25^th April 2012

Raahil’s first month

It is 5 am on the 25^th of March, and I am in agony. As my screams reach a crescendo, my cries mingle with the voice of another; a new, young, high pitched one; angry , scared at entering a loud and aggressive world. We have been a team for months and months, closer than any two people could be. Now it is time to separate. a new bond awaits us. One full of confusion, sleeplessness, intense heart wrenching love and tears (both his and mine). My husband, partner friend of many years and I are no longer a couple, not just the two of us anymore. We are a family.

 I remember how I always told people about my obsession with morning time; with my freshly made hot breakfast, the stillness and quietness, the solitude. Up until a month ago, I had no idea how drastically things would change. How I would look back, sigh and bid a final farewell to all that. I think that all through those nine months, he had been, inside, wickedly planning how best to disturb my existence

Which he has. From the moment he’s entered my world, he’s turned it topsy turvy, the wrong way round, inside out. Every fiber of me is touched, disturbed, dismantled and it will never be the same again.

Gorgeous boy, your crooked smile just about melts my heart. Completely absorbed in a famished feeding frenzy, you suddenly look up at me to check I’m still there. That look of peace and security breaks me like nothing else.…

Maddening boy, no one told me what you were capable of; the temper, erratic fleeting moods, the disarming charm, the incessant desire to stay curled on one’s lap, the refusal to go to sleep, pee, feed at a given (or convenient) time or stick to any kind of routine whatsoever. Every time I feel I have you figured out, you throw a curve ball and look up grinning toothlessly, all helpless and innocent.

I don’t have one minute to myself, even if it’s just to lie around reading Harry Potter; not even one page (me, who had the luxury of finishing two books in one sitting). Every time I pick up a book, the remote or take the first bite of my favorite meal of the day (any meal in fact), I hear a rustling. A pair of tiny fists attached to plump rounded arms are seen; the beginning of a cry for attention and I know that food, recreation, sleep and me time must all sit back twiddling their thumbs as I submit to my lord and master’s demands.

Sometimes in this past month, I get panic stricken and think ‘where did my life go?’

Those times are slowly becoming less frequent

It’s difficult for those feelings to find their way to the front when others are already there. Like the inexplicable peace that comes over me when a tiny warm body is all snuggled up against me, head on my shoulder, trusting and vulnerable. When I’m giving you a bath and you suddenly cease the screams of protest, you look at me curiously, beginning to enjoy the warm water but suspicious of the outcome of this pleasure. I’m amused (and relieved) at the doubtful truce.

Most of all it is the huge wave of fear that envelopes me. How on earth can I keep him safe, alive? ‘What ifs’ abound in your mind; from what if I drop him, to what if he suddenly stops breathing... and goes away. It’s devastating.

Angry little man, you yell and scream and whimper when we are together. But when you’re away even for a few minutes, I start to miss you. I miss your pointed double chin and long white delicate fingers. The turning of your head from one side to the other, looking for me/food. I miss how you’ve started to follow me with your eyes or how you turn at the sound of my voice. When I am alone (which is seldom) I can recall the sensation of your satin soft, round legs and tiny feet poking out from the sheet. You’re like a love affair recently started; the passion of a lifetime. I can feel myself getting lost in you.

Frustrating one moment, demanding at another. Often very annoyed and displeased with me. I can’t help being so ineffective, I tell you. I cannot understand what you need, and it makes my heart twist in anguish when you look at me with eyes seeking my help and comfort. At other times I want to hand you over or share the work with others, but the moment someone else takes you, I get anxious, I get jealous. I feel uneasy and bereft.

 It’s going to be an arduous journey my son. I know it won’t be easy to steer you in the right direction by use of sheer command. You are strong minded, too intelligent to be dictated to without the use of reason. But I know you. Once your attention is captured, when you are treated with respect and understanding, you will choose what the right path is, you’ll probably be the one leading others. I can see the aspiration in you to forge ahead into unknown lands and live to the fullest every moment life has to offer. After all, you are the son of two rather adventurous people!

I wonder how we will get on. Is it going to be a clash of wills? Probably. Constant worry, tension and frustration? Very much so. But an exciting adventure, a journey of laughter, drama? You can count on it.

What a romance lies ahead for the three of us! Every moment is anticipated. Already, time is flying by. You are a month old; a ‘newborn’ no longer.

Only a month old, and you’ve already started to take charge.

We never expected less from you. Raahil Abbas is set to take the world by storm and everyone better wake up and keep up.

A warm embrace, lapping me up, challenging, bestowing. It draws me in in comfort, then scares me with a hint of danger. 

Swaying you gently in its lap. You float up and down.it moves you forward in a welcoming embrace then pushes you back to shore in rejection.

 Emerald, aquamarine, turquoise azure, metallic silver, even pearly white, so enticing and sensuous, so irresistible you can’t help but be sucked in. 

Dazzling me inside your pristine clarity, housing so much enchanting life, color, and motion, a world unknown, never to be fully known. 

Captivating me with fiery corals, electric blue, butter yellows, hot frothy pinks and designs never before seen in our dry world.

Yet I still feel apprehensive. You are so turbulent, high spirited. A feminine spirit ruled by your moods. How to understand and then love you fully? 

You confuse me, you mesmerize me, confound me yet I can never be without you. 

Now that I know your inner soul, your depths, I desire you more now than ever before, yet still know less of you.

One piece at a time... 

The sound gets stuck inside my throat. I want to release it. But it stops short, just before coming out. I have to swallow it back. Remain silent. I feel a whole other person exists inside me .Who lives and breathes and moves the way their instinct demands. But the real world finds me trapped, strapped in- with a seatbelt. - So I don’t fall face forward hitting my face on mistakes. So I don’t say the wrong things aloud.

I have so much to say, but time doesn’t wait up. Life doesn’t give us those moments. Sometimes I feel I am just too busy trying to capture the moments, the word, the look, the emotion. Taking pictures, storing away memories, so that one can later prove they happened. How else do you preserve happy times? It’s the easiest way to do it. Because the good times don’t go by very slowly. Sometimes it seems better to skim the surface of the good times. To pause, flit over, and leave without creating an impression. Years go by like that. So much left undone, unspoken, unexpressed. The reason? A reluctance to attempt at something deeper, higher, steeper, complex. A lack of faith in its benefit.

So instead.one hampers one’s vision with so many pollutant distractions. Be they substandard works of literature (I use the term loosely. Trashy books are included) immaterial arguments or little pockets of negativity and despondency that weigh us down and sap our energy more frequently and with increasing intensity. It clouds the vision and we are so ready to fall prey to it.

I have been waiting to create Great Art all my life- ALL my life. Maybe there is still time. Maybe Age really has brought Wisdom.

All my life I’ve also been waiting for someone to inspire me and guide me. The Guru, the Sage, the trainer who believes in me and visualizes greatness. How much evidence have we all seen that the vision, the inspiration lies within us? How much maturity and experience do we need to begin the creative journey? And when is the right time?

But I crave clarity of thought. Fulfilling a vision. Defining a vision. How do we do that? Do we all create from memory and past experience? So the past does define everything. One then should not be afraid of it. Exploring memories brings everything asleep or dead inside back to life

I want to wake up before it’s too late. I want to feel alive and awake more often than morose and drowsy...

The problem is, once I am awake, I feel disoriented. I’ve been asleep for so long, that there is too much left undone. It leaves one frustrated. You start to pick up all the pieces at once. They start to fall out of your hands just as quickly. Let’ me see if I can pick up One single piece, completely.. And take it from there.

There. Done.

THOUGHTS ON IMMORTALITY…

IN order to give  great pleasure, sometimes one must suffer greatly. Beauty thus is created from supreme agony. Look at the great artistes who languished in poverty during their lifetimes, dying unrecognized only to be acclaimed as geniuses afterwards. They have been immortalized but fame means nothing to them now.

So do we want that sort of immortality?

'How long does a man live, after all?

A thousand days or one only?'

It’s uphill work for those cursed with that niggling bug known as ambition. I for one have found it a great trial. Rewards came and went. Success arrived, but armed with pressure, tension, bad temper, greed. To what lengths some people will go to try a hand at ‘being remembered forever’.

As far as people of my ‘trade’ are concerned, ‘forever’ means as long they are functioning as actor or artistes. It’s the trade of television acting that I am talking about. They are or used to be at any rate a totally different breed from the world of film and stage (rather like kissing cousins... from afar!) being more related to radio. Recently, however, everybody seems to be bosom pals with distant relatives and there is this interesting, though often exasperating, confusion at the recording hangouts these days. You never know who it is you are talking to, and from where.

That, however, is not the point. What I really want to find out is where the beauty of this once creative trade has flown (and it definitely isn’t Hollywood). Instead of heading towards the desired immortality, why are we on course for possible self-destruction?

Did you know that the tradition of Pakistani drama is unique? Nowhere in the world is there anything comparable. There are long-term dramatic series, or sitcoms or talk shows, but no limited episode-wise plays. Only recently have our neighbors started to seriously compete, but, good or bad, our style stands out.

Somewhere in the recent past, however, we have slowly started to slide into horrifying mediocrity. Repetitive, clichéd storylines and pretty, glossy pictures with the end result being totally forgettable and an insult to entertainment-starved viewers in this country. The solution, for the lucky ones, is the cable channels that have mushroomed recently.

But I know that our viewers long for the emotionally stimulating, absorbing (yes, often unbelievably melodramatic) drama of the good old days. So where is it? Have all the older writers and actors and directors gone away or simply lost touch? What about the generation that is following? I feel so sorry when I discover that the majority of our new talent is in business to make money only and to get their faces known in order to be famous and thus make more money. The glamour, the perks of being recognized everywhere and given preferential treatment, the display of tantrums is not too hard on the ego, either. But there is a serious lack of grooming and nobody seems bothered about doing really well. Who is going to watch? So nobody grows or improves his craft. Even if blessed with talent, they cash in on those gestures or histrionics that they know are sure winners. It sounds very harsh, I know. But where is the desire to create, to absorb yourself in the process of creation, to explore yourself and push your abilities to the limit?

The problem, used to be that no one took acting seriously. It’s a hobby. You have fun and then return to serious work. Like banking. So what do you do? people will ask. ‘I act in plays’. ‘Oh that’s nice... magar aap kaam kya karte hein? It’s the same old story it was 400 years ago. Actors? In the same category as fools, court jesters, gypsies. No offence whatsoever to any of the aforementioned for they are all entertainers who are there for a very good purpose. To serve humanity... just like doctors or engineers or assistant commissioners (all of whom are considered ideal matches for Pakistani girls) but they have always been on the fringe of respectable society. All right to watch and enjoy from a distance and that’s about all. Although that attitude has greatly changed; people have realized there is a lot of money to be made in this thriving industry and quite a lot of effort is involved. It’s gaining some grudging respect even, but it’s a slow process.

I feel that what they outwardly despise (so blatantly), they secretly crave for, namely, the desire for liberation of the soul, a certain freedom from mundane reality. In the sixty-odd years that most normal (I won’t say ordinary) people live their active lives, the actor can live a hundred, a thousand different ones. You actually defy time and age. You can indeed live forever. Who wouldn’t envy that state of complete power? It is only your fear that stops you.

Why are we so scared to explore what is inside us? Is it that horrifying? If so, wouldn’t it be better out in the open, anyway? The truth is that the majority of us are afraid to simply let go. We must know where we are going and want to know, where we will end up. If inhibition is let loose we are not sure we can control it. It’s amazing that people are hesitant about even letting out a good, healthy yell. What will others think and say? It’s the old, hypocritical ‘look respectable and do everything on the sly’ school of thought.

Perhaps the truth (and the reality) need not be so shocking. One can safely say that history has been made, and progress expedited by people who searched for truth and who had the courage for introspection, too. Such was Shakespeare’s exploration into the deep rooted vices in human nature like jealousy and ambition, and Faiz’s discovery of man’s indomitable spirit in the face of adversity, his strength and moral courage.

It is that truth and that reality our directors, new and seasoned, should emphasize. Actually, it’s good that so many people are now considering TV direction as a career. There are many talented young men and women making a name for themselves in this field. Some started raw, while others have a background or training to support them.

I feel at times though that there is a lot of plagiarism in their work. It can also be difficult for the masses to relate to the themes of some plays which might mean more to the viewers from the culture they were adapted from. Perhaps there is too much action and too little thought. Fancy lighting, beautiful faces and shot upon shot of breathtaking mountains and jumps into the river are wonderful, but the work of an artiste reflects the way he sees the world. That depth can only be reached if we find our own voices and develop our own style. I am talking of young people, of course. The veterans have defined their technique but the ones who will be eventually taking over need to move ahead and beyond, to find new realities, to rediscover old truths and unmake them so that they crackle with life and vitality. Otherwise, the same old hackneyed topics will seem tiresome and you and your work will be forgotten sooner than you created it.

The journey, however, has just begun. There are so many new discoveries to make. I hope there will always be people prepared for that.

Solitude..

Sometimes I like to dissociate from myself and narrate my life’s mundane activities as if they were a story.

“She realized as she expertly buttered hot, browned toast and simultaneously poured boiling water into the cafetiere, that she didn’t like other people making her breakfast. They never could achieve the same perfection. Either the toast wasn’t toasted enough or it was cold and over buttered or the coffee wasn’t strong enough. Things weren’t prepared with the timing kept in mind. It all had to be done ‘together’ and then eaten IMMEDIATELY. She knew of no one else who had such a finicky, fastidious obsession for the ‘right’ breakfast.”

Morning is my time. It’s for me. There is a need for absolute silence. The walk in the park at sunrise, eagerly awaited breakfast of aromatic coffee and hot buttered toast, chirping birds, open terrace doors and the sweet breeze floating in. It’s the perfect start to the day. No one should disturb this blissful solitude, not even the best companion. The moment that first sip of brewed, fresh bitter coffee takes its effect and my brain comes alive, I start feeling the power. I can do it all. The world’s infinite possibilities are open before me. Today is the day I can start availing them properly. I can begin projects and be creative and call anyone. Pure happiness courses through me.i often think of writing excellent pieces expressing profundity. It has not happened yet. The inspiration, desire, peace all came and encouraged me but just as speedily went away either disappointed at my lack of performance or just as futile and unfocussed as I was.

The afternoons are for dreaming. For TV, novels, watching sunlight bounce off the walls. Lonely sleepy silence in a cool tranquil room. Things of course need to be done- but maybe in a while- an hour, ten minutes, soon.

I won’t lie to you. I like to be by myself. I like my company. I like doing my ‘stuff’. I know it is selfish but I enjoy it so much. Much more than sitting with a bunch of people (whether family, acquaintances or friends) talking of Nothing. What a terrible waste of time. So unconstructive. I start to resent them, their voices, their aimless chitter chatter and laughing at all the oft repeated remarks. They look at me out of the corner of their eye to pick up on even a slight frown of boredom or forced interest on my part that they can pounce on and get offended by.

Why can’t people be more like me? Content in their own occupations, hobbies, laziness, dreams? Why must they always travel in packs and herds and make noises to validate their existence. It’s so lovely to be silent, to be quiet, to be listening, to be ready .It’s true it isn’t the very best way of spending time either, but maybe in all that silent reflection and thinking, a moment of truth, of discovery, of clarity can shine through and make it worthwhile.

I agree communication between living beings is integral- a necessity for society to progress, but, God can’t their voices not be braying and baaing but be sweeter and softer?

The Yoga Studio…

A vibration in the vast hall like room that always pulses with energy. It’s a gym, so obviously many people come to jump around, groan in pain and grunt with effort. Obviously the energy here crackles during high impact aerobics classes. But.. I love the energy right now also. The room is so silent. It smells of people, no, of humans, in a nice way. Everyone is absolutely still. My eyes are closed as are everyone else’, I think. But I glance to check, a quick peek- yes, we are all supine, in a state of repose. The class today was grueling. My arms and shoulders ache deliciously and my whole body is filled with rushing, excited blood. I think I am dying with happiness. The mind, dazed but totally clear, feeling focused within, this is meditation I believe- on a micro level. I enjoy the micro level too. I know that the new, calm and benevolent me is going to fade away as soon as I step out, go down the three flights of stairs to the alley below, get into my tightly parked car and prepare for an onslaught of horns and brakes. The jostling, swerving deft avoiding of bumps, the whole stress of this frustrating, quick witted game that driving in Karachi has become, soon saps away your patience for mankind. My heartbeat will quicken, my mouth will feel even drier and what were deliciously loose limbs will become tight knots and twists.

But right now, trance like music, the setting sun’s glowing rays coming through the windows ( they are large and on both sides of the room.), the aromatic, cool water being squirted lightly on my face by the yoga teacher is sublime. Everything is perfect in this moment. I feel I can achieve anything I set my mind to. I feel a power inside my being. A strength, I’ve suddenly discovered. It can accomplish many impossible feats.

Talking about my Generation...

I often feel that I don’t belong to my own generation. Sometimes I like to be in the company of people older than myself and more often, those younger than me. The truth is, people of my age bore me. They are growing increasingly vapid and colorless. Concerned only with what to be doing in the next hour. Always having to prove their existence.It seems futile. There is no time for introspection, for thought. Being in their own company for too long makes them nervous and jittery. They confuse me. Paradoxically driven to get to the finish line yet intent on not using up so much energy that it gets in the way of a good booze/drug/pleasure binge, they are befuddled and incoherent. The generation before us however had and has too much to think about. Too much time to regret, rehash archaic ideas. It can be tiresome, even though you admittedly learn something.

The ‘children’ of today. Well they baffle me at times. I can never wrap my mind around the fact that they are so clever, so with it. A child of 12 now boasts of giving her ‘bra’ to her ‘boyfriend’. Two B words I would have thought forbidden to a girl just past the single digit in her life. They are really quite extraordinary. They are bored restless. They need a guidance and direction they are simply not receiving from the generation before them (that would be mine). i feel sorry for them although they are rude and possess the attention span for 4 yr. olds (no offence to the 4 yr. olds of course. They are quite charming as they are!) Brimming over with potential, keenness fresh, glorious youth; and it all spills over and runs into the street to dry out. What a waste.

They are actually desperate for a positive push and shove so they expend the energy and use minds more developed than ours had ever been.

They are the ones who can truly rebuild the world, reinvent it and haul this disintegrating society into some semblance of creative civilization.

 At least, I hope that is their future. I shudder to think what would happen if they turn out like us. And if they don’t realize the potential, well the ones after them are definitely a force to be reckoned with. My nephew is already an expert at taking clear, balanced photographs with a digital camera at the age of five and my four year old niece has big plans for her calling as an animal rights activist. Their acute intelligence probably won’t even need a shove and push. They’re all set to take over the world. 

And yes I know all the 30 year olds complain that they didn’t receive the enlightened style of parenting that could have made them unique, precocious. What are you going to do? We are no doubt a product of a disillusioned era and have for most of our adult lives floundered in a sea of confused ideals and hypocritical values and immense mediocrity. But that is our legacy. We need not pass it on to today’s young people. I take a look at myself and think about all the passion and zest for life I had 15 yrs. ago. There’s no need to let go of it. And a zest for life does not mean wiling time away in intoxicated oblivion or frivolous larks. Sorry, we aren’t 18 anymore. Face it and enjoy the same love for living in a 35 year old mind and body. It’s really not so bad. And keep a look out for the ones running ahead of us in all their high spirits and vitality. They deserve all the sunshine we can give them. 

After all, who else will take care of us when we are senile and annoying?