Skip to main content

Mukammal

किसी को मुक्कमल जहां नहीं मिलता
कहीं ज़मीन तोह कहीं आसमान नहीं मिलता

जिससे भी देखिये वोह अपने आप में घूम हैं
जुबां मिल्ली हैं मगर हमज़ुबाँ नहीं मिलता

भुजा सका हैं कौन वक़्त के शोले
यह ऐसी आग हैं जिसमे धुआ  नहीं मिलता

तेरे जहां में ऐसा नहीं कि प्यार ना हो
जहां उम्मीद हो इसकी , वहाँ नहीं मिलता

Nida Fazli

You know sometimes when you want to talk, and then be silent, at the same time. When you want people to talk and when you want them to be silent, at the same time. Sometimes you want to hear yourself think and at other times you want to fill your head with music, which are mere sounds to drown the other voices in your head.

I have people talking to me about what I should be doing, what I should be thinking, what i should be eating. And I am grateful to them for that. Sometimes you wonder where you would be without the people you love. Find your core, they say, when you are down and upset, they say. I have found immense strength whenever I have reached out to a few people in my life. I can trust them to tell me where I am wrong, tell me where I am right. Shout at me, cry with me. Make a joke, laugh it off, tell me to get a life and get over it. But what if sometimes, nothing anyone says helps you?

What do you do when the idea of you as person, in your own head, suddenly is in complete contrast to what you've done with yourself and your life? You try and merge the two and look for reasons and possible explanations for the behavior. And then you settle with some version of the truth. That comforts you to an extent but also plants a seed of doubt. What if you don't know yourself! They say, it's when you are truly alone, or when you have experienced great heartbreak or failure in life : in whatever aspect - career, health, family, friendship, love, it is only then do you genuinely introspect and go on a path of self discovery. I think I should do that now.

But on this path that I intent to tread on, whose voices do i listen to? My own? Or those of others? I feel the need and want for both of these at different points. I am very gullible. Very very gullible. And I know that. So sometimes it scares me to ask my friends and people for their opinions on my situations in life and their advice. Because unconsciously I might find myself acting out their suggestions. It is so important to know what you really truly want . There was this dialogue in Jab We Met, where Kareena Kapoor tells Shahid, that at the end of the day, we get what we really truly deeply want in life. "Jo kuch bhi insaan real mein chahta hain, actual mein, usko life mein wahi milta hain". But how many of us know what we really want? I don't. I thought I did.

I've been meaning to write a "What do i want in life" post to myself and email it. Something I can pull up  in life at times when I am doing this kind of soul searching and to read and to know and to judge if what I'am doing or who I am with , is what I truly want. I finally did that today. Nothing extraordinary or shocking came out. But it is nice to know and have it written somewhere. When your mind is in turmoil, it thinks so many thoughts, and you want to keep some of those thoughts, but they eventually get lost. So I wanted to write this list down. And save it for myself.

From the looks of it, i am what I think I am. And I identify with this person. But something someone told me today, struck me so hard, that it came very close to snapping the delicate silver threads that my dreams hang from.  I am trying very hard not to be influenced or depressed or perturbed or think too much into what he said. I also believe that what you think, is what you'll end up doing. If you think you're going screw up your life, chances are, you will. I believe i am going to have a beautiful and happy life with lovely relationships all around me. And thankfully, that belief or that "facade" is SO strong that nothing can shake it. Hopefully.

So today, when i feel this weird pain and void, i need to believe that it will be alright. That life goes on, you will find new people, you will make new friends, you will love again. There are times though, when reality stares at me as soon as I shut the main door behind me after coming back home. That is the first time in the day when I am alone. All alone. I am not running anywhere, I am not expecting anyone, I don't have a task at hand. There is no sense of hunger or pain or hurt. It is just this feeling of a deep void inside you.. So I take a deep breath and switch on all the lights in the house and put the TV on loud. And go about doing my thing. Which reminds me I am out of coffee. Damn.

There are temporary roadblocks, and upsets, but who doesn't have them in life right? You will fight for something you want, and if you don't fight for it, chances are you don't want it that badly in the first place. Life is too short to go after something halfheartedly or do something you don't believe in. It's just that most of us, me included, lose sight of that "everything will be ok" philosophy. My father has a strong sense of "life will work itself out". I need to learn that unshakable courage and patience and strength from him. Because you need so much courage to pursue your happiness in life. So much courage. Life is that, it is actually that you know. It's a Pursuit of Happiness. And in your own personal pursuit, you face many many challenges. People try to stop you, make you unhappy, but you need to know what you want . Because unless you do, nothing or no one can help you.  These following dialogues between Will Smith and his son from the movie come to my mind:

Will Smith  : Hey. Don't ever let somebody tell you....you can't do something. Not even me. All right?
Christopher: All right.
Will Smith: You got a dream...you gotta protect it. People can't do somethin' themselves, they want to tell you you can't do it. If you want somethin', go get it. Period.

There is a ShahRukh dialogue from Om Shanti Om where he says, "humare filmon ki tarah, humari zindagi mein bhi end tak sab kuch theek hi ho jata hain". Oh that man, has something for every time in my life. So you just need to be patient. Our lives unlike our movies are longer than 3 hours. So sometimes it take 3 hours/3 days or maybe  3 years, and we just have to be patient. I suck at being patient, that needs to change.

But does my romantic notion about love, life, men, dreams, movies need to change? No. That is not going to change. It might cause me more hurt, it might mean more sleepless nights filled with agony and despair and pure hopelessness. But there is no way, I am going to let go of my dreams. For what are we without them? So you can accuse me of living in a movie in my head, and call me unrealistic and try and try and try your very best to wake me from my "deep slumber", but  I can't get rid of what is such an integral part of me. I'll lose what I am. I really will.

And those who truly know me, will never ask me to forsake it in the first place.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Zindagi Migzara.

As I dimmed the lights of my room last night, Singapore's hot and humid air changed to a gush of strong cold wind. The curtains fluttered and made my ddlj cow bells ring. I turned and stared at them for a long time.  I readjusted the laptop on my bed and plonked myself against two big pillows. My eyes closed themselves. There was a silence that was neither deafening nor lonely. It was just what silence is meant to be.... silent. And my curtains moved again, moving the bells with them. The bells took me back to Shahrukh and his movies. I opened my eyes and looked at those bells for a long long time. My mom had picked them up from Switzerland for me. I thought of her and teared up. I wanted her now. I wanted her touch. It was 10pm at home in India and at this time, after dinner and closing the kitchen, my mother, takes a shower. She comes out of the bathroom, and brings with her a waft of her talcum powder and her body lotion. That fragrance can make you forget all your worries...

Heer and Sahiba

हीर हीर ना आँखा उडियो मैं ते साहिबा होई घोड़ी लेके आवे ले जाए घोड़ी लेके आवे ले जाए ओ मेनू , ले जाए मिर्ज़ा कोई ले जाए मिर्ज़ा कोई ले जाए मिर्ज़ा कोई -Gulzar -- Jab Tak Hain Jaan I love this song from Jab Tak Hain Jaan. While its difficult to capture the essence of the song in words, I'll try to. In Indian/Punjabi folklore, there are two very famous love stories : Sahiba - Mirza and Heer - Ranjha. In both tales, the lovers dont live happily ever after. In the second story, heer and ranjha never get together,  heer's brothers taking the couple's  love as an insult to the family's reputation kill him. In the first tale of Sahiba and Mirza, Mirza comes on a horse and takes Sahiba away, for a life together. But their journey is interrupted by Sahiba's brothers, who kill Mirza, thus ending the love story. In the song, a lady sings and says - don't call me Heer, I'm wish my destiny is like that of Sahiba's, i aeait a Mirza, who'l...

Zindagi Migzara.

Har ghadi badal rahi hai roop zindagi Chhaaon hai kabhi kabhi hai dhoop zindagi ~~Javed Akhtar, Kal ho Na Ho This is a post I will HAVE to name after my blog, simply because no other phrase can capture the true meaning of what I will try my best to express in words in this one. It all started on the Third Floor balcony of Omega, Hyderabad. And the best part is the fact that we didn't even know that we had started something new. We went through months of dilemma and denial while deep down both of us just knew. As a very dear friend puts it we had the 'connection' , but we were yet to discover it. Days, Nights, and months went by, before we realized. In fact more than 'realization', we accepted that we meant a lot more to each other. Today when people ask me for a time,date and place and what, where, how, when. I am clueless. Because it was not love at first sight, it was even more beautiful than that. A friendship that both of us treasured to th...