The sky suddenly crashed on me. With the sound and the sting of a thousand shattered glasses, the sky pounced on me. The clouds, had finally decided to deglaze. All the while I was writing my test, the grey outside the window, was swelling with an inviting wrath, like a charged latina ballerina, heaving her bosom before a dance. I was impatient to get out. I knew it’d never really get out of all this, but I wanted to get out. I knew, I wouldn’t come out alive of all this. All this song heaving inside, camouflaged by a steady frown and inhospitable looks. The corridors are all carpeted with an absent storm. Winds are hanging low on the leaves. The leaves are hanging low on hopes. Hopes, are well, buried, deep inside this vacant storm.

I come out. The university behind me. A golden brown, towering name, it seems so small from this opposite side. I am shuffling with my bag. I am trying to flaunt it in form. I look pregnant. If I do, then I’d probably be expecting Godard,Barthes and Yimou.

And then, it happens.

The sky spills out. Angels are angry at their bar, and they crash glasses on my head. It comes down, like short spears, and bruises me with wetness, before I can even extract my umbrella from my womb. A curtain erupts all around me. I am suddenly cocooned in rain. I see hazes and blurring outlines of people, as they dart by. Some gather next to me. We are all waiting for things to take us back, where we came from. Not a single cab is person less.

Everyone is suddenly privileged enough.

As I am ruing over my fate, and the rain, and my jeans getting wet, and water spoiling my face and hair, and my wrists getting jammy, and my ankles getting clayed, I feel someone beside me. He also rushed out of the university. Has also been hit by the sudden rain-attack, but unlike me, he doesn’t have armour. He is getting drenched to the bone, but I wonder why he doesn’t retreat to the sheltered pavement behind us. I am not sure, what is he waiting for? As I entreat an arriving cab, my eyes rest on him for a moment. I realize he has been looking at me, all this while. He does not look away. He has a certain question lurking in his eyes. I look away. He is disappointed. The rain is getting thicker. My umbrella is big enough for binaries. But then, there is a sheltered pavement too, behind us.

A girl, appears next to me. We look at each other. She smiles, embarrassed, wet and dripping. I offer her place under my umbrella. Soon an empty cab arrives. I depart leaving two people behind me, getting wet, in the rain.

But it is him I feel strange about.Why did I hesitate? I could have easily offered him my umbrella too. He was beseeching me. Why did he not take shelter? Why did he look disappointed? Why can’t someone be kind to someone of an opposite sex without the risk of undertones? Why can’t somethings just be, without allegories of confusion?. I couldn’t share my shelter with him. And we talk of sharing countries? Of lives? I should have been randomnly kind enough to help him. He should have been courageous enough to ask me. He watched me go by. He wasn’t angry. He was sad that I left. He was…I do not know…how did he know, I wouldn’t.

It was raining.
I was under shade...
but we both got wet.  

One evening when the lights went out

The electricity snapped, one odd evening, last week. It being cold and comfortable, and silent, who was I to complain? Face first, on my bed, and a fancy light over my head, because gizmos will never let us be at a Sifr with nature.I snuggled into a recently acquired Rumi gem…a very fat volume of rare Rumi (Hazrat Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi R.A) discourses…no sound, no light, no laptop, just the cold, a blanket, me and my Rumi. 

    Such phenomenons can only be explained by perhaps what one feels after a deep, deep sleep. When you have to wake up just to prove you aren't dead.  For me, however, it's ‘during’ not after, such a sleep-event. Rare, considering, how seldom I get to a good deep sleep, these days. Growing up! But when I do, I feel myself in slumber. Rare? I don’t know. But amazing, yes! I can hear myself breathing, and its a heavy, contented feeling…it’s like snuggling with a hundred million clouds…its pure bliss…its like watching an Iranian movie.

I read. Then read some more. Rumi- equips a seeking soul with the clarity of a clean laundered handkerchief. I lay back. The book on my chest, thumping rhythmically: a kin to my heart parodied my breath of perfect octaves. I looked up. The ceiling. It was so beautifully ornate, and white. It shone in the fluorescent light form the lamp. Like the lights and sounds show at the old Mughal and Victorian castles I love to visit.

~yeh raat yeh khamoshi…yeh chaand se nazare~

I realized, how I always wanted to lay on my back, like this, arms spread out like Jesus, sin-less, and looking directly into the sky…the stars, at night. Everything I needed for that event was present here, me, the sky. The only barrier was this ornate roof. I am going to be one with this sky one day. And perhaps I’ll have coffee with a stranger, and I hope I’ll get enough sleep.

This darkness,

 

And light just enough for me to see…

 

Is all I need?

 

For clarity

Right now, inside my head is a pool, with lots of toddlers swimming and paddling and making splashes, and throwing water everywhere.

Some of these children are learning to swim.

Some have a safety belt around them.

Some are just bobbing up and down in the water.

Some are crying.

Some have too much water in their mouths.

But, all of them are inside and they are learning to swim.

They are all in the water.

Learning and trying hard not to drown.

To get across-

Successfully!

I know this will be one hell of a year. Things will graduate on to more restless, sleepless nights. More responsibilities. More decisions. To have a ground beneath my feet, and some occasional stars in my hair, and ounces and ounces of faith…is all I need in my spiritual backpack.

And till then, these little moments of no lights, a cool dig-deep bed, a few resources for the soul, will help me through.I hope.This fake-light, just this, in overwhelming but comforting darkness, will do. That’s all I need, a fleck of pure, rubid, white placid, Light!~

Ameen.

Urdu poetry from Pakeezah, The Movie.
song here: http://youtu.be/X-4lBSbgCBM