Repression, Repression

“Abid?”

“What?”

We sat on the greenest and tallest hill. “How long has Darpana Existed?”

“Ever since you were in High school.” he answered with a straw dangling from his mouth.

“Means this is not real, you said you’re not going to help me and here you are dropping hints.” I said without looking at him, I was too busy enjoying the ‘figments’ of my imaginations.

“That is still irrelevent, the reality bit, I mean.” he smiled, obnoxiously.

“If this is my dark side, what will my happy side be like. ” I was curious.

“You mean to say you don’t remember Her?” he spat the straw, feigning surprise I’d imagine.

“Who?” I was genuinely surprised.

“I hate repressed memories. ” he shrugged.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————

“Don’t you think having a knowledgable guide in my own imagined world a bit of a cliche?” I ask as we moved across one of the micro creek systems.

“The fodder for your imagination is self loathing and a ton of cliches so I am not entirely surprised.” he replied.

“You said something about a ‘Her’, pity I can’t remember.”

“Pity she can’t forget you. ” he answered.

I felt nothing. It was hard feeling anything when there was no memory to back up the whole discussion.

The two moons rose high into the starry sky. Their orbit was so wrong, in the real world I would expect them to fizzle out of orbit but this was my world, physics could take a back seat. The micro streams teamed with shimmering points of thousand colours. It was hard to say if they were fish or gemstones. I wanted to reach down and touch them but the thought of the fragility of my woven world kept me from doing so.  I noticed time ran faster, we had entered deep into the night in what seemed to be a few moments. It was like being stuck in a RPG being run on all the supercomputers of the world combined. The experience was overwhelming.

I was going to like Darpana a lot.

DARPANA

The forest was behind us and so was the reality I knew.

“You are a very unwise man. You didn’t even care to ask what my name was. So let me spare you the trouble. My name is Abid. You may be thinking that I am a figment of your imagination. Well the answer is that I may and I may not. You have had enough breaks from reality with out knowing in the past few days. I don’t expect you to arrive at the answer so soon and I am not going to help you with the answer either. “

“Why are we here, wherever here is.” I asked, finally composure returned. It was surprising to know that despite being emotionally bland, fear still found a way to creep into my situations. I got the worst deal in the package.

“Are you listening? The answers to those questions await us here. And ‘here’ is called DARPANA. Remember the name of this place other wise the natives will mind.”

“Natives? We have natives?”

“Of course how can such a beautiful place be left uninhabited? That is downright unfair. Well this is Darpana. This is the city that manifests from your repressed side. It has created some of the most beautiful imagery possible. I wanted to bring you here to let you know what a beautiful mind that you have and what you have been missing out thanks to your whining.” He ended his speech as he pointed to the grassy green hills ahead of us. They reminded me a lot of the Chocolate Hills of the Philippines, only these were greener. “You may want to hold your breath for the things to come. “

Most of me was in denial. A part of me was in a bliss. That part of me was obviously the creator of this universe. The sky was the bluest shade (of, well, blue) that I had ever seen. The undulating horizon with two fading moons and the impeding dusk caught my heart. I wanted to reach out to the sky and to get some of the brilliant blue on my hands. The green around me was superb, small creeks that spread like a network in between the micro valleys between the hills created the most serene piece of melody that I had ever heard.

“Did you notice? Tell me you noticed!” he smiled again. I was growing tired of his smiling face but I was too happy to notice that.

“What?” I turned back to ask.

“Tears! Did you notice that you’re crying?”

“Shut up!” I sobbed.

My First English Ghazal

Experimenting with the English Ghazal

Into the Foliage.

“So what are we up to today.” I tried to smile. I wanted to explain to him the fact that I didn’t feel emotions the way he did.

“Come with me.” he whispered.

He took me by the hand and we ventured deep into the foliage of our neighbourhood park. The moment we stepped into the treeline we were greeted by a gust of cold wind; it was June. This sent shivers down my spine. There was great darkness beyond the tree line. To my surprise there were banana trees in front of me, or so they seemed in the darkness. I turned out trying to see the pathway behind me, there was nothing but darkness behind me. I started to sweat, I believed I was having a dream. My heart started to vibrate like a cell phone, my face was probably white as a ghost. Dreams had never felt that way ever before.

“What is this place?” I gulped.

“Somewhere only we know.” he laughed as his nails bit into my arm. He was over doing it, I was never going to let go of his hand in this darkness.

“This is not possible…” I muttered as we got into the clearing in the woods.

He circled on the bald patch of forest and sat on a felled tree. “Have a seat, make your self comfortable. ” he mused like a seasoned psychiatrist.

“I am not lying down on this log, these ants, they are huge!” he shook my head. He didn’t notice by the nod was probably more of a shiver.

“They haven’t had interactions with any humans before, we don’t know how they may respond. It’s much of an ecological experiment as a psychological one.” This man was different. My face ditorted as a I tried to focus on his face.

“First tell me, is this a dream?” I asked.

“First tell me this, how is this question relevent?” he smiled.

“I am not sure if I want to continue of wake up.” I shrugged again and I circled the clearing again. Beyond the yonder I heard a squaw that belonged to a species that I didn’t recognize. The cool breeze got me again and I turned around as if some had slapped the nape of my neck. My temples began beating in unison with my trembling heart. Dizziness struck and I cradled my head into my arms as i sat on the ant infested log.

“Not sure where you are isn’t relevent. What is important is that this is how you see your world, at least emotionally. It’s a jungle that is full of darkness, unknown smells and sound. You are doing what a snail would do in such a condition; cower under a moldy rock until your primitive senses would allow you.” he explained as he brought is hand in front of his chest and started cycling it with the palm facing his chest.

“What is this place?” I folded like a crumpled sheet of paper and fell to the ground. ” Take me back, back to where we came from.”

“Where? You will have to wake up to go back where you came from. So far you and I are stuck here.” he said as if consoling me.

“Is this a dream?” I am not sure how many times I had asked the same question already.

“Come with me, I brought you here, in this special place and all you are doing is sticking to reality.” He smiled. He was being generous as it seemed, his eyes were laughing madly.

I said nothing and reached for his arm. He took a left turn and we turned into the foliage.

The Stranger

The luxury of having a friend is not for me. I rely on the fourth, thank you very much. Quite often this is not enough to  sustain the emotional trauma I have to go through. I was roaming the internet, business as usual, when I came across a blog that asked readers to dive into their subconsciousness. Despite what I may say about myself, I do try to get out of my ‘predicament’ from time to time. That day I sat on my favourite sofa and began pondering the state I was in.

Things weren’t looking so good. The dream, the recurring sense of suffocation and the general gloom all pointed towards a problem that lied within my ‘processor’. With great courage, I stood up and went out of the room. I was going to change things. From now on, I did not need to be sad, at least not by choice.

————————–

The world outside was different on that day. The only thing that had changed was my perspective about it. This fine tuning had brought out the colors of my surroundings nicely. The first thing that occurred to me was the impulse to go to a public park. Public parks were different from what they had been a few years ago. Now they were well maintained, groomed and teemed with life. I sat on a chair that was a testament to ‘pigeon graffiti’. After a few minutes a young man came along and nodded for my permission to sit. I nodded in affirmative and there we were.

“You seem to be in a bind.” He smiled.

I was speechless, spontaneous conversations were difficult outside of my dreams. I effectively pinched my self by hitting my elbow against the back of the chair. I didn’t wake up; finally, Human Contact.

“You can call it that.” I tried to smile, I heard it was always nice to smile to strangers.

“Can I help in any way?” he offered.

“I am not sure how, I would really appreciate it though.” I replied with my fore head furrowed like that of a chess player.

“Ah, that means it is a problem of the spirit.” he put his elbow on the back of the chair and faced me.

“Well, obviously, if it were something physical, I would have seen a doctor or something.” I shrugged. Panic began to set in as I prepared to put my life on his examination table. How could this hurt? I was going to confide in a stranger in a non specific way, no prejudice, no forethought, no holds barred, honest opinions.

“Tell me about it.” he smiled. My heart cracked, was this a dream. Was I going to commit some sort of suicide. The setting was ideal for seppuku.

“I am having night mares about killing myself.” I inhaled.

“So.” He replied casually. The only thing that could have been worse was him taking a casual bite out of an apple.

I was silent. No emotion. For the first time a part of me cried for some attention. It was a rare thing indeed. The majority, the part that has always been in control, disagreed.

“Nothing.” was all that I could say.

“Don’t worry bud, just joking, of course it’s a big deal. No man has to admit that he wants to kill himself.” he smiled with an attempt to show some shame.

“I never said I wanted it, I dreamt about it. ” I clarified.

“It’s almost the same, ” he replied, “by the way, why do you want to do it?”

“I don’t know, impulse I guess.” The answer in itself was impulsive.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Excuse me,” I was almost furious, “you are asking me if you can help me.”

“No my dear dear friend, the question is not if I can, the question is if you want it to happen.”

There was an awkward silence. The awkwardness extended by every second that passed. For some times the surroundings came into perspective. The birds chirping, passers-by, the strange cloud in the sky that looked like Abraham Lincoln, the heart beats magnified by the strange and sudden bout of simultaneous introversion and extroversion.

After some time I replied, “Yes.”

A smile sailed across his face, he thrust his hand forwards,”What’s your name?”

“No names for now. We will meet on this bench daily and try to work some thing out.” I clarified.

He whistled in disbelief. “OK!  Done deal. The end point is going to be when I finally make you smile.”

“Or when I kill myself.” I smiled.

The Dark Days of Akhtar Hussain

There is a time of day when time stops, all the humors of the body come to a stand still, an impending sense of doom prevails and begins to suffocate my existence. The journey I have took in my life is all a blur. The future isn’t any clearer. It is like the lucid interval some coma survivors report before succumbing to their oblivious sleep. Up until recently such attacks weren’t worth a mention.

Now they are beginning to define my personality. They are the reason you will see me in shades and pulled up collars. Shying away from the crowd. My complexion has grown a sickly white because of the time I spend indoors churning out my stories. As tired as I have grown of life, I still hate sleeping through it and this is reflected in my pathological desire for caffeine and everything associated with it.

This is not an insight into how came to be what I am, rather a heavily fictionalized journal into my days and nights on this lonely earth.

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“Guilt is a disease!” These weren’t the words of my psychiatrist (though I could use one) but my good friend Yasoob Ghori.

“Indeed, I could do something about it if I knew why it was there in the first place. No, no…” I shook my fingers as if trying to delete my previous sentence, “…I could do something about it if I were sure that it even existed.”

“Denial, killed the cat.” he pressed on.

“Then I wouldn’t be the first one to go. Would I?” I laughed.

“I certainly hope not, for your sake.” he seemed worried.

This exchange may apparently seem like the discussion of two bros sitting in the college canteen.

This exchange was actually taking place in my office. There was a noose hanging from the ceiling. There were ligature marks on my neck, he had rescued me in time, according to him.

” I am going to put this, some where safe.” he said as he wound the rope around his hand.
“That wouldn’t be the only way out. Would there? ” I joked.

He grew uneasy. ” You are my friend. A good one. I don’t want to loose you. I don’t know how to ensure you of my sincerity but I do.”

“For starters,” I said as rubbed my neck, “Stop! Stop interfering with my life, all this is my fault and no one will be to blame.”

I woke up in the middle of the night. I tried to remember the dream I just had. I had tried to commit suicide and a friend had saved me. The truth was that I didn’t have any friends. Least of all a super here who would rescue me from such a critical situation. I didn’t know any Yasoob, it was a dream. Its prospects as bleak as the my existence.

I woke up for my morning coffee at 4 am. Not too early for me, no Sir, I was just in time for my morning rituals which would span an hour. They were the only source of calm in my sordid days.

Why were my days sordid? I did not know the answers to the question. I hear friends are the ones who help you out of situations like these. I had none. I had rationalized that I needed none. My dreams were telling me other wise.

Hospitals, not Medical Colleges!

I found out yesterday that our consultants will be attending local private hospitals to attend to dengue patients admitted there. This I found very inconvenient. Who wouldn’t? This is effectively saying that the private hospitals and their standards of care are virtually non existent. The paradoxes regarding the decision piled up:

1- If the Private Hospitals are so incompetant, who is the fool who gave them licenses to operate.

2- What? Some have no license? Then who is the fool who has his eye closed to this issue?

3- If they exist, then well, they do. Don’t punish us if they may not be competent enough to handle the load.

4-A form of check and balance should exist to monitor their faulty practices. This is essentially shying away from the issue.

Well I have thought of more paradoxes than I can put on (e)paper. Admitidly the governement is trying all its best but it still seems that they are ignorant or oblivious to the working of hospitals.

Allow me to shed some light on the issue. WE NEED MORE HOSPITALS, NOT MEDICAL COLLEGES. Ofcourse, it goes without saying that a medical college can not exist without a teaching hospital but practically speaking all the teaching hospitals affiliated with these medical college fail miserably when it comes to serving and giving back to the community. In fact, they do such a bad job catering to the needs of their own students when it’s their turn to complete their house job. These students (in majority or minority, I don’t have the figures) flock the existing government hospitals in significant numbers. The private hospitals are doing a better job then these private teaching hospitals.

The dilemma became obvious during this dengue epidemic. I would like to have the opportunity to teach in these private medical colleges, but to practice clinical medicine is still a long shot.

The owners know the reasons to this all too well.

غزل

You will never want to feel the way I feel

Malignant Hope

Hope is a great imitator. In ways it’s just as blind as justice ought to be. Hope has no polarity; the context makes it desirable or undesirable, helpful or malignant.

Being hopeful is good. Most of the times, yes. For most of the people, yes. For most situations, yes. But there are always people who have agendas that transcend the normal utility of this feeling.

I have seen these people, I have seen their sorrows, i have seen their scarred emotions, all thanks to hope. Hope to them is like a cancer that keeps them anchored to the past. Prevents them from exploring newer option. Prevents them from acquiring better and more positive things.

I have seen hope that can become enemy of hope. Hope of things past (unacquirable, unrequited things) can tarnish hope for a better tomorrow. I have seen people with sleepless nights having this malignant hope continuously boring into their minds. Burning holes in their conscience with questions of ‘what-ifs’. Their existence is in a perpetual state of sadness. The move about like shadows. Not shadows of real objects but rather like shadows of ghosts; ill defined, causing only shrieks of fear and doubt. They are plunged into their own conscience. Their mind processing nothing but the ins and outs of the self. I have seen them getting labels of narcissism and self worship whereas their crime is their inability to exorcise themselves from the torments of hopes of things past.

Hope is the last thing that one may pray to give away. But that is what they want to give away, like wishing away a sore that refuses to heal.

Yes, hope is a malignant thing; it can be the most tormenting thing ever.

 

To Purpose…

I have sought out people, books, places and wealth at different times of my life. Now it all comes down to you. People get preoccupied.Books and what they account for gets old all the time, only to be replaced by newer works. The list of places I want to go is huge. Besides, the few places that I have visited from the list, didn’t turn out to be things that I sought. Wealth has always eluded and it will continue to elude me.

The thing remains, the thing that no one can take from me, an ultimate form of self, a complete opposite to the selflessness I am supposed to harbor, is you; Purpose.