VICIOUS CIRCLE - Story.

Every inch of her body was perspiring. She was laboring hard to dance in harmony with every single music beat. Every single emotion was fake. But she felt contented inside for she was visualizing the accomplishment of her younger brother.
"He must be receiving his degree at any time now", she was thinking and this thought alone was giving her constant energy to dance on the stage.


This stage was the most important part of her life for it had acted as a mean to all her aims- the bread of her family, the wedding of her sister and the education of her brother. Though she never liked the fact that she was a ‘B-grade’ stage dancer but, without any other choice in her life, she had learnt to live with the image of a dancer reluctantly. But for everyone, around her, this image was totally unacceptable. These were the people who, despite being her close relatives, offered no help to her family after the death of her father. Instead they advised her mother to marry her to a dying, old man, for his money. So seeing the selfishness of those around her, she had stopped caring about them or what they say.

The memories of her first audition had always stayed with her. She could literally recall every single step she took from her doorstep to the cheap theatre. She silently fought with those filthy, yearning eyes in public transport for which the innocent agitation of a 18 years old girl was a source of fun. She ignored the dirty way in which the play director stared at her on seeing her for the first time. She felt deeply ashamed and worthless at all the dirty jokes and dance moves she was asked to do for audition. But she had to clear the audition at any cost and she did it at the expense of her modesty and chastity.

Time moved on and with the passage of time she became cold and insensitive; and started focusing on the responsibilities she had. But still she managed to gain the respect of her colleagues - a result of her dedication and hard work accompanied by her decency and reserved attitude. She was successful in getting her sister married after eight monotonous years of hard work and struggle. It was the happiest moment of her life. But still she knew she had to go on for the education of her brother and so she continued her work with dogged persistence.

Four more years flew away and she turned thirty. She felt so old and tired after years of hard work. She longed for doing what every girl wants to do for she had sacrificed it all for her family. She missed having proper sleep, watching movies, attending marriages, having conversation with her mother, walking on the beach, counting the stars at night, eating oranges in the sunshine of winters and other things like that. The list of her appetencies was endless and, on occasions, it created ripples in her otherwise calm demeanor.

It was autumn's another sad day. Her brother was leaving for the job he got in another city.

"Aapi, I'll send you the money order every month. From now on you really do not need to work because that money would be enough for you and Mama ",He said.
"You just take care of yourself.", She hugged him with mixed feelings of happiness and sadness. And he left her feeling carefree and without any burden.

She was still astonished with the fact that she had managed to achieve all her goals.
"Daddy must be happy up there! Yes Daddy, I have received your hug", she said to herself with tears in her eyes.

Sipping the tea she planned to furnish her room. She decided to buy things just for herself and made a long list on coloured paper with the glittering pen. She was giggling and singing and dancing. But this time it was all just for her own soul. She looked into the mirror and felt beautiful. She looked at her eyes which were glowing of excitement and she thought about the desires and dreams she had. She decided to be selfish, very selfish from then on.

“Finally I can do all the things that I wanted to do”, she thought.

But at that very moment she heard someone at the main door, from her sister's in-laws, tell her mother that her brother-in-law had died and her sister is returning to her home with her three children. Suddenly all the money that her brother would send did not appear enough to support her mother, sister and her sister’s children. Looking at herself in the mirror, she felt herself hollow from inside.

"So! What now?", she asked herself.

Soon she was tearing her retirement letter into pieces. She has realized that she is in a race in which everybody was running in a 'vicious circle'. No matter how fast or slow you run, you are always going to reach the identical point again and again!



-END-

January 2007.
Zaofishan Qureshi.
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I would like to thank Mr. Arif Iftekhar for corrections .

awake.....

Train was leaving the station..

I tried to open my eyes but all I could see was dim light of lantern held by the chana wala. I couldn’t understand whether I was awake or dreaming. I tried to stand up by holding the handle of the berth but I fell back on the seat and the person sitting next to me flashed torch light upon me..the light entered into deep waters of my conscience and I was startled after what I saw in that light.......I fell into darkness….
deep darkness of nothingness, a depth with no end but only beginning …depth of the beginning..I kept on falling deep into the roots from where my soul emerged…. I cried…I cried helplessly..I tried to open my eyes I tried to move my body…but I could not……from far away..along with faint sound of train's engine I heard a voice reciting something……haan haan!!!! Haaan !!!!!! It was a familiar voice… The voice of a man I adored ……….he was reciting something …..the same thing!!!!!!!!!!….the same words which he occasionally recited in the lawn in those magical moments between tahajjud and fajr...…under the sky!... and the sky in those beautiful sacred moments looked like I could almost touch it and grab my share of the blessings from the supreme creator….

in those moments of silence, magic, tears, passion, pleasure, contentment .....lying on the floor of my room beneath the window I looked at the moon hidden behind the willow tree…..as a child I always wondered why the moon hid behind my willow tree?...maybe I was special!!!….mom said I was a special kid…. But I knew I was special…I knew maria, tabassum, aisha, Vicky……everybody ....each and every soul in the world was special…. I knew that .... but I couldn’t say it back to her and I always smiled to make her realize that she is important her comments no matter how immature I find them, are important and she is the only woman I love ……she never knew that I was addicted to recitation of this man….this crazy man who.....God knows for what reasons woke up in the middle of nights and display a versatile range of emotions …he sings he recites he observes… he cries…. He smile….he smile and cries……sometimes this man the first love of my life ,sat there and wondered for hours about the glory about the artistry with which each piece of an insect was carved….he wondered and he wandered….he was always a wanderer …a soul from the wild….a poet who wrote like rivers flow...like the mountain goats playfully climb the highest hills..... but I blame myself for being a chain in his way of freedom..he wont let me go because I was his responsibility and because he loved me. I was the love of his life a love which I knew he would never ever express in words….…!!!!!! but he knows that I know!!!!!! He knows that I know that he wont say a word about it and I know that he knows that I truly understand his feelings and love him back with the same intensity.......so he wanders but not in a physical way now………..!!!! ,

lying on the floor, I looked at the blue night the black tree and the round shiny moon hiding behind the willow tree……I never liked the moon for it reminded me of a melancholic feeling that I never experienced or that I fear experiencing …...it reminded me of a separation that I was denying for so long ….. it reminded me of gloom of sadness …it reminded me as if its the sole witness to a deep intense sad and passionate love story with a sad ending……..like a silent love story between a queen and a king...the king of east who deeply loved the queen of west but never expressed his feelings and the queen of west who understood each and every unsaid word of the kind of the east but thought that she might be a fool ..she might be wrong after all why would love an ugly lady like her? .....and on november's first night east and west fought their war and they killed each other and in those last moments where they could see their souls , they couldn't ignore the agony in each other's eyes ...and it was that moment!!! that moment within which they realized the truth.....!!!!!! and the moon was a sad witness...it couldnt do much except for hiding its face in the clouds..............so, moon reminds me of agony....I never loved the moon…….so here in my room lying on the floor beneath the window ....i remind myself that I don’t love the moon but it still looks at me like a mischievous child... half hidden behind a curtain and looking at me , craving for my attention….how could then I not smile at the moon? ….i smile at it and i smell the grass…the dew on the grass the fresh fog in the atmosphere …I inhale ..close my eyes and I hear him reciting in a low voice ………..

naala hai bulbul e shorida tera khaam abhi,

apnay seenay mey isi aur zara thaam abhi ...

pukhta hoti hai aql maslehat andesh ho aql,

ishq ho maslehat andesh tou hai khaam abhi...

apnay seenay mey isi aur zara tham abhi

beykhatar kood para aatish e namrood mey ishq ..

aqql hai mehv e tamasha e lub e baam abhi

apnay seenay mey isay aur zara thaam abhi...

ishq farmooda e qaasid pe subuk gaam e amal

aql samjhi hee nahi maa'ani e paigham abhi

apnay seenay mey isay aur zara tham abhi

……………………and with tears in his words I cry …I cry and I realize I am about to fall… about to fall into the depths of the darkness …….I hear him cry for me....!!!!! for his eldest daughter but I don’t open my eyes for if I fall into darkness maybe I could survive..... but if I open my eyes and look at his eyes ..i would be instantly shattered into a million little pieces ……never to be composed again.

zau fishan…

http://www.facebook.com/ZaufishanFay

Illusion

I woke up but found myself in the same battlefield. My feet heavy and my soul drown into the mad river of my tears. Escape is never the solution so I decided not to sleep and slip into escape until I have the solution. There is no dead end of this emptiness and now I am sure of that so I can not wait for something to happen and lead me to the dead end where I change my path and walk away.

In quest of reality how far have I come. I look behind and all I see are faces lost in illusion with no sense of purpose with no sense of reality with no sense of identity, lost in a pool of denial and absurdity. There is not a single soul with whom I could relate to. I try to run away from them so that I couldn't lose my identity and I try desperately to run behind the soul who appears to be somewhat like me but only to find that it was illusion within an illusion...a trap within a trap. An illusion who was unaware of its own existence. An illusion carved with clay of truth.


So tired of running away and running behind. I sit down and recollect the memories. In search of reality I left every familiar soul and ran behind the one I didn't know a thing about except that it could lead me to reality. And here I am left alone with the past ..An achromatic past with a monotonous story of finding the truth and reality. A truth and reality which now is only an illusion. So, the past?..the memories?.. the struggle?... Useless. Now that past seem like an illusory island locked inside my head... A storm would be coming in this island and the sea wants to overflow but there is no key to unlock my mind and LET IT GO.


This is not my place and 'that' was never my place. The only reality that I have is myself. I know , only I know the phases I have been through, the illusion that lead me to bigger illusion which lead me to never ending series of traps. I am real but soon I'll be gone. I'll change so hard that mirror wouldn't recognize me.

For so long I believed it to be real and true. But even the heights of my love couldn't stop me from falling into the deep well of nothingness when the so called truth and reality unravel their self and laughed at me. For so long I fought with the mirror of myself to disapprove its point. But, I have only this one mirror so I went back to it to recompose my self to see the reality of situation but the mirror broke with a deep cut of hurt when it saw me shattered. Me and my mirror ..we cried and embraced our pieces for hours.

The truth and reality is that nothing is eternal even if it is the quest of reality. So, hopes, wishes, dreams, illusions, ideas, success, hatred, beauty, pain, artistry, government, defeat, skill, fame, expectations, phases of love, tears of rejection, you, me, people....... nothing is eternal.

One thing that lead me illusion is the denial of this fact.

The only person in the world who should never ever betray, cheat, hate, defeat, lose , and lie to you is yourself.

Why you expect anything from the people/world who are not sure of their own identity, who are not sure of the next step they are gonna take in their life. Why do you expect them to never cheat you? . Then the expectation is nothing but the denial of this reality : The only person in the world who should never ever betray, cheat, hate, defeat, lose and lie to you is yourself.

When you don't fulfill your expectations you learn.

When others don't you get lost in illusions and hurt yourself.

13 may 2011

10:55

Zaofishan.

Identity

I didn't want to hurt the people...so I repressed and denied my own identity and Individuality for so long. Nobody was hurt for sure. But, deep inside I suffer everyday and nobody came for me as I faked it pretty well. Somewhere in the process of injuring and healing myself I lost my own identity. Moral: You know better.

- Zaofishan.

Dilemma...

Love is blind and heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of. Its up to us to decide whether we stick to reason or madness.
If a person analyze his/her madness with mind/rationality/intellect than he/she is only going to see a self so naked and old with wrinkles of regrets, shame and guilt. Because this is what happens when we dissect madness and passion under our magnifying glass of intellect.

If a passionate/mad in love person analyze the reasons/intellect/rationality with a madness, what he/she only see would be a love without passion, a love that is so full of empty and hollow words that it would fill you with feelings of nothingness, emptiness and confusions.
so, its either mad love or rational love. The combination leads to a never ending conflict and dilemma...causing so much pain

-Zaofishan

.....

PAIN……….. PAIN…….. PAIN……….
Overworked…. Tired…. Sleepless …Hungry….
I tried to live in the moment…and in this moment I am crying my eyes out.
What do I get from this random catharsis on my stupid blog which even I don’t read? What do I get from this? …what do I get from this….? What do I get from this?

Maseehai

Kis qadar udaasi hai...
shor kitna hai barpa..

iss qadar udaasi mey
aisa khat kisay likhoon?...
jisko tu na parh paey
bin parhay samajh jaey....

beykali ye yoon kuch hai
ik fana ka alam hai
urtay phirtay hain kuch gidh
pinjer mey taaffun hai

apni aankh se bach ker
koi kub kahan bhagay?
zer e lub sifarish hai 'qaid se riha kar dou'
haath hai jakar rakha apni aasteeno mey

butt shikan banay phirna
tesha yoon liyey phirna
tum bhi kya masiha ho?
main bhi ik masiha hoon
tum mujhay khatam kar dou
main tumhain riha kar doon ..

aur phir shuru kar dien
apni hee maseehai ...

ab nahi raha jaata ...
yoon nahi jiya jaata...
tum mujhay khatam kardo
main tumhain riha kar doon

aur karain maseehai...

-Zaofishan