Nature aur Naya saal!

On this land you don’t drive on the left side of the road, as like what our colonial rulers left us with, but we drive on what is left of the road. Furthermore, what is left of anything, in and around us, is what we have.

Its been a long time since I mentioned my driving tales. There have been no lack of them, to start with, but what I feel is that you don’t stop wondering of ‘whys’ of the road when the off-road adventures become too crazed up. But I do have some issues with bikers! People I understand that traveling on a bike makes every sense of your humanly body to become active and you feel the feeling of flying…. But fellows I wish to remind you kay motor aur motarsiikaal dono main mayoos kun toor par urnay wala gear nahi hai! Please don’t try swiping your bikes through spaces at traffic signals! Its excruciating to bare!

While on the other part of the world a movie just got canceled in Hollywood. All it took was a hack of intolerance.  And the new year has arrived. Viola! It is now on Youtube and the entire internet. One hiccup for cinema owners… while the movie enjoys the new twist in mass entertainment industry’s turn in history.

 Life…. -signs- -cliché-

Growing up again… it is like I have one season final and I had to move on to the start of another brand new season. Fingers crossed as always, as for success or failure, it is too blurry to be defined yet again. It is like eating an allo anda pratha! you are just not sure which you wish was the one you wanted more, the crispy salty fried anda or the preserved meshed spiced-up allo. But you always feel that even though you enjoyed it, still one of the two are missing the edge. Unfortunately you are full now and that was all that mattered from the start till the end.

Hello new year, we meet again. And it’s the same old bone crushing cold. How symbolic is your arrival. 2015! you naya saal!

What we imagine and what movies made us imagine… everything is meant to fall short of it. Neither we have our better selves nor do we have flying cars. What we have is our scared-survived self with more emotional baggage and cars with no airbags.

Due to the havoc created by the terrorism in the last few decades, the world has had some time to revisit the perception of what is Che Guevara and what is Che Guevara gone-wrong! The young-ones have shifted their teen-perception of ‘cool’ to what-works-perception of ‘cool’ in their adult life. The world is not the only thing rolling you know!

Meanwhile at the helm of power, the aristocrats and the democrats are again trying to find quicker, cheaper and ‘democratic’ decisions, to smooth out the hiccups of the current past. How inconveniently ironic of slower, extravagant and self-centered ones! 

The terrible paradox that this year also did not fail to reemphasize is that nature of man is so obvious and still so complex to resolve. 

p.s. the winter is here! And the sui gas has gone somewhere! ab rome mein chicken karahi kaisay pakay gi! Bhai koi cylinder doondh kar lao ab!

Comedy aur crickut!

There is no greater tragedy for a nation to have its books lost in collateral damage of war and equally tragic is for its museums to be burned down. The ashes would not only sweep clean the slate of its history and culture, but also alienate the current generation from glories of their ancestors, the sad tale of the lost generation.

We have reached a point in globalization where the fruits are either too competitive for the human society to bare on its annual bank roll or the sacrifice for the preservation of status quo is horrendously beefed up by our tantamount sense of insecurity. Nonetheless, we have now realized that, sadness and complications in life, are the mainstay.

So, if you look at your troubled self and wonder… why the hell am I suffering from stagnation! Well, friend, you are not the only one and neither are you alone. The person next to you might not be with a sad/irritated look but the next to that one, sure hell is! In this ‘civilized world’ that we happen to live in, has its… what we call… side effects. There is no remedy for the chaos, because in-fact, the chaos is normal. So if you want to grow as in person... first embrace the chaos.

 So here I am, unloading the wit and wisdom, about the stuff you sure are not bothered about and definitely don’t have the will to waste your time over. Time, the one thing you never efficiently utilize yourself but it definitely troubles you if its not serving up to your wishes! So why excruciate you people any further and lets get to the laughing business!

For instance, the series of funny coincidences that keep on happening in this country… life in this land is comedy plus errors. 

An entire province goes to darkness, when the political rivals are about to stage a massive shutdown on the station-next-door-neighbour and when your stop is next! And their ministers keep persistent on talk of probable fall of ‘prospective economy’… well what we all hear, in language of our beloved sports, the crickut is…. ‘iss waqt umar gul 10 run score kar gaye hai… aur wo 190 run durr hai apni pehli double century say…. Score hai 140, 9 khelario kay nuksaan par, 40 overo kay ikhtataam par!’

Some deceptive opportunism being banked on a previously injured player, who has been deserted by the top order!O bhai umar gul ki one day ki tou century bhi nahi howi aaj tak!

Moving on to the climate! khel kay baad mousam ki khabrain....

Not to mention this is one of the warmest year till date, and definitely believe in the idea who’s time has come! Lets build it!! Lets build a giant spacecraft! Wo bhi AC wala! Interstellar Zindabad!!

So friends… looking at the screens! hoist your spirits and have the laugh! Laugh while you do have the time to read this all!! we are a lost generation of our gloriously gory ancestors and spiritually sound saints!! Happy Weekend everyone! :D

p.s. road par rulta kutta, aur ashtray main jalta sutta, sirf pachaas hazaar kay DSLR ki nazar mein hi achay lagtay hai! –this line was a tribute to lines of filmi one-liners –

Lahore aur lamehhdood!

Humour, sir, comes natural to lahoris…. So does rudeness, sheer lack of regard and respect. Now there is a fundamental aspect to their invisible motive. That, sir, is their tendency to keep, what is known as, ‘the upper hand’.

For instance, you are standing in queue with a trolley at a grocery store. An uncle, an actual uncle, twice your age! Comes and tries to invade the line, right before the counter. Apparently they were two counters at the place. One for those with a trolley and those without a trolley. Anyway! The uncle with absolute no bearing of the blunt violation of the queue making rules, gets aback by heys of the standing! But you my friend get the brunt! The uncle stands there criticizing you for not having enough items in your trolley, in other words stating you as undeserving of the queue! You will come to admire the courage of this uncle! Almost brings a smile on you!

Then there are the traffic wardens… the rant-some tall standing men who if not writing off a challan, have the ability to shred your self-esteem to bits and pieces. So if ever you get stopped by one, hope you are left with any! Although the traffic here is rude, as much as it can be! The nature of rudeness may defer from road to road(and there are A LOT of roads). This is the motherland of the Pakistani traffic safety phrase, ‘you safe yourself in traffic, from the traffic’.

Lahore, the city of roads, bridges, and conservative vote bank! has its variety of food outlets, and is most suitably the heaven of any foodie. The clothing lines have multiple shops all over the city, you can find the clothes but finding the tailor is the key. Or on the other hand, if you buy prêt or ready-made, well, it can cost is all sort of colourful currency. Unlike the capital, the city has not outlawed its bachelors and can find a place to live, at some ease but remember that the city has it undocumented taxed high rent! So your roti, kapra and makaan…. Only for, if you have, lamehhdood(limitless) money in the pocket!

My, sir, if you want to ask that being in this city has changed my views on the burden of philosophical side of my existence. Well, the city is demanding and there is a reason to believe that an explicit version of shrewdness is required over here to survive. Although, they may not agree with you but at the end of the day, the city has a magnanimous strength to absorb people from different backgrounds, beliefs and regions.. So, the answer, sir, is no!

My fear, although, is its ability to appoint a ‘better half’. Be that as it may, but I have decided to oppose it. Atleast until, a time comes when the courage of men fails. Thus,  till the time comes…. A man most do, what a man must do. That is to work on the professional progress, personal growth, future plans and resolution of major challenges etc etc. when practically the joy of life is sucked out of life and you are finally a machine!! I miss the life of young and stupid ideas!

p.s. Laahor ch theko wasaib baow yaad tisi.. par figar nat! dushmana ku bhaa lag waisi! :P

Snape aur shadi

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. - Socrates

There is a thing about marriages. They are like the key to survival of human society, although, the human race still survived in its absence in some parts of the world. Marriages have some complexities to themselves in this part of the world, where they are the sole reason for anxiety for everyone!

The dhulla party is worried about the expenses and guests list on the walima.

The dhullan party is worried about the legitimacy of dhulla party and their own list of pseudo-guests.

The guests are worried about their inability to estimate the worth of the newly wed couple, for the sole purpose of the salami.

The end result, the thought that sails through everyones' mind… yeh shadi kis ka idea tha!! Damnit!

Anyways when the bills have been paid, the rollas of mama ji and chachi ji has been resolved, the night of vulgar assumptions as passed. The marriage moves to the next challenge…. Tabdeli ayi nahi aah gayi hai!!!?????

Love marriage, apart from its initial challenges, tends to bring with it an understanding that you don’t have to change and compromise forcefully but happy at will. And even if you find the new revelations, you still can live by the envisioned dream and work towards it.

Arrange marriages, already spooked by anxious suspicions, if not properly thought through, which is like most of the time,  demands and not asks, you to compromise and change yourself, if in case you want it to survive. And thus begin, ab hum kiya kar saktay hai-phase

Now the thing is, I am not the master of marriages…. I have not tried getting married over and over again. Once may be I came close to being married but still, kismatou ko nibah rahay hai. But after all that I have observed and reported. Like all other things, conscience is a luxury that is not compatible in marriages as well!

Either its arranged or love, else both!! You should never invite conscience to the party! And beware that it’s ‘the’ ‘wedding crasher’ your nani warned you about! Why, because usnay kiya kia, usnay kiya kaha, usnay kiya socha… is never going to resolve the moral stand of either party, larki, larki-walas, larka, larka-walas or guests. Just get over with it! And get over it!

Now a new life has start, a life of miya, biwi aur bachay…. And a happy family! Where you will join new ties and break some old ones and mess up once in a while, go out for a meal and everything will be expensively alright!

Pyar zindagi mein aik baar hotay hai, aur humeisah dou aisay afraad mein jo dunya say taang aye hotay hai… and in their own world nothing else exists, but just them and only them! The are on top! Centre, right and left … of the WORLD!! Their own world!

Now the thing about bachelors like me… the question is … to marry or not to marry?
its simple… hum SNAPE ji kay mureed hai bahi… ALWAYS….

Baki rahi dunya aur uski dari (rag) aka dunyadaari… Kush rakho aur kush raho… dosro kay liye hi sahi….

To the married… don’t take anything for granted and value your spouses and if in PAKISTAN.. their families more!

To the not-married-till-this-day…. Try becoming the next EDHI bahi and EDHI bajji…

P.s.  Soocraat bahi mein nay tou shadi nahi ki par philosophy phoot phoot kar bahar arahi hai… lagta hai aap nahi kaha kuch aur tha… bhabi kuch aur hi translaite kar bethi… shadi mein undderstanding honi chahiye nahi tou banda sari ummar kay liye philosopher ban jata hai!  :P

Happy aur hum?!

Remember the time when we were 4 year old kids and our parents (or their PARENTS), took us to school. It was like being born again, we gave the same fear driven cry that was like the one at our birth. The thud right in the heart, as if you have experience death of you existence. As if, you have been robbed off from safeguards of your ‘Forte Mother’, and sent into a battle field without any armour! This feeling! Heads as worries and tails ultimately to happiness. Fews days into the battle, and it becomes your homeland and your battle scars become pride that you can brag about for the rest of your life with a bittersweet sensation upon each reminiscence.

Now you have fought the bullies and the scary teachers, you had the bruises but you survived!

High school, college, university…. Been there, done that!

The bad grades, the boring lecture, the bragging class fellow… Been there, done that!

The crushes, the envy, the heart break…. Been there, done that!

Year 24! Level 6! FINISHED!

Do you know, that to prepare an English willow bat for matches, its first stroked with a hard ball hammer at each centimeter of its existence, to prepare it for a game. 1000 strokes and if it does not break… its ready for a hard ball game!

My dear same is the case with us university soon-to-be-graduates. You have been hammered and you know the feel. But now consider yourselves as READY for another rebirth!

The ‘Forte Education’ is going t throw you into the battlefield with a scary people, bad grades and crowned heart aches! But no manual, as always…

The pain of yet another death of existence is massive, the prospects of glory from surviving the next level are extensive…. But our judgment has manage to cloud itself with the help of our fears.

 Let go of those fears that have been picked up by you over the years. These complex combinations of comparative relating-ness is a weightless balloon. You survived because you had something that worked for you. YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE SOMETHING THAT WILL WORK FOR YOU! Uncloud your judgment and look for it!

As a pharmacist I know for a fact that nature has always provided you with cures of its ills… there is always a cinchona bark for every malaria parasite!

The constant in your life is suppose to be happiness and the general formula for it is sacrifice, compassion and embracement. For death, when it is to come, it is to come! Your fight is to fight with a smile on your face!

Smile Away! The world is .. indeed… YOURS!

P.s. Next time you say… Happy aur hum??!! Follow it with an “OH! YES!!!”
see you on the flipside:)

P.p.s. this was a customized rant-deficient post! to those who felt offend! Bhai hai na! wait for the next post! choon choon kar rant marray ga! ;)