'No ting tong in your ding dong?'
-Late night Dostana.

Bahahahaha..
*chuckles slyly*

-eeda

December 2009.
Karachi X-Rays,
Pakistan.





Garbed in this stiff blue surgical gown, I feel like I have been stuffed in a garish Halloween costume
which leaves me empty, bare, hollow.
Stripped of any piece of cloth, any accessory that defined me, belonged to me,
could be claimed as mine.

Blue blurs wander around like lost souls.
Apparitions of people past, people present, people that they will become.
Apparitions like clues,
memories.
I have been here before.


A blue blur among others, I want to scream at these rigid-faced nurses, these doctors that nod at me cursorily.

Bring me back my blue robe of 2 years ago, my discarded skin.
It might still have some traces of me, my faint perfume,
some preserved warmth of skin
which I can hold touch breath
reclaim as myself.

Let me inhale those rags and pour into my lungs the same fears the same happiness the same little quirky insecurities that congealed to form one broken whole.


Bring me back my discarded skin.
so that maybe I can recollect those pieces of me.
Maybe I can wrap them around my arms as shimmering bangles and drape them over my skin as golden ornaments and wear them with pride and add to my self like how sometimes clothes accessories and plastic little nothings define us as who we are and who we become.

Maybe in those blue discarded stitches of skin, I can find myself again.

-eeda

p.s.
photocredits Skin deep by chix0r, modified by memememe.. :P

I know what a terminally ill patient feels.


The hushed silences that surround them as they walk around.
The air of exclusion.
The not belonging.

To maybe emphasize their transience.


I am about to leave this world
my world here as I know it.


No I'm not moving onto heaven or paradise, but already I'm being subtly erased from the highschool-esque cliques at university, summer plans for hiking trips,
tea-parties past my departure.

As if everything revolves around the before-she-leaves and after-she's-left.

As if all my days here are numbered.

-eeda

'A failed marriage is the most humiliating confirmation of the transitory seduction of the flesh.Lovers can explore every line, every curve and hollow, of the beloved's body, can together reach the height of inexpressible ecstasy, yet how little it matters when love or lust at last dies and we are left with the disputed possessions, lawyer's bills, the sad detritus of a lumber-room,when the house chosen,furnished,possessed with enthusiasm and hope has become a prison,when faces are set in lines of preevish resentment and bodies no longer desired are observed in all their imperfections with a dispassionate and disenchanted eye.'

-Children of Men, by P.D James.

...and that my friends, is the reason why the thought of marriage petrifies me.
Not the lack of lust, but the eventual disenchantment, the love that is nothing more than perfunctory at best.

*sigh.
-eeda

piece of writing that touched me.
This one is for dadu. ( my grandad)

Borderline Nostalgic
-by Estallidos

i used to stand in the middle of the railroad track on sundays, one foot on either side of the county border line, just so i could tell you that i was in two places at once.

you would shake your head in that disapproving, familiar way, and tell me that no one could be in two places at once, and besides, standing on railroad tracks was illegal, and i had better watch it or else i was liable to get ticketed.

i informed you that wanting to live a little was not illegal.

the day you died i rode full speed down the nearby hill with my bare legs on the handlebars of my mother's bike, the sun shining full in my eyes. i swear to god my hands lifted off the handlebars and flew away, and to this day i still can't find them, but you, you know where they are.

i got a ticket for walking on those railroad tracks and two weeks ago i rode down that hill remembering you, and when i crashed at the bottom i thought i felt you hold my hand.

but no one can be in two places at once.



No, but I try not to believe that.

I have a patterned brown handkerchief of yours that Dadi gave me after you passed away.
Whenever life is overwhelming, I bury my face in that satin square interwoven in silken threads and your scent,
as if they were your palms.

How can you not be here with me,
when even a simple piece of cloth retains you in its very essence, each fiber of its existence vibrates with the intensity of your gaze, the colours of your soul.

and I am human after all...


I miss you dadu.
14 years and counting, I haven't forgotten.

I wonder if you would understand.
I wonder if you would forgive me.


Paisa phekh, tamasha dekh,
Duniya isi ka naam hai.
...lekin meri potti sahee ja rahee hai.
-dadu.
.....and then that smile.


i miss u.
love,
-eeda

mein na mil sakun jo tumko
meri justujo na kerna.

the stream of nigthmares/ horrible dreams continues.
is it reflexive of my life? the quiet before the storm?
im so very anxious about khala's silence. about the fact that she knows im still talking but doesn't do anything about it.
about the fact that she walked in on me while i was on the phone, but never said a word to me, never asked me who it was, never snatched the phone away.
has she really changed? or will she burst after im in libya? will she tell ammi? has she told ammi?

or is she really being nice?

the anxiety is nerve-wracking. the wait, torturous.
i have been blessed with an overactive imagination, and fragile optimism.
i cannot help but worry.

which makes me lose sleep.
and appetite.
i might have the begginnings of peptic ulcer.
yay.

calmthefuckdown please?

i need to pick up yoga again.
i need to turn to God.

im too ashamed to. dont we all have that one unforgiveable sin that makes us cower in His presence? Id rather be shattered and smitten to dust.
my sin.
lies. secrecy.

that is NOT me. im the A-grade student, the school nerd,
valecdictorian, pride of the parents, cultured and well-behaved,
modest, humble, religious,
the well travelled well versed...liar?

its suffocating either way.
but one way i please them and this way i please me,
and this way seems so...selfish.

run run run away. go to another place, be another person, create a new you
yet again.
no distance is far enough.

no matter how harshly you uproot yourself, how diligently you sow yourself again seed by seed,
why is it never you? why do you always get moulded, shaped, restructrued?

i am like the sculpture that created itself.
i do not want to be sculpted anymore.

but you're a desi girl.
aur humari larkiyan...dont.

...

to do or not to do,
that is the question?

-eeda

why is it that guys suddenly realize they love you and always have done so
AFTER they've treated you like shit and you've moved on ahead?

'Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'
-Pablo Neruda

write for example, that it has been snowing all day..
and the entire cityscape outside my 2 by 3 ft window
slumbers under an ephemeral white mist.


there is something invigorating in sticking your head out your window in the middle of a snow blizzard, and catching snowflakes, like cotton moth balls, in open palms pink with cold.


there is something invigorating
in this self-erasure by the blinding cold whiteness that envelopes you.

consumes you.





snow makes me so HAPPY! :D
cheeni moment,
-eeda.



photo credits snowfall by littlemewhatever on deviantart.com

I dont want to leave.
Im going to miss Hina.
and Im going to miss Drug.

leaving sucks.

Food Court.
Pacific Center Mall
Vancouver,
4th March 2009.

In the mall? Alone?
Writing!!!???

No, I would rather just write.

I'm lit in the artificial.
Neon yellow halo's that spell 'Flaming Wok. Chinese food here!'
I am not Chinese.
or English. or Canadian.

The modern artifact of post-colonialism:- Me.
Brown suede shoes, and black cardigan, I am a walking vestige of their Indian colony;
won and lost.
western in my eastern skin.

Or eastern in my western skin?
My skin which has been tainted by them, 150 years ago?
How can I call this brown flesh,
exclusively mine?

*rewind*

Me.
wrapped in a turquoise blue sari. austere bun, each strand of taut, silken hair yelling for liberty,
like the voice of all my countrymen.

I was gathering fallen jasmines in my palms when they threw me out. House ablaze, men caged.
The smell of fire and ash and wilted, trampled jasmines.
You Indian Scum.

*forward*

Me.
feet resting on metal rims of the stool, fingers clutching my 2$ bottle of chilled Pepsi.
My head swims in kaleidoscopic advertisements, Gucci bags, fur coats,
the aroma of my jasmine scented Calvin Klein perfume I sprayed meticulously earlier in the day.


The war they abdicated is even now, won.
With every Mc Donald's, every Levi's, I buy, their war is won.

Did all our sacrifices remain futile?

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




Not to say that Ima mulla inspired kid with an anti-westernization agenda of my own,
but isn't it sad? Through the media and the commercial hoopla, they've managed to infiltrate our lands once again. It means nothing to be a cultured eastern anymore?
What east? What culture?


but yes, i do eat at McDonald's too.
it's just something to think about,

love,
-eeda.

'We seem to lavish in our ability to look away
and pride ourselves for our unconditional forgiveness.
After all,
isn't that what Love is about?

....and then time takes its toll...'

-quoted word for word from Ask Jim in a shitty ass local paper.
pearls of free-take-your-copy-today! wisdom.
something i've been thinking about.

-eeda.

Life is just a mirror,
and what you see out there,

you must first see inside of you.

-yeh aieenay mein chehra...mera to nahin-
-arooj aftab, udhero na-

literally nahin.
-eeda

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

Is it just me or did someone else also notice that
Someone or Something up there has a VERY twisted sense of humor?


It cannot be pure coincidence that the unluckiest day of the year, aka Friday the 13th, was followed by the most sentimental, overly-emotional celebration of love, aka Valentines, the 14th.


Twins a meager second apart.
Unlucky.
Love.
Unlucky IN love.
How else could you make this relationship clearer?


My Valentines was..hm. eventful precisely because it was uneventful.
I fought with him throughout all of Friday night, one of those days when Nothing you say goes down well with the other..

On Saturday morning i talked to his sister, which was quite something considering that i was on the train and could hear nothing she was saying, and had to mumble 'yes yes ofcourse ur right' to everything she said. Despite which she thought 'larki bohot tez hai'
Here's a snippet.

her- Its funny you've spoken to my mom and my brother and my cousin, but never to me. I think Bhai is scared of me.
me-yes, yes..sorry, er....should I be scared of you?
her-no no ofcourse not. But wouldn't the better question be, should I be scared of you?
me-yes yes...o sorry, noo! oh nooooo.....ima meek little.....
( *proceeds with description of my own nunha munna self*)

He then showed peekchurs of me to his family (yes i gave in. 'finally!' according to him.)
Both sister and mother agreed that i had gorgeous hair,however mother dearest seemed particularly inclined to notice the object on my face i have the misfortune to call my nose and said, ' bohot pyari hai lekin pakora naak hai.'

haey me. i think i shall dig my own grave and proceed to cement myself in the ground out of shame.

But No, there were no oodles of red roses or red envelopes or half sung love poems or any such mush. I made it a point to tell him that I Loathe the over-commercialised hype on Valentines, which I think he took a little too seriously and conveniently forgot to wish me on the day, except one meekly muttered out line late evening.
And this might be terribly hypocritical, but I would have liked a little more fuss.


Either way, I learned that whether you are single/double/triple and in denial of it- valentines will always remain just as uneventful, atleast for me. it is better instead to remember that if you DO have someone that cares for you, they will care for you the other 364 days just as much.


Despite which, if you ARE feeling particularly deprived, just blame it on Friday the 13th being a leeetle too close for comfort to Valentines,
........and having obviously rubbed off a little too much on our throw-red-confetti-and-sing-emo-lovie-songs day.

-end rant-
o, and to Ubee, thank you for the Valentine's honour.. I'm touched..
For those who do not know, Please check out Ubee's Valentine's post.


People have been complaining that I have been lost yet again. Hint Michar.
Im sorry, but school has been keeping me ridiculously busy..
Actually, that's a lie. I have been keeping myself ridiculously busy.... by inventing things to keep me occupied, such as clean out the underside of bed, wash clothes by hand instead of in the washing machine, take the longer route to go to school..et cetera.
I realize the more i sit around idly,, the more i get stressed because it feels like i'm not getting enough done, hence the more frustration, the more i feel like ranting and so on..vicious cycle.


obviously, life becomes fairly mechanistic...following my planner as if itssome demi-god..my 'fate' written in my own illegible writing,
return laptop, scan ticket for paper, email prof for thesis statement approval...so on..

i miss blogging. i really do. but i find i have nothing important or interesting to say anymore. my older posts had so much more ...intensity, youth..
ignorant wisdom.
i find i cant bring that up anymore. and it is ture that the more your writing goes unnoticed the more discouraged you get from writing....
and it is true that our little circle of bloggers HAS been fairly stagnant lately..

...and here i was trying to avoid ranting..

kher..to chun chun, im sorry i havent been replying..its funny tht everytime u DO say hie to me im in the middle of a something big with him and cant reply..bt we shalt communicate one day ( i shalt put it in my planner and then it shalt become my destiny to speak with u, yes? )

to everyone else...marina, neeli, ali..PLEASE keep writing.
to myself, please become alive again.

end lameness, and back to studying.
later,
eeda

crinkly-eyed.

.

i could sit here all day and all night

and just hear you laugh.

cheeniness
to the nth degree.
(@crack. thanx for waiting that night. =) )

-eeda

p.s, that girl above isnt me.
pet peeve: i dont like having pictures taken with a smile that wide and all teeth showing. :P

picture credits. laugh by xm0rphinex