A summer romance, under the oak. The sun cuts through the leaves, finding it's way down. Trickling onto the tips of my hair, down my arm to the top of my fingers. Caressing me like a first love, cajoling me into happiness. Iram.

An hour? Damn, that monster of yours knows how to run. Our heads turn to the rover parked out front. Men and your toys, she says. I swear to god, that thing in between your legs and your cars. I forget what she says after that. Shy, timind, Iram. Her reference takes me by surprise.

She, with her tied back hair. Her big round eyes that eat me up. Her eyes and ears and knees and toes. Oh, head, knees and toes, knees and toes! And so once again, I flex the muscle within, ready it for another pounding and plunge back in to it. Right back into love.

And all is swell, all is sweet. There are pancakes for breakfast, walks on the beach. On rainy days, there's coffee by the window. Games of scrabble, games in bed. Books are torn through. And now I sleep, and now I wake. Dum di da dum, let's have those banana pancakes. Dum di dum, mhm, hmmm, ha! Irr, ir, irr, irru, ram pam, iram.

And, then: Breakfast is a quiet affair. Toast and tea. Accompanied by a side of screeching silence, broken only momentarily by could you pass the sugar? Or the butter. Or the knife, I'd like to cut open my veins and be done with it. IRAM!

A vase is broken, flying objects dodged. Iram, my partner in love, my happiness under the oak. Goodbye.

I wish I had facial hair. And I could not shave for a week, and the world would know that something was amiss. The hair on my chin would scream a million words. My crinkled, two button missing shirt, my stained trousers, the stench of caffeine trailing behind me. It's a wonder how far I'd be willing to go. Only to mask the monotony of my life with the bristles of unkemptness. And won't it be beautiful then? All the stares I will invite, the hushes and shushes.

 I sit alone, forcing myself through lunch. Grasping onto a mount of rice, only to crumble each grain. I sit on the bench, trampling on the ants that scurry below me. And I lie in my bed, running the tips of my fingers, across the length of my neck, feeling desperately. Surely there is enough to give away how run down  I feel. This could take a lifetime. I'm miserable, help me. Can I paint that across my forehead? In red. And I'll do it everyday, until someone takes notice. Or till I'm no longer miserable. Whichever is to happen first.

There are planets between the person I was, and have become. Circumstances have hardened me. A beard as long as any man's, adorns the contours of my jaws, running down well into my chest. I'm pleased you think it's something to do with my religion. It always was very foreign to you, wan't it? I'm glad you find it sexy. I'm sorry it get's in the way of our kisses and for the attention it invites.

 I work my way through a sandwich I wasn't hungry for. And I feel so happy, that my lack of appetite is only the result of the heavy breakfast we shared. I smile as I think about what you had said earlier. I would give away the world, to know what you hide under the hairs of your chin, you had managed to mumble as you gobbled on pancakes and maple syrup. I'm excited to show you, I had replied.

Wonders within me.

A world turns on the tip of my finger, and then. It all comes down crashing down, onto my feet, breaking my toes, crippling my soul. Leaves rustle, wings flutter. Momentary chaos to my cry, a prelude to a perennial silence.

Head's bob out of sunroofs, smoke blows, inhale, exhale. The wind rushes past, hair transformed into a myriad sculptures. Screams of ecstasy, hushed to terrified whispers. Lost control, crash and burn. And with that, worlds tumble from fingers to feet.

And what is left? Pointing fingers, where once the world stood. Reduced now, to simple accusations. Tongues are woken from sleep, curses flow freely. It was your fault, say's the finger wagging furiously now.
If only you hadn't.

All that has happened, is all I have wanted. Relations buried, a family distanced. I've set myself free from the shackles that put me down. And yet, now it seems like it is what held me together. I'm uncertain whether to go back or to go on.

A turmoil of emotions tear me. What of the wonders within me now, I wonder.

I am unbelievably flustered, irritated almost. And as all such emotions heighten within me, questions erupt. Blasted into the dormancy of my brain, they rattle me. I find myself lurking within the nooks and crannies of the finite amount of gray matter I posses. Trying to find answers to perhaps the most complex questions to have ever been put to man.

Q1)  What am I doing with my life?

Hey, that one's easy! I'm studying engineering. 

Q2) Why?

Because I'll have to work when I'm older right. I'll have to earn, support my family. Duh.

Q3) And then?

I'll earn and live happily ever after!

Q4) So, what's the point of it all?

What does that even mean? 

I feel troubled once my answers transform to counter-questions. I feel stranded, unfamiliar. Lost, almost. Seriously, what does that even mean? What does it all mean? This incessant noise about achievement, about success, about being great, being happy, being this, being that. I find refuge in a poem I came across a few years ago.

Now we will count till twelve,
and we will all keep still,
For once on the face of this earth,
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

I wonder if it is sane to find yourself consumed so wholly in conflict, as myself. To be constantly nagged by uncertainty. As I turn twenty, a crisis gestates, fuelled by the dormancy of my life. I find myself often questioning the principles that make this world go around. 

This incessant exchange of money angers me. Why am I putting myself through 4 years of college, far from the people I love the most? Sure, to win some you have to lose some. What will I win though? Ultimately what's it all going to lead to?

Nostrils flare, eyes water. I am furious. I want to live in the wild. Now we will count till twelve, and we will all keep still. For fuck's sake, shut up and keep still.

 I walked so much today. Sneaked out, took a deep breath and just walked around. It was nice. Not amazing, not wonderful. Nothing over the top or profound. It was just a walk, down a near empty road. I don't remember what I thought about. Or if I thought about anything at all?

Maybe I thought about them. Maybe I thought about her? Or maybe I didn't. Maybe I concocted in my head an idea? A spark fuelled into fire by enormous supplies of oxygen around me. I don't remember. I think I remained inert for the most part.

I feel sleepy now, I won't be able to complete this today. Is there anything more to tell? It was just a walk. I don't know. I've been sleeping a lot recently. I hope I remember to wake up tomorrow. I would hate to forget. Must put a sticky note on my headboard!

I feel your hunger, love. I'm sure they'd approve. For who are they, those insignificant dregs of the upper echelons?  And us? What of us? Love, is it not enough? Am I not enough? Surely, certainly. Acquiesce, love. And with acceptance, strip forever this stubborn shadow of doubt. Which has hung over the beast of us. And grown, parasitically.

These fleeting glimpses of passion, these minuscule moments of ecstasy have proved insufficient. I can longer let us be contained. Here, a jack in a box. Let us take the world by surprise. Men who have sinned are troubled. Their conscience eats them whole. And yet, a man who has only loved? This is no sin. Surely, certainly.

They refuse, you say? I ask again, who are they, those insignificant? If you deem me worthy of your body, who are they, those insignificant, to decide otherwise? What vulgar joy is derived from this enforced confinement. 

Ignorance has robbed my sanity. Ignorance of boundaries we will never find, for we are forever bounded. 

Thousands exhult, rejoice, regret. Salman took to the stage, like a fish to water. Crowds thronged the local gymkhana to hear him, with his false promises and what not. Hope is a funny thing. 4 years older, yet babes of infinite innocence. Saman bhai zindabad! Bhai! bhai! Hamare bhai! Voices resonated as Mr. Promise bestowed the stage with his benign presense. Justice to those denied, food for the hungry, illuminition for those lurking in the dark! Mr. Promise grew, upwards and sidewards, in all forms. Arms and knees, knees and arms. Until he grew too heavy and...kapooch.

What happened afterwards, has been subject of a thousand books. All thrilling political satires ofcourse. Critics termed it a catastrophe. And on the auspicious occasion, a struggling shayar proclaimed Kaha woh jannat, aur kaha yeh jahanum? It is not my job to judge, I am simply a story teller. The events are henceforth:

The crowd pregnant with their 12th dose of hope grew restless as Mr. Promise grew. The excited voice of young white kurta-pyjama clad poilition failed to excite. His words failed after the initial uproar that oft follows a grand unveiling.

I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation for what happened next. However, it is beyond my comprehension why somebody decided to reduce the foor fellow to the ground and have him swim in his own blood?

And so writers hurried to there desk. Records were made. Names of all those that perished in the violence that ensued were iscribed. A grand monument erected. I was deeply saddend, but then my wife announced her pregnancy and I was happy.

Salman came out of the safety of his mothers womb 9 months hence. I wasted no time in the removal of his foreskin, bestowing upon him the honour of his heritage. It's a sad thing no-one told me that the absence of this epidermis would one day leed to his unfortunate demise. It's a shame I never got to vote for him.

Inject in my veins a dream, let it run within me, through a struggled heart and around again. Impegranate my mind with the sperms of imagination, let them form into a foetus of what is not and be grown into a babe of awesome illusion, of crazed deception. Allow me, Oh most benevolent, most merciful to gestate what grows within me for the rest of my short life.

I am happy when I am delirious. When I'm injected with dreams, when all of this feels unreal...when I am lost. Ecstasy. I am wrapped in the warmth of belief. There is a second world yaara! I am 110 percent sure of it! You don't believe me? Here, here. Inject, vroom there! Off you go.

It's slow, almost static. But you're protected. This building, sirjee. Absolutely, fire proof. Here, the fierce flames of what actually is, lick along the walls. At their strongest, all frames united, even then, they fail to penetrate into this second world.

I am knee deep in reminiscence today. As I tread deeper, the pains bridled are unleashed in forms of great guffaws of laughter. It's strange, but here nothing is strange. What is and what isn't? I am miles from any traces of reality.

Fuck this. Give me another dream. So really unreal.

The shore is miles afar. And my body is caressing, moulding into the bed of the sea. I wonder why I treadled so far into the depths of my soul? Only wafts of my crackling remain. A dying flame lingers, fanned desperately by the moths of hope.

And just then, a miracle. I am transported with soul, to my beloved second world, and my body finds it place at the bottom of the sea.

A letter to my father.

I remember being perched outside my window, in the chill of winters, watching the world pass me by. I’d be standing there for hours in the evening, waiting for you to come back from work. And sometimes the sun had set and you still weren’t back I’d always wonder what was so important that  kept you away?

You’d always come back though, sometimes later than I expected and I’d have to stand out a little longer. But you’d be there for sure, every single night. I’d run up our corridor and open the door for you and you’d pull me up in your arms. Sometimes, Maria would get there before me. And you’d pull her into your arms first. I didn’t like it when that happened.

And then you’d put you’d look at ammi and you’d ask, koi chitti patri? Koi phone call? And everyday we went through the same routine.

Then one day, something happened . It was strange. I didn’t want to play cricket with you anymore. And I stopped waiting for you to come back. Sometimes, I wished you didn’t come back. You’d just tell me to study right? What was the point of that? I didn’t know what was happening, I didn’t understand these changes. Now I think about it and it makes some sense to me. I grew up.

You handled it with an air of indifference. You gave me my space. Surely, it must have been difficult for you? But you were composed. You let me make my mistakes but you were sure to make sure I learned from them.

I read somewhere that by the time a man realizes his father was right, he has son who thinks he is wrong. I still have 10 years at least before I’m a father, so I guess it’s safe to say I realized just in time.  

Love, Ahmar.

Ps: Thanks for the two best gifts you ever gave me, words and a sense of humour.