Words - Emotional Lethargy

creative writing

[words-el]

clouds reshaping as exoskeletons of rare birds conquering the world

Sometimes i feel like naming all the things around me:

A wire,

blue towel, 

peach towel, 

brown trousers, 

striped sweater, 

black sweater, 

rabbit slippers, 

Sun as a gas balloon being carried away by a twelve year old,

eyelashes being restrung with neon beads, 

clouds reshaping as exoskeletons of rare birds conquering the world, 

chunk of meat stuck in an eagle's beak,

reflections in my teacup, 

a rocking chair from the past, 

buildings over buildings (a building triffle), 

blue wall painted with extra dimensions, 

birds moving in different time zones, 

a story within a story within a story's story stuffed inside a single cardboard box, 

orange dots, 

M-shaped mud pattern, 

an outdoor staircase, 

rubbed pastels, 

girl with a treehouse tangled in her hair, 

wooden ladder with two missing steps, 

unmatched pair of socks, two legs, 

repairable skin parts wrapped in plastic bags, 

bricks, 

plastic pipe, 

pigeon family, 

gestures from the seventh floor, 

dried up paint cans, ants in a meeting, 

ants being rescued, 

sky mixing with shades of violet, 

three floor cushions in a row, 

moon as a witch's fingernail, 

two toad eyes nursing a precious sight.  

Maha Farooq is an absurdist existentialist whom you can find on instagram at @mahafarooq

[words-el]

7:00am Ears

Elements that resonate with my soul; I had been thinking about this all week but couldn’t conjure up a sufficient answer.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday all passed. It was not until Friday as I sipped on the cafeteria’s (ehem tasteless) coffee and absent-mindedly flicked through my gallery that I was rendered into deeper confusion. That’s when I questioned myself and thought – what is a big-town girl like me, who was born over forty miles from the nearest seaside and constantly in the neck of the city doing with the ocean in her cup?

Now I thought back to the moment I was inspired to create the image. Funnily enough, it just so happened to be on a busy road whilst I waited at a bus stop. The cars. It was the oh so rough sound of the tires rolling across the dry tarmac at the legally recommended speed that (my 7am ears) decided were asynchronous to the sounds of the ocean. Somehow, I missed the embrace of the waves I had never touched and craved the salts of the sea that I hardly ever tasted.

I thought back to a few weeks prior, when I read a Tumblr post that had been smuggled into Instagram which read (now don’t quote me on this) “we are within the universe and the universe is within us”. After putting together the blocks of my memory, I had built a sturdy enough ladder for me to climb out of this question with, now that I had found my answer.

*que glorious music*

The days it took me to answer the question and the hour on which I was inspired by the answer – mirror the exact elements of nature that resonate with my soul. It is the fluidity of the ocean, the sudden transformation of the wind from a sweet breeze to a storming hurricane - and this unexpected restlessness of nature that is akin to my soul.

Fleeting emotions. Sparks of inspiration. Days of unproductivity

Sudden rain showers. Heavy snowfall. Weeks of silent skies

And just like that, I didn’t see why I ever questioned myself.

The modern mind is too quick to disembody itself from nature, when in fact a human is far from a computer and is closer in likeness to a wave. Altogether, I came to the conclusion that perhaps we are not separate from nature. We are nature?

(She says with a smart phone in her pocket and the schedule of the next train home in her mind)

Ok. I suppose you have a point there, but using technology does not make us less in tune with nature. Technology is so far amiss from nature that it is difficult to comprehend the synergy of the two, yet I think to all the times of the day that I look out to the sky and just watch the clouds drift or the sun set; I realise, it is the exact combination of the two that really keeps me going.

Now I’m suddenly reminiscent of learning biology as a ten year old, and being told that humans are animals too. I would imagine a grizzly bear in a plaid shirt, white lab coat and spectacles watching a nature documentary on ‘humans’.

Me telling you that we’re more in tune with nature than we think is pretty ironic too, because if I was stranded on a desert island, chances are; I wouldn’t know how to survive without Google. Within this is also the question of war, and the query arises – am I justifying the ruins that humans have at their hands by comparing it to the temperament of nature. Nay. Never.

Rimsha Rasul is a digital artist and a writer from England. You can check out her blog at https://auburnrhyme.com/ and instagram @auburnrhyme 

[words-el]

Hg Block

                              Why, everyday is so monotonous?

And I have a solid Hg block on me when I wake up* 

           How do I muster the strength to lift it?

            Put on my slippers

              And splash water on my face.

Why does that Hg block,

Make me feel like I'm a pregnant lady?

Carrying the burden of a neutron star inside me

          A block that becomes entangled to my tongue,

          When I'm about to question, argue,

          Utter a word of truth, joy, love or laughter

How do I loiter with this Hg block within me?

Perhaps that's why I drag my feet, and my words slip, and my convo cuts randomly** 

                          Where doth this Hg block come from?

When I open the book,

Hear a tune

See a girl

Hear the Azan.

        How come I'm tied to the Hg block?

        How can I make it flow?

Oh, that's why I've become cold too*** 

the pregnant lady

giving birth to cold,solid Hg

        I need fire.

        Only if it does not turn to ashes,

         its fuel crushed,

         every time

by a cold,

solid, 

Hg block _____________________________________

* Hg has high density ** convo: conversation ***Hg has melting point of -38 centigrade, I just realised while writing it, Sultan Abdul Wadood is a Physicist at University of Rochester where he is a PhD Candidate in Optical Physics.

[words-el]

بریانی میرا من بھاتا کھاجا ہے

از قلم

حسن توقیر

مجھے نہیں معلوم میرا بریانی سے رشتہ کتنا پُرانا ہے۔ لیکن ذرا ذہن پر زور ڈالوں تو یوں گماں ہوتا ہے کہ جب سے ہوش سنبھالا ہے والدین اور رشتہ داروں کے ساتھ ساتھ پریانی کو بھی اپنا رفیق پایا ہے۔ اگر آپ بریانی کے رسیا ہیں تو لازماً بریانی کا نام سنتے ہی ایک اُمید سی بر آتی ہے کہ ابھی کہیں کوئی معجزہ رونما ہو اور مشیتِ ایزدھی سے بریانی کا نزول ہو جائے۔ مجھے تو اس بات میں بھی کوئی گمان نہیں گزرتا کہ اگر بنی اسرائیل پر بٹیڑوں کی جگہ بریانی کا نزول ہوا کرتا تو آج تک ہم روز بریانی سے ہی لطف اندوز ہوا کرتے۔ لیکن خدا کے ہر کام میں حکمت نہ ہو تو ایسے خدا کو لوگ مانیں ہی کیوں۔ بھئ اگر بریانی عرش سے نازل ہوا کرتی تو فرشتے سندھ میں سندھی بریانی، بمبئی میں بمبئی بریانی، حیدرآباد میں حیدرآبادی بریانی اتارا کرتے؟  خیر ان کاموں میں کیوں وقت ضائع کرنا جو اب ہو نہیں سکتے۔

اگر برصغیر پاک و ہند کی بات کی جائے تو یہاں کے پکوانوں میں بریانی کا اپنا مقام ہے۔ بریانی صرف ایک پکوان ہی نہیں بلکہ ثقافت کا حصہ بھی ہے۔ پورے برصغیر کے طول و عرض میں بریانی ایک خاص اور منفرد ترکیب کے ساتھ شاملِ خوراک ہے۔  بریانی کراچی کی ہو یا حیدرآباد کی، ایک سوغات کا درجہ رکھتی ہے۔  اس سوغات نے اپنے اندر جغرافیائی خوبیوں کو سمو لیا ہے۔ بمبئی سے بات شروع کی جائے تو وہاں چاولوں کی تہ در تہ رنگ بھری پرتیں جن کے بیچوں بیچ گوشت کی تہیں بریانی کے شباب کو چار چاند لگا رہی ہوتی ہیں، صرف وہاں ہی کا خاصہ ہیں۔  گو کہ یہ تہ دار چاول یہاں پاکستان میں بھی بنتے ہیں مگر وہ لذت اور چاشنی ان میں نہیں آ سکتی۔ ٹھیک اسی طرح جس طرح لاہور کی بریانی وہاں ہی کی سوغات ہے۔ اگر جنوبی علاقہ جات کی بات کی جائے تو  کراچی اور حیدرآباد کی بریانی جس کو یہاں بالعموم سندھی بریانی ہی سمجھا جاتا ہے وہ بھی ذائقے میں لاجواب ہے۔ سندھی بریانی سے میرا تعارف میرے دوست کے توسط سے ہوا۔ وہ کراچی کا تھا اور ایک بار آتے ہوئے سندھی بریانی لیتا آیا۔ یہ معلوم پڑتےہی باچھیں کھل گئیں کہ آج پہلی بار سوغات چل کر پاس آئی ہے۔ اسی طرح طولاً عرضاً باچھیں کھلائے ہم کمرے میں پہنچے اور بریانی تناول فرمانے کا ورد کرنے ہی والے تھے کہ دل سے ایک آہ نکلی۔ مجھے یہ بات حد درجے ناگوار گزری کہ سندھ والے بریانی کے نام پر کیسا مذاق کرتے ہیں۔ یہ بڑے بڑے پتے اور بڑے بڑے آلو۔ وہ بھی بریانی میں۔ پتوں کو تو دیکھا ان دیکھا کر ڈالا پر اس آلو کا کیا کروں جو بریانی کی تھالی میں آ گرا ہے۔ بچپن سے اب تک بریانی میں کبھی کو سبزی نہیں دیکھی تھی۔ پہلا واجب خیال تو یہی گزرا کہ سندھی بریانی بھی ٹھیک اونچی دکان پھیکا پکوان کا منہ بولتا ثبوت ہے۔لیکن یہ مفروضہ جلد ہی غلط قرار پایا۔ چکھتے ہی  اس صنفِ بریانی کے بارے میں جو کچھ سنا تھا سب سچ معلوم ہوا۔ آپ بھی سندھی بریانی کی ظاہری تراش خراش سے دھوکہ مت کھائیے گا۔ یہ چکھنے سے تعلق رکھتی ہے۔ ہاں اگر آپ کا تعلق راولپنڈی سے ہے تو آپ ابلے چاول  کھا کر ہی گزارہ کر سکتے ہیں۔  گستاخی معاف مگر جہاں سیور فوڈز کے سادہ تڑکے والے چاول کھا کر ان کو شاہی بریانی سمجھا جائے ، وہاں کا اندازہ کگانا میں قاری پر چھوڑتا ہوں۔

جاتے جاتے چچا غالبؔ یاد آرہے ہیں۔ حیف کہ انہوں نے سارا زور آموں پر لگا دیا۔ اگر پھلوں کی دنیا سے دو قدم آگے بڑھے ہوتے تو آم کی بجائے بریانی کے رسیا ہوتے۔ بلکہ شاید ایک آدھ دیوان ہی لکھ ڈالتے۔ اور اگر لکھنو کے لوگ تھوڑی ہمت کر کے اردو سے ساتھ ساتھ بریانی کی آفاقیت کو بھی تھوڑا وقت دے ڈالتے تو آج یہ ہمارا قومی پکوان بھی ہوتا۔ بریانی کی شان میں اتنے قصیدے لکھنے کے بعد اب میں منتظر ہوں کہ کہیں سے خبر آئے کہ لو بریانی کھا لو۔

[words-el]

Owe Her An Apology

What’s wrong?”

“I was thinking.”

“What?”

“It’s…it’s never really easy to be among people.”

“How so?”

“They don’t understand anything. I sometimes wonder if there were a genetic derangement that made them devoid of empathy and kindness, of common sense.”

He took her in his arms and removed her hair away from her eyes.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“A girl saw my scars today. She asked me how I got them.”

“And?”

“And nothing. Told her I tried to kill myself. She didn’t look at me or them afterwards.”

“But you didn’t try to kill yourself.”

“I know. Wouldn’t have made a difference. Even if I would have told her the truth, she wouldn’t have accepted it. She’d stick with the twisted version she made up in her mind.”

“Which is?”

“That I had a break up and hurt myself because of some boy.”

“That’s absurd but I get what you mean.”

“I wish they’d stop asking. They never do. They are not privy to this information.”

“It’s okay, na.”

His hold got a bit tighter and she moved her head against his chest.

I wish. ________________________________________________ Humdah is twitter famous and is on her way to becoming a dentist. You can follow her on twitter at  @redvelvetjacket

[words-el]

a hot gust of wind against my calves

By Nihal Ijaz

Often it seems like they fabricate emotions. Every reader must have accused a writer of doing it at least once, thinking, well that’s a big lie isn't it? People don’t feel that way, do they? It doesn’t matter if they read religiously or just enough to keep up the habit. Or they could chance upon these emotive clusters of words in the matrix of instructional internet threads perused in desperate attempts to solve a midnight crisis. Reading. 

I had the same problem with my phone for two days after i accidentally dropped it in the kitchen sink. Husband said it would take a black hole to suck out all the water and my heart constricted to the size of the worlds heaviest peanut ever. Since money was tight and i couldn’t afford a black hole nor another phone even if i put my mind to it, i put my mind to it and dropped the phone again, this time in a sack of rice. Next day seeing that the phone was up and running like it had never swam in the washbasin of my culinary effluence, it was magic painting the everyday mundane. 

You see, the writer doesn’t have to be a writer at all, and the reader doesn’t have to be a reader to notice the gaping inconsistency. Metaphors and similes make it worse, because all of a sudden you have an image to carry around with you. In a story, a character is made to feel small, like whispers lost in a city square. Time passes but the tapestry of the city square doesn’t seem to leave your mind. You see noise transmuted into large figures of sound heavy in the air like smog, and interspersed are the shy little things you call whispers, dreaming collectively of becoming a voice. Except, its so easy to let go of the picture once you stop thinking about it in terms of visuals. 

Stop thinking about the grammar. Stop thinking about the words that embellish a feeling encapsulated in a little sentence like a secret. And think instead of the human behind it. Call out to him, human to human. Or as reader to writer. To father. To God. And like that, insidiously, the arcane analogies unravel. 

Everything begins to stick as the glimpses of the secret from behind the curtain of language come together now, dressed in words and grammar and rigmarole befitting the truth behind a feeling: it is a glint of light on broken glass, seen and shown from every angle available and imagined. It is owned and shared. 

If now I tell you that a hot gust of wind against my calves made me feel like strings, just as important as this secret would be the subject of me. But I wouldn't give away too much now unless I was a diarist, which I can't begin to say I am. Not yet. 

Nihal is a student of medicine but was, and is, a writer before that.

[words-el]

Wood-sprite Whispers and Secret Moments

By Maira Asad

The world turns upside down, but you can see just as well as you would if you were right side up. The blood is rushing to my head, my hat has fallen onto the wet ground, the sun is setting, and the girl sitting on the bench across me is a liar.

These are my annotations of a small, quiet town for people with large, noisy hearts. We even have our own wishing river; just follow the trail that leads into the woods, all twelve hundred and two (I may have missed a few) pebbles scattering like dandelion seeds on their way to the wishing river. If you peer down at the water long enough, on a sunny day or a starry night, the water will stare back at you. But not your reflection; your wishes. Hundreds and hundreds of them sparkling on the riverbed; crystals that fell out of your soul when you cried a tear and too many more. Or laughed a lonely laugh all alone. After all, people with big hearts have all the more space for spiderwebs - they’ve got to fill the hollow spaces with Other Peoples’ Lives.

The wishing river is magic for those who do not have the courage left for hope, for those who do not have the heart to believe in it. It is magic for those who have the strength to pluck the lace flowers, which are filled with the whispers of wood sprites; whispers that contain truths that we run, run, run from. Not many are plucked, though. The lace flowers multiply and grow each year. Maybe the wood sprites should start leaving bravery instead of real things.

In this town, no one can hide their secrets. Not from me, you, the walls and definitely not from the birds. The birds are watching me as I watch my little world, from where they sit perched on the telephone wires. They’re robins, I think, and awfully plump. They’ve probably eaten too many secret moments, the ones where people's masks fall away and the moths inside them flutter towards the light. I think I’ve had too many secret moments, too, because the apple pie from this afternoon isn’t making enough space for them in my stomach. We baked an apple pie this afternoon, Mama and I. The sun was spilling onto the kitchen floor, playing with patterns on the marble counter-tops. Liquid sunshine everywhere. Some of it got into Mama’s hair. I brushed my fingers through it, and found wheat, corn, silk, wood, and flour, all tangled up in her hair so lovely-ly. There was a gentle warmth in the afternoon of gold and soft affection. But that’s all gone now. The overhead sky is one where the sun is falling into the horizon, ready to fracture into a dozen different colors.

I’m feeling awfully queasy so I climb down. I land on my feet; they dig into the soft earth and minerals. The petrichor is closer now that I am on the ground. How odd; that our dreams are closer to the sky than to the earth. There are no stepping stones that climb up to the clouds, so how on earth are we supposed to reach them? Maybe the birds know, but they’re too high up for me to go up to their twitter chatter tweet and ask.

I suppose that’s one of the lies we tell ourselves.

I reach down my throat and pull out a handful of secret moments. Here are a few: The girl on the bench is a liar because her lies sit on her lips and truth weighs down on her dark, wet lashes as she laughs with her best friend. He must be blind, because he laughs along like nothing’s wrong. The wife of the old, retired army man died last  week without knowing that her husband spent half his life crying on the front porch of their house, every morning. The poor little beggar boy they shoo away from the glass stores ran away from the orphanage when he was seven so they wouldn’t beat him half to death, but no one knows, no one wants to know. The vendor who sells fruits and nuts all day with a sweet crinkle to his eyes and his smiles spends most of his nights sleeping on the pavement. No one knows the secrets of one another, because they are too afraid of their own.

I’ve plucked too many lace flowers today, because the whispers in my head are louder than usual. Mama has to call thrice for me before I hear her. I lift my hat off the ground and place it on top of my head. Night approaches quickly, in time with the pace of my footsteps. Have you ever seen the inside of an amethyst geode? It’s like cracking the galaxy open and holding it in the palm of your hands; when the stars come a little closer to home. There’s a star for each soul in the sky, I’d like to believe. Where do you think the crystals in the wishing river come from?

Maira Asaad is young writer from Lahore, Pakistan.  She’s an 18 year old who wanders the earth with indie playlists and good books, to collect stray dreams and stories. She likes to write about the world as she sees it through her four eyes. She is passionate about aesthetics, daisies and literature. Follow her on instagram here.

[words-el]

Technicolour.

By Jalal Kaiser

Their heads hung low as we killed the norm as the sun trickled down our backs like gold Melting on our skin like the sea to shores Clocks ask; Will we ever be the way that it was before? The ground was scorched and our tears were cold, but in the dirt below we were to find our storm. 

Jalal Kaiser is a 21-years-old who feels inconvenient things and chronicles them. His only request is for you to love each other and to please not turn his life support off even as a joke because he will die, seriously.

[words-el]

Terrace at 7:53

By Risham Amjad

The cat didn’t want to go back to The mistress who had him neutered So he would cuddle with her and Not follow the catnip-trail of female yowls.

The bougainvillea vine hasn’t recovered From the time it fell in the storm Its branches and leaves do not curl Engagingly up against the window pane Paltry protection against The eye of the world of this neighborhood.

We found only one snake In our history of this house, During our short-lived era of dinner-parties – I almost came naked-sole-to-scaly-skin But then Smack, thud, crunch; Blood instead On the sole of my father’s Dinner-party-shined shoe.

Risham is a write based in Islamabad, Pakistan. She was the winner of Islamabad Poetry Slam 2015, and has had her work showcased at Islamabad Literature Festival. You can check out here winning poem here.

[words-el]

It’s Okay to be That Girl

By Zainab Khawaja

The girl that wears a full face of makeup one day and nothing the next. The girl who will only dress well if she’s not tired, or too lazy, or doesn’t have to iron her outfit. The girl who watches TV shows that are so girly, so hipster, so lame. The girl who can curse like a sailor, and isn’t afraid to say what everyone else in the room is thinking – in fact, she doesn’t see the point in not saying it; things would be so much clearer if we could all just dispense with these mind games. It’s okay.

The girl who is so far from elegant and graceful that it’s a laugh out loud situation. The girl who always has more guy friends than girl friends. The girl who is well over the over-weight barrier and gleefully goes on existing (the horror!). The girl who can’t be bothered matching her socks, and the girl who painstakingly puts outfits together when she wants to impress. The girl who is neurotic-neurotic-neurotic – are you sure you double checked that the stove was off?! – and is really intense about things like worrying and seriousness and the very real Worst Possible Scenario That Has Every Chance of Coming True. It’s okay.

The girl that feels like she’s playing pretend when she laughs at his jokes that aren’t funny, when she smiles at the older women asking but not really asking about her dreams, when she says sorry when she’s not sorry. The girl that fights for feminism and women’s empowerment when she can’t figure out in her head how women would ever be able to be equal in this messed up world. The girl that un-apologetically demands that she be loved, that she be loved, that she be… at least treated well, at least not degraded, at the very least smiled at after a long day. It’s okay.

The girl that says no, sorry, to the guy she knows she will never love, could never love, because she values honesty. The girl that feels bad about it after. The girl who feels like she has the worst luck because the hot guys never like her, just the social rejects that she isn’t into. The girl who doesn’t care about feminism or socially-constructed gender roles because she just wants a goddamn knight in shining armor and is that so freaking impossible to wish for? The girl that feels selfish but thinks why the hell shouldn’t she? This world is a hard place and she needs to look out for herself. This girl that vows every night to try to be better, as a person, as a sister, as a woman, as a wife. This girl that doesn’t think she can, but knows that she will try. It’s okay.

That girl who loves pink, and glitter and getting her nails done and her hair done and is tired of being thought of as a looker, not a thinker. The girl who smoked a joint when she felt pressured by the cool kids in high school. The girl who fell down the stairs in front of everyone and pretended to laugh with them, because she hoped they were laughing with her. The girl who wanted to be a boy because it was so much easier and no one ever asked her brothers to do the laundry. The girl who always came second in her class, and wasn’t very pretty either, so what use was she? The girl who was only ever good at one thing but couldn’t even manage to be the best in it. It’s okay.

The girl who was always insecure. The girl who wasn’t afraid to take risks. The girl who experimented with her personality. The girl who ate lunch alone because of her pink hair. The girl who skipped class because she couldn’t bare to face them. The girl they called Tootsie because of the rolls on her stomach. The girl they called Goddess, because of the curves of her body. It’s okay.

The girl who wrote because her heart was breaking. Who ugly-cried her guts out without caring who was watching. The girl who sat with her legs politely crossed making small talk because she couldn’t let the facade crack. The girl who worked two jobs to support her family and came home early, pretending she had plans so she wouldn’t have to go out with coworkers for coffee she couldn’t afford. The girl who never drank alcohol because she just didn’t want to, and why was that so hard for everyone to understand? The girl who prayed to a God she believed in even though she could never justify his existence. It’s okay.

That girl. Every girl.

It’s okay.

Zainab Khawaja is a student at New York University who is also a writer. She blogs at Writer Meets World, where this article has been taken from. You can follow her on facebook here, on twitter here, and on instagram here.

[words-el]

TELEPHONE

By Maheen Ahmed    In the dead of the night A nightingale and a white rose Die to create a red rose.

In the dead of the night Where the curtain of the heavens  hold still their tongues The moon does not remain silent.

There is a boy, With a blue balloon, goes down the streets at this time. Looking for a warm fire to save him There is a black cat that the folk drive away as a bad omen. And the myrtle lies outside a friends door Locked with gold. Sealed with suspicion The boy finds the myrtle And eats it For the balloon wont fit in his mouth. He lets go of the bag of air Into the greater bag. Running down the hill. While the balloon, as the moon does not stay silent .

[words-el]

A Toast to Your Conformity

By Nayab Tufail

Dark like my coffee what do I know of Karachi. A city with more blisters than the sprinkles on the soft chocolate cheek of the donut that I eat while the rest of the city passes by me like an apology.

But you- today you’re out there on the streets enduring the hardship of balancing cheese paratha with lassi. Open skies the 9am breeze for a tiny fees Karachi is yours they’ve made you believe and it’s only your third Boat basin spree.

Of course you belong here in the Karachi sunshine now that you know the right people even if they aren’t the people who are right at least they are people who don’t write silly little poems that don’t even rhyme because people like you succeed by learning not to read what the newspaper has to say as long as it takes paratha grease from your fingers away. Just imagine what would happen to your newfound street pride if you put the newspaper aside and refused to wipe your hands on the story of a family’s suicide.

Burning a path down my throat my coffee bitter silk I spent all last night thinking how if you look closer at the model sprawling on the billboard down the road she will begin to resemble the girl on the signal rushed to run a wiper along the length of your windshield. Because their eyes are both empty- the model’s in her faraway conceit and the signal-girl’s in her thorough defeat. But you’ve trained your mind to operate outside sensitivity. You belong to the Karachi that shows solidarity with black display pictures coloured covers blissfully assured that this sufficiently covers their response to tragedy and no you don’t have to worry it is the trend who cares if it carries a spark or two of hypocrisy.

But tell me are you any different from your city it is more than just your capacity for irony it is the magnificence of your terrifying resilience. Turned the page and going on with your life guiltlessly dusted your hands too soon off the damage.

It’s a big bad city and you’ve got a family and how would you pay if you let humanity get in the way of your employer’s love affair with your gpa. So you decide to have no accountability neither for the content of your enterprise nor for the discontent of the child who lies on the pavement at the end of the day everyday his wrists twisted shoulders dislocated and begins to count the amount people could spare to feed the gentle tinge of buzzkilling despair after buying the identity of pret luxury. You belong because you’ve found the right in the wrong. So you grab a mock gun and pose on daaku day because its okay to go wild now that it’s graduation time what’s wrong if it romanticises crime try explaining that to your children when they question you about the Karachi they inherit. Tell them that they overthink Tell them that it was some sort of a playground for your id and no trust me I dont think you will sound stupid.

Who are you listening to anyway Me? When even snapchat refuses to believe my identity because I still can’t spot a picture ghost After having tried repeatedly. But you- you were among the cool people who flocked to the theatre when the dinosaurs went back on screen because this is competition and it is better once ‘seen’ that a dinosaur can still not be more of a monster than you even if he’s got 3d. You belong to the Karachi of automatic doors beach parties on sunken shores crowded dance floors of bodies without a soul dancing into the dark like my coffee what do I know of Karachi.

Nayab is a writer from Karachi, Pakistan. You can read more of her work on her blog Capping a Capillary here.

[words-el]

In Conversation - Momina Mela

“ Momina Mela is a Pakistani poet based in Lahore. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Horse Less Review, The Blueshift Journal and The Lighthouse Journal amongst others. In 2013 she was short-listed to be Young Poet Laureate for London and completed a residency in Cardiff. She has read her work at numerous locations and events in London including The Houses of Parliament, Southbank Centre, The Bussey Building and The Poetry Cafe. She serves as the Poetry Editor for Papercuts, a publication by Desi Writers’ Lounge and has also designed and conducted poetry workshops in Lahore for Pakistani poets writing in English. She holds a BA (Hons) degree in English Literature from Goldsmiths, University of London. She will begin her MFA in poetry at NYU in the fall of 2016.

Interviewed by Haseeb Sultan.

How did you realize you wanted to be a poet?

I think I am still in the process of coming to terms with that realization. I never made a conscious decision to be a poet the way one decides to be a doctor or a lawyer. I always loved the idea of being a poet but I never thought of it as something attainable, let alone a ‘career’ path. People around me always threw around the words ‘scope’ and ‘field’ and worried about my decision to even continue studying Literature at university level. I didn’t know why I wanted to continue studying it either to be honest. I used to write terrible poems in stacks of slim notebooks as a teenager and at one point I began writing a novel when I was around eighteen but I discarded that eventually. When I moved to London for my undergraduate degree, that’s when I realized that I was fascinated, oftentimes obsessed with language- that realization naturally drew me to poetry. Later, when I was about 22, one of my friends asked me: ‘what’s the one thing you want from your life?’ And I replied, ‘I just want to be a poet.’ That’s the only time I said the words out loud to myself, rather candidly and calmly if I may add. It’s embarrassing, but it’s the truth and I’ve sort of just kept going since then.

What was the journey like for you as a youngster ?

Growing up, I had always been drawn to the arts and I took up painting, singing, photography, ballet and theater. I even played the viola when I was nine. Poetry came much later. I was a surprisingly good actor which was a bit of a contradiction for me because I am usually shy around people I don’t know but I had no qualms about performing in an auditorium full of strangers. I could never be an actor now but I’m glad that I was bold enough to explore that area of interest at the time.

I also grew up in different countries- by the time I was eleven I had been in five different schools across three different countries. I’m not sure if this has contributed directly to my poetry but the idea of displacement in my work spins off of that.

Wow. You make it sound so easy!  But it's true, so many of life's important realizations come through the most mundane and candid of conversations!

How did you navigate the confusing waters that are in the way of becoming a writer as a youth?

I never navigated the confusing waters of being a writer when I was young; I just wrote terrible poems and novels and enjoyed doing it. Of course, at the time I thought I was brilliant which I suppose gave me a sense of purpose. Nothing can actually stand in your way of becoming a writer. There are the obvious hurdles of course; jobs, family duties, academics, socializing with friends etc. but I sense that few people are in fact serious about actually becoming a writer because with that you must allow the anxiety, discipline and fear of constantly embarrassing yourself into your life as well. I’ve been fairly good at doing that.

How did you manage to shut off the critics in your personal life who were skeptic of your decision to pursue a career in literature?

I don’t blame the critics for being skeptic of my decision to be a poet; it’s extremely difficult to put all of your energy into something so niche and then expect people to commend you and pay you for it. It’s like you’re in a first-generation Nintendo game where the character bumps into a wall but they keep walking anyway- the feet keep moving forward into the wall as long as you keep your thumb pressed on the controller. I think that’s what my entire career as a poet will be like, but as long as you can find joy in what you’re doing you should keep walking into that wall.

A lot of young writers in Pakistan find that they have to do that, you know, tell other people with an extremely heavy heart that they've always dreamed of being a writer. And it's tough to voice this "opinion."

Why do young Pakistani writers have to tell people they want to write? There’s this internalized idea in Pakistanis that they must ask for permission or validation before embarking on any creative pursuit and that’s the wrong way to go about it. If you want to be a writer, don’t tell your parents, siblings or friends that you ‘dream’ of being a writer because that’s a way of romanticizing it which thwarts the actual work that needs to be done. Writing is first and foremost an intuition which you build upon through years of reading, research and engagement with different literary communities. There’s a poem by the oftentimes deplorable Charles Bukowski called ‘so you want to be a writer?’ which could probably answer this question for many writers.

Speaking of voice, how did you find your voice as a poet?

Ah, the voice. I think about the voice in poetry a lot. How it is seen as this weird, mystical force within a poet that commands them to write. How it is sometimes useful but other times stagnates progression because it allows the writer to be lazy. I think the voice is something which is largely interpreted by the reader and the angle with which they are approaching your work- if you meant to say one thing but it is received as something completely different then the voice becomes secondary if not meaningless. To answer your question, I’m not sure if I have found my voice yet and to be honest I haven’t really bothered to look for it. I think it’s more useful to talk about the energy in one’s work, as opposed to voice- I might begin a poem through the voice mode but after it’s been written, it will begin to reveal its own intention and thus its own energy.

How did you start piecing together k ok, this is how my works are connected to each other, and these are the themes they seem to resonate with? As a young writer i find it hard to find a stable direction with my voice. I blame hormones for making me lose focus; but how does focus come?

I don’t consciously piece together my poems because I think they all have some kind of sister/twin consciousness of their own which I may or may not be aware of. In terms of thematic interests, I find myself writing alot about femininity, bodies, loss, love, animals, nature; there are so many elements of language to explore in all of these themes. In all my poems, you will sense this struggle of seeing how far I can bend language and that I think is the common theme there.

It’s interesting that you’re talking about hormones and how they make us lose focus. Our bodies sometimes behave in ways we don’t want them to and there’s this idea of managing your body through writing which brings therapy for some and causes anxiety for others. My own writing process is very sporadic as is the case for most writers. Oftentimes focus comes with the necessity to write. If you have admitted to yourself that you want to be a writer then that necessity will always come through.

Oh wow. I had never thought of writing as something not worthy of being disclosed to people like that. And the way you say it, it makes sense. But I think we grew up that way, you know, even as a nation, always looking for approvals on every thought, word and action. So it would make sense with this too!

I love that poem! I have it book marked!

You mentioned reading and engagement with literary communities. I think reading is just one of those things you cannot stop doing as a writer, and Pakistani young writers often overlook the fact that reading is what makes us better writers, not writing, right? But the thing I find weird about Pakistani literary community is that it has it's own set of rules of who to let in and who to reject. It's very....choosy? In that case, what is one to do? Should one have the urge to "fit in" or belong somewhere as a writer? 

Yes reading is a huge part of the writing process, especially reading widely and critically. Pakistani poets usually latch on to a few Romantic or Modernist favourites and attempt to create a template for their own work with Wordsworth or Plath in mind and are unable to break away from them. It can be difficult ofcourse considering there isn't a focus on contemporary poetry here nor are the relevant books available in stores. There are however hundreds of literary publications that can be found online which have helped to bridge the gap and make contemporary work much more accessible. Literary communities everywhere are somewhat choosy and the idea of 'the scene' and who belongs to it does seem to exist, although I'm not sure it does in Pakistan or atleast I'm not aware of it. You can engage with literary communities by attending readings, asking questions, writing, doing workshops, sending your work to local publications etc. There are many ways to go about it, I don't think there are any set rules. I began poetry workshops here in Lahore through Desi Writers' Lounge and recently organized a poetry reading featuring Pakistani women poets at The Last Word. Sometimes you need to take initiative to do the necessary work yourself. Belonging to a community of writers is important because it produces a force which creates dialogues and pushes for more work to be made. It's okay to feel the urge to fit in; writing is an isolating process after all so isolate yourself, do the work, read the books, be critical and then worry about whether fitting in is still a huge concern for you.

Oh my god! Hai na? I am of the very same opinion too. Pakistani youth is following those writers whom they are told as being good instead of discovering what they like. And if everyone keeps reading the same thing, how will we be able to produce art that's different and personal to the writer's own individualized perspective? It reminds me of this quote by Haruki Murakami

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”I find this quote so relevant when it comes to being a young writer.

And you're right about taking the help from the internet to find works that are unusual and help one experience reading differently than how we are taught to, here in Pakistan, at least. Would you suggest some journals that you really like and those that would be in ease of reach, that would help our young readers figure out what various dimensions poetry carries?

This is such great advice. I think i'll pin it up on my wall! Speaking of DWL, how do you find the experience as the poetry editor of Papercuts? You must get loads of submissions and it helps you give insight into the kind of work people are are producing. What do you see that aspiring poets lack here, and how do you think they can modify it? What do you look for in people's work that helps you decide if they make the cut or not?

There are so many great poetry publications out there- some well-known ones would include The Paris Review, Guernica, Tin House, Narrative, AGNI, POETRY, Kenyon Review. Publications like The Offing, Muzzle Magazine and The Blueshift Journal focus on POC and marginalized voices. Then there's DIAGRAM which focuses on experimental work. There are too many to name here but these names are a good starting point for anyone looking to read widely, and all of them are available online. We do get loads of submissions, especially from young South Asian poets- what I can say about these submissions is that there is so much motivation to articulate the various thematic issues taken up by the poets but most of them remain in an insular bubble of how they think poetry should be written instead of taking bigger risks with language and attempting to depart from familiarity. Well, reading is the best place to start because when looking at submissions, we can always tell who reads and who doesn't. We usually look for energy, freshness in expression, clarity- we also love unusual work and poems that surprise us. 

Thank you for this list. I'm sure many young people will find it useful. I wanted to talk to you about your publication experience. You've accomplished so much at such a young age, mashaALLAH! How does that feel? AND OMG THE NEW YORKER! How did you feel the moment you found out you'd be getting published there?

One thing i forgot to ask earlier was, for you "why poetry"? what drew you towards it that made you want to be a poet? 

Haha, thank you. I've only had a few poems published in the past couple of years, mostly because I'm trying to focus more on writing new poems. I submit my work as sporadically as I write and there is really no clear formula. It might seem like I know exactly what I'm doing but I really don't. I pretty much discovered the publishing technicalities on my own through a lot of trial and error and I'm still doing that. The New Yorker publication was a huge surprise considering they mostly publish really big names, whereas I on the other hand am virtually unknown- I think The New Yorker is a publication which has its faults, as was apparent by the publication of the controversial Calvin Trillin poem. The Trillin poem was widely viewed as a racist poem and mine was published the following week- it presented as a strange dichotomy to publish controversial Trillin and then a young Pakistani poet from Lahore a week later. It goes to show that The New Yorker is still trying to find its bearings amidst an evolving culture of poetry. I'm glad that I was able to make a breakthrough by being published there mainly because it's made me more critical of the dynamics of the poetry publishing world. I love language- as mentioned before, I became naturally drawn to poetry because I learned to be fascinated by language as well as textures, conversations and people. I began writing more seriously in London because I think I felt stimulated by that city- I used to commute an hour to university and an hour back and I traveled from West London down to South East London and I used to sense the city change. I was always brimming with this city consciousness which made me more sensitive to the ideas of culture, identity and geography. I also like the brevity of poems and how they can act as epiphanies for the reader- the poet in a way becomes a maker of epiphanies which is a pretty tall order. People say things like 'everything is poetry' as a way of understanding it. Being a poet means having knowledge of the fact that everything nearly 'poetic' cannot be written into a poem but still taking on the task of trying.

I think that as we, humans, evolve, we evolve on an emotional level too. Our expressions change. The mediums change. And i think any publication would find it tough to keep up with the evolution of it's contributors and readers because that determines the evolution of the publication too, and then there are legacies to keep, and new blood to give a stream to flow too.

It's so interesting because I have the same routine of going from college to home, and the whole commute amounts to three hours almost. And it is in that time, i am most aware of how i'm thinking , and how i'm changing in the mind. My writing results from those observations too.

I like what you said here about epiphanies. I had never really thought about it. Now that i look back at all the poems i had bookmarked, they were the poems that acted as a catalyst to some epiphanies in my life.

What is your writing process like, as a poet?

My writing process is very sporadic and I like that it is- poetry gives you the liberty to go about your life and be human and arrive back on your laptop or notebook with a few lines that may or may not amount to something. I might write two or three poems a month and then go five months without writing anything. But even when I'm not writing on paper that doesn't necessarily mean I've stopped working out the images and language in my head. The thinking process takes up more time than the actual writing- the entire production of a poem goes from being a couple of seeds knocking against your skull to an edited and re-drafted creation. Once a poem is done I like to ask myself, 'what is this poem doing? how does it function?' and that helps me to work out if it is ready.

Who are some of your favorite contemporary poets? What is one poem you love the most, and why?

And the last question: besides reading a lot, which i think every writer should do, what would be your advice to young writers out there who're trying to be better writers, specifically poets?

I love Mary Ruefle- her poems really drift across the secret inner workings of the mind like nothing I've read before. Ocean Vuong is ethereal and speaks so eloquently about the politics of poetry and language. Others would be Solmaz Sharif, Ada Limon and Natalie Eilbert. Other young American poets around my age are writing exciting things at the moment. I don't know if I have a favourite poem but I'm always deeply moved by Ocean Vuong's 'Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong' Aside from reading, be bold- ask questions in your work- question the words with which you word your questions. Don't worry about people and write whatever you want to write. Immerse yourself in new works and most importantly, be patient.

Thank you so much Momina. This interview has been amazing. You gave so much to think about, i just cannot thank you enough! It's been amazing and revelatory! Thank you so so so so much!

No problem Haseeb! Thank you for taking time out to ask me these questions.

You can read Momina’s poem “How to Take Off A Sari” from The New Yorker over here.

[words-el]

The East Side Story of the East

“Once upon a time in a candy colored fantasy land lived a young and attractive little girl with soft golden hair in a lilac and pink colored castle eating porridge and apple pies all day. She wore an elaborate white silk dress with long sleeves and snow-white pearls stitched on the border, waiting in her balcony adorned with white petunias for her prince charming riding on a white muscular horse.”

Most of it had to be white.

In fact this is how most of the stories in my mind looked like growing up. Forget the fact that I had absolutely no idea what porridge exactly was, and had never had the opportunity to have pies, I still dreamed of them . All the stories I weaved in my head were light years away from my reality.

My Odiya roots seemed pretty unattractive and uninteresting back then. I never saw anything even remotely Odiya on television or even in the books I read. I too wanted to be a Shukhla ji or a Mishra ji. This was around the time I was ten and suddenly there was a shift in our interests. Bored with the repetitive daily soaps on our television set, my sister switched to watching movies and shows in English that I seldom understood, but I watched them anyway. The images I had created growing up now had life induced into them. And that is when things changed.

I grew up eating Pakhala- a rice based dish in a sea of salted curd, starched water, kari leaves and mustard seeds that we ate with red and green colored spinach. Somewhere deep down within, the summers were supposed to be pleasant and bright since the sun had come out, and all the snow on the road had to melt. But there was no snow that had to melt, and even the rains did not bring any sense of romance or relief, since it never ‘drizzled’ outside. I grew up in low land Odisha, where torrential rains meant floods, muddy roads and snakes and other fancy reptiles all around. None of the girls around looked like the girls from my stories. No long sleeved white silk dresses, but the brightest and the most colorful cotton frocks with puffed sleeves and frilled skirts with little flowers all over. Their hair combed slick into ponies or simply pulled back after a good coconut hair oil massage with bright red head-bands. Their feet would generally be adorned with alta, a red dye which was traditionally made out of lac and sparkly silver anklets with spherical bells around them. They’d also wear black or red colored little bindis with white kumkum (a liquid dye) used to draw around the upper half of their eyebrows in the shapes of flowers, creepers and little dots. The relatively richer kids made me chuckle with their mum’s random gold neckpieces thrown in, and their garish make-up that often comprised of a maroon lip color and white face powder.

Even though my grandfather’s bakery was ‘English’ enough for me to boast about to my friends with their cream rolls and salted biscuits with cumin seeds and my Anglo-Indian English teachers who made sure we pronounced every English word to a tee, my grandfather was also a proud owner of two cows as white as their milk. They really were cute as a button with their big black noses and long white tails. I grew up adoring them so much so that even cow dung was never ‘dung’ to me which was in fact used to make cow dung cakes to be used as fuel in the kitchen.

I remember this one time we were out of paper bags for me to carry my stationary for a Math Project and I ended up carrying the same in an appliqué handcrafted bag we’d got us from Pipili which we refer to as Chandua. These bags are brightly colored with mirrors cut in the shapes of diamonds and circles stitched all over them. We have a lot of them at our place and I was embarrassed to death when I was forced to carry it to school. Now I see how beautiful they are.

It’s funny how it finally took me an American cable network to appreciate my roots. They took me to the same world that I grew up watching around me but never bothered to appreciate- the colors, the lives, their stories, the experience and the true beauty of my world. For years I tried so hard to do away with it all only to finally realize, “my history, origin and culture doesn’t need me, I need them to be able to define myself and sustain.” After all what would a tree be without its roots?

And what would I be without my culture?

BY ANWESH SAHOO

Anwesh Sahoo is voracious writer, optimist and a lover of old-school Indian art, music and fashion. While he’d like to believe that he’s a firm believer in practicality, a part of him loves living in a world of possibilities. That’s exactly what his blog "The Effeminare" is all about. A parallel universe where he gets to be an illustrator and draw a Utopian world he wants to be a part of. You can check out his blog at www.theeffeminare.wordpress.com

[words-el]

Touching the Trucks in My Black Denim

"Dekh Magar Pyaar Se" (Look, but with love)

The multicolored, poorly drawn eagle would zoom past me. Zoom because it was drawn on the back of a truck. Soon, another truck would pass by, but slowly, giving me a glimpse into what I assume heaven looked like to the truck owner. Red trees, a white lake, and green mountain with the blue sky. Simple as that.

"Maa ki dua, jannat ki hawa" (A mother's prayer is like heaven's breeze)

I'm guessing the mother hadn't traveled in one of those trucks before, because it was anything but a gust of wind from the heaven. I think it was the burnt out smoke from hell fire fuel that sneaked out into the world for a peak. Because the trucks rarely pumped out clean smoke. It was all black. But surprisingly enough, there was not a hint of the color black on the mural tiles that covered the trucks.

"Ae Rocket Tujhe Qasam Hai Himat Na Harrna Jaisa Bhi Khada Aee Has Kar Guzarna" (Dear rocket, i swear, don't lose hope Whatever bump comes your way, Laugh it away)

And laughing things away was easy. I am thinking that these verses on the trucks, and rickshaws are not only for the drivers who drive through deserts and mountains to get where they are, but more importantly, they're for us; the city folk. Who take amusement in the innocent stupidity of the words that are stuck in the traffic jams with our concrete infiltrated thoughts. They give us a chance to laugh. To see how small our existential crises are.

"Sajan koi koi dushman har koi" (Lovers' scarcity, enemies plenty)

Truck Art. That's what they call it. The peacocks, eagles, and scenic landscapes hand painted on the trucks along with vases of flowers add a color not only to the truck itself, but to the roads that we travel along. Sometimes, it's the picture of the owner's baby. It's cute, the whole hand painted thing. It has a kind of innocence to it. Like it's saying "fuck you globalization." I wish I could be that simple. That straight forward. That flawed. That driven. To be able to paint my life the way i wanted, and drive it in the directions I desired. A display of all my personality traits in the form of every color that adorned the truck of my life.

"Mei bara ho k truck banoon ga" (I'll grow up to be a truck)

Reads a verse on the back of a rickshaw. It's almost there. The rickshaws are now covered in the same neon pleather that it aspires to grow up to be. Somehow, it's an embodiment of "fake it till you make it." It's the outburst of color that comes in the form of these small, and big, statements about life that hit us low, and hit us hard only when we're rewinding the day in our beds, scrolling through instagram using the hashtags #TruckArt #VSCOPakistan. I wanna grow up to be a millionaire. I'm hoping I can be all that I want to be. Beautiful, ambitious, sparkly, and full of life. But I'll never absorb the simplicity of the truck art. And maybe that's why it's so fascinating.

It's innocent. Embodying the colors it's made up of.

And I'm not. Because my favorite color is black.

"Aadmi Aadmi ko Das raha hai, Aur Saanp khara Hanss raha hai" (Humans beings are stinging each other while the snake stands and laughs in the corner)

Haseeb Sultan is the Editor of Exist Mag

You can follow him on instagram at @sultan.haseeb and visit his website at http://haseebsultan.com 

[words-el]

The Swimmer

It is quite in here. Everything is still. The fastest and loudest are far in a distance fading away. This mass of colorless, shapeless and all together mysterious liquid takes him in and he enters another world. He stretches both his arms ahead, then pushes them back toward his body and gently moves forward. He looks ahead as his body is carried forward into this invisible path. Bellow his floating body is the grey and brown color of the dirt on the bottom, above him is the dancing shafts of sunlight piercing through the rising and falling waves of the lake. In here, in this most precious element of creation, in the body of water, there is nothing to rise above and disturb its dominance. Bubbles of air rush out of his nostrils as he breathes out and they, just like all other things down here, make a brief presence and disappear in the gentle silence of the deep. Here, in the water, there is no interrupting presence of unnecessary thoughts, no absurd passing of a thought, about grief and loss. In the water, he and all the dwellers of his mind are one small, helpless being surrounded by a much greater power.

With every push of his arms, with every paddle of his legs all thoughts that are the souvenir of his daily life get pushed further, just next to where he left his sandals. The rush of water is clearing them all. The buzzing of static in the background life, the burning feeling of an early winter morning, the pressures of being with other people in life; water, this gentle, clean and calm water is taking them all away and leaving the purified, polished life itself intact. Here, he swims, a helpless man in a much stronger force, yet again this force is reminding him of how life, in its purest form tastes.

His lungs are collapsed, the quiet journey is over and now it’s time to swim back up. He looks up as his limbs are paddling to reach the surface. 

The dancing light over his head is shining brighter and brighter. Now all thoughts are gone, it’s only him and the water and his longing to reach the surface and the deep breath that will come after it. It is the essence of this trip, this experience. The water splashing, the heavy inhale and exhale of his breath, the sound of the wind and the birds, and all the beauty of the lake that he could see. All the elements of reality coming back together and welcoming his return. 

The rise and fall of the waves cradle his body and all the birds around the lake sing in ceremony. 

He is baptized, reborn, cleared of all the stains in his spirit.

Salman Hoseini is a software programmer who is living in Montreal. His passion for creativity is present both in his programming career and writings. His writings focuses on ordinary human experiences in daily life, exposed in details of both feelings and thoughts. 

You can read his fiction blogs here https://randommomentsofstrangers.wordpress.com/ and follow him on instagram here, and LinkedIn here.

[words-el]

A wet black bough

The apparition of these faces in the crowd: Petals on a wet, black bough. - Ezra Pound "In A Station Of The Metro"

It is beautiful how the poet conveys the transience of human life in merely 14 words. Juxtaposing the image of a ‘petal’ with that of a ‘wet black bough’, he suggests how human life is shattering. Petals are remnants of a flower, something that once was colourful, blossoming, full of sap and conjoined. ‘A wet black bough’ conjures the image of the aftermath of a storm.

As I entered the metro station, something seemed odd. I had entered a whole new level of consciousness. All my senses seemed to be working extra hard today; so while I could distinctly hear a girl whimpering about ‘almost breaking up’ with her boyfriend, I could also take in the mud-stained fluorescent shoes the obnoxiously tall guy beside me was wearing, and my nostrils could detect the lingering smell of sweat mixed with something that seemed to be emanating from someone with serious gas problems, and for some strange reason, acetone. I proceeded towards the luggage-checking machine and kept my bag on the belt. And then, adding to my incredibly long list of ‘firsts’ on the station, I got really interested in the X-rays of the various bags passing through the machine, this being the first time I had noticed them. I propped up behind the stone-faced guard and stood studying them on the monitor. I couldn’t stand too long though. I entered the checking booth floored with a horrendously ugly the carpet and collected my bag from the other side of the machine.

I dived into my pockets. Emptiness. It felt strange, emancipating, liberating. The light-headedness was dizzying; I could well be floating in air right now.

I peered curiously at the people bustling about. Everyone had the same look on them, an impatience, a complete disconnect from their immediate surroundings, their mind fixed only on a single entity; the train that will take them back home after a long tiring day. And everyone seemed to share an inextricable, intimate bond with their phones, probably the most extravagant of all their pompous accessories. Yet they were all different and everyone had a different story to tell. The girl on the right? Picking at her fingers, and looking out anxiously for the train? She probably had news of a malady at home and couldn’t wait to be with her family. Or that middle-aged lady looking up carefully at the board, and glancing nervously at everyone passing her, just stopping short of asking them something? She was perhaps a first-timer, not being able to trust any of these strangers with her predicament. I remember I was a crazy bundle of nerves on my first tryst with the metro and their somewhat intimidating stations.

Then there were two little kids, ostensibly destitute, a boy and a girl, running across the platform while their mother, dressed in tattered clothes, asked them to calm down. Those two had the expression of the utmost joy on their shrunken little faces; the joy of a distant, almost improbable dream coming true. I wondered how much the mother might’ve had to sacrifice to grant her little ones this wish. It clearly was worth it though; her smile was even brighter than theirs. Then, of course, the commonest sight of all, people with their colourful headphones plugged in deep into their ears, shutting out the world completely. But then, there must also have been a story behind every song that they listened to.

Its astounding how a plethora of emotions and feelings floods the metro stations everyday and despite having traversed them for three years, it took a damaged phone for me to finally sit up and notice it. It was an epiphany of sorts, one that made me wake up from my ‘cell-phone’ slumber and smell the amazing richness of life that little station was brimming with. This seemingly mundane place right here could easily be a microcosm for the whole of India.

Striding across the platform, i passed a dozen known faces, none of whom saw me, because they never lifted their eyes off their phones. At that moment, Pound’s poem made sense in a whole different way. The advent of cell-phones was the ‘storm’, and this was the aftermath. All these ‘cell-phone eyed’ people speckling the station were the broken petals, remnants of some beautiful relationships that had once blossomed, of intimate bonds that had connected them once. Now their entire world had shrunk down to the size of their phones. Phones, I realize now, are the most paradoxical things on earth; something that was meant to bring us closer has drifted us apart forever. And it is painful how it all came to me after having had my own little world slip out of my pocket and shatter to pieces in the morning. If only these people could have a day like I’d had; free from the shackles of never-ending text messages and whatsapp notifications.

Just a day.

I understand now how Ezra Pound could possibly have come up with something so profound; Cell-phones hadn’t been invented in his time.

By Swara Shakla

Her love for dogs bordering on the crazy, Swara cannot live a day without coffee, good prose and Indian music. She likes to think of herself as a raging Grammar Nazi at home and fan-fiction is one of her (very few) guilty pleasures. You can check out her blog at www.swarazblog.wordpress.com.