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.