since when did writing blogs become an obligation?

dil uth sa geya...i feel so bland nowadays, pardhai..bhag bhag bhag... itna kaam hai samajh nahee ata kahan se shuru karun kia karun... todays saturday, i have a dawaat at a friends place, then a dawat at khalas friends place, tomorow i have to get pictures taken for my med form, write papers, moday presentation, tuesday quiz and paper, wednesday medical exam and evening lecture, thursday class, friday meeting up with a friend...dimagh kharab.

the city keeps spinning in a glass ball from one season to next within the space of a week.
days when the sun shimmers saffron yellow, bathing the white houses and the silver glass sky-scrapers in gold....the heavenly city by the aquamarine blue ocean, forest olive green mountains...lavender skies..

and days when we slumber under an ivory white blanket, the trees hung down by crystal clear icicle leaves... cars, houses, pavements painted white white white,...plum grey skies, silver blue rain.the monotone grey of the city life disappears under the crushed pearls of snowflakes, raindrops...grey white clouds parting through to let in the occasional silver pearly sheen...

an ode to Vancouver...how soon it will end.
i think as time passes by it's starting to hit me that I wont be here come may...and in September ill be in a city as colourless and lifeless as any metropolitan in the world.
Toronto.
where will i find my purple rain? my burgundy red leaves?

an ode to the days of yore.

no sounds of khala and her kids wafting through the crack in my door, khalu's heavy footfalls on the carpeted stairs.
no wooden bed to lean back on, my watermelon pink and green bedsheets, my yellow orange floor cushions, dusty gold carpet.
no excitement on the first day of class, navigating new faces, distant professors, my stony grey university.

all this will end.
yet
again.

and then people wonder why i have an inexplicable fear of things ending. paranoia that everything will cease, dissolve, expire, evaporate in a puff of grey wispy smoke i wont ever be able to catch between clenched fingers.


all this will end, for the 5th time in my life..
ive moved around too much. lost too much.
gained yes, but i feel like i keep learning and gaining but it never really.. congeals.
i feel like a fragment. particles of me held together by barely existent threads..parts of me floating, dissolving, fading into non existence.

i keep losing.
and that innate fear of loss resides in me. rises in me like thundering, overwhelming waves. black insects crawling over the leather hide of someone once true,
someone once pure.

it consumes me like a parasite i cannot get rid of, and manifests itself in my dreams where i run around frantically looking for a lost home... and of recent, my lost mother.
i see that she has passed away. im convulsing in grief where relatives of mine mock her. i clench my fists in infuriating anger, and scream ' she's gone! dont you understand!!'

fear.

couple of nights ago i dreamt of my uncle. in my bedroom again. saying those pure things syed tells me, butchered and blackened words, seeping out like black ants between white gums, crawling towards me from his repulsive mouth.
'you look beautiful. you always look beautiful'

he crawls toward me and i back onto my bed. my trembling hand on the phone, dialing numbers before the blanket.
mum's. his. hina's.
realization-none of my support is there in this tiny room with me, other than him.
realization-there is no escape.

someone open the window please, icantbreathe.

fear.
i retreat into the wall, hoping the cement might envelope me from the leer of his beastly eyes, his clawing hands.
At the first touch of his lust blood caked finger, i close my eyes...

...and open them, back in this cursed cage i call my bedroom. my hair plastered to my forehead, knuckles white in rage, clenching the corner of the bedsheet.
im too scared too scared too scared to open my eyelids mum,lest the horrid dream become reality, the reality become the horrid dream as it already has in the past.

fear.
despair.
qualm.
phobia.
revulsion.

no, i haven't forgotten khalu.
my mock strength and facade crumbles a little every time i have nightmares about you,
every time i pass you in the corridor and shy away from your indifference.
he's not the man he's not that man he's not that man. dont hate him.
how could i hate him? i love his children.


there are times when the barely glued up walls give in. times when i sob and cry and scream all this out to drug.
he sits watching, agitated, helpless.
as i rock on the balls of my feet, convulsing in terror, in tears.


the fear is won, i tell him. i can't do this anymore and i want to go home. i tell him i'm crushed on the inside,like the million shards of a mirror held up by silk strings.
glint off each other, give the illusion that these abrasive dimanonds are whole. intact.


the fear is gnawing away at the frayed loose ends of my heart, the afraid hushed up composure.
like an indrawn breath waiting for the touch of that first finger.
like the realization that i am utterly alone.
the realization that i have lost lost lost .

and must lose.

so that i lose the thought of that nightmare.
draw it out from me grain by rotten grain.
chisel out these coarse,dying black motes from the tender reds of my skin.

lose them

into the golden wind storms of Libya, the vibrant rush of Karachi,
the stone-tiled airport in New York, the watermelon bedsheets and yellow cushions of my room, Vancouver.

let me Lose.

...................................

this one's for you.

i wanna tell you that it isn't wrong
of loving then losing then moving on.

-L.M Montogomery

you are the one thing that will be toughest to lose.
thank you for watching, for listening, for healing, for the reminder.
i AM stronger than this.

thank you for being strong enough for me.

...............................

arighttttt..so thats prolli one of the most emoest, most disturbing and also, one of the most honest blogs i've ever written. i had a hard time writing it, because i wanted to face the biggest weaknesses in me straight in the eye, and tell them it aint halloween anymore.

you think with time and talk it gets better, but it doesn't.specially on out of the blue nights where you replay it frame by frame in your dreams.so clear its almost true.

all of the above completely factual, if not toned down, because there are still certain things i cannot write about.
maybe with time ill be able to. i need to.
catharsis.


and no i didnt write this 'cuz u lot pity me and dont hound me for writing for so long, please continue to do so out of your hearts content.
the only reason why i wrote this is cuz its 5 am and im too nervous to sleep, presentation tomorrrow. lol. :P

i miss u guys. and i AM still reading all of ur blogs even if i dont get a chance to reply. :)
i shall now head back to fragrent dreams, and try and catch a few winks.
much cheeni!!!
-eeda

Dekha eik khwab to yeh silsile huey....


It is a shaadi house, insofar as I can tell between being simultaneously fully asleep and fully aware within my own dream that i am dreaming.

There is a string of gainday ke phool in my hand that I am tying to a staircase. This house is foreign, yet festive, homely yet not Home.

Some instinct tells me that is my Home, even if the physical structure does not induce any memory, the spirit of it is there. Maybe the presence of tinkling laughter, the young girls running around in bright pink and yellow and orange dupattas, ammi instructing me to hurry up, the dulhan is going to be here any second.

Brilliant larger-than-life colours. Blinding yellowing lights and yet a sense of gloom.
Andhera, but then that's nothing new.Most of my dreams are that way. I shrug off the feeling and join the gaggle of girls milling round trying to look busy, but getting in everyone's way.

Someone remarks that there's no flower garlands for the dulhan. It strikes me as odd, and speaks to some better part of me. I exit unnoticed and flag a bus down to the phool ki dukan. I realize this western element has set in me already; even in my dream I flag a bus as opposed to ordering my driver to take me to the little makeshift brown chowkis barely held together with sweat and spit, overloaded with motia ke gajray, gainday ke phool, gulab ki lareeyan.

My purchase done, some guy tells me that the next bus is not for 15 minutes. I panic, I must get home. And then a further realization, I do not know the way. I find myself distressed, crying, lost in a crowd of suspicious men with leering eyes and claw-like hands, and not a single comforting gaze.

Somehow I end up on the roof of some building. This too is nothing new, being at vantage points for suicides is also a constant feature of my dreams. By this time my sister has somehow miraculously apparated next to me, but she too doesn't know the way home.
A taxi cab driver offers to take me, but I tell him 'Mujhay raasta nahee pata..'


The horror rises up in my throat like bile, strongly reminiscent of the one time my dad left me waiting in the car to go see some mechanic when I was 7, and returned back to find me in tears and convulsions.I have had an indescribable fear of being left behind waiting since, and the thought alone causes me to get physically fearful.

The thought shifts..On the tenth try I manage to call and my brother picks up. He doesn't realize the plea in my vice, how frantic I am, and won't tell me where Home is. I stand there yelling and screaming and pleading to the faceless gods, heavens, whatever forsaken angels inhabit the realm of our wildest dreams.., 'Kahan hai ghar?' but to no obvious avail.
I bend over crying, and the overwhelming feeling of paranoia and loss and anxiety overcomes me until......

...... I wake up, staring at the ceiling and wondering whose house, whose bed I'm lying in..I gulp down some air like a drowned fish, still sweaty and still confused.It takes me a good deal of 10 minutes to finally calm down and get my bearings right. But does it matter?
Returning to reality doesn't mean the Nightmare's ended,
for this pale white blanket, the feel of this pillow, this cold and lonely bed is still foreign, still not mine.
and I'm still not Home.


and worse yet, even in reality and all sense functioning, I don't even know where that is...


nostalgia attacks.
-eeda

Dad

of a million faces
of bear hug icons in skype conversations
of coats hanging on the edges of every door, too high for mum to reach
of holding my head from the top and telling me to stop.thinking.so.much.all.the.time
of cigarette ash that ended up anywhere But in the ash-tray
of the crinkly eyed smile that bought out the glittering opals in his eyes and lit up his entire face
of listening to wayyyyy old indian songs in the car
of listening to wayyyyy old indian songs in the car on FULL volume, when we complained it was boring.
of making me fall in love with mukesh and rafi and kishore and lata and the other old crooners
of never caring about what you wear and how you look just to please others
of waking me up at 8 am to crawl into bed between mum and him because it had been too long
of reading books on islamic history and old urdu literature with a light propped up on his bent knees and his grand-father type glasses
of insisting we sit on EVERY roller coaster on EVERY amusement park we ever went to
of crying softly in bed while half asleep, the night after i left for Canada
(ohh yes ma told me)
of standing up to whoever, for what's right
of falling off from the jet-ski out in the middle of the sea and coming up spluttering and laughing
of laughing again when i was clinging on for dear life and asked if there were any sharks in here
of stroking our hair and patting us ( a little too hard) to sleep
of taking me to the sea in the middle of a storm because i felt like it
of random big one arm hugs and asking me if everything was okay
of random big one arm hugs telling me everything was okay it'll all be okay
of long-winded discussions in the car about politics and economy
of dancing on the sidewalk, at the beach, at 12 am, in his most expensive suit, in the rain, because he felt like it
of making the entire family visit ALL of his cousins and extended cousins and aunts and great aunts and their neighbour's son's dogs EVERY time we go back home
of teaching me family is the most important thing in the world
of always smelling of Aramis and faint old cigarettes.

there was a guy next to me in the bus today who smelt strongly of Aramis and old cigarettes.
he wasn't dad.

i miss you.

-xo
eeda

ps
sehri=nostalgia+mush

Moondance.

just cuz.

[20/07/2008 10:37:25 PM] eeda says: the song?
[20/07/2008 10:38:43 PM] drug* says: for youuuuu
[20/07/2008 10:38:52 PM] eeda says: aaaaaaaaaaaahahaha..
[20/07/2008 10:38:56 PM] eeda says: cupcakeness.

*name changed. no just kidding, his name's cocaine.
LAMEness.

Well, its a marvelous night for a moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
neath the cover of October skies
-Moondance, By Michael Buble.

Yeh.good times.


i will dance through my days to ballets of pink sunrises and to ballads of clandestine sunsets.

jeez. gettin all poetsy arent we?


me- 'sometimes i feel like i don't grow older by a single year, more like 5 for every 1.'
sabs- 'slow down slow down slow down. let the rest of us catch up.'

yeah.

i don't want to come in the middle. i need just 10% of you ,she can have the rest.
bartering friendships.
tough.
u can't run away from drama can u.

i miss ignorance.

and i stare pointlessly out the train windows and the smoke rising from the factories across the river reminds me of white curly hair coming out of old men's ears.
the kind of old men whose hair looks like floating candy floss.

our relationship has ceased to exist past the are you eating well?sleeping well?
i tack on the quiet miss u's quickly before the click of the dialtone. almost like a cracked ornament. almost like im disgusted to admit the weakness.
three little words.
three little re affirmatives of something much more fierce inside.

I Missed You.

sumtimes i feel like a gushing water hose held tightly at the mouth.
eeeeeeeemmmmmmmmmmmoooooooo.

if it helps , the above was meant in a strictly platonic way to members of family.

i want to see your hands with
my fingertips.
trace out
your palms like a
fragile, torn
map.
i want to
tiptoe across your
intricate woven paths and
find an
eternal perdition
in your
fist.

don't ask me where that came from. on the spot little thumbelina inspired thing.
blah.

time to sleep.
-eeda