My deepest regret is about my inability to smile. 

I’ve concluded that I am a socially retard person, who only find solace in the cyberspace nebula; in a charming chasm where I can willfully drown myself without a trace, where I don’t have to ‘speak’ in order to have my say, a charismatic charm where life is as simple as moving fingers and typing plastic keys, as flexible as punching away emotions in paragraphs and where smiling is as easy as pressing a colon and parenthesis or typing three letters, L, O and L, together.

 There are other reasons of my loving my virtual self, which relates to friends. I have once justified my net friends by categorizing two types of people you can find in this world: (this is not to generalize friends, just to accentuate the importance of my net friends to me!)

1)      virtual friends in Real world.

2)      Real friends in Virtual world.

 I, without prejudice, deeply adore the second category. The good being it does not restrict me to geographical, racial and gender boundaries, where choice is merely intellect, words and sentences.

 Back to my chronicles of smiling, being an extremist is also an obstacle in finding it easy to curve the lips, and the fact that I have fitted myself in the silhouette of a sad fairy, where everything makes her sad, where the things to be glad on also makes her sad and tears ooze out.

 And generally I find myself packed in the kaleidoscope of their anguish which renders the smiling on anything remotely similar to it, impossible.

And even if, somehow anything too amazing ventures in arena and strike me, I would justify it with amazing saline water, vindicating it being tears of gladness.

Sadly, the smiles have no place in.

‘What can keep a woman working?’

acknowledgement of her work.

‘What can keep a woman Loving?’

acknowledgement of her love.

I am trying to acknowledge the fact that I am a woman.

September ended abruptly and search of thesauruses went in vain. The scarlets fused in the shades of grey and dreams, palpable enough to be tasted and touched, were broken by the nightmarish reality.

So much for the happy ends, she sits in front of me sobbing away the tears of remorse, hiding her face in her shivery cold fingers. I nod my head in regret.

That could have been a prelude to a fairy tale, she tells me, but the prince turned to a frog even before the magical kiss, croaked and hopped away.

For once, she says, I accepted all the admirations, acknowledged it, was pleased, even smiled and not for once felt offensive. Put all the apprehensions aside and waded through the sea of so-called romance or something of a like, ventured through the strictly prohibited arena of dreams, desires, emotions happiness and fantasies.

It was all so shocking for me, totally unpredictable from the usual predictable self she has. Yet, I could prophesize the inevitable hurt after the humming and dancing, because the plant; where they manufacture the epitome of perfection, princes, having the epithet and all adjectives related to The Charming and the fake persuasive trade-mark of happily-ever-after, was forced to closed down probably because of overdue load shedding, hence, I told her, that she would be doomed to remain the kiss-less frog-less princess with salt-water to be shed on the utter foolishness which would not bring anything good.

I am unable to figure out that how can two exactly opposite thing be similar to Bliss, Companionship and Solitude?
And why is it that the best company she strives for is of herself, of words of colors and pixels, she still sought for companionship? What was that she was unable to give off to herself? Such a disgrace to her singledom for what? A few morsels of admiration and flattery directed towards her, by a random man who would hurl the seemingly-genuine compliments about her and would make her follow the well decided story line.

Honestly speaking, for a split second, when I saw her smiling I also wanted to change my dogma of realism to fantasy. I wanted to carve for pan as well, and to leave the windows of my room ajar hoping that he might come one day.

I am glad I am saved. Perhaps all the ado was about the fall she was destined to face, I hope it has taught her well. I hope she just stops looking.

Aug 18, 08.

I am still a moth trapped in the coldness of cold. and locked securely in the pristine cages of norms, notions, ethics. Chained and cuffed to have someone, anyone, lead me, coerce me, persuade me into doing something I will loathe to do. and the moth still yearns for something impossible – freedom. and Transformation – in to a butterfly!

.a.

As September approaches near, she starts searching all the words that are even remotely related to love, joy and miracles; believing that she will find her name in their thesauruses.

 And when the night, with the three-quartered moon, peeps in her room, she dreams a prohibited dream, about her and him, about them being together, so close together that their shadows are merging into one – bittersweet, because everything is possible in dream, and only dreams.

I forbid it because I think that she has a perennial lack of romance for anyone but self, she is such a narcissist that she can love no one beyond the realm of herself, where she is the pyrrhic queen where she is the fairy-princess. And under the impression she creates an edifice of her self-love with thick concrete; no valiant warrior may intrude in. 

I guess I have thought it all wrong.

She is looking and smiling at me and the rose petals are losing their glory, its beyond all repair now, not even the smoldering rules, she lugubriously made and set to fire in the end, can nudge her back now.  She had meticulously glued every shred of her philosophies in correct places but now she wills to let go.

She is seeing the colors ahead – all the shades of red. She is engrossed in herself and playing with the tuft of her hair. God! She is dancing under the mauve sky, humming to the winds, kissing the flower and smiling in the mirror!

(sometime back in past: she chokes, retains position, shrieks, resists, fails to resist, cries and stumbles!)

(Now: ) She’s falling. Someone save her please.

On Tuesday when the colors merged, suffused by brooding night; and the horizon was streaked with gloomy lines, I said my prayers and tired of talking to the lifeless bricks of my room, crossed the threshold of kitchen – with a lump in my heart, as if a novice.

 It seemed eons ago that I last entered here. I opened the taps and listened to the water draining, it sounded as if I was crumbling in the filthy slush-pile of all the gratuitous insults. The waves crested near the gutter in the sink and I felt as if my spirits had been crashing in the saline beads, which haunt memories like receding water waves. I felt void, empty, shattered, broken and I tried to drown my sorrows in the ebb and flow. The trails of conscious memory resisted but faded away. 

The serpent pierced its jaws in the preys flesh, and cherishes its blood. Nothingness lingered on my lashes. It evoked the undefined loneliness in me and I plumbed the depths of it. It was luring in a murky way. The morbidity ruled me and I surrendered to it. Whined because I had nothing to whine about.

Desperate, I chopped the onions, made the shami kababs and cried to my heart’s content.

Trumpets of death gloomily muffled. Hey, onions are the reason don’t blame me!

(I’ve been reading my old diary again, found this entry of late 2005. or maybe very early 2006. Please comment)

Main wo Lerki houn,

jisay koi pehli hi raat

Ghounghat utha ke ye kehday

Mayra sab kuch tumhara hay

aik dil ke siwa!!

(Perveen Shakir)

I can not Translate it to English, No other language can narrate the sheer notion of bereavement these four lines so perfectly depicts. This is I. I’ve all, from their’s perspective, a perfect life. From mines? there is nothing and noone’s perfect.

nce upon a time there was cherubic little fairy, who was not beautiful though just pretty. She had slender body; mellow lips and when she would flutter her wings the world would be a happy place. And then there was a wicked witch, like always, who would curse the little fairy, transformed her into a living statue and placed her on her dressing table as a decoration item.The fairy stood there for decades, unable to move, listening but not speaking, crying blood-tears, enmeshed in the gullibility of life – in faint nuances of living and fading notion of miracles which might happen. Years later someone accidentally hit her and she collapsed on the floor, the fall un-jinxed her but years torment flooded back and she left hope, her pristine heart wrecked and she died of internal bleeding. Dreams swell up in the fizzy drink of life, burst and drain in the gutter.

The fairy was me.

(Ever since I was young I persuaded myself That I was Ariel, I would marry Eric, Rule Under the sea and have Sabastian and Flounder. nothing happened, I didnt have red hair.)