The Word of mAn[S]o0r

certain things are happening which take me away from blogging quite a bit.

so till the return, here’s me saying..”smile a little bit everyday, it makes the drudgery a little bit easier to bear”

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Image via Wikipedia

The weekend past was an interesting one. It gave me something i’ve craved for quite sometime now, infact craved since i’ve moved to Islamabad. An intellectual discourse on absolutely nothing! Its amazing how just talking about nothing can relieve a lot of stresses. Also, i got to take in a play by Ajoka called Hotel Mohenjodaro.

Written in 1968, set in the early twentieth century, the story revolves around Pakistan being one of the first nations to land a person on the moon. This is followed by celebrations and jubilation, till a mullah in a remote tribal village decries the whole episode as unislamic, and starts a movement to overthrow government and setup an Islamic state. This eventually leads to civil war, and all hell breaks loose, until we are invaded by another country.

In other words, what happened in Afghanistan. What was chilling about the whole story was just how real it was to what is happening today in FATA and Afghanistan, where Islamic states run by clerics who cant see eye to eye and end up mistrusting first foreigners and then each other eventually ruin the lives of their people. Quite eye opening.

The end of the play was a tourist on a camel travelling along the desert where the guide excitedly
tells them that this is the site where the hotel mohenjodaro stood in its heyday, before moving on to other things. The director then came up on stage and what he said really resonated well with me. He told us that if we didn’t like the ending, then we still have a chance to change it and make sure it doesn’t happen.

The next event i went to was a reading, organized by the Desi Writers Lounge. This is where i got to talk about nothings. The event had four items, (one by yours truly), which were read by the respective authors and then critiqued by the group. Among the questions were why did we write it, what did we mean by it and why did we choose the words we did. It was quite intense and the feedback we got (or atleast i got) made me realize there are quite a few other ways of looking at pieces and that effective writing, specially story writing, must be successful in creating the same image in the readers mind, as in the writers mind. Specific imagery was discussed, such as the use of a particular brand of cigarette and what it says about the character and the likeness of wisps of clouds to the strands of hair dangling over the forehead. I must say, i learned a lot more about writing from this one session than any class or book i’ve ever read.

Islamabad is slowly waking up, and slowly i am finding the world being represented within it.

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I’ve realized, over the course of the last two years, that i am a social guy.

(yes, UD, i agree with you now)

So, in the spirit of letting me be me, i’ve finally decided to get a bit more social around here. Islamabad has, much to my astonishment, quite a vibrant arts and cultural scene going on. With everyday news of a gallery exhibition, a theater play or a get together reaching me via the news papers or online resources.

This weekend, i’ve jam packed myself with activities, from seeing a play, to going to a meeting, and to attending a reading… its all there! Yayy! plus, i might also be going hiking! that’s definitely something to look forward to!

Watch out Islamabad! Mansoor is back on the scene!

Also, i realized that this new *social* me came exactly one year after my last resolve to be more social. When i disclosed this fact to my mother, the one thing she had to say (God bless her!) was “well, atleast the last time was fun and exciting! It will be this time around as well!” how’s that for maternal support!!

Now i just have to go and write something to read at the reading….

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Every time i open up this page to write something, i get side tracked…

call it writers block or lack of enthusiasm, but its been quite sometime since i wrote anything anywhere and its getting to me now. the thing is, i want to write, and i’ve got these huge ideas in my head and want to put them down on paper, but every time i try, i get side tracked!

so this post is essentially a try to get out of that slump!

thank you all of you for your comments on my previous post… there are, however, some clarifications i’d like to present.

1) it wasn’t the first breakup i’ve had.
2) it wasn’t the worst breakup i’ve had either
3) it wasn’t the fact that we split which is getting to me

what really was getting to me was the fact that in breaking up the engagement, i had put my parents through an emotional roller coaster, especially my father, who uptil the point of receiving the call, wasn’t even aware anything was happening. till that moment, all he probably thought that he was lucky to get such a good daughter-in-law… the look on his face when i went home that evening… THAT is what bugged me.

sid said that make sure you have no unresolved feelings and no unanswered questions… sid, everything is unresolved at this point, because communication was broken up entirely and i didn’t get anything said to me by anyone from their side. that, in itself, is something which is getting to me.

i’ve had a variety of breakups in the past, and even though each new one isn’t any less painful, it is actually easier to deal with them now. the only thing which gets to me is the point i mentioned above, making my parents go through it.

what else…..

oh yea, we had another bomb blast this morning. the windows of my office shook and i was a little shocked, upon investigation, i saw a cloud of smoke rising up from a distance… funny thing is, the moment the brain registered it was a blast, life went back to being normal. i looked around, some people looked at the smoke pillar, then went about their own business, some shopped, some parked, while others smoked and laughed. even i returned to mundane tasks and barely gave any thought to it till my father called to inquire about my whereabouts.

such is life… it really does not stop for anyone.

p.s. iiiiimmmm bbbbaaaaaaacccccckkkkkk!!! (well, almost!)

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Through the fingers of my hand have eons passed,
I spend my nights thinking of my love,
have angels passed, and even djinns slipped through,
And all my days dreaming of her too

I read this on a Bank Alfalah Calendar i received recently. The calendar is an ode to Saadeqain, one of the great artists of our country, and this verse comes alongside one of his paintings intended to bring the piece to life.

Even though i dont think about it too much, there are times when that feeling overwhelms me and threatens even my sanity. The quick, clean nature of the transaction did not help, if anything, it helped reinforce my reasons for staying away from commitments.

I hope that someday, i’ll get an answer from her… to whether being right and not giving in on one crucial subject was worth it.

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Day before yesterday, while watching an episode of House (i love that show!) a scene between wilson and his latest girl, amber, caused me to have an epiphany.

the dialogs exchanged were something of the following, after a major decision of purchasing a mattress, amber wanted the hard one while wilson wanted the soft one and just as they were coming to decision amber had to leave and told wilson to get whatever one he wanted. later that night, while ‘test driving’ their new mattress…

amber: “you got the one i wanted”

wilson: “yes, i did”

amber: “why?”

wilson: “what do you mean?”

amber: “i told you to get which ever one you wanted, i meant which ever one you wanted, not get what i wanted”

wilson: “so? i like doing this for you, i love you”

amber: “no, this is what you did with your previous wives, you keep on doing things for them and the resentment keeps building up inside you, till you end up in a divorce! i’ll be damned if this happened to me too”

and just like that i realized why so many of my relationships ended on the same note… i, like wilson, kept doing everything for the other person and around the other person, literally loosing myself in them. i kept building up this expectation in them that everything i would do would be for them without question. until i burst from having an unfulfilled expectation within me that they would do something for me… which is where the resentment would start to build up…

and after days, months or even years of resentment… the feelings of love and tenderness would turn cold and replaced with something very close to hatred…

… who said watching TV shows wasn’t therapeutic!

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… you discuss the emotional dependence of addicts with a 13 year old, and think that you are actually having an intelligent conversation!? especially when the poor girl is just looking blankly at you and nodding because its impolite to tell you that you are a jerk

So april has ended and that too on a very hectic note!

I had two trainings this month, one in Lahore and one in Islamabad. The good thing is, both of them happened successfully and we managed to scrape up enough participants to not go in the red! Even though lahore had three times the people we did here in isloo!

What that left me with, however, was exhaustion! The likes of which i have never felt before! By the time the training in lahore was over, i was feeling like someone had tied a 10 ton anvil to my ankles and forcing me to move around. On top of that, i had to catch a daewoo back home, and 4 hours of sitting awkwardly wasn’t much fun either.

To add insult to injury, or rather more injury to insult, I had bought new shoes for the Lahore course! which, being what new shoes are, left me with blisters! (I HATE NEW SHOES!!!). On both my feet, i’ve now got these big, liquid oozing bubbles which i keep on bursting and draining and which miraculously, keep on fixing themselves and re-inflating!

The next training was one day later, and this time, i didn’t wear the new shoes, but rather my trusty old ones. By the end of it, i knew i was way past being tired and exhausted and was now running on pure adrenaline.
So much so that on the drive back home, i almost crashed into the car in front of me (a cultus i believe) nearly 4 times! (he noticed and suffice it to say, gave me a really cold look when we parted ways)

Once home, i was looking forward to some shuteye as the parents were going out to dinner. After chatting with dad for sometime, i was about to pick up my things and head upstairs… when the hostess for the evening called and informed my father that the invitation was now “with family” and to please bring their son (the now adrenaline running poor old me) as well! Normally, i would’ve said no and gone to sleep, but this particular party was being held at….wait for it…. PIR SOHAWA! more specifically at the new Monal restaurant there! Now i knew there was no way i was going to pass up an opportunity to a) go to pir sohawa, since i hadn’t yet been up there.. and b) free food!!! so i picked myself up, changed and got in the car!

And that is where i had the discussion with the 13 year old, who just happened to be the daughter of our hostess!

And it was worth every word of it! till next time… cheers!

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When you think about it, stress is just a fiction of your imagination. Unless you specifically focus on something, it cant really get to you…

Only, the human body doesn’t see it that way. The subconscious has a very funny way of manifesting things which are brewing just under the surface, and when it bubbles over, it comes to the surface with such intensity that you are left wondering what the hell just happened.

I’ve developed a capability, or at least i think its a capability, to filter out certain thoughts, events and actions happening around me, a technique I call selective amnesia. It was based on the principle that if i don’t focus on it, it cant affect me. Over the years, I’ve been  using it and advocating this technique to all and sundry as a very good method of living life. To quote a character, emma, from one of my new favourite tv show hotel babylon, ‘you’re making me unhappy charlie, and im a happy person’ just before she broke up with him, one shouldn’t let anyone or anything, much less any thought, to make them unhappy.

The principle is sound, and it serves me quite well in most cases.

Then there are some cases where it just breaks down… where the subconscious, bubbling with repressed feelings, finally tips over the limit and gushes out in a tepid mess of emotions. Suddenly, you see murphy’s law coming true all around you, that ‘anything which can go wrong, will go wrong and in the worst possible way’ and you look for scape goats, you look for someone to place the blame on and you search for that sliver of hope to keep your sanity intact.

It can’t be you, you rationalize. After all, you weren’t even thinking about it… and that nothing has happened in the last couple of weeks, months or even years which would justify things going wrong for you! but if you aren’t careful, this very rationalization consumes you… to such a degree that you are lost within the world of make believe that selective amnesia gave rise to.

You don’t see the forest for the tree’s…

You don’t see the underlying causes…

You just lash out and whoever’s near or dear…

And you start twirling helplessly in the vicious cycle that your life has just become…

.

.

.

until you forget about it and move on, because you’ve mastered the technique of selective amensia.

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not really sure how much of this post applies here, but im going to post it anyway. i read a very interesting quote on this comment thread which goes something like this

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not using it in a fruit salad.

so very true, for those who would understand its implications!

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this is taking longer than i thought………

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