply as the white dust disappeared. And then he would sit back and relax and watch the world float by. A single word spoken would sound like a faint echo. He would feel no pain. He would feel no feelings. He would continue this activity for another year.
Many fortnights later Amjad sits and stares at the door patched up by cobwebs. He is waiting for Rungoo's next visit, who is now his only acquaintance, his only friend. At least the drug dealer was honest in his dealings.
Amjad closes his eyes and opens his mind to go back, years back to the time when he had many friends and none of them were drug dealers. None of them were honest either. Amjad could still remember them discussing what they would do when they all would grow up: Run a business, cure patients, provide justice and much more. Taking and getting addicted to drugs was not one of them.
Amjad is not living the life he had dreamed of in his childhood. Things have not turned out the way he had planned them. This was not the life he had hoped and worked for. He had felt weak when he was betrayed by the insensitive society. Now he enervates even more with the very air he breathes, every particle that he inhales, every white particle that is. He had hoped for opulence in his schooldays but now he was facing the worst of indigence.
Amjad had completed his education when his father and mother both were alive. He had been a top student all his life. Coming from humble origins, Amjad had worked night and day to change his stars, to make the wheel of fortune spin his way. And he had been well on his way had it not been for the rules of society. Rules that make the world go round and rules that made the wheel of fortune spin away from Amjad over the horizon never to be seen again, not even in his dreams.
Amjad realized that being hardworking, holding a respectable degree and possessing an enviable Curriculum Vitae were not the means that would enable him to change his stars, that could take him to America. There were other things, other more important means. Means like powerful and influential relatives, social status, the weight of your wallet and the list could go on and on...
Degrees that were bought were considered to be more authentic than degrees that had bene rightfully earned because anybody could work hard but not everybody could pay hard cash. He could have handled all that. What he could not bear was the fact that nobody in Lahore would want to work under a talented Christian. Amjad Jacob was another vitim of discrimination, he was just another 'choora' of the society.
Amjad's parents were dreaming of grandchildren when he had graduated. They saw neither job nor wife as these blessings were not to be a part of Amjad's fate. He loved life when he had started; all races and all creeds. Now he was a mindless misanthrope. Hating the very sound created by human feet, except maybe the sound created by Rungoo's oversized, hairy and blistered feet.
Amjad's parents could not bear to see the dejected state of their son's life. 'Junior choora' his father would say to himself, remembering the hard times he had to face. At least he had achieved surviving in the society. They both passed away after seeing their son perpetually having all doors closed to him.
Amjad's battered ship of life had lost the only buoys in its vicinity and it hit the iceberg when Amjad met Rungoo. Amjad started sinking and now he has lost everything to heroine.
Rungoo is late again as Amjad waits in his dilapidated apartment located in the red-light district of Lahore. The apartment is an accurate description of Amjad's life. It is a work of art, the potential is there but it is left to rot; he is left to rot. "He should be here any second with some heroine" Amjad calms himself. Some heroine for Junior choora.
Life had lost meaning for him just like it does for a suicide bomber. Amjad had thought about that, his face next to the picture of an injured building. But that was just one of the many thoughts that came to him as he entered his utopia while staring through the thick white smoke.
There are many addicts in Lahore. Amjad is just one of them, his is just one story. Like him there are many. There are many sensitive souls in this insensitive society.
Except, perhaps, for one man called Rungoo, who would visit him every fortnight to replenish Amjad's supply of heroine. He was oblivious to his surroundings and the state he was living in or maybe the state that he was dieing in. He was oblivious because his mind was not in his head, in fact it was not even in the room.
It was amazing that how even a pinch of white powder could take him far away, further than America. He would bend over a scrap of foil, light a match, and then using a half-cut straw suck in sharply as the white dust disappeared. And then he would sit back and relax and watch the world float by. A single word spoken would sound like a faint echo. He would feel no pain. He would feel no feelings. He would continue this activity for another year.
Many fortnights later Amjad sits and stares at the door patched up by cobwebs. He is waiting for Rungoo's next visit, who is now his only acquaintance, his only friend. At least the drug dealer was honest in his dealings.
Amjad closes his eyes and opens his mind to go back, years back to the time when he had many friends and none of them were drug dealers. None of them were honest either. Amjad could still remember them discussing what they would do when they all would grow up: Run a business, cure patients, provide justice and much more. Taking and getting addicted to drugs was not one of them.
Amjad is not living the life he had dreamed of in his childhood. Things have not turned out the way he had planned them. This was not the life he had hoped and worked for. He had felt weak when he was betrayed by the insensitive society. Now he enervates even more with the very air he breathes, every particle that he inhales, every white particle that is. He had hoped for opulence in his schooldays but now he was facing the worst of indigence.
Amjad had completed his education when his father and mother both were alive. He had been a top student all his life. Coming from humble origins, Amjad had worked night and day to change his stars, to make the wheel of fortune spin his way. And he had been well on his way had it not been for the rules of society. Rules that make the world go round and rules that made the wheel of fortune spin away from Amjad over the horizon never to be seen again, not even in his dreams.
Amjad realized that being hardworking, holding a respectable degree and possessing an enviable Curriculum Vitae were not the means that would enable him to change his stars, that could take him to America. There were other things, other more important means. Means like powerful and influential relatives, social status, the weight of your wallet and the list could go on and on...
Degrees that were bought were considered to be more authentic than degrees that had bene rightfully earned because anybody could work hard but not everybody could pay hard cash. He could have handled all that. What he could not bear was the fact that nobody in Lahore would want to work under a talented Christian. Amjad Jacob was another vitim of discrimination, he was just another 'choora' of the society.
Amjad's parents were dreaming of grandchildren when he had graduated. They saw neither job nor wife as these blessings were not to be a part of Amjad's fate. He loved life when he had started; all races and all creeds. Now he was a mindless misanthrope. Hating the very sound created by human feet, except maybe the sound created by Rungoo's oversized, hairy and blistered feet.
Amjad's parents could not bear to see the dejected state of their son's life. 'Junior choora' his father would say to himself, remembering the hard times he had to face. At least he had achieved surviving in the society. They both passed away after seeing their son perpetually having all doors closed to him.
Amjad's battered ship of life had lost the only buoys in its vicinity and it hit the iceberg when Amjad met Rungoo. Amjad started sinking and now he has lost everything to heroine.
Rungoo is late again as Amjad waits in his dilapidated apartment located in the red-light district of Lahore. The apartment is an accurate description of Amjad's life. It is a work of art, the potential is there but it is left to rot; he is left to rot. "He should be here any second with some heroine" Amjad calms himself. Some heroine for Junior choora.
Life had lost meaning for him just like it does for a suicide bomber. Amjad had thought about that, his face next to the picture of an injured building. But that was just one of the many thoughts that came to him as he entered his utopia while staring through the thick white smoke.
There are many addicts in Lahore. Amjad is just one of them, his is just one story. Like him there are many. There are many sensitive souls in this insensitive society.