HALLELUJAH

This might just be THE moment of my life.

I always wanted to do something cool for a living. Like watching a movie and eating popcorn then writing a review about it and getting shitloads of money. Well, today I have come close.

I've gotten an offer to watch 3 documentaries a day and write an abstract summary about what's in each of them. AND I WILL BE GETTING PAID. They even asked me how much I would charge. I feel so sophisticated.

Feeling like a sir

You know you've lost your friends when...

When you are in school, it seems like your friends are yours. You have a right over them and whatever they do, you feel responsible because they're YOUR friends. Telling your mum about that one time your best friend cheeked the teacher, your mum's gonna flip out because 'you must have had something to with it too'. You're accomplices and partners in crime. It's not  bad feeling though. It is a freakin' AWESOME feeling. You did something weird, you thought up an absurd explanation to something, you found out A is dating B, anything at all, and you know exactly who you're going to call. You grow up with your school friends. You grow up with your college-mates and university buddies too, but school is the only era that counts. The growing up is so profound and obvious that you feel different from day to day and you have someone to feel different WITH.

Enter college, scattered friends, less frequent calls and all that you ever feared. Still, it is all okay because you still have a common ground. My friends wanted to study premedical and i had no interest but I decided my friends were worth studying subjects i don't like and i opted for it too. Bad luck though, we got into different colleges. Anger, tears, complaints... Still, we were studying the same stuff so we knew what to whine about, we could still plan group studies and we could still bond over valency of electrons. We were BFFs like we'd promised to be on the back of our tee-shirts on our last day of school.

Next, our practical life started. I knew I couldn't even memorize the names of all subjects a doctor has to study, let alone pass them. My friends wanted to be doctors and I decided I should not waste my life doing something I am no good at. So I chose something entirely different. I transferred into arts and there is now a two thousand mile (exaggeration) distance between our institutions. I tell myself: physical differences do not matter, Wishaal. Your friends love you and they will keep loving you. A little voice inside my head replies: They might love you, but they don't need you now.

For me, friendship has always been a dependable thing. Something quite selfless. I believed in absence makes the heart grow fonder rather than out of sight out of mind. The very foundations of my belief are faltering. A few weeks back we had some arguments. Had we been in school they would have dissolved in a few tears and playful slaps on the back but, as we are in PRACTICAL life now, all differences are irreconcilable. I have to think before i speak now and that hurts me because the reason they were my friends in the first place was that i could say what i wanted to and they understood me, they stood up for me, they helped me through and always listened to my side of the story. Now i see them sticking up for someone they need and i realize i'm not important anymore. I can't call my friends my OWN now

...and that's when you know you've lost them.

HER

A short story.

 It was a dream. Or was it? 30 years and still I remain in doubt. But that day I remember, oh yes. Clear as lake water. I remember HER. All these years of recalling her, I could have thought up a name, a nickname at least to refer to her; calling her a girl, a woman or any such word of femininity is an insult.
        Whenever i start thinking, i don't just randomly start. I get out my favorite armchair, light the fireplace, dim the lights and close my eyes...
     1980. Some far off town in Iran, the name of which has long been changed into something more modern. I don't even remember the place properly, can't even point it out on a map probably. I had gone to Iraq as a volunteer; there had been an earthquake. I began field work in the ruins of some building which had fallen. My friends and I spent hours everyday in the blazing sun.
   One day, 20 or so days after we started working there,we were attacked by a bunch of kids who asked us for money. We spent a few minutes playfully arguing with them, then i got bored, turned around and saw HER.
 In a bright orange dupatta, those green eyes met mine for only a second. I spent my whole life on that one second. High cheek-bones melting into her cheeks, which converged to produce her perfect mouth which was partly open with subtle surprise. Maybe i was staring too intensely; i joked to myself. Her jawbone sharped curved to her ear. That was all I could see. But this perfection, this apparition, this is not what i remember most about her...

      Right across her right cheek was a deep mark, A scar.  Stretching out from her brow to lower lip. Dark as midnight.

It was as if an artist ruined his most prized sculpture, just to save it from the Evil Eye. I don't know where she got that mark, but i like to believe God put it on her face. Maybe because he didn't want her to be vain? Or maybe because he wanted to show the world how nobody is perfect.

I think it was both.

  That face has been dissolved into my veins, imprinted onto my brain; not because of the girl, but because of her scar. It changed my whole outlook of life. It led me to understand that no matter how perfect, how amazing or how ideal a person's life seems to be, there is always a gash upon it. Not on the face? Then it might be something you can't see. Nobody, nothing is perfect. You could look at Cinderella, and say she had a happy ending. But even she had a rough childhood. So nothing is complete, and nothing is ugly either. You just have to look for what you have and others don't!

  She had a scar on her beauty.. that scar taught me life.

Clockwork

You do the craziest things when with friends. You laugh at more ridiculous stories and you laugh harder. You get the guts to make fun of random strangers on the pretense of complimenting them. You crack jokes so cheap they would make you shudder if you were alone. You watch item songs from “Filmazia” and they make you roll on the floor snickering, rather than making you puke like they usually do. With friends you experience moments that actually make you feel alive. Things happen that you haven’t thought about before and they actually start making sense. Your path is redirected and you like it.

The moment of change is sudden, on a whim. Like this one time, me and a friend were waiting for the W-22 to take us on a route that had previously been verbally practiced and re-practiced, and out of the blue we’re laughing and getting on another bus that is much better suited for us both. It is funny how fate guides you sometimes.  In my case, when I get up in the morning I never have a plan of action. Maybe that is a bad thing. Maybe I am too dependent but it is all good, because it’s God that I rely on. He makes way for me every time.

When you don’t want to talk about plans or substitute plans, when you prefer going with the flow, you find that the universe doesn’t want bad things to happen to you. Life is one big stage like everyone says and nothing is meaningless. I always felt funny when I saw the intricate traps Tom and Jerry set for each other, one action leading to another to another to another… but now I know. This is how the world works: like clockwork. The flap of a butterfly’s wing in one part of the world may cause a hurricane in another. I am a believer.

All events in your life are not happy. They’re dramatic. You can’t blame nature for that one time you got stuck in a traffic jam and had to pee real bad. It turned out to be memorable didn’t it? Well, you’re talking about it.
Whenever you get depressed in your life and everything is just a different shade of gray, consider this: you’re the lead in a movie and there are a million people watching you. Now, you want your story to be a hit, don’t you? The troubles you have, small ones or colossal, they’re just a part of it. One part. You get to live the happy scenes too. Let the misery come at you. Shout, “Bring it on!” because everyone who is watching your movie wants a happy ending, and so you’ll get one.

Because Of You

This is a poem that I wrote when I was feeling really happy one day, thinking of my friends. :)

You taught me how to laugh and talk,

To scream aloud, to take a walk.

I smile now like i used to

And I'm like this because of you


You cleared my mind you cleared it all,

you made sure i wouldn't fall

I paint again the gray skies blue

And i'm like this because of you


You don't agree you don't believe

You still promise that you won't leave

But i keep saying that i love you

And i'm like this because of you


I know the past has been really tough

But i tell u its different and i don't bluff

Believe me baby its really true

I'm like this because of you


Oh how i wish i could hold your hand

Drench in the rain, lie in the sand

Every color's different, every hue is new

And i'm like this because of you