Dolly Bird

One thing that surprises me again and again, is the comfort and security that I get from my mother. If I am feeling down and is talking to her, I try very hard to conceal my feelings (try to pose very strong) just to keep her happy, but then I don't know, how she senses my unexpressed feelings and makes me open up my heart and get comfort and a new energy. Whenever, I feel down, I know where I have to seek refuge. Whenever, I need  an inspiration, I know, where to get energy. In no one else presence, I feel more of myself as in her presence. May be that is why, I have formed this idea that love is where one starts acting as a kid. If an adult behaves as an adult in front of another, to me, that means there is partial trust and they don't feel comfortable enough to be themselves in front of each other. Sometimes, I encounter with real examples that strengthen my faith that even modernity has not shaken up that affection called motherhood.

It was the afternoon of first day of Ramadhan and I was returning home. Having one of the worst days of life accompanying with exhaustion from long travel, walks, long waiting, thirsty and hungry, I took the train 7 to go to Time Square (From where, I had to take bus to binghamton). Most of people looking tired and busy in their heads. I too was staring to rapidly passing buildings and then I was not seeing anything. My mind was rebooting itself to settle down the restless thoughts that were keep rushing in, and in the process, it was avoiding information from my eyes. Then like, one awakes from dream, I start seeing things again. The first thing that I saw were a woman in her fifties (apparently) and a girl in her twenties. May be, I felt that my looking is not normal, that is why, I put down my head to not see the girl. I was fasting and it is required from one to maintain a reasonable control over mind and body. But more than control over body and mind, it was strange fear from beauty of the girl that forced me to avoid seeing her. She was unbelievably, so beautiful that I got scared that I may get a permanent image of her in my mind. Her beauty was not a customized beauty as poets build out of perfect parts. It was more like a play of good proportion garnished with a comfortable smile that were emitting freshness and satisfaction from her face. In contrast, the woman in her fifties had a prominent history of hard life that were visible in all of her appearance. She had tightly covered her hairs with a kerchief and had rolled back her sleeves. Sun-tanned, frowny face and heavy arms were giving her an impression of a strong woman who has been wrestling with hard realities of life since her early times. I looked up again to this pair of ladies, forgetting my own worries for a while. The pretty young lady had squeezed herself against older lady and was rubbing herself against her like chicks hid themselves into feathers of hen. For me, it was really interesting to see a pretty young lady relies so heavily on an aged woman. Again, to avoid that pretty face, I renewed rebooting my mind to keep it able, to cope with the reality of my own life.

With strong jolts, train stopped and a lot of people started moving out. Without reading name of the station, I stood up and followed the crowd and just close to the door of the train, a hand took my arm, "Are you going to Time Square?" ... I looked back. It was that dolly bird. I just nodded my head. "The next station is your stop." and then, "Let's go mom" and both ladies stepped out (May be she had guessed from my exhaustion that I had come out of city). She was a totally different girl, unlike the girl in train who was looking insecure and dependent on her mother, she was a confident girl (apparent from her body language was not a chick but of a dolly bird). Just the image of a mom really freshen up my mind. Mother is the only one who creates an ecosystem around her that lets her kids stay kids. No matter, how confident and smart one grows into, her presence let that kid show up. 

Memory

It is a pleasant coincidence that the world has changed a lot, and so did I. You might think, well that happens all the time. What is the news in it? Yes, change is the only constant but when one sees the world from his/her history of changes, he becomes aware of the transitions that is happening and wait for the right moments (even if the experience is bitter sometimes). Let me give an example to clarify. I come across of a lot of debates regarding religion and secularism (and also evolutionary science/rationalism), and sometimes I want to jump in, but one thing stop me of doing so, and that is the reactionary kinds of comments. On "global" level of debates, I watch/read "Richard Dawkins and Co, Mehdi Hassan and Slavoj Zizek who have a clearer perspectives on issues. On national level, I watch/read Hassan Nisar, a range of conservative/religious scholars (not mentionable name because of lack of a clearer perspective, so better in put in group) from moderates and sometimes extremists. Although each are on opposite side, two things are common among them, being largely reactionary and a reductionism of core concepts in their relative fields.

To elaborate, how a personal history of changes provides a perspective, let me share my personal experience. Teenage is a very sensitive time in any person and experiences in this time of age determines his personality. The first time, I encountered with serious social concepts, such as individualism, existentialism in philosophy, cubism, surrealism and dadaism in arts and deconstructionism in literary criticism, my immediate response was "yuk". How sick are these ideas and only sick minds must have thought and developed them. Then I was wondering, how people have welcomed these concepts? Although my curiosity was pushing me to immerse myself deep and deeper in whatever writings were available to me to understand them better, but at the same time, I had to develop a personal paradigm, so I not only save myself, but also have a reasonable ground to counter them (I didn't throw my these early efforts and gathered them in the form of an ebook- To Socrates- I made it available on this blog. Although, it is poorly written and poorly organized, but I cherish it the most, as it provides me a baseline so I could track my mental development. It is like a personal history). My

The knol is under construction, please check back to read the rest ...Thanks 

Helplessness

There were a total of four people working in the workplace, two shoemakers and two apprentices. It was a tradition in the handcraft shoemaking business that each shoemaker had apprentice/s learning the trade. The business owner was a self-made person. He had started as an apprentice and had spent many years to learn the trade, many more years worked really hard to save enough money to start his own business. He had hired another shoemaker to increase his productions. That afternoon, they had a friend visiting them. The cozy shop, hot tea and casual talks had created a pleasant environment. Their conversation was interrupted by entrance of two men. One of the man was the father of business owner and the other man was his friend that he had brought to show the achievements of his son. 

The father introduces his son to his friend, "The one sitting in the center is my son."... Then he points to the other shoemaker and tells his friend, "He is my son's servant, and the guy sitting next to him is my son's servant's servant"... Out of respect for the elderly man, others stay quiet (despite of getting offended by the introduction) but the visiting friend replies back, "Uncle, even if this guy is servant's servant, still he is in the business. Look at poor me, I am not even in the business!!!" .... 

I don't remember any passing week in recent years that Taliban haven't blooded it with lives of innocent people in the Af-Pak region. This Sunday, the Christian community at Peshawar was their target. Beside anger and grief, one more thing that is common in the aftermath of attacks is helplessness of the citizen. They protest for the killings but they know well that, the government is either complacent or scared of Taliban.Taliban is free to attack at their will at any place and any time. People are helpless against both government and Taliban but they have to channel their anger anyway, so they express their anger in unique ways (that hold some truth in them). A general expression of anger is cursing Taliban, especially calling them, the servants of the servants. When I hear that Taliban is servants of gulf states, that in turn are the servants of US and UK, I remember the introduction in the shoemaking shop. At least, Taliban and government is the servants of servants. The people are not even in the business. All they can is to curse the attackers and their government and helplessly wait for the next attack. 

Never Mind

 

Hassan Nisar

 

Imran Khan

 

 

 

 

 

 

Childhood Subjects

Flowers, 19 x 12 cm, ink on paper 

Roses, 21 x 16 cm, ink on paper 

Birds, 18 x 13 cm, ink on paper

Today, I went to Walmart, to find some sort of quadrate for my upcoming field trips, and there I stuck at crafts sections ending up buying colors and brushes. As soon as I came home, I couldn't resist but trying them out. When I was kid and got my first bicycle, I couldn't wait for the morning out of excitement. Identical feelings were there, so I let the color celebrate it and chose the simple childish subjects :) The surreal artists let their unconscious take control of their hands. I guess an unexplored area is painting the meditativ perceptions. The childish subjects are meditative in the sense, children have less distracting thoughts and their imaginations are less judged by their rationale thoughts. These are not meditative paintings, but I may try out soon. Let's see ...