Unsaid and Heard: A eulogy of my beloved grandfather

 Assalam u Alaikum,

Thoughts run wild as I write this. Regrets have surfaced like bubbles on my mind. Your loss feels so personal, a part of me is dead now-a part of you in me. In a morbid way, one imagines the loved ones leaving and I did too with ailing relatives but I never imagined you would leave us let alone the suddenness of the tragedy.  And now that you have left us I have a hard time accepting the reality.

With you parting from us, we are orphans of your generation for death has robbed our family of the whole generation. But then again your life transcended generations. You were as energetic as a young man, as curious as a child and you had the wisdom of a century-old sage. 

You were a unique personality and I have seen no one like you-The purity and practicality of your beliefs, the discipline and the routine you had cultivated,  the patience you showed right from your childhood and the love you kept hidden. You were confident and commanding yet so open-minded and undemanding, a balance few people are able to strike in their lives.

We often take inspiration from people we don’t know but what we become is because of the people we know. With you around us, we had an inspiration people only wish for. But alas we didn’t have time to grow with it. Pity that the doors to your springs of wisdom shut too early for us. What greater tragedy than that can strike us?

The only consolation that remains is that I know you live in us. The fragments of your personality will manifest in everyone in the family. I know now and then I will see flashes of you in them and hopefully they in me. Your memories are buried deep in my mind. And they will be consulted and referred to before every decision has to be made.

You died a martyr’s death-On Friday in Muharram. The scars of your early departure will heal for sure but the marks are here to stay and so are the regrets. But that is for the living to endure. The dead have a journey of their own to travel.

So, I hope you are happy where you are. I hope you reunite with, aapa, your wife who you lost a few months ago, your parents you lost in childhood, your sister and your brother and your niece and anyone you love who went before you.  Never before have I so desperately wanted to believe in heaven because I want you to be there. I want the reassurance that the likes of you are rewarded because you so deserve that. I hope I become the man you wanted me to be because I trust your judgement more than my desire. Allah bless your soul and shower his blessings upon you and fill your grave with His Noor.

Of everything a man does and thinks in life, on the deathbed only what he truly believes in, comes out of his mouth(a paper in your case). Rest of it becomes noise and distraction. And what you wrote stands witness to the beliefs you nurtured.

You wrote:

nishan e mard e momin man ba tu goyam:

marg aayad, tabassum bar lab e oost.!!

Let me tell you the sign of a true Muslim:

When death comes, he has a smile on his face.!!

Smile now for the gates of heaven shall open for you soon and you will hear the calling:

يَا أَيَّتُهَا النَّفْسُ الْمُطْمَئِنَّةُ 

ارْجِعِي إِلَىٰ رَبِّكِ رَاضِيَةً مَّرْضِيَّةً 

فَادْخُلِي فِي عِبَادِي 

وَادْخُلِي جَنَّتِي 

"O reassured soul,

Return to your Lord, well-pleased and pleasing [to Him],

And enter among My [righteous] servants

And enter My Paradise."

Music and Nostalgia

 

People get annoyed when you listen to the same song over and over. Not me. I listen to a particular song multiple times until I have had enough. To me, a song is like a delicious beverage. I prefer to consume it in its entirety sip after sip, and I have a pretty good reason to justify my transgression.

It is a widely common experience that music has the power to capture our precious little moments. But that is not it. Our brains are sufficient to store such information. Music can capture the general mood, the emotions associated with that particular memory, aka the nostalgia. The notes and beats serve as the bits for our brain. The melody, not so much the lyrics, captures the feelings and emotions. One play of any song and you have a snapshot of the particular memory safe and authentic for you to get back when you want to re-experience it. But you can’t do with just one snapshot. Every time you listen to the song it captures a single frame of that experience. For it to last for a considerable amount of time you need as many frames as you can capture. So you have to listen to it multiple times. On top of that, the snaps also need to be continuous for the memory to be precise when you get back to it. That implies you have to squeeze those ‘multiple times’ during that course of that short experience-A day or two.

There is a short story by O. Henry in which a homeless man who wants to go to prison but after every attempt fails music falls to his ears which remind him of his sweet childhood and he decides to change his life for good. (That feeling doesn't last for long though as he is arrested soon).

So a song for me is like a Morty's Mind Blower and my playlist is a safe vault of my memories. Anytime I experience an up or down in my feelings I choose a song that fits the mood(It is confusing for a gloomy and sad song to remind you of happy times) and listen to it again and again till my friends force me to wear a headphone.

A fancy conference call

(Note: What follows is the parody of Pink Floyd's one of the famous songs. I suggest you to 

listen to the original lyrics of the same song from here while reading the following lines. The parody is about online education as a replacement to traditional classroom and how corporates are profiting from it:A classic Roger Waters' theme)

“You! Yes, you! Unmute yourself laddy!”

When the pandemic hit and we left the school

There were certain assholes who

Worked to replace it any way they could

By pouring out their loneliness

To prey on our affluence

Slaving their developers to solve 

However carefully the bug hid

But it is no mystery 

That when the moved from their glassrooms

Back to their mansions jerking

Off their stash made out of people's misery

We don't need online education

We don't need no zoom schedule

No fake background in the meeting

Teacher leave them, kids, on mute 

Hey! Teacher leave them, kids, on mute

 

All in all, it’s just a fancy conference call

All in all, it's just a fancy conference call

"Poor connection! Connect again"

"Poor connection! Connect again"

If you don’t attend the meeting 

forget your degree!

How can you pass the semester

if you don’t appear here

You yes you with the videocam turned off

Turn it on boy.

Review: A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The story unfolds with these opening words
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...."
Revolving around the time of Revolution in France and threading the story with happenings in two cities at that time- Paris and London it captures all emotions prevailing in that time- Love, hate, poverty, power, mistrust, bloodshed and so on.
To present such a sad story with a dispersion of humour and wisdom all through it truly justifies the Author's fame and respect.

A good book is a rollercoaster of emotions and this one definitely succeeds in taking you through that. All kinds of emotions are there in the story and the events are threaded in a way to give a show of the artist that the author is. I have always been amazed at the art of storytelling and this book is an addition in that regard.

Given how developments in the 20th century have led us (me more so) to falsely think people living a couple of centuries before that were very removed from us in almost all aspects. Well, this clears that misconception. The characters are very much relatable even the lifestyle, save few, gives and takes, is very much similar.
Easily the best book in fiction I have ever read.

View all my reviews

The cost of freedom

Everywhere in debates, you hear 'humans are born free' as a justification to libertarian arguments. But nobody asks about how we live after we are born. Humans may be born free but they can't live free-at least not in its ideal sense. We have to fit in the society, learn the regional language and get accustomed to the prevailing culture. It is a great sacrifice to the major part of that freedom-as-a-birthright we make even before we are capable of making conscious decisions. 

The fact that we see followers of religions, ideologies, cults so invested in them that they will do anything the leader says also speaks of the innate desire of humans.

Ok, that is just a rant. There exists the freedom in decision making for an individual as he grows up. The society has the roles set and it is up to us which role we accept. I guess that's the freedom most of us wish for and enjoy-to make that decision on our own. Once we choose a role for ourselves another part of freedom is lost. Now you have to perform as society expects from that role. If you lag behind you can only blame yourself because it was your decision in the first place. If you want to switch the role to suit yourself you have to take the blame of being a failure because it was you who chose that.

That my friend is the cost of freedom. 

It is a lifetime burden if things don't work out or a lifetime joy if everything works fine. It is in the truest sense a coin flip. 

Are you willing to take the risk? 

Apparently few do. I guess that's why you see a few leaders and many followers. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

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Zombies In R-land

What can I say, Rajiv Bhawan has to be the most notorious hostel to exist in the IIT Roorkee campus. Now I am not a fan of ghost stories but you don't always experience things that land right in your comfort zone. Some are beyond normal, if not haunting.
I spent my first year of college in Rajendra Bhawan right next to it. I used to see this half-brutalist piece of infrastructure every time I came back from LHC. Every time I resisted the temptation to go inside. But after summers of 2018, I was shifted to this hostel. I didn't feel anything different. On the contrary, it was a pleasant experience. Who knew what this hideous place had in store for the likes of me for the rest of stay.
It was mid-January of 2019. I was in my room when I heard a loud noise outside. It was a human cry. Now you don't get alarmed by these things in hostels. You think it might be another episode of someone freaking out after having had too much shit to take in a day. But that noise was edging on the upper limit of audible range. I came out of my room to see who did that and more importantly what made him do it. A sophomore year is a least busy year and you always have time to hear college life rants. So you never miss an opportunity to hear these rants. 

I came out of my room, looked around and noticed that the wall standing opposite to my door was painted red. Now you always find something written on corridor walls in hostels. Hell, you rarely find a clean wall. A swear word, an edgy movie dialogue but mostly the cave drawings of pre-human fantasies about women flash everwhere. In a place where no one can stop you these walls serve as an excellent outlet for creativity and frustration.

But this was different. It was written in red. And not the colour as much as the words were scary. And the font bore a heavy resemblance with those of the Harry Potter movie posters. And it was the mysterious shriek that added to the fear.

Now the corridors here are never properly lit. You might blame the administration but that would be unfair. The students, mind you, break the tube lights as fast as they are replaced.  As if they have taken a vow to break them or something.
So the only way I was able to read the wall was because of the light leaking out from my room.
That was when I noticed. A figure. The closest thing to a zombie you will ever see in real life. It leaned forward not sideways, head bent, hands cutting through the air like he was practising slow-mo karate.
What do you do when you see a zombie in a hostel. Yeah, you guessed it. You do nothing. It's not an everyday thing. There are no safety instructions there.  So I just quickly entered my room, shut the door and waited for footsteps to fade away. They did fade, alright. I stood in my room shaking with fear and thrill. 
For next night and indefinitely after I saw experienced similar episodes every now and then. Little variations. The words changed. Their colour did too. Even the face and silhouettes. So there were many. But who were they? Where did they hide during the day? And most importantly how come no one else sees them.
Now when they pass and I stand at the door. They don't notice me. They just go on. And then another one passes, on and on and on. In the morning the chain stops. The light breaks into the corridors and I see humans all ready coming out of their rooms for breakfast and class.

But quite interesting that every experience ends with me finding the butt of the joint on my flooring the morning. Quite interesting that only I notice these zombies of IITR.

My fear borders on curiosity now. What I wouldn't give to sit with one such zombie one day and ask him everything I want to know? Or do I already know them?

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We need therapists not jobs

There is not a single political issue in this world as misrepresented as the Kashmir issue. The primary reason is that the two stakeholders have always gone to extremes to justify their ends of story. In this clash of opinions the cries of Kashmiris have always remained unaccounted for.

Pakistani media has always committed factual errors,be it flashing Palestinian images and claiming them as Kashmiris or bringing images from past and projecting them as recent.

On the other hand Indian media has always represented Kashmiris as naive and politically opinionated. Indians think of Kashmiris as brainwashed population,devoid of education and capability to think for themselves.

Whenever an image or video surfaces that shows young boys throwing stones at Central and State police the media makes it sure to state that they are doing it because of absence of jobs or economic support. Many people believe(without any source) that stone pelters are paid on daily basis.

There is fundamental problem with this. You can have a long discussion on whether it is right for them to pelt stones but to divert the whole discussion and choose to question the thing for which you have no source in first place is an intellectual dishonesty.The fact that people from upper class of society continue to join armed rebels furthur downvotes the claim.

The frustration of being misquoted and misrepresented in media frequently has rendered us helpless. 

With the abrogation of article 370 we have seen majority of Indians supporting it mainly because they believe that it will uplift people of Kashmir. They believe that because of the laws it was impossible to acquire land let alone starting a private company. But what they fail to understand is that it was not the land acquisition law that stopped the investments in industry and IT sector. Rather it was ,and still is, the decades old conflict and violence that makes it bad choice for investment.

There comes another error with the claim that Kashmiris need to be uplifted any more than average Indian state. The people of Kashmir have been self-sufficient, so much so that the 6 month curfew in 2016 couldn't affect their livelihood. Because the economy is agrarian there, the political tensions had negligible effect on the economy(except for tourism sector).
Unlike rest of India there is no problem of housing. In villages even those below poverty line have their own houses.
But there is one part that has never been discussed in mainstream media-the mental health of people.The turmoil has taken toll on the mental health of people. Having experienced or seen violence and assault in early childhood and then humiliation at the hands of security forces the current young generation has seen it all. The people are angry and frustrated. The curb on basic rights in the form of curfews,choking information flow,internet clampdown,nocturnal raids and arrests have left people fuming. And it is not just one time thing. In south kashmir internet clampdowns are as frequent as they come. On an average its one to two weeks per month.
The psychological condition in such climate of fear and anger is bound to get disturbed. With it comes distrust,paranoia and rumors.We have seen cases of PTSD,OCD,Depression and drug addiction.

Just few days ago The Lancet published an article  (media link ) and months ago Medact published a report about the mental health crises in Kashmir due to war and violence.
Indian Medical Association took no time to disregard and discredit the The Lancet for their "breach of propriety in commenting on this political issue".
It is easy to deduce that majority of the victims are children and teenagers. The elderly continue to find solace from sufism and religion rooted in our culture while the young find it hard to choose between modern and spiritual lifestyle. In such conditions demand for drugs is rocketed and youth continue to find other ways to calm their minds.
Disillusioned from democracy,having been betrayed multiple times in past, and agitated by use of force the young generation has grown disbelief in the democratic process of demanding rights.
Anarchists at heart and frustrated by the complications of conflict we the people of kashmir do not need jobs,we need therapists.And not your average therapist,we need the kind Goodwill Hunting had.

Ruins of war:

Nine-year-old Burhan Fayaz is seen crying at the funeral of his friend Amir Nazir, a civilian who was killed during an encounter in Pulwama.(Waseem Andrabi / HT Photo)

Kashmiri Girl Weeps near her damaged house in gund brath encounter site-credits junaid bhat

Love before Hate

A leaf of a bent tree

As it gently kisses the fresh stream

Nature taught it to love

A fresh drop that it won’t meet again.

In a womb of a mother

As a child breathes her breath

Nature taught her to love

The pain unbearable

In the heart of a lover

That throbs with a mere mention of beloved

Nature taught him to love

The imaginations unattainable

In the eyes of a father

As he holds the finger of his kid

In the smiles of a stranger

Nature taught us to love before we learned to hate.

Life at IITR-A rant

On the hot day of July 2017 I found myself going through the list of students enrolled and their appointed time of registration pasted on the notice board outside the convocation hall.I immediately recalled from the campus tour that the same convocation had been used during WW2. Past two months had been the best 2 months of my life.Everyone who knew me or any of my acquaintances congratulated me and I had successfully done(though not fully satisfied with my college and branch) what I had been preparing for for 2 years before .But that day I had a different feeling.I was finally at the place I had more or less aspired to be. I was in awe when I explored the beautiful  and the vibrant(atleast it felt that way then) campus.

I registered,paid the fees got my room and settled after a long pleasantly hectic day. The next week was supposed to be orientation week.It got from interesting to boring as hell. Early in the morning the sirens would go off and we were supposed to assemble at the convocation hall only to sleep to the boring speakers meddled with some relieving performances of dance group. The hot humid Roorkee weather and uncomfortable AF seats made the experience even worse.

As the week came to an end I was relieved. One would think life would get better from there. But it just got worse and worse. I remember the first day of college and the disappointment on listening to professors.I have had best sleeps listening to them. Their monotonous monologues while reading from a script right in front of them and their showing lack of interest made it particularly difficult for me. I had not cracked JEE by self-studying. I studied from best teachers.There is no shame in that. Not just the teachers but the course curriculum was so off,except for few courses. But that was not it. I learned about the placement scenario of my branch and the reality blew in my face. Up until then my perception of IIT was a magical land where every one passed out with a fat salary.

The realities just kept unveiling before me. 

For the next few months I took advice from seniors and started "exploring"(The word has become so cliched to me that I hate using it) different options. But just when I started digging into anything the exams approached. I stepped up from disliking civil engineering to despising it. The courses became more and more department specific and I had no motivation to attend lectures and labs which sadly occupies most of the time.
 And so passed the first year.
"Rate of change of time is positive in B.Tech and in life as general" I concluded .That is time as we perceive it moves faster as it moves.I had learnt few things and had been switching my hobbies.
As second year started,because of some seniors' advice added with the popular IIT culture, I started coding.Started algorithms and data structures.But not for long before I paused it for exams and had hard time resuming it. I kept coming back and pausing it like that and thus passed the second year.My grades went down in the fourth semester.
At the end of fourth semester students generally apply for internship.NOT ME.I went home wasted the summer vacation watching movies and stuff,which looking back at my college life so far accounts for most of the time. 
Why did I cave in? Why didn't I fight?
Well that's the problem. I have no idea what I want to do. I have no idea what I am fighting and what weapons I possess.
I have learnt a lot,I admit.But nothing you can't learn at home. So why waste all the money.

 Looking back at it I think the only reason for my stagnation was related to my ambition. Up until then my only goal was to get into IIT irrespective of branch. And when I got in I had nothing to strive for. Ever since then I am trying to set a goal in my life but it just keeps changing and with every month passing I keep worrying about it. Yet another reason is the time mismanagement. I keep loosing my time on social media while my time towards academia is decreasing exponentially.

There is lot to learn and lot to figure out in my life. And I don't think I am the only one feeling that way. There may be hundreds of students struggling with similar issues. I just hope I learn and make my stay at IIT worth all the time and sacrifices.

Collateral Damage

He cleaned the slate and wiped it with some green leaves to make it shine so much that one could see a faint reflection in it. Handing it over to his son Umar he said “make sure you pray fajr salah and leave for school in time. Let me not hear any complaints when I am home…” and walked away. It was 7:00 in the morning and he knew he had to go just then to catch some early fish. He was fisherman after all and had mouths to feed. It was his habit to wake up his only son and his three daughters before leaving for work.

 “Those who sleep past sunrise are marked dead at attendance in Allah’s morning assembly”, He would proudly say this to his 10-year-old son. He thought he had crafted a beautiful metaphor his son could easily relate to.

Akram, or as people called him ak-hanz (ak is a short word for Akram and Hanz is a fisherman in Kashmiri), was a man who kept changing his professions throughout the year. Still, he often went fishing early in the morning. This way he kept his family tradition alive and brought some money home.

Umar was his youngest child. A special child born only after his mother went to every single pir she heard of and asked for a male child. Akram too loved him. He thought he had a sharp brain and could really excel in academics. So he admitted him to the school while people like him would teach their sons some crafts to run the family. He couldn’t read himself but always pretended when Umar showed him his finished homework. He would always say “That’s good but you will have to improve”.

Omar happily took the slate and started writing one single line repeatedly.

الّلہ سب سے بڑا ھے

(Urdu for God is the greatest of all)

Why write the single thing so many times wasting slate space as well as the ink? He never asked the question.

He finished it and packed his school stuff. He had his cup of noonchai with satoo. And headed to his school. It was a just quarter a mile away and just ahead of a mosque. Bell rang and he was just in time. The children swarmed in through the school gates and just when they stood idly in lines for morning assembly an announcement was made:

“There is a cordon in the mosque nearby, some mujahideen are hiding there and we have been asked by major sahib to call off the school today. So return to your homes immediately”.

Children loved these surprises. They always wished these to happen. Little did they know that these surprises costed lives and love?

As everyone was about to leave gunshots were heard and everyone screamed. Everyone except children. But they did run. Umar did too. But his steps fell short somehow. Somehow his fate landed him in between the two firing parties. He was ignorant though until a bullet pierced his skull and he felt a jerk. The one like your arm feels when elbow hits something  The only difference was that his whole body shook and he fell unconscious and out of breath. Nobody ran for help. Blood kept running and running until he took his last breath and laid there dead, his yellow face pointing towards skies.

Hours passed and firing hadn’t stopped yet. Akram had been looking for him since he heard the first gunshots. He kept running between the encounter site and his home to update his worried wife and daughters of the situation. It stopped just before the sunset. The army assured that the militants were dead, left. And left it for the locals to search the dead bodies in the rubble. But before they could they found Umar laying down dead, a red coagulated blood pool just beneath his head. They carried him to the local hospital and hopelessly poured water over his face and in his mouth. His father held him in his lap and cried like a baby. They didn’t stay at the hospital longer as he was declared dead on the first examination. He was carried back to his home to let his family wail over his dead body. His mother fainted and his sisters mourned until he was shouldered to the graveyard. It was late at night without moon and people kept coming and going.  Akram kept sobbing while his brothers and friends occasionally pacified him.

He didn’t sleep that night remembering his son. Nor did he sleep 3 nights after for he knew his son’s murderer was either out there wearing the badge of honor or already dead. In both cases unknown.

It was a “collateral damage”, as they call it. A term in military occupation dictionary that has enough power to shut any objection or any case of deaths and property damage by military or militants. The two-word monster had gulped down thousands of Kashmiris ever since the armed fight started in Kashmir.

He knew justice died long before his son was shot dead.  It is hard, though. For a father to see his dead son. To fail to bring justice.

He doesn’t do much now. But visits Umar’s grave frequently. He runs his fingers on his name inscribed on his epitaph. He carries the blood-stained slate in his other sweaty hand and sobs helplessly. Sweat washes the words away and tears wash away the blood. There are a few lines written now on it and he wishes he had bought him a bigger slate or thousand other slates to never let his last words wash away:

“God is greatest of all”

“Indeed He is”, he confirms.

A SCHOLAR AND A MARTYR

The prophet (s.a.w) once said that the scholar’s ink is holier than the martyr’s blood. There is a reason why?

For a martyr, the only pain to go through is the blood oozing out of his body that ends with death. For a scholar or the one looking for knowledge, there comes an even tougher stage of ‘perseverance’ after pain. There is yet another amazing thing about the knowledge that no matter how sophisticated our tools and machines became, the ‘pursuit of knowledge’ has never been less challenging. It is only ‘information’ that is flooding on the web, on our mobile phones or any e-devices. If piling that information is what this is all about then what a luck computers have got to be bloodless!!!

And we have got an edge over computers in a way to say ‘no’ to the commands sent by the brain by something we like to call a heart.

And that’s where all that pain lies. Saying ‘no’ to your desires.

That’s what it takes to be a scholar or an e-scholar!!!

How scientific theories guide our beliefs:Evolution in perspective

I have always wondered why there are so many diverse opinions and ideologies that people believe in. And why few bother to know which ideology actually is true or nearest to it. Do we really lack that particular reference of absolute truth or are we never going to get it?

A little thought into this gave me an answer to my question. Our ideologies are more or less related to the scientific theories we believe in. In this blog, I am going to talk about evolution theory particularly.

Evolution is a theory, a perspective of how humans could have come on this earth to grow as intelligent species. Now the movement you accept the theory you tend to leave the religion because almost every religion (at least Abrahamic ones) believe in our common ancestor. That is the first difference of ideology: A step towards atheism or agnosticism. A belief that rationale is a creation of time, not divine, evolving continuously . That is just the moment you start believing in this theory that a divide is created.

Let's move further. To say that Humans Evolved from stupid creatures to intelligent species, it is imperative that human history is full of errors, at least in comparison to present. There goes another fragmentation of ideology : Our belief in human history and our conviction to draw inspiration from it. How can we take inspiration from the past when we believe we are more intelligent than people before us. Another divide.

Now when we believe in the evolution of human race we also believe that no matter what, we will never have the perfect political, economic or judicial system as we are tending to it, not reaching it. If we have a human history written in chronological order we won't be able to point at a particular page and say 'ok here is where we evolved to the potential that we can propose laws for us and yet to come'. So within this comes an acceptance to the chaos. There is large section of people who are not bothered by the wars, social tensions or economic conditions of people. They have accepted that this will happen no matter what. Here is another divide.

Within the theory of evolution is another theory called survival of the fittest that tells us a very basic thing. "only those members of a particular species live who are adaptable to the changes'. The problem with this basic statement is that this lab rat experiments, when applied to humans, justifies every calamity on the victims. The way Nazis exploited the theory is exactly the divide of ideology I am talking about here. This grows the acceptance towards people's disabilities and economic disparities in this world. Here, another divide.

I can go on but I think you have got the point. That, a simple scientific theory can guide your ideology to such a level that you may become exactly opposite of the one who doesn't. We should be informed enough to believe in the scientific theories. What is right or wrong is left to a man himself. we are intelligent species after all!!!

Scholars and E-scholars

The prophet(s.a.w) once said that the scholar's ink is holier than the martyr's blood.
There is a reason why?
For a martyr the only pain to go through is the blood oozing out of his body that ends with death.
For a scholar or the one looking for knowledge there comes even tougher stage of 'perseverance' after pain.
There is yet another amazing thing about knowledge that no matter how sophisticated our tools and machines became, the 'pursuit of knowledge' has never been less challenging.
Its only 'information' that is flooding on web, on our mobile phones or any e-devices.
If piling that information is what this is all about then what a luck computers have got to be bloodless!!!

And we have got an edge over computers in a way to say 'no' to the commands sent by brain by something we like to call heart.
And that's where all that pain lies. Saying 'no' to your desires.
That’s what it takes to be a scholar or an e-scholar!!!!!

Rivers and Humans

Something melted and you originated from the mountains,tossed up and down,your fresh waters so pure,one could look through your bottom.You fell from the height,yet you rose and made your way through rocks.

As you moved down and walked through civilisations,
Some of you washed away the people of their dirt and some turned out to be of no use.

Some watered dry fields while some flooded the homes of people,robbed the innocents of their life and shelter.

Some hosted a life inside them while some were void of life.

Some were deep and moved hummingly,yet swiftly.And some were tossing up high to produce disturbing noises,for they were so shallow.

You walked joyfully sometimes and sometimes you were calm,sad and smooth.

But,as this all happened,no longer were your waters clean.
Fate of SOME of you wept and the rains washed them,periodically.

Time came and this long journey of yours came to an end.
All of you met in the oceans and now there was nowhere to go further.

SOME PRODUCED JEWELS with what they carried with them.
Others FLOATED LIKE FROTH-Each time dying their own death,indefinitely.

Now time has lost its meaning for their is nothing to change.

Lord! Increase me in knowledge

Rumi once said,"Are you jealous of Oceans' generosity,why would you refuse to give this joy to anyone?Fish don't hold the sacred liquid in cups,They swim the huge fluid freedom" I happened to read the translation of famous,yet unsought dua(prayer) in Quran: "Rabbi Zidni ilma". It actually means,"Lord,increase ME IN knowledge" Before this i interpreted it as,"Lord,increase MY knowledge"as i,like everyone,bend the meanings to suit my memory.Both seemingly same translations have got a huge difference.The second one,wrong one,asks to increase 'your knowledge' which you never had.You were born ignorant.This knowledge was given to you.You don't own it,to call it 'your knowledge'.So instead,say increase 'me in knowledge' as if you ask lord to increase the vastness inside you and to fill that with His knowledge,Alone His.So that you can hold much of His treasures of knowledge,though there are oceans of it----untouched yet.Now i know what Rumi meant to say when he said,"Swim the huge fluid freedom."And what Allah meant when He said ,"Say:increase me in knowledge".

A teacher to his student

True, we met.

But know that the mountain you are climbing, I am descending from it. I know the heights of it, the steepness of it. So when I tell you about it, you laugh. I smile a modest smile. For someone also did the same when I was you, when I was climbing and when I was learning, yet I boasted of being nothing. Now when we part and move in our ways, and you will face those arduous slopes where a single step up becomes tough to take, then you will remember my smile and that will move you.

If ever I had forced you to accept, though truth, you would have refused then and forgotten me the moment we parted.

But the truth came to you and you remembered me, remembered that someone has stepped there before and moved to a height where your heart spaces fear and freedom, skies and the earth, hate and love all in one place. That kept you going.

Soon the time will come that you will have to descend from the heights to smile at everyone who comes in your way back, to tell them about the path they are heading, though they won't accept it, just like you didn't.

But they too will remember you at those difficult times which no one can skip, for they are the attributes of the mountain, not the path.

No matter which way you climb it, you have to face the slope to reach a height.

He Woke Up

He woke up,

finally.

After a long dark night,

of winter

He was drenched in sweat

For the night was full of horrors,

Dogs barked,wolves howled,winds blew,

Nature was scolding her poor children.

But

Now he woke up,finally.

He woke up and sat by the window of his room,

With a cup of noon chai,

steam of which entered his nose,

And he could smell a touch of love,

Love ,so abstract,

He took a sip while looking through his window,

he could see a mother loving her children,

After scolding them,

He could see that nature no longer was angry at her children.

He could see children playing,

That the snowy branches of tree kissed the ground.

So

He woke up,finally.

After a long time of hate,

He woke up with touch of love.