today is a funny day.

My first major crush was a boy, oh-so-cute in the navy blue school jersey.

He had the centre parting, which was all the rage backintheday. The dark, silky bangs used to do this flapping thing when he would walk (think Salman Khan from Maine pyar kia days). To torture me a little more than what was needed, he would run his fingers through those hair, everytime I would cross him... Ever so lightly, like he knew I would if I could..

He had dimples.

and back then just the hair and the dimples were enough. Enough to drive me to raving mad, obsessiveness.

The first time I saw him, it was 31st of August... an odd 11 years ago.

Its funny in so many mundane ways...

... how nothing ever came out of it. (Also rather fortunate, if I say so myself).
...and how my life has changed so much.
...not to forget, how much I cried about absolutly nothing (which is how I would refer to this love affair of mine) . The year you turn 15 should be dealt with more care. Every day, every moment counts.
...also, how so much time has gone by.

Errr...a blog post

If inspiration was dependant on a perfect weather, yesterday’s weather would be it. Right out from a fairytale. Yet as it happens to be the case, NOT. I just spent the entire day mopping around and sulking.

There’s nothing worse than a sulky, moppy 25 year old on a pretty day, with hairy legs and upper lips.

I wish I had nice lips. Like the sort which look yummy, when coated with lush red lip paint. Aaah, the magic of red lips…

So I understand the importance of pretty lips, but I still can not be sympathetic to the idea of cosmetic surgery… its revolting, and to be honest apart from Shilpa Sheity, I don’t know any actress Indian or Amreeki who looked better after plastic surgery..

I feel bad for actresses though. It must be insane when your job depends on the way you look. Must be scary. No wonder they all hyper with alternative lifestyles and dieting and all these disorders and going in-&-out of rehab… crazy, I tell you!

Sometimes when I am sitting on dinner table with all us 7 siblings and one or two odd cousins who come over every day and then an ever-present xyz friend whose over for one reason or another, I often try to do this activity whereby I try to judge everyone from a third person’s point of view and I always draw the same conclusion. They are all crazy. Not in a weird, run-for-your-life kinda way but in an extremely endearing, quirky kind of way….but crazy they all are…

I love my family, mild sarcastic jokes apart. They are great. My judgement might be biased, but seriously… they are wicked! .. I cant wait to start my own..

So yeah… hmmph..

I think I need to stop now.

Unsave me

I came across this one a long time back.It is Deadlaahyyyy

Steal away the softness from my eyes.
I want your fingerprints on my thighs,
The rainbows you leave there
When I taste your blood on my lips.
Cruel savior-
Make me beg.

Starve me-
Feed me the emptiness I crave,
Please- kiss me with your teeth.
Fill my head with your throat-sounds,
Primal
To chase away the void.

I cannot stand your gentle hands.
Unstained,
They stroke so tenderly,
And though I ache for you
To score with pointed fingertips
The smooth skin of my hips,
You do not.

Bruise away my bitter deeds
Like I long of you.
Tarnish me
Sweet prince,
Rid me of damned innocence,
Flay me with my longing
So hollow-
My raspy yes is barbed within my throat.

Red welts on ivory skin,
Black oceans of bliss
Your name, carved deep enough to scar.
These things I want-
For you to make me nothing,
Free me from myself,
Blind me so that I may see you,
Choke me so that I may breathe.

Of a Horridable Night and the Drama that ensued

It is slightly inconvenient; I have so much to blog about and yet just not enough time and the temporary lack of resoucres is being a pain in the ass.

So I guess, without any further ado, I start with my tale of the night of horrors.

Those of you who belong to islamabad, would know how rare it is that our town witnesses a decent concert. So when I heard that Noori was planning to perform along with Qayyas ( a pretty decent under-ground act with a cute lead, who also amazingly enough has a great voice), Jal (blah) and another underground band ..*scratches head*..resistia or something like that, I was obvioulsy excited. Ever since coke studio I have been craving to get some live-Noori in me. So after some sms-forwarding I managed to convince around 5,6 other friends and we were get-set-go.

Due to some logistical issue and all that-always-happens-before-a-grand-night-out, we managed to get to PNCA an hour late. The court was full of the regular people you normally see at such events, loitering around. After some socialiing we found out that Noori, and Qayyas wouldn’t be coming as the cheques 3D-marketing gave them bounced back and so they have decided not to play. There were also some rumors about how everything had been managed and now they were coming but there was going to be some delay. So we decided we would also join in the rest of them loiterers. Finally around 11:40 there was some commotion and everyone started pilling in the arena. It must be 12:00 when we managed to push our ways through the crowd, get our tickets punched and go inside. 12:10 is when the gates were crashed and by 12:15 me along with my friends were out in car park ready to head out. Let me mention that till then no one had started performing.

If you are envisioning me with a big sulky face stuck in a cussing rut and swearing at “stupid stupid Pakistan”, you get full marks for imagination and all, but I can bet me-pretty-behind, that you just cant conjur up the face I made when I opened my car boot ( actually my friend’s) and saw nothing inside, as even I cant expalin it.

Now I had gotten to the concert with a friend who was planning to leave early. So on getting there, I had put my two bags, in another friend’s car. One bag had my laptop, a hard-drive, USBs and random offical papers. The other one had my personal belongings , my wallet, and my cell phone, which had died out on me initially ( hence the decision to leave it in my bag).

So getting back, my friend, open’s his boot and is welcomed by an eerily empty boot.

He stares a little, scratches his head a little

I stare a little, scratch my head a little.

He looks at me.

I look at him.

He says,”Didn’t we put your bags here?”.

I say “Didn’t I put my bags here?”

Finally he goes to look inside the car and that’s when he gives out a small man scream/yelp. The tiny backseat car window had been smashed in. After that we pretty much knew what must have happened.

Now I might not sound like it, but in situations like this I am rather calm. Especially if I am with the Little S and the Big S, as they tend to really, and when I say really I mean REALLY, panic. Therefore being the mother hen, that I am forced to become, I have to be more in control. So I called the office people, elder brother, police connections, etc etc and got back home to a mom, who had given herself a nervous break down in the mean time. I would add more, but I think “Mothers in crisis” is a topic of its own which I shall in due time elaborate on, but right now I’m just moving on…

I also need to mention the my bank people are effing insane. Pubes with days old donkey crap on em.

So I am driving home and I call my bank’s helpline. Along with other things, one of the things I carried in my bag was my cheque book. With that lost, along with my bank statements, ATM Slips and my ATM card I pretty much had no evidence of the fact that I indeed have a bank account with their bank. Also I did note down my bank details once… on my LAPTOP!!! So when I call them to cancel my ATM Card, they ask me my bank account details and reiterate the whole nine yards of why I don’t have my ATM number or my account number, to which they tell me they can’t do nothing. I volunteer information such as when were the last few times I withdrew cash, and my middle name and my mother’s name and my date of birth and my NIC number but no, they refuse to do so. Is it me or is it just complete inefficiancy on their part?

The next day which ensued was not any dramaless than this one.

I went to the bank and got the bank stuff done. Normal, normal..

Then I got to office and found out that the I-9 police had found my bag. "Where, how, when" would be conveyed once we got there. So I along with some office security people went to the I-9 thana. On getting there, we were taken to meet the officer, who had found the bag, lying on the road side near H-8. He looks at me and goes :

“Bibi, app ka baig milla tu hum ko tu tension he ho gaee! Hum nay soocha ager baig hay tu kaheen qareeb may koee katti-putti lash-shash bhi paree ho gee”

Translation (loose) : “ Miss, when we saw the bag we got all tended up as we thought if there was a bag lying around like this then there must be some chopped-up dead body too”

Now, like previously mentioned, I am a brave one however the braveness ( or is it bravity?) has limits.

Where did the days go, when people would offer you a cup of tea and then render upon you the bad news, with sorrys’ and pleases’ and thankyous’ nicely sprinkled all over?

…and no, it doesn’t get any better than this

… after this little episode they ask me to sit in an office while my-office-security-people do the official paper work. The office has poster’s of all the unknown dead bodies found in the area in the past decade. Somehow, I am guessing the natural reaction to that would be” Thankyou God, for not making me one of those” … but, No. That would be sane thing to do.

What I do is wonder how it would have been had something of the sort had happened to me. So I was on the road of giving myself an angina attack when I heard a girl scream. Since I was already too traumatized by the whole event I just couldn’t bring myself to get up and go see what was happening. Turns out some 19-20 ish girl was forced into a nikah (on the phone) with some relative of hers in Saudia Arabia. She was probably already in love with someone. So she decided to run away with the object of her affections. The way it pretty much always happens, the police tracked her down and she was brought back. By that time an FIR had been logged, and now she has some hudood ordinance thing going.

Bleak. Bleaker. Bleakest. More Bleakest. Most Bleakest. Most Bleakest-tareen!

Finally I was handed my personal bag, sans my cell phone and the money. I run back to my office to pick my new laptop up (finally a some-what-yayy-moment) and then I run to service centre to pick my replacement sim.

I finally get into my car so I can go back home. Get some much needed tea & mommy hugs, only to have my car (let me add, FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME)refuse to start.

I.Kid.You.NOT!

What do I do then…

I think I am gonna let all of you guess this one…

A Blogging Affair

So I didn’t see this one coming… but here it is , staring me dead-pan, into my eyes, with a quite disapproval, conveyed through the slight pendulum-ish leftrightleft shaking of the head…

I have a blogging crush.

Let me start from the beginning.

I landed on his blog through some randomofficehoursbloghopping. The guy is self-obsessed, sexist, obnoxious, and has all the qualities of a modern day Narcissus, not to forget he is a budding musician and has made a few videos, which have supposedly been played on all the supposedly cool music channels. In other words, he is the metaphorical boy-your-mom-warned-you-against… and is a disconcerting cross between the boy-my-best-friend-made-me-swear-off and the ones Dr. Phill-&-Oprah-shake-their-heads-at

My first reaction to his blog was of obvious shock and mild outrage. “Whatay prick”, I must have thought to myself. I think I even wrote a mean ass comment and didn’t send it. The next day I went back to it, and also forwarded the link to some of my friends. By that time I had surfed through all the archives, but horror of horrors, I felt a something-something-fluttering in my something-something, which I vehemently ignored.

The next thing I know, I was hooked.

I was perturbed, to say the least by what ensued....

I searched for his profile on facebook! .. Then Orkut

Then Google..

Went through previous blog entries in a more systematic manner, to ensure I don’t miss any

Read everyone’s blog, who sounds like he knows him

Called common friends and questioned them about him

Waited for his posts

Was sad when there were none… like majorly-miffed-OUT-sorta-sad

Listened to love songs… First alt rock, then classic rock, then blues, then jazz..

Filed newspaper clippings: article in magazine has a whole paragraph about him.

Day dreamt

After being sick of checking the blog to see if there were update, found out about RSS Feeds. Called ten people to figure it out. Got RSS.. *yesss!!*

And Now I have started randomly commenting too … always giggly..always good stuff ..*puke.puke.puke*
…

I can carry on, but if I do, I will have no other option left but to put a dagger to my heart… and No I do not wanna be a modern day Ameinias

Someone. Anyone. HELP!

A tale of two eyes and some lost moments...

They say our eyes are the windows to our souls….

I remember that look…

Semi-sitting, semi-lying down. After some random conversation, there was a silence and that look. It said so much. I tried to resist. I know it didn’t look like it, but in the few milliseconds before I gave in, there was much inner conflict….

And that first time …

It was everything a first kiss should be, and so much more. I left some of me, in that instant, in that room, somewhere in the corner of that beautiful mouth.

There were tears in your eyes, when I left that day. The glistening, the sparkle of those two beauties; How did you expect me to move past that, ever? How do you hold what happened after, against me? How am I supposed to make peace with never having you look at me like that again?

The soul that I saw that day, was it nothing but just a lie, or a figment of my imagination? If it was so, then why did it feel so real?

Guess you were an exception...

Vicky Razaion or Quratulain Nafees kee janib say, app sub ko JASHAN-E-AZADI MUBARIK

So I am home, chilling and trip-hoppin all over the blogesphere and I bumped into some serious nice independence day- related stuff… and not a single of them clichéd or corny … I hate them obviously, the way I hate everyone who makes me feel so inept at this whole writing thing … but I am still posting them here so go check it out..

Minerva talks about her Independance Day in a foreign country , which is funny, like she always is... but this post was just really really nice..

then there was Americanising Desi with this

and then there was a classic . It was nt the blog entry itself but an earlier post which was mentioned in this one … Levels of awesomeness = skyrocketin

Happy independence day, my blogging minions :)

Annie Mama

I was ready to be a mother at 18, yet at 25 marriage still seems like something I don’t want to rush into. I am the Paladin of selfishness, the great defender of that thing called ‘personal space’, so obviously, the rather innocuous word ‘shadi’ scares the bejesus out of me.

But children...

The pitter patter of teeny tiny feet, and their big (taken after me) hazel-brown eyes (taken after dad), with that twinkle (taken after Big S & Little S) which would light my days, my nights. My life painted in baby blues, powder pinks and sunny yellows. The first steps. The first words. Me as someone’s mama. Soul elevation.

They would gurgle, like the little S used to when she was a kid. They would be all nakhras like the Big S used to be at that age. If she’s a girl I’ll keep her hair long, and I hope she has Little S’s silky golden ringlets. I’ll enroll her in ballet school. A mini-me me in a tutu. Dancing. Singing. They would be artsy, undoubtedly, what with me, Little S and Big S making up their momma-brigade.

If it’s a boy I’ll get him a fancy Mohawk. I don’t know what little boys say and do, but I know he’ll be great. Like father, like son.

For once I’ll be able to love endlessly and not give a damn. No heart break. No rejection. No worries of tomorrow, at least not the sort which eat away at your soul.

And now I have another reason

Blah, Blah, Blaaah

I don’t know why I like writing. I always have; but my hands itch, the most when I’m sad and lonely. Mind you, I am the most content when I am alone. It’s just sometimes when it’s late at night and I am tired yet not sleepy. I turn the lights off and light up a cigarette. And I let myself be. In such times the emotion which comes most easily to me is sadness. Weirdly enough, it’s a sadness which doesn’t make me miserable. It’s the culmination of all those emotions which sort of slowly, gradually seep in, over the years, from disappointments, from having loved ones, really dear ones go away, from having fucked up so much, from disappointing others and yourself so often, from failures, from the opportunities lost because of utter carelessness and stupidity. I sit and I cry about the loss of my first love. The one after that and the one after that; I mourn . I strike up imaginary conversations with them. I wonder about how life could have been, should have been, but never was. I look at old pictures and wonder how I didn’t wonder about the times to come and how things could go so wrong. I chide myself for the person I have become; a distorted shadow of the yester me. I used to be warmer, I remember. So accepting of people and their shortcomings. Forgiveness, came to me so easily. So did loving. Doesn’t happen like that anymore, somehow and there’s something inside me which tells me that it’s not a phase this time. Is it age? Is it the change in lifestyle; Moving from the wild university days to the more sober days of corporate slavery?

I think I am PMS-ing. Big time.

About some summer nights and phone calls

This summer is the first one where I slept in an air-conditioned room, as all through school and college either summers were spent in Murree, or in a cooler-walla-room, as air conditioner was pretty hard on my allergies. Last night, somewhere past mid-night, I woke up, thanks to load-shedding, and I just couldn’t go back to sleep. During the sleeplessness I got on with some random past-mid-night-wondering, so I decided to fix myself a glass of milk and went upstairs to my bedroom to have a cigarette and do it in peace. In the middle of the sweating and all, I was thinking ‘how did I manage so many summers in this same room without an air conditioner’. It’s not like this summer is extra hot or anything. It’s pretty much the same…

… And that’s when it dawned on me; this is my first summer in a long, long time where I am not spending my nights on the phone.

Aaah! Summer nights gone by and lost loves; conversations which went on forever. The tales of random, mundane, everyday occurrences, told in a fashion which would make my heart go all fuzzy. The falling asleep in the middle and waking up with the receiver imprint on my left cheek. The nights of hazy excitement, of unmade promises, of undying love, of bright futures and extensive planning, of unbridled hope and joy, of secrets and confessions, of comfort and warmth, of passion and what not. Why did they end? How did I let them go? How did they never call back? When did things go so wrong? Why did they do this? Why did I do that? Why didn’t I try more?

It’s a good thing the light came back. I stubbed the cigarette in the ashtray and got up. Guess tonight I’ll just make do with the air-conditioner.