Disoriented Communication

Hmmmm..... a phone call gone haywire...a talk gone astray and a message of love lost.... all can make you sit back and realise what an amazing thing communication between people can be.

I for one have always observed the perils of communication between collegues, between mates, between acquaintances, between lovers, between married couples. What makes a bumpy road for them, no matter what the relationship inbetween is either the lack of communication or too much communication. With these two scenarios both parties know where they stand...but the most lethal that i have seen yet, is miscommunication...coming to a point where you would rather let it fall, leave it to die rather than try to make the other person understand what it was all about...thats the place of danger....you don't come back from that point on.

They say that "An arrow once thrown and a word once spoken can never be taken back", i realise to my horror that ominous as the above statement might sound...it is as true as the daylight that we live and breath in. Scientifically looking at the scenario of miscommunication, you can draw the analogy of a chain reaction happening...one word uttered can lead to something menacing...the result of that coupled by your brain patterns and insecurities or troubles from the present world...all rolled up in a ball of anger, can errupt and wash away all that is held dear and close to the heart.

Its a shame how we humans forget the love shared, the understanding developed, the laughter shared...in moments of anger. I dont know how the heart that loves you and you know loves you from its very core, can deliberately hurt you...and not just that..it actually utilises the knowledge gained from the time spent together, the insecurities shared and the confidences given against you. It all sounds very sinister i know but i have seen it happening right in front of my eyes...something you cannot close your eyes to....as it stares you in the face and demands acknowledgement.

You feel breathless, caged, trapped ...the conversation twisting and turning infront of your eyes....those beads of words that make a beautiful adornment with the strings of love and understanding...you can see them coming apart...and for what...your words having left the crevices of your brain through my mouth change form and shape in front of your eyes...in mid air they hang in their state of distortion...you dont mean to dictate anything, never could dare and never will...

Between yourself and the other person now there are words and distorted meanings...your external circumstances make you tough and unyielding...maybe resentful....the case is the same with the other party as well. They too are tortured by something that you didn't have the heart to ask after the converstaion goes beyond your line of compromise or understanding. Thats when you cannot stop yourself from giving in to anger. You fall prey to the words spoken and maybe not meant....but what makes you dejected and strained is that feeling of loosing your breath...the words encircling you like a taunting web of accustaion... your brain stopping to function, your sense leaving you completely and drawing you to your climax....

You realise you never would have severed the link if it had'nt been for that feeling of breathlessness...of loosing your grip on reality...In a relationship when accusations start flowing your way and you start reacting, thats when things get out of hand...all you can think of is that you're not this person, you are not who your are made out to be...for you dispise that person ...if someone were to actually convince you that you are that person you would not be able to survive. Would not be with them, would not be having that converstaion, would not be able to speak....and surely would not be able to love!

Katas Raj Temples

"Hindu Temple walls of reverence"

Built in 600 A.D the temple complex at Chakwal personifies the mortification of the Hindu god "Shiva". He on the death of his beloved wife "Satti" shed tears of anguish and bitterness, giving rise to two water reservoirs whose waters flow in their tranquil calmess.....disturbed occassionally by the fall of a stray leaf or a water toad that has made its home below the moss covered surface of the water. One of these water ponds popularly known as "Pushkar" is near Ajmer in India the other one is at "Kataksha" at Katas (Kalar Kahar) in District Chakwal. The image on the left is of "Kataksha"visited by myself along with my family on the 15th of October 2007.

The temple complex from a distance seems like any ordinary building with a domed top....but as you drive closer the temple walls with their sheet of moss and mildew...carving arches, significant of the time of construction, become vivid in all their past and present glory.....they are an embodiment of religious veneration....carrying within them the impressions of many generations of proud and courageous Hindu idols. For a Muslim who has little knowledge of Maha Bharat and the many tales of chivalry, courage, devotion, war, revenge, rage, deceit, adultery and sexual intercourses.....i am not fit to go into the religious significance of the temple or the rituals and rights that might have been carried out in its many spaces. I only bear witness to what the eye can behold, the heart can feel and the mind can imagine.....for the mind can imagine a lot...

The water in the pond is of the clearest Emerald green that you ever saw....looking at it your pupils dilate to soak in the brilliance of the color....... so distinct and contrasting with the dark, dingy and decrepit walls of the temple rising above the water level. The water itself is a harmony of clarity and muck.....traveling the eye a little farther off from the source you will see the moribund and torpid water.....covered with a thick layer of moss..... barred and bound by the passage walls that lead to the temple........thus trapped it signifies the death of something that once was alive with all the vigor and valor of existence. Maybe the soul of the temple is gone....gone as its practicing loyal subjects are gone...now the temple walls bear witness to the keen site seers who only come to see what was in the past a place of great respect. Maybe it still is...but to me the walls seemed to cry...to cry for their old glory.....now all that they see are humans who come to watch without any respect for the beliefs and the rights that once crowned and glowed in every part of the temple complex....its various hidden and apparent crevices, room spaces, walls and domes.

For the temple has been unpracticed for quite some time now.....site seers’ loiter within its walls taking images of empty rooms, desolate arches, dingy walls and soiled passages. It has become something of a showpiece....having lost its purpose...vanished within the folds of time....its structure witnessed by many yet its soul and life felt by few. It must shed tears of sad desolation just as the god after which it was built....for the temple too has lost something important to time and decay....to the daunting reality of loss, demise, faltering devotions, shifting respects and fading significances.

Now it is exposed to the heart wrenching reality that the tears that come to some innocent eyes aren’t due to devotion or spiritual and religious relief...they are due to the bigotry and division of man that lies naked and exposed in every facet of our lives. We have made ourselves and the innocent generations after us scared of anything that is foreign...that doesn’t seem or look similar....that has a division from our value system.....we are not just paranoid we are devoid of the ability to understand, to mingle, to respect, to acknowledge and to stand as one......stand as one, as we will surely stand on the day of judgment. Exalted or fallen not due to our race, ethnicity, color or appearance but due to our actions....actions towards all....towards the Lord himself, his many manifestations and towards his many people.

These are just thoughts and ramblings of someone trying so very hard not to judge, divide or criticize....someone who would want to see things through the eyes of those who believe in them....someone who would rather accept than reject the many possibilities and branches of life....someone with a soul that identifies with others....someone who is angered at the senseless accusations, judgments, divides and snobbery that come as a package and get transferred from our parents to us.....and from us to our children....and maybe from them to theirs. Maybe its time that we stopped....stopped and just respected others for who they are and what their actions are rather than what they look like or what they believe in.

Transcendence

"The Golden Sheet of Waves and that Warm Light"

As one sets for the beach at dawn.....one is bound to witness the slow mixing of a new golden white light with the past darkness of the night. The streets are deserted and the wind bears that chill which is the message of a cold night.....as the sun rises it engulfs that wet chill in the air and replaces it with something wram and familiar....a fondling of the body and soul with that first light of the day.....that feeling of security and warmth exeuding from the golden rays of the sun.....for as their reflecion on the sea waves is breathtaking, their soaking into the soul a delectation. For the moment a casual observer like myself is as much caught by the golden haze of the waves approaching in a rhythmic and comforting manner towards them, as by the tingling senstaion of the warm morning sun......looking across the horizon the childhood fantasies of the city of gold, all seem ooh so true......with its rivers cascading in their golden brilliance and the structures all golden and alive. The sea at dawn shows quite the same magic that a child of 7 or 8 will imagine......extending ones gaze from the forth coming waves that hit you one after the other.......the magic of the morning sun combined with that enchanting backgorund of the sea....its sounds, and sights all combine to give the morning a special glow.....it travells to the distant buildings.... transforming them, as a sheet of gold and ivory descends upon their nooks and corners. Engulfing them as a whole and presenting to the eye a sort of conversion......to the heart a feeling of transcendence that grows as the rays shimmer across the flat roofs and reflect from the glass windows.

The sea as limitless as human thought....as boundless as the age of time....its silky wetness as smooth and tingling as a feather's touch. As i gaze into the fast disappearing night...that holds within its many folds stories and secrets untold, unshared and unexposed, i am but reminded of the many facts of life...the suffering of one while the joy of another, the challenge of one and the feat of the other, the life of one and the demise of another......the perfect harmony that cannot be touched but felt in every turn of the day, every shift of the light, every swing of the wind. The order within caos......one can witness the symmetry within disorder and the perfection within ambiguity. The eye falters at times, conceives what isn't, what can never be.......is blinded from what is and what has always been....these moments of transformation of change reminding, consoling and soothing a weary heart.....a tired set of feet......an exhausted pair of hands......and a drained body and soul, that there is more to their endeavors.....something beyond that is apparent....some light of hope....a glimmer of life that will never fail them in the most tremulous of times.

So the next time you gaze at that sun....that sea.... think of all that they hold.....the meaning that they put into your and so many other people's lives.....the promise that they encompass of something new and fresh....someone beautiful and aglow.....some thought that can change, transfrom and enlighten a being.....some speck of courage and valor. For i am a bystander between the two faces, the two phases, between black and white....captured and tortured by the mystique of one and the brilliance of the other.....mesmerized and caught in one while witness to the truth and clarity of the other.....bewitched and enchanted yet simple and lucid......i cannot lay claim to either.....full of the night's dreads and confusions yet smiling at the light of the day. For i believe i havn't given up on either......neither the sun nor the night's darkness.....neither the beauty and perfection of the sea nor the dangerous depths of its nature.....i hold on to both, unable to let go of either.....and as i gazed into the conversion of both i couldnot help but sigh!!!

"The Tower"

At night... against the clear night sky of the cosmopolitan city of Karachi....with the dusky red color spread over the horizon, probably from the magestic port lights.... while wandering in search of amusement.... one is struck by the beauty of old architechture that dwells in the shadows of the long forgotten interior Karachi....the grandeur and enigma of the "Tower " with its radiant dial luminescent and clear....visible from afar...catches you in your casual loitering and makes you look up at it in awe..... Ofcourse till the time that a dark figure clad in a long and heavy shawl appears from the shadows into the light.....scaring the beJesuz out of you.....for he is the nightly guard who is known to spring up on persons unawares..... dallying about in the so to speak wee hours of the night....without aim or destination....aka Loafers in this case myself and a couple of friends.

As i saw the structure i couldn't help but step out of the car and stare for a few seconds that felt like hours....the beauty of design and structure beheld in a trance like state...a reverie of thought, emotion and sight.....more felt than witnessed. The dark grooves, the etched geometric shape of a triangle encompassing a hexagon, the arches throwing shadows below and creating a perfect symetry in their distorted expression, the ooh so luminescent dial, ticking away to give the sense of time passing, reminiscing the age of Christianity, for the basic elements of design signify this much to an amateur eye like mine.....The rulers who left, the ruled who remain and will always remain. For we can break away from physical bondage but an anchor and a chain that holds our thoughts captive is not that easy a foe to face....let alone shake off. On such a marvel of beauty you will see that someone having the same bondage of thought and contemplation has written obscenity with a tool, not so justly used...a can of spray paint....i call this criminal....absolute injustice to the sentiment of art and culture. Trying to disfigure something that has stood the test of time, that brings ideas, thoughts and culture from the past and that will carry them into the future so that our children and maybe even their's can know who walked these grounds....and maybe understand beauty, goodness, art, culture and human designs beyond the boundries and limitations of religion be it one or the other.