Archive for the ‘mother’ Category
April 27, 2016
An essay i read on 27 April 2016
A hectic week of buying, sorting out and ticking off of the list, and packing; with farewell dinners and teas thrown in for good measure; found me sitting in the GTS bus for a journey to Abbottabad, with the proverbial pae’tie (tin trunk) and canvas bistar bund (bed roll) loaded on the top of the bus – yes in those days of non AC Foton and Daewoo busses the luggage was carried on the roof top rack!
And so on the evening of 4th June 1969, I reached Abbottabad, got into a waiting military truck along with a few other gangly kids for the 15 minute or so ride to the Pakistan Military Academy.
The next many years were spent serving between Somiani on the Arabian Sea to Siachen, the highest battle ground in the world and having the best of times.
Home was the sarkari ghar allotted – setting it up, decorating it, living and entertaining in it, till the time came to pack and move and the process restarted.
In all this setting up homes and moving from city to city, somewhere at the back of the mind was the picture of “back home” – the home I left in 1969 and visited once a year every year, meeting the permanent inhabitants of that home, my parents.
Welcoming us as they would do guests – who would soon go back to the alien world they came from and life would come back to the normal without such intrusions.
Of course there were unscheduled visits back home also, deaths and marriages called for our presence – obediently following the rituals returned to our life outside this cocoon of our youth!
In all these changes the only constant being a flower pot with a money plant planted in soil which like the money plant was taken from the flower bed back home.
And then as they say life came full circle and it was time to finish the business in alien lands and return home.
Roots tugged, I now wonder if it were the soil calling the money plant or home calling me?
Visions of walls with antiques, paintings, artifacts and rooms large enough to accommodate the whole house that we had lived in flashed in my mind. An empty nest was easy to pack for having lost my better half and knowing back home was also without the mother was hard; yet knowing I would be welcome to the home of my youth, missed for forty seven years but not acknowledged for fear of nostalgia intervening and making life difficult.
And then the off white walls of the house and the memories, and the laughter of days gone by, and the mischief filled hours, all started to pale before the reality of life back home; where once my youth thrived now lived a lost in nostalgia old man who responded to my calling him Daddy with a smile, and occasionally with stories of an age gone by.
And “back home” was no longer the colorful and joyous memories kept alive for forty seven years, but back home was blue.
I could not sit and enjoy things happening around me, because nothing happened unless I did it. Reality.
Reality also was that now I was no longer the same gangly footloose and fancy free boy of 1969, but a weather beaten experienced and rubbed on the wrong side by life garrulous, grumpy getting on in years man.
Reality was being called uncle or sir gee in shopping malls as I took time to read labels to see if the ingredients were good for me or not.
As I sat and thought about rediscovering home, I wondered if I was somehow thinking of and writing about what a few years from today my children would be experiencing when they came “back home” from their sojourns in foreign lands?
And I cringed, and wrote about rediscovering home.
Only this became back home blues.

Posted in Abbottabad Pakistan, bulleh shah, clouds, islamabad, lahore, militant, mother, personal, peshawar, romance, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
October 26, 2013
i thought i had posted this here when i wrote it, and only today found i have not:
————————————-
at fourteen she has
so much to live for
but surely not
a bullet in her head
to show the cowardice
of those who can not
stand up and face
a girl of fourteen
because her stand
in their face
makes them afraid
of an idea that she represents
and which may
cast doubts among
the professed guardians
of a religion to which belonged
aisha the wife, all of malala’s age
nasibah steadfast at ohad
fatima the daughter of muhammad (pbuh)
mother to hassan and hussain, wife of ali
zainab bint ali too among the names
umm e kulsum wife of usman
and a list of brave
learned, revered women
negated due to their deliberate desire
of ignoring history and narrative
of fourteen hundred years and more
taught, recounted and remembered
but they in their narrow interpretations
seeking to create a cult militant
ignorant, short on truth
long on hate of things that
go against their desire of leading
without opposition
neither ijmah nor questioning
where the khalifa got the cloth
to make a full shirt
or having two lamp with oil
from the state and self
for work and leisure.
and all this threatened
by a girl of fourteen
wanting to be like
the women of Islam
taught to her by her teachers
ingrained in her mind by parents
practiced by her daily
seen happening in life
and a bullet to the head
to end the life at fourteen
hanging to life in a hospital
by a tenuous thread
are the perpetrators
so afraid now
that a fourteen year old
that too a girl
becomes a threat to their edifice
made like a house of cards
one voice of a girl
against all odds
October 10, 2012
11:53 hours
33.759969
73.130493
Tags:extremism, Malala, pakistan, shooting, violence
Posted in 10/05/09, 10/08/09, 7/7, 9/11, Abbottabad Pakistan, Activism, AJK, Balochistan, bomb blast, bulleh shah, casualty, conflict, disaster, Education, extremism, Gilgit, Gilgit Baltistan, Institution, International Islamic University Islamabad Pakistan, islamabad, islamic, Karachi, KPK, lahore, learning, living, love, militancy, militant, mother, pakistan, pakistan terrorism survivors network, peace, peace building, personal, peshawar, poetry, Punjab, quetta, rawalpindi, School, Sindh, survivors, terrorism, Victims, violent extremism, women | Leave a Comment »
September 23, 2013

My friends were there
Praying to God
My people all bowed
Asking for His blessings
For them and theirs
And for Pakistan
Everyone there was mine
Children mine
Girls mine
Boys mine
Youth mine
Mothers mine
Fathers mine
Old aged mine
All on their knees
Singing hymns
And saying ‘aamin’
Sunday best
Dresses and mood
Happiness and mirth
All of this earth.
And a deafening sound
Heat, pain, fire around
Disbelief, flying metal
Sky rending cries
And another sound
Adding to the din
Limbs and clothes
Shoes and sandals
Sobs and groans
Silence and moans
My people all
Shattered and torn
Asking where if the God
They had just invoked
Another story,
Another lament,
More photo-ops and
Media to comment
Three days to mourn
Then back to work
The usual drudge.
The night falls
Silence reigns
An occasional sob to show
Life exists in deathly throes
To cry the names of one
Who will never return,
Home, left torn.
The question again
Raises its head
Where is the will
To stop this bloodshed
Or do we wait
With bleeding hearts
The dawn of another day
And dread the next news
Of man’s hatred?
Sunday 22nd September 2013
09.45 pm
33.759969
73.130493
Tags:Church, pakistan, Peshawar, terrorism
Posted in 10/05/09, 10/08/09, 7/7, 9/11, Activism, AJK, Balochistan, bomb blast, bulleh shah, casualty, civil society, conflict, cooperation, disaster, extremism, islamabad, Karachi, KPK, lahore, living, love, militancy, militant, Mission, mother, pakistan, pakistan terrorism survivors network, peace, peace building, personal, peshawar, poetry, Punjab, quetta, SE Asian Region, Sindh, sufism, suicide bombing, survivors, terrorism, Uncategorized, Victims, violent extremism, women | Leave a Comment »
December 13, 2012
13/12/12 thursday – a very well spent day
the first session included talks by women survivors from all five provinces of Pakistan, and AJK, the narrations moved the audience to tears on more than one occasion. security concerns led to some of the narratives being made by the women from behind a wall, further highlighting the of threat scenario to some of the religious sects and minority populations in Pakistan.
in the second session, women parliamentarians from all provinces talked about their experiences, hopes, and aspirations about the future of women in Pakistan,
the third session was for the launch of the CEDAW shadow report on Pakistan.
over all the day was very well spent and a learning experience.
33.759969
73.130493
Posted in 10/05/09, 10/08/09, 7/7, 9/11, Abbottabad Pakistan, Activism, Afghanistan, bomb blast, casualty, civil society, conflict, cooperation, disaster, extremism, Gilgit, global survivors network, islamabad, islamic, Karachi, lahore, living, love, militancy, militant, Mission, mother, pakistan, pakistan terrorism survivors network, peace, peace building, personal, peshawar, quetta, rain, rawalpindi, SE Asian Region, statistics, suicide bombing, Support, survivors, terrorism, Victims, violent extremism, women | Leave a Comment »
November 30, 2012
omnipotence
presence
all-encompassing
supreme
lord of being
and all that has been
or will be
how can one
comprehend
the depth
or breadth
of the sway
at His disposal
when one can not
even know
the deep dark inside
of one’s own self
hidden under a sheath
a thin sheen
dulled by time
dust and grime
running after what
should be in our watch
forgetting what is for us
to be in the scheme
made on the day when
He molded the clay
to form till eternity
all, to obey
remember
exalt
but mortals we
not doing and
wondering
what went wrong?
23-Nov-12 6:58 PM
33.759969
73.130493
Tags:Allah, God, omnipotence, prayer, Ram, religion, supplication, supreme lord, theology
Posted in Abbottabad Pakistan, bulleh shah, civil society, clouds, cooperation, dance, DHAMAK, Gilgit, islamabad, Karachi, lahore, learning, living, love, mother, music, pakistan, peace, personal, peshawar, poetry, quetta, rain, rawalpindi, romance, romantic, song, songs, sufism, survivors, women | Leave a Comment »
November 4, 2012
please click for the latest episodes, i will be a panelist on the program on 17 Nov 2012
http://www.azmealishan.com/behtar-pakistan-season-2-episode/episode/2
33.759969
73.130493
Tags:Azm Alishan, Better, pakistan, terrorism
Posted in 10/05/09, 10/08/09, 7/7, 9/11, Abbottabad Pakistan, Activism, askobi, bulleh shah, casualty, civil society, conflict, cooperation, disaster, documentary, Education, emergency, extremism, formers, Gilgit, global survivors network, indonesia, Institution, islamabad, islamic, jakarta, Karachi, lahore, learning, living, love, MAD For Peace, militancy, militant, Mission, mother, pakistan, pakistan terrorism survivors network, peace, peace building, personal, peshawar, poetry, quetta, rain, rawalpindi, romance, romantic, School, SE Asian Region, sufism, suicide bombing, Summit Against Violent Extremism, Support, survivors, terrorism | Leave a Comment »
September 4, 2012
Life Goes On 6.
best depiction ever!
Posted in 10/05/09, 10/08/09, 7/7, 9/11, Abbottabad Pakistan, Activism, Afghanistan, Africa, aid, air, askobi, bomb blast, bulleh shah, Cannes, casualty, CFR, civil society, clouds, conflict, cooperation, dance, DHAMAK, disaster, documentary, Drama, Dublin, emergency, extremism, film, floods, formers, Gilgit, global survivors network, Google, indonesia, International Islamic University Islamabad Pakistan, islamabad, islamic, jakarta, Karachi, lahore, living, love, MAD For Peace, militancy, militant, Mission, mother, music, Navy, NCA Lahore, Osama bin Laden, pakistan, pakistan terrorism survivors network, peace, peace building, personal, peshawar, poetry, quetta, rain, rawalpindi, romance, romantic, SE Asian Region, song, songs, statistics, sufism, suicide bombing, Summit Against Violent Extremism, Support, survivors, terrorism, un world food program, Uncategorized, unicef, university, USA, USIF, Victims, violent extremism, women | Leave a Comment »
August 13, 2012
we were a tolerant, caring and loving people. then something went wrong – Allah’s wrath visited us for the sins of intolerance, please see these links for the stories – what we were and what we have become are two entirely different planes!
http://dawn.com/2012/02/09/also-pakistan-2/
http://dawn.com/2012/05/24/also-pakistan-ii/
http://dawn.com/2012/07/26/also-pakistan-iii/
http://dawn.com/2012/08/09/also-pakistan-iv/
33.759969
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Posted in 10/05/09, 10/08/09, 7/7, Abbottabad Pakistan, bulleh shah, civil society, clouds, cooperation, dance, Drama, islamabad, islamic, Karachi, lahore, living, love, mother, music, pakistan, peace, personal, peshawar, poetry, quetta, rain, rawalpindi, romance, romantic, song, sufism, Support, women | Leave a Comment »
August 5, 2012
as i go about the chores of life, i find more and more people not replying to any form of greetings that should pass between people when they meet. my thoughts on this surface in these jottings.
please remember to return the greeting, if you do not offer these first, when you meet anyone in your daily life. and recollect how even passerby’s in the street or in the mall aisles abroad, always have a smile, a nod of the head and a hello for us, irrespective!
callous
uncaring
have we become,
not bothering
even to answer
a given greeting
ignoring the simple
wa alaikum as salam
do we do this
to save our time
thoughts and breath?
or have we lost
the lessons learnt
walking on our knees
seeking love in greeting
in our childish voices?
or in the rush
of life to
head on meet
destiny, we forget
the simple
assalam o alikum
is to save us
from doom
02 august 2012
1 am
33.759969
73.130493
Posted in 10/05/09, 10/08/09, 7/7, 9/11, Abbottabad Pakistan, Activism, bulleh shah, civil society, dance, Drama, Gilgit, islamabad, islamic, Karachi, lahore, love, mother, music, pakistan, peace, peshawar, poetry, quetta, rain, rawalpindi, romance, romantic, song, sufism, women | 1 Comment »
July 6, 2012
Tags:10/05/09, extremism, PTSD, terrorism
Posted in 10/05/09, 7/7, 9/11, Abbottabad Pakistan, Activism, bomb blast, casualty, civil society, conflict, cooperation, disaster, emergency, extremism, formers, Gilgit, global survivors network, islamabad, islamic, jakarta, Karachi, lahore, living, love, militancy, militant, mother, pakistan, pakistan terrorism survivors network, peace, peace building, personal, peshawar, rawalpindi, SE Asian Region, statistics, suicide bombing, Summit Against Violent Extremism, Support, survivors, terrorism, Victims, violent extremism, women | Leave a Comment »