Sochnay ka khana

"Justification is a window to confession"

Mashad ali 

A Midsummer Nights Dream

Who knew the English countryside had so much to offer. I certainly didn’t. All I had known (or read) about the place was tea, bad weather and Mary Poppins. What I did not know where the amazing twisty countryside roads they have, which upon a recent purchase of a car have opened my eyes to 'B' road driving.  The tiny two way roads are now seen as a challenge in my little blue Ford, and believe me it’s a little rev happy clunker. But most of all it’s the view from my drivers seat. Little green avenues and tunnels made with trees and suddenly the wide-open expanse of fields that stretch out to meet the sky on the horizon. These jaunts around the countryside have been made with the help of one charcoal happy bar b quer Henry ‘left hook’ Hayns, the charming cath’barty’ Baert and her trademark sunshades as well as one "lunges happy" barrel chested rupy. I have to admit, I have never had so many bar b qs or sweet corns in the space of two weeks.
I have a theory, that people from england being cooped up indoors for eleven months in a year due to bad weather and rain, forget how to be outside in the sun. I also think it might have something to do with being sober. Given that they drink to quell the depression caused by the bad weather throughout the year they sure do have a weird way of expressing their joy when they're out in the sun, although im not sure sneaking up on a cow with your arm out or trying to catwalk on a tree trunk on the middle of the river is my idea of being outdoorsy.

I also started Boxing with Henry and to be honest I thought to myself what so difficult about that. All you have to do is throw a few punches and just jump around a ring for two minutes. Not to mention the amount of women you can use the ‘oh im a professional boxer’ line.  And if I’m brown that automatically qualifies me to be better than a white guy right? Well that was until I went into the ring with a crazed white fat woman from oxford. Not only did she start scaring me psychologically by giving me her ‘mean eyes’, she also went after me with both arms swinging. Which is where I started to run around the ring.  And this is where the coach told me that id never get hit. And id never get to hit back either. God help the poor sod that mugs her.  So if you ever come across two gentlemen in oxford who claim to be professional boxers, ill show you a guy who is so quick on his feet that when you turn off the light he can be in bed before it gets dark. Did I mention we also learnt how to talk trash here? Or was it trash talk….

Quarter of a century.

Its official. I am now a quarter of a century old. Not that anyone stops to check my id in clubs. Its apartheid taking place on my head. The white hair taking over the blacks, which is the bit about history repeating itself. Come to think of it, I might just be inclined to dye it black when Nelson Mandela kicks the bucket, as a mark of solidarity for a great man. Or is that racist? I don’t know.

I have decided to reward myself this year with an exorbitantly priced laptop. In the hopes of it making it pay for itself. All I know is that I can see Cobie Smulders in HD. And Alessandra Ambrósio. Which in my mind is paisay wasool.

Research in Motion you are a expensive whore. With herpes. Who gives you pain and anguish after a little pleasure... Just like the bosses who run your company and undermine it with short selling the stocks. The money, which should have gone into research for your flagship fuckin phone. Or do you not see the irony with your name. oh right you call yourself RIM. Well stop riming each other and get your shit together (pun not intended).

Time to get a new phone. Being the good muslim boy that I am, Ill give you another chance to redeem yourself.

Road trippin all over ourselves.

A Greek, two Germans, an Italian, a Mexican, an Arab and a Pakistani decide to go on a road trip. Sounds like the starting of a very long joke. It was.

Twas what the ‘English’ refer to as a giggle and a laugh.

We decided to go and catch a football match at old Trafford, which is in the middle of the country in Manchester, which is in the middle of nowhere. With the entire country trying to reach the same place, it was bumper to bumper, on a road that would make a tightrope walker shit himself. And with the eco mentalists trying to make cars smaller and smaller, we were all sitting in each other’s laps while the driver was sitting on the engine. I was sitting next to a newly formed couple with the guy trying to impress his girl by pointing to random cars on the road and then giving a knowing wink and a smirk. The Mexican( or was he Spanish) dude was trying to show his Italian girl all the cars he had back home. He was pointing out German cars to the girl from the land of Ferrari. Brain damage is what happens to you when you drink worms in your spirits. Or wear a blanket with a hole in the middle.

Me, I tried to drown out this tempting voice in my head telling me to strangle the mexican with his seatbelt, by turning to my trusty itouch. Which has become a good friend on my various excursions from Oxford. Love it when I can drown out the world and come and go as I please.

We set off with a German behind the wheel, and the Greek as his copilot, with the arab and the paki tucked away at the back so the cops wont stop us and left oxford at 2: 30. We had to reach there before 7, park the car somewhere and try and get to the stadium and our seats. Everything went without a hitch, except for the fact that in our excitement we forgot where we parked. Which was in the middle of nowhere again. To reiterate my point, even the currency changed into something out of mad max. part 2. We bought some stuff and the change I got was a never seen before guy on a 5 pound note. Now here was a dilemma, do you act all cool and pocket the note nonchalantly or do you clobber the shopkeeper for passing a counterfeit note, assuming you to be drunk with the intellectual capacity of a snail. Waitaminute, does that mean I look English?

Which brings me to a my next point, how a race of proper, civilised, stiff upper lipped respectable people can become uncouth, fowl smelling degenerates, incapable of hearing or speech with just a few pints of fermented barley. As the game progressed, the public became more inebriated, the songs started making less sense and the Arab was called a shoe bomber. I would have been more careful chaps, you don’t want old Trafford in smithereens.

With the long and tiring road trip (400 miles) to the middle of nowhere, the stupid Mexican jabbering in my ear, the long and cold walk to and from the car and less than 12 hours to make it all happen.

It was all forgotten when Rooney popped that header in the back of the net. Glory Glory Man-united - Glory Glory United.

Shark Tails from Shakespeare

Apparently the British like to be schooled in single gender educational institutes. It makes the girls smarter and work harder according to one study. What it failed to mention is that it makes the men like their own gender too much. Which they then they blame as eccentric behaviour. And here it seems I have hit on the head why they like tight spaces. And they REALLY like their tight spaces. How they fit a bus on a road that would make a cockroach claustrophobic is beyond me. Honestly this country was designed for horseback. Or poor people. So they could walk on foot. Bring a car to the road in any part of the country and you have a potential traffic jam on your hands. Some of the houses they consider ‘quaint and cosy’ are actually ovens with a sink attached. No wonder they had such a successful navy, the lack of space was ‘home away from home’. In fact I saw a house today that could have only belonged to a senile sailor or someone who saw JAWS on crack. It was located on a normal sub urban part of Oxford, with the usual brickwork. Until you saw the sloping roof or rather the monstrosity sticking out of it. Even Henry, a native of the land (and of an all boys school) could only gape and point.I’ll let the pictures explain.

An Ode to Artemis.

Who are you Artemis?
A reverie in the midst of madness?
A Shangri-La, I need to escape with my breath intact?
Do you exist as a distortion of reality,
a fictional rendering in my mind's eye
created to cope within this cocoon of self?
Almost an elusive dream I can’t seem to wake up from.
Will you clip my wings before you push me off the abyss?
I met you once and I've fallen for your notions
one kiss from you and I'm drunk up on your potion...
For I knew the signs, yet was unsure of what to expect.
And when the clouds push apart
to let the light descend in your presence,
I know I must have done something right to deserve this.
Release me from my smoke filled obsession,
for the murky alveoli call out to me.
Time will tell.
All I know is this.
Things have a way of falling into place.

A Moment of Inertia.

After a ten day hiatus, I have had an epiphany. Allow me to explain.
At first I thought to be "myself" meant simply to act out the way I feel. I would ask myself a question and react accordingly to the answer. Often than not it was the first thing that came to my head. As I kept on at it, I realised there were more underlying feelings. The more I tried being myself; I found a more choice of selves. I understand that to be myself means consciously choosing which level of feelings I want to respond to and recognise that whatever I am feeling, I always have a choice to think carefully rather than selfishly about myself and those around me. When I am careful about the thoughts I brood on, because feelings precede thoughts, circumstances can no longer dictate my mood. But when I think carelessly, myself is “lost in thought”
Am I being myself at any point ?

It just takes a moment. To change everything. A lifetime of relationship can be found or cease to exist. How we act in these moments, do they really define who we are? Do intentions matter since no other but your self can be aware of them?

I seem to have lost a friend, a brother even but gained a fresh start on another aspect of life. Both in a meaningless setting, where for once, I realise actions and intentions show their true colours, either good or bad.

I hope this begins to justify the white hair.

Life's Experiences

A list of gems I've collected over the years

1. Have a firm handshake.
2. Look people in the eye.
3. Sing in the shower.
4. Own a great stereo system.
5. If in a fight, hit first and hit hard.
6. Keep secrets.
7. Never give up on anybody. Miracles happen everyday.
8. Always accept an outstretched hand.
9. Be brave. Even if you're not, pretend to be. No one can tell the difference.
10. Whistle.
11. Make it a habit to do nice things for people who will never find out.
12. Lend only those books you never care to see again.
13. Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all that they have.
14. When playing games with children, let them win.
15. Give people a second chance, but not a third.
16. Be romantic.
17. Loosen up. Relax. Except for rare life-and-death matters, nothing is as important as it first seems.
18. Don't allow the phone to interrupt important moments. It's there for our convenience, not the caller's.
19. Be a good loser.
20. Be a good winner.
21. Think twice before burdening a friend with a secret.
22. When someone hugs you, let them be the first to let go.
23. Be modest. A lot was accomplished before you were born.
24. Keep it simple stupid.
25. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
26. Live your life so that your epitaph could read, No Regrets
27. Be bold because when you look back on life, you'll regret the things you didn't do more than the one's you did.
28. Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.
29. Visit friends and relatives when they are in hospital; you need only stay a few minutes.
30. Begin each day with some of your favorite music.
31. Once in a while, take the scenic route.
32. Keep a note pad and pencil on your bed-side table. Million-dollar ideas sometimes strike at 3 a.m.
33. Show respect for everyone who works for a living, regardless of how trivial their job.
34. Send your loved ones flowers. Think of a reason later.
35. Become someone's hero.
36. Marry only for love.
37. Count your blessings.
38. Compliment the meal when you're a guest in someone's home.
39. Wave at the children on a school bus.
40. 80 per cent of the success in any job is based on your ability to deal with people.
41. Don't expect life to be fair.

3D where were you all my life?

Im on a bus on my way from Oxford to London as I write and marvel at the technology around me. Im doing 100 km on the M40 (which is the pseudo cool British term for motorway into London) and there’s WIFI all around me as well as any car who stupidly tries to drive close enough to risk a high speed death in order to check their facebook. But the technology around is phenomenal. Two technological wonders that have changed the face of the western world, firstly the GPS in my phone that can direct you anywhere in the world given you have an address. And secondly, and for this I would personally like to shake the hand of the guy who invented the dishwasher. Back home we call it the ‘maasi’ but a maasi seems to be unknown commodity amongst the natives. Except maybe if you employ the Polish. Or you’re the Queen.
Here I would like to raise my hand for a two-fingered salute to Lollywood, Nishat Cinema, the Mandvivalas, Cineplex and anyone else who’s had a hand in denying the Pakistani public from the 3 Dimensional movie experience. I went to see Avatar and the minute you wear those rayban wayfarer wannabe glasses, and im not making this up, you’re transported into this realm of larger-than-life-things-popping-out-and-coming at you world. If cougars are your thing then you’d be salivating and squirming uncomfortably at Jane Fonda being close enough to touch. Almost.
See, people in their private time like to pick their noses, get rid of excess body hair or play with their snakes optimistically called monty python. That’s fine, I prefer to watch movies and especially after a hard days work nothing like watching a pirate copy of movie playing in a cinema not near you or anytime in the foreseeable future. That was then. Now I make it a point to watch anything that comes out to make up for lost time. And I had this notion in my head that regardless of how crap the movie was it would always be better in a cinema. After the all, the big screen, surround sound and the sweet popcorn made it an experience. Until I went to see ‘What happened to the Morgans”. It was so bad that peopled walk out half way through. I sat it out but it was as enjoyable as having sex with a porcupine. Note to self, read a review next time. Another myth busted.

Snowmen fall from heaven... unassembled.

My first large scale contact with snow happened about two weeks ago, apart from the fact a few years ago I tried to sit in my deep freezer back home trying to get some sort of relief from the heat. It was too dark inside; I now see why the fad never caught on. That and trying to make sure my mum never found out. She never understood how a torch got there next to her frozen qeema.
When it snows it falls from the skies like slow motion rain. Looking up n the sky, its like staring up in a 3 dimensional planetarium with white flecks coming down at you. I could almost make out the star wars font and theme songs playing in my head. And after a while when your eyes start freezing, you try playing upside down space invaders with the snowflakes. Instead of small lasery bits you have your breath to blow them out of the sky. In the end, no matter what the analogy god always wins. And of course there’s always point in someone’s life that you want to catch a snowflake on your tongue. Especially people from Karachi that have read about this powdery stuff in books and seen them only in deep freezers.
You will not believe how the people react to snow. One flake of snow and the entire nation will come to a stand still. The schools will shutdown, offices closed, public transport delayed and general mayhem and chaos. It’s a sort of mini vacation we all look forward to in our daily lives. In Karachi, it’s either rain or a strike depending on the season, here it’s snow. I mean the panic is phenomenal. Al Qaeda should seriously invest in snow machines. The government actually had the army on standby in a worst-case scenario! Haha what a joke. Seeing the so called “proficient” army in action in peace keeping efforts (invasion for oil) in the rest of the world (Iraq) it would be July before they get here, and they would need 10,000 so called troops for backup and everything would fall apart when a regiment would be caught trying to melt a snowman with a blowtorch.

To Cook or not to Cook, that is the question.

Living on its own has its perks, no one to answer to, come and go as you please and potentially walk around in your undies. Like everything else in this world it’s a double-edged sword. You have to clean up after your self, gotta walk in the snow to get groceries and really understand the meaning behind domestic help. If you grew up in a labour cheap country as I did, you really wish you brought some along for the ride. Brings new meaning to the term ‘old habits die hard’ when you walk in to your house expecting a warm cooked meal ready for you and instead get a pile of messy dishes in the sink. I read somewhere that you can keep your dirty dishes in the fridge if you don’t want to stink up the kitchen, not that I ever do it or advocating it but knowledge is power you know.
I like to cook, and consider myself a fairly decent one considering my lack of experience in this department but I don’t like to cook everyday. Day in day out. Two or three times a week is fine but not every fucking day. Wouldn’t it be lovely to have an unlimited supply of things in life like cigarettes and petrol. Or Charlize Theron. Or common sense. Case in point I was at Selfridges picking a gift for my niece when I happened to come across a section with clinical looking bottles everywhere. I forget the name but they were selling ahem scorpions dipped in chocolate, worm flavoured gin and vodka and a variety of other insects all farm bred mind you dipped in a variety of sweets. The best was bar b q flavoured worms and tea leaves picked by specially trained monkeys. Looking at it did not make me the least bit hungry, but in fact it did make me sleep better at night. For if you can sell that to people, then my future in advertising is secure.

Typical...stereotypical that is...

I left the country to study and people congratulated me on it. I thought it was because I was on my path to higher education. Hardly the case. In retrospect it seems some of them were cheering me for leaving all the mess behind and moving on. It seems Bombs and Pakistan go hand in hand these days.
Typical...stereotypical that is...
I fit the bill for the ultimate terrorist these days. And it scares me. Not in the keeps-me-up-all-night way but in the stay-away-from-anything-remotely Islamic-for-fear-of-gitmo-bay. Like societies in university and although juma is customary in a mosque an Arab friend of mine wont go near one even if you kept a sheesha in there…allow me to explain, I am in my twenties, a student from Pakistan, Muslim and the icing on the cake * drum roll* a Pashtun(of which I’m very proud although not like the Nazis’ of the Aryan race but more along the lines of turtle loving his shell. The turtle did nothing to shape it, or ask to be born with it but just happy because it makes him tough as nails or slow, hey the analogy finally fits!!)
If they can shoot a Brazilian in the back for carrying a backpack (Brazilians gave us the carnival and the hot women with bronze skin and cute girls with dreamy accents called Paula who could turn me into a bumbling idiot) they will take me down before I can say Chinatown. Because I am a Muslim (as opposed to Brazilians we gave new meanings to the words suicide, bomb and whipping women. Even though I have never set foot inside a maderssa, I don’t want to be dragged out like Mclovin from superbad. Cool as it might be I could potentially be held for x amount of time with no formal charge. Yes ladies and gentlemen, the pioneers of human rights(USofA and UK) can now hold you for terrorism, without charging you or granting bail but for “interrogation” for up to 90 and 26 days respectively. I think its called the Patriot* act in America and the internment* act in the UK (*don’t quote me on this)

On another note, China executed a British man for drug smuggling. The details at this point are sketchy but china just showed Britain the finger. And the queen’s got her panties in a twist because they executed one of her subjects. What a bunch of fucking hypocrites.