Minor Fears and Ridiculous Phobias…

Have you ever contemplated about how the very place which seems jubilant and pervaded with merry commotion in the day time becomes darkly morbid, gloomy and full of terrible fears at nightfall? Isn’t it that very place that you were in during the light of day? It most certainly is. But why is it scaring you now? What has changed now? Your perception of it due to a slight change in the surroundings, that is what has changed.

Now I am a man, a young man if you may. It is therefore expected of me to be manly and brave. But that I am not. Why? Because I have stupid fears of small things that would make you laugh. But they are as real for me as the fear of a ghost or a dead-man-walking is for you. I justify these irrational fears of mine by giving the example in the afore-mentioned paragraph: It is all about the angle from which you see a thing; Which dimension of the thing at hand you choose to scrutinize.

Although I must say I have not always been like this. My feats of bravery and resilience displayed in my childhood days have often been narrated to me by my elders. When I was a child I got a bone marrow and water extracted from within my spine. I was born with a terrible eye infection with puss coming out of my eye corners. I never watched television like my peers used to, except for the few minutes that I managed to view it for through television’s reflection on the room window. I had an eye surgery in third grade but did not whimper, not a single complaint of irritation etcetra. Once my foot got run over by my own car’s tire as I made my way out of it at school gate but I still went to school, limping on one leg. Once while watching player of the week clip on TV I was ushered by my brother to get him a plate. I rushed into the kitchen and held onto the door side to turn myself around towards the sink. My middle finger got stuck in the gash where the lock goes in and Patukhhh! Finger turned back, but not a tear. I got most of my teeth extracted with injections and tools, but not a tear.

Now I quite regretfully have to confess that that is not the case anymore.

What follows is a list of fears I hold regarding different things. They are very mild, nothing serious. Therefore labelling them as “phobias” would be to err. But nevertheless these things irritate me and deserve a post of their own. You might find yourself having these fears too, but it’s just that you haven’t really noticed them or given them enough importance to write about them in length. But I do have that kind of precious time which I am at the liberty to waste as I wish. So, without any further ado (yup, I don’t mind using cliched phrases), let us proceed:

Astrophobia: Fear of thunder or lightning

I was on my PC and had read about a doomsday prophecy earlier on that day. This doomsday, according to the prophecy, was to occur on that very day. It was a holiday I guess, maybe weekend, so therefore I was quite oblivious of the weather and all: hibernating mode basically. So imagine my surprise when I heard a louder the hell thunder with which the electricity failed. Complete darkness and a loud silence pursued, that certain foreboding silence. Then another thunder followed by another and so on. The entire house literally became lighted through windows at every lightening. The noise was deafening, light blinding. The winds moaned and whistled. Then started the hail. It threatened to bring down the roof, I tell you. The ground shook or so it seemed, the walls rumbled as hail hurled against them and the lightening roared. I was certain that one of those hundreds of lightnings was bound to bring down our house, the question was when.

It was the first time I felt real fear, ineffable trepidation.

The first time I really feared God.

And it was the first time I asked to be forgiven with tears in my eyes and self on the prayer mat.

He did forgive me, He did accept my promise to not miss a single prayer and He did accept my promise to never do wrong again. But I have not prayed for a long time and I have done wrong. I used to think about those generations who went astray even after watching Allah’s prophets’ miracles and the destructions that came to the wrong doers. I used to wonder how on Earth can someone be so ignorant and forget those lessons?

I now know how that happened. And I also know man is bound to do wrong and be lead astray, or maybe it’s just that I am from among those with weak faiths and characters. This is it then, I have to establish prayer again. Starting today.

So this is how I acquired that fear of lightening. Now, as soon as the sky begins to rumble and it rains, all I’m wishing for is: just rain, no thunder. I haven’t even gone in the rain intentionally for a long time but initially I loved too.

Fear of Ceiling Fans

Have you ever thought how extremely dangerous it would be to have sharp blades spinning at an incredibly fast speed hanging a few feet over your head by just a rod? I mean, it’s just a rod! And the blades are attached to the center circular spinning part with just a few nuts. What if one of those blades’ nuts slip and it plunges towards you? What if the entire killer machine falls off? It has the potential to crack your skull, slice your brains nicely in two and make the top of your head an independent entity. Or better still it can perform a perfect beheading feat.

It isn’t severe, but the thought every now and then enters my head and I start avoiding sitting directly beneath the fan. If anything can happen in this world, this can most probably happen.

The fear of the rumbling of an aeroplane in flight

I remember reading in school an Oxford English language comprehension exercise passage which said that just before a devastating earthquake strikes, you hear a certain rumble, like that of an approaching aeroplane or a train. This rumbling grows in volume until becomes loud enough and that’s when the Earthquake shakes everything with utmost convulsion.

Now whenever I hear an aeroplane approach, part of my head is apprehensive. Who knows, this might be that rumbling. Or what if the growing noise never dies down and mutes away in the distance; what if the sound continues to grow until the plane crashes into your house? This happened in Model Town in my very city in this past month. So I’m guessing it is again a possibility now, isn’t it?

Fear of mirrors

No I’m not a superstitious zealot and I’m not completely insane, please wait and hear me out will you? I know this has gotten too ridiculous for you by now, but hold on a minute will you. Now see, What if. Just saying, what if you are looking into the mirror and you turn your head to the right… but your reflection keeps on looking at you. Then it reaches out with both its hands and grabs its upper and lower jaws, one with each of the hands. It then starts to pull them apart… you feel a certain strain In your jaws too. As the smiling reflection slowly rips apart it’s jaws, same is happening to yours. Haan?

Quite “Jaw dropping” eh?

Or one of this could happen?

Ok so enough scares for now. I would now stop/end this. But the thing is, all these fears come and go, and are hopefully temporary. They surely bug me, but not to the point where it becomes absolutely intolerable. Now I would leave you with all the best luck the next time you find yourself surrounded by atmospheric electrical discharges accompanied by thunders of 30,000°C. Also best of luck while sitting under the spinning blades, being almost struck by earthquake or a plane and for the next time your ­hum zaat in the mirror tries to do anything undesirable to you.

Pip pip Toodle oo!

___________________________________________________

Next stop: An eerily peculiar pattern of nightmares I have been having recently.

Ending the Drought…

Two months ago, when I got my lethargic buttocks to rest in front of a blank MS Word page to write something, anything, for the sake of getting out something, anything, this is all I had to say:

“Ok so now I want to write something. Something good, something of substance and weight. Something that’s far from nothing. SOMEthing. But I can’t. I have allowed my head to sit free for so long that now inevitably yet unfortunately it has become slow and steady. Rock steady, that is, stationary. Maybe it’s because I lack ideas. It might be because I want to sit idle and goof around under the name of ‘preparing for the CIEs’. “

That’s all I managed to get out of my system, and then I prepared for my exams like crazy and worked hard and studied all the time, yeah… (sarcasm intended)

Writing, like many things, is something that requires will to be done. But what if a man has this will but has nothing to say? What if a man’s life becomes so full of ennui and is ruled by such a precise schedule that he has nothing to comment upon in his life. And due to this repetitive set of events, he stops thinking out of the box. He stops caring for writing, forgive me if that sounds akin to blasphemy, but what is writing if it has no point? It’s like Blackadder once said

Queen Elizabeth: And me, did you miss me Edmund?
Blackadder: Madam, life without you is like a broken pencil.
Queen Elizabeth: Explain…
Blackadder: Pointless.

Except in this case, writing without substance is, as Blackadder’s good ol’ brain puts it, pointless.

But you know what? Of course you don’t, I don’t understand why do people ask that question anyway… I have decided to create points out of an otherwise pointless life. I have grown to notice small things and large things that we otherwise tend to overlook. For example, if you sit in a room preparing for an exam, even the walls fascinate you: Oh the white texture! The color so plain, so simple that it resembles all purity and simple brilliance present in the heavens and the earth, it’s as simple as Truth and as easy as Lie…

That is ofcourse until before your exams end, because afterwards all you can think about regarding the wall is how it needs to be covered up with posters or how the act of committing a genocide against the lizard population that dwells on it has become absolutely necessary.

Anyways now I am free and have received the salvation I have been craving for for the past two months. That is indeed how long examintaions have been pestering me for. And I tell you, if there is one thing more stressing then  two months of exam it is three months of exam. But thankfully these were just two. So what now? Here’s what now: I have summer vacations and I am willing to put the pen to paper and scribble away whatever nonsense comes to my poor head. It would include arbitrary musings on life, writing, fears, TV shows, movies, music, books and more, hopefully. So hold on and fasten your seat belts or something of that sort… because you are about to experience a hell lot of intelligent, witty, smart and interesting lameness.

بس اس کو بارش کی پہلی بوند سمجھ لیجئے

A Hard Rains A-Gonna Fall…

Oh what did you see my blue eyed son…

The song is probably one of the best ever, written and sung by the best songwriter of all times, Bob Dylan. The lyrics are so bizarre, beautiful, utterly honest and completely heart felt. Its lyrics are too huge for a normal mind, yet they are simple and…all there. There are numerous interpretations of each and every single line and it successfully portrays the times it was sung in.  And it continuously grows to relate more and more with current situations. It was basically written and sung by Dylan at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Any moment America and Russia might had plunged into a nuclear war. And Dylan, thinking there was no more time to live, wrote what I consider a masterpiece. As he said himself

“Hard Rain is a desperate kind of song. Every line in it, is actually the start of a whole song. But when I wrote it, I thought I wouldn’t have enough time alive to write all those songs so I put all I could into this one.”

Although the line “A hard rains a-gonna fall” is interpreted as referring to a nuclear fallout, I currently take it in its literal meaning. Pakistan is having such hard rains, effecting 2million people. and it just stopped raining outside. But the amazing thing about this song is that every single line can be taken literally or pondered upon as the symbolism in the song is quite a thing in itself. For me its the lamenting of a soul who fears a “Hard Rain” and has had the various maturing experiences of life.

“No single event can awaken within us the stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.”

-Antoine de Sainte.

Every line is a song in itself, and the blue eyed son, who has seen too much about life in too little a time, merely states all of the experiences.

Now me being an amateur of amateur Dylanists, I won’t go too much into the lyrics but just give my opinion and overview of the stanzas. This might sound like some blasted gibberish, but that’s alright for me. I like to make a fool out of me, and a me out of that fool. we all are one.

So let me try my hand at analyzing the un-analyzable.

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
And where have you been, my darling young one?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways,
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

This stanza takes me onto a journey of places far and wide. The blue eyed son might symbolize the young and naive generation who is yet to see and experience all of this hardship. The singer has been to misty mountains, crooked highways, sad forests, dozen dead oceans and walked a thousand miles into the mouth of a graveyard. And of course there is a lot more this stanza then i can perceive…

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it,
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it,
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’,
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’,
I saw a white ladder all covered with water,
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard,
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

A newborn with wild wolves around him. An innocent young soul born into a surrounding full of the beasts that are men, threatening to conjure a storm that could blow everything away in a mushroom of fire. The blood dripping branch and a-bleeding hammers represent all kinds of violence and riot surrounding the narrator.  The blood dripping branch might show the racism too. The wet ladder symbolizes a way out of all the plights and dilemmas, but a very insecure and slippery one. Broken tongues might represent the ones who aren’t given the right to speak, ones who speak rubbish or perhaps the miserable illiterate population. Young children carrying guns and swords clearly indicates the trend of child soldiers, and the upbringing of a ruthless generation…

Oh, what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder that roared out a warnin’,
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’,
I heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’,
I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’,
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
I heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

To me the start of the stanza is too eerily related to the bomb. Then comes the line about “ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin”. I personally take this as Dylan’s protest to God. There are thousands praying to Him, but he has turned a deaf ear to the sinful race. The next line shows two opposing situations at a same time to differentiate between them and make the listener aware of the suffering going on around him, outside his comfy shelter of a home and a town. The poet who died in a gutter: a person who put down his thoughts to paper and tried to make the world aware of the happenings, just like the narrator who is talking those thoughts, met his ultimate doom. The clown who cried in the alley represents each and every person. We are not always what we like, want or appear to be. No matter how many false hopes you have got, the truth is still there, and its fatal.

Oh, what did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
And who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony,
I met a white man who walked a black dog,
I met a young woman whose body was burning,
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow,
I met one man who was wounded in love,
I met another man who was wounded in hatred,
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

A young child left to survive with a possible future just as the dead pathetic pony. The mentioning of human being and an animal strangely compares them both, making one muse. A white man walking a black dog. This is perhaps the best put line about racism. A white man is ready to accept and care for a black dog but why doesn’t he behave the same towards a black person? A women’s body burning. The women who weren’t given any rights. For no particular reason, it brings the sculptor of “ Ecstasy of Saint Teresa” to my mind. Read about it in angels and demons. Designed by Bernini, the sculptor shows the saint’s sexual encounter with an angel who brought about a blazing pleasure… Then the part where a girl gives the narrator a rainbow comes. Perhaps the only line that isn’t depressed. He meets a man who’s wounded in love and another is wounded in hatred. You can run away from negative things, but sometimes these are the positive and the nearest things to you that wound you.

And what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
And what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’,
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest dark forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
And the executioner’s face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where the souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I’ll tell it and speak it and think it and breathe it,
And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it,
And I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’,
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’,
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard,
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

When asked about what he intended to do in the future, the blue eyed son replies that he woul head out of the place before it starts raining. Before everything goes up in flames. He intends on walkin into the deep and dark forests, to get away from everything with himself as his companion. He would head out to where people are many and there wants are many too, but they got nothing. “Where the pellets of poison are flooding their water.” I borrowed a collection of essential Dylan interviews, titled “Dylan on Dylan”. in it, Dylan says:

“Q: It’s so impersonal today. You said it’s gonna happen. What’s gonna happen?

Dylan: What’s gonna happen, there’s got to be an explosion of some kind. The hard rain that’s gonna fall. In the last verse when I say,” Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,” that means all the lies, you know, all the lies that people get told on their radios and in their newspapers. All you’ve to do is think for a minute. They’re trying to take people’s brains away. Which maybe has been done already. I hate to think its been done. All the lies I consider poison. “

“And the executioner’s face is always well hidden”. the falsehood is never caught and its the righteous lot that suffers at its hands. What a line. Need I say more? He’d go to a place that’s melancholy and sorrowful with suffering. Where the colour’s black, and racism is at its peak. The narrator will think, meditate and feel all the things there. He’d set an example for everybody and then he’ll vanish. Meet the inevitable. And he will and still knows what he ought to do before he does it. These experiences have changed him.

And here’s is that gem, sung by the living legend. Bob Dylan.

Farewell Worldcup…

I type this as Ustad Ghulam Ali’s mesmerizing voice drifts into my head… “Pehli wari aj unna Akhiaan ne takkia…”. Those lyrics,music and that voice! Truly out of this world.

And it rained today.  It has stopped raining now, almost. But still that smell, humidity, chilling breeze and clouds haven’t gone yet…

The next song on my playlist, “Waving Flag” starts playing, reminding me the purpose of this post. Worldcup. After  the long wait of 4 years it finally arrived. The biggest sports event. And this time in Africa!

I was and always will be a fan of Arsenal FC. About the international teams, I wasn’t so sure. Brazil, I had heard 4 years ago was brilliant. No doubt it was. Most worldcups won I mean.  But I remained neutral in the first worldcup of my life. 2006 one. Before that I was oblivious of this wonderful game of football. France and Italy managed to fight their way through to the finals. I still remember vividly. We were off to this restaurant named “Zee Grill” with a family living in our neighbourhood. At Zgrill I payed little attention to the match. On the LCD I saw a penalty kick given to France. Zidane took it. He chipped the ball towards the horizontal bar at the top of the goal. It struck the bar and was reflected downwards. For a moment my heart stopped as I saw the ball bounce on the ground and out of the goal. Goal!..? Zidane running others put their arms around his neck saying something with not a smile. Goal..? C’mon! Would somebody mind telling me if this was a goal or not? Top left corner read France1-0Italy. Ahaan! I see…

The second half of the match I saw at home.  But still I missed the headbutt of Zidanne! Was off to the kitchen to fetch some eatable I guess. Anyways the match stretched off to extra time. Italy scored! No they didn’t, offside.

Penalties decided the match. Italy was the new king of football.

And now after 4 years Worldcup arrived again. I had waited for 4 years for this event and then when it was here, I was all of a sudden not so interested. I guess I was more of an English Premier League fan by now. I was much enthusiastic about the Europa Cup. I supported Spain from the beginning and then it went on to win the thing. This time in Worldcup I decided to go for Spain, the team with Arsenal’s captain Cesc Fabregas. That reason alone is more than enough.

Spain lost its very first match. Not a single team lost its very first match and went on to win the worldcup. But Spain, I was sure, would change that. Spain went on to win most of its matches with a single goal’s lead. Ion the semi final Spain vs Germany, dad supported the German side. His reason I’ve got to admit was a strng  one. During WW2, My dad’s grandfather used to buy a newspaper and had people read it out to him. He supported Germany in the war and was thoroughly vexed up at anybody who said a word against the Germans. Well Spain managed to defeat them. The final was Spain vs Netherland. Paul, the Octopus now the most famous one around, predicted Spain’s win. The octopus has successfully predicted 13 out of his 14 predictions! The one time he was wrong was the final of Europa Cup between Spain and Germany where it predicted Germany’s win while Spain won.

I had plans for the screaning of the final with my cousin but it turned out they were ruined. My cousin had to arrange this Army Dinner at CMH, the hospital he works at. So I and my brother Ali again ended up watching the match at “Zee Grill”. This time a new one near my new home. Surprisingly, a big screened projector had been put up and their was a big crowd all seated. We managed to get two spare seats in a comfortable location near the front. Ordered some eatables and the match begun. Their was a lot of excitement in the crowd. Mainly Spain supporters. Cries of protest at fouls, cries of desperation at missed chances and cries of joy at a card being shown to the opposition’s team. I think this has got to be a world record. Most cards shown in a worldcup final. I mean, only Sneijder and the Goal keeper of Netherland were the ones who didn’t get a card! And their were many who got a card from the Spanish side too. At last Fabregas came on and everybody was clapping. I was the only one clapping AND standing. Many great chances were missed by Netherland. The match was a very tight and tensed one with no goals until the 115^th minute when Iniesta finally did it! He put the ball into the back of the net at last. And you know who passed him that ball? Yeah right, Fabregas.

The worldcup came to its end with Spain lifting the cup. I slept with a grave heart the last time when France lost. This time it was dad who slept with a grave one. He always supports the team opposing mine. I guess that adds to the excitement…

And well that’s that. Spain beat Netherland. It beat Holland too. See? I always said Spain ccould take down many one handedly…

Rain and Musings…

 

Once again rain compels me to write. Its been a while since I last wrote for this blog. The post was about me moving to my new house, in which I sit now. The clock’s striking half past one and I’m sitting by the open window writing this post on a piece of paper as light’s gone. I don’t know why but no matter how much I don’t want to, still I end up writing something whenever its raining. I personally think I can express myself better in the dead silence of the night when my family and the city sleep. Its only me, pen, paper and my broodings…

Chilled to the bone I am as I write this. The gushes of ice cold wind seem to pierce through my skin right to my core. Through the aluminum net of the window come the sptays of rain, smudging the ink on the paper. But it doesn’t matter because all of this would be typed and posted on my blog. Gives me a weird feeling to think that where would this paper, on which I pen down my thoughts so passionately, be in the years to come. Perhaps in this register or resting silently on a waste dump…

The mattress of my bed has been taken to the other room where my brother sleeps on it. Curled up on the cushions placed on the wooden planks of the bare bed-top, I think about arbitrary things. This house which I now call home is very satisfying to say the least. Nature is what I experience here. No houses on all sides and only a dozen houses in sight at some distances. My room’s the best one as it gets sunlight, air and all. I may catch a cold due to these cold winds, but can’t put down the pen.

Exams are nigh. Commencing from 24^th of May and lasting till the beginning of June. Began Maths practice today. God knows when will I get the time to prepare other subjects, but what I know is that no more posts until after the exams.

Then there is the music. After my (Thankfully) short lived craze for System of a Down, Metallica etc I’m again back to who I am. An oldies’ lover. Ghazals by Iqbal Bano, Fareeda Khanum, Mehdi Hassan and qawalis by Mehboob Qawal and Sabri brothers have got me hooked. Then Muhammad Rafi is simply one of the most brilliant artist I have listened to so far.

One of Rafi’s earliest songs and his only duet with Noor Jehan.

This is another very sweet one. Akele mein woh ghabratei tau hon ga.

Among my current favourite English singers/bands are Freddie Mercury/ Queen, Bruce Springsteen, Beatles, Led zeppelin. Jakob Dylan is another great discovery. My cousin who’s the craziest fan of Bob Dylan recommended him to me. Jakob’s this legend’s son and has proved to me at least that he is quite as awesome as his dad. Is also a vocalist of the band “Wallflowers”

This is from his latest solo album “Women and Country”. Nothing but the whole wide world to gain.

This is from his previous album called “Seeing things”. Will it grow.

Another great discovery I made was through Spotify. It’s a site which allows you to stream songs from a  HUMANGOUS database having everything from Qawalis to metal to Jazz and everything in between. In the what’s new section I stumbled upon an artist named Willie Nelson. Started listening to one of his songs and God, he was too good! His lyrics, music and everything… I am a fan.

Too bad wordpress doesn’t allow flash widgets, or you could’ve been able to stream this song by Willie Nelson here. But anyways you can still give it a listen on the link below… its quite mesmirizing. song’s entitled “Happiness lives next door”

http://www.divshare.com/flash/playlist?myId=11315842-f74“

Electricity just returned and before I could type this post it went off, reminding me its Pakistan. Ah well…I can write forever but surely one can’t read for that long. Goodbye for now.

Ah rain, how I love thee!

Leaving Home…

 

I ain’t dead. Why didn’t anybody pose the question in my absence of, I guess, two months, that weather I was still alive and breathing or not!? Well, anyways I answered the question already. I’m a blogger. Well I used to be, and a pretty regular one. But I just don’t know what stopped me from writing a post. Perhaps the laziness that has been plaguing me since the time I took my first breath… But now I’m back. Really back!

But still…nobody even asked where I was!? Maybe my blog’s not so popular after all…

 Well anyways there are solid reasons for my absence, to be honest. And to be more honest…there have been no solid reasons for my absence… I mean I just used Facebook all the time instead of paying heed to what was going on with my precious infant. Yup, I’m referring to my blog.

At this very moment I’m supposed to be studying for my impending Formal Assessments commencing from March the first. But I don’t what’s the feeling but really, I feel like I’m loosing a precious friend by not writing for this blog. In my one year of blogging, this blog has given me a lot of pleasure and you can’t even imagine the amount of time I’ve spent writing and working for this pal of mine. And yet, here I am a disloyal friend, coming back after remaining out of touch for two consecutive months, to make amends. Although after this post I may not write for a week or two because of the upcoming exams, but still I’m planning to write about my viewpoint about an Oscar nominated movie I just watched. Or perhaps about all the movies I have or am planning to watch that’ve been nominated for the Oscars airing next month’s 7th date.

And we are leaving our home…home not a house. Although an unimpressive place of 5marlas, this home of mine has been the place which has given me and my family shelter for 5 years. I came to Lahore from Gujranwala when I was in my third grade. I was admitted into LACAS a renowned and prestigious educational institution here. I still remember how me, my elder brother and my dad used to come to Lahore almost every day and inspected different houses which were available for rent. Without any success, we often returned to Gujranwala all bleak and melancholy. Dad was about to retire from his job of District session Judge and we had to find a place to live in time as dad would have to give up the house we had in Gujranwala back to the government. It was during one of these visits that we came across a house, pink front which seemed to be like the side of a house as it was plain and quite simple. The neighborhood consisted of a few dispersed houses and a lot of noisy construction sites. We saw the house liked it and planned to show it to mom with whose approval we could move to this house immediately. Little did I know at that moment that this house would become my home…

Now when I look back, it seems to be quite a long time ago that we shifted here and yet it seems just yesterday. I’ve had many experiences in this house, some pleasant and well, some not so pleasant. But this place, although quite small, means a lot to me. For me it’s a place I grew up at, for I don’t remember any of our previous homes as vividly as this one. Now I’m in grade 8th at LACAS and its time to say farewell to this home of mine. May he remain forever, and I said he because it is more than just a thing for me. It has been an important part of my life and now leaving it seems like parting with a dear ol’ pal.

Dad started the construction of the new home almost a year ago in May 2009. Time flew by and it is almost complete with all its furniture and paints. I’m planning to get handful of posters for my new room too. Shifting to this new home makes me recall the time when we shifted to this home. This encourages me at the moment and assures me that I’ll just like I did here, settle in my new home. although it’s very far away from school and my friends homes. We have weekend soccer matches in our local ground and we go to cinemas together in a single car but now things are going to change.  The place where I’m shifting to is nowhere near any of my friends house and so that means no more 24/7 fun! But the environment there is utterly serene and tranquil with a few homes in sight. I can already envisage myself on my rooftop, accompanied by a new bestseller novel…

I’d also like to say that all the neighbors, specially my mom’s best friends Aunty Shabana and Aunty Farzana, my personal favorite, Uncle Naeem and of course Muqeet bhai have always been great! Will miss ya all! And how can I forget Anas my class fellow and a good friend who lives two streets away! Thanks bro for all the pick and drop services of yours to the grounds and birthday parties!! Haha… …

Ah! Well, its time I say farewell to my home. Its time.

2012

Now look here for a sec. I dunno wheather 2012 will be The End or not but surely this movie had got some awe…wait for it…some! Awesome graphics and camera effects. Watched it last Friday with 7 of my pals at the DHA Cinema Lahore. One hell of a movie. But it really scares me out when I think how nigh 2012 is. Read about the apocalypse and the end of the world in Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol. And then there was this guy who predicted many things that have come tru e.g. Tsunami, 9/11. He also said something about 2012 and Then there’s also the Mayan Calender which ends at the date 21 December 2009. Many believe it to be the end of time but other think it’ll be a moment when the human of today will unleash the unpredictable mind power and transform by getting back the knowledge :Ancient Wisdom. It is said to be protected by the Freemasons and is inside a Pyramid.

 These things are really confusing…and interesting. aren’t they? Here’s a link to the Wikipedia page. Here’s another interesting link.

Anyways, 2012 was comedy, action, tragedy and…well, very good. And John Cusack was hilarious!

Don’t know why but the quality of these wonderful posters and stills isn’t good although they are originally breath taking…