Eastern Vagabond

Essays on travel, cities, memory, and the unnoticed textures of the world.

Tag: art

  • Metaphor

    Metaphor

    I search the mundane, looking for metaphors for life. Partly because life, in all its mind-numbing variety, is otherwise too complex to get a handle on. Partly because those who get to the end of it and see it for itself are no longer interested in coining a metaphor because it has no utility for them. To me and John Green and all those who have a life ahead of them, however, metaphors are important.

    We don’t suffer from a shortage of metaphors, is what I mean. But you have to be careful which metaphor you choose, because it matters.

    John Green

    A metaphor, I think, is like a pretty-faced road-hostess employed by the Daewoo bus service in the early aughts for the first time in Pakistan in an attempt to offer the luxury of female companionship to the middle class man who could not afford to travel by air. The poor girl had the difficult job of serving meals from a two-feet wide bus-aisle (which became narrower with the protruding shoulders of wildly entertained men who had never before enjoyed such intimacy with a presentable woman) while scrambling for balance on a bumpy ride sponsored by the typically pot-holed roads of Pakistan. Too often, she would spill a drink on an angry passenger or fall herself in the lap of an elated one. Just like that, a metaphor has the capacity to upset or delight; and it never serves the meals alright but that’s not the point anyway.

    In the early aughts, the Daewoo bus service climbed to the very top in Pakistan by offering the luxury of female companionship to a conservative, middle class gentry.

    BTW did i just coin a metaphor for the metaphor?

    In the past, I have compared life to the experience of reading an old book for the second time. This metaphor is about the cluelessness of us all in the face of life’s exoticity and the value of experience. I also found rusting cars by the roadside dumps too metaphorical for life’s evanescence. Today, I am here, because I think I have found yet another metaphor. While going through my archives on Google Photos, I came across this video I shot of Bahawalpur Station as the train slowly chugged out of it.

    The vaults and arches accentuated by sensible lighting revive the dated glory of Mughal architecture in a magical summer Bahawalpur night. As the train whistles out of the station, it almost looks like a scene from Alif Laila. But it’s neither for the beauty of the railway station nor for the spell of the Cholistani summer night that I am recalling that moment rather for the accuracy of the metaphor that this fleeting glimpse can offer for life.

    Life is continuously drifting away, or maybe, it has always been there and it’s just us that are chugged away. Nevertheless, life’s heart stopping beauty is but there for a fleeting moment; never to be possessed but just to be beheld and wondered at. Its mysterious, colorful characters would remain shrouded in mystery and draped in colors and you would never be able to tell you know any of them completely even if they happen to be someone you’ve grown up or spent your life with. There would never be enough time to seek the hidden treasures the majestic palace across the platform seems to offer, unless you want to risk letting the train leave without you.

    The best way to live, if you go by this metaphor, is to look out the window, inhale the warm air laden with moisture and the sweet aroma of traditional South Punjabi food, wonder at the walking stories and be in perpetual awe. May be ask yourself if you wish to disembark and be lost among the Alif Lailvi characters for a while since there will always be the next train for you to catch.

  • A Conversation on Love

    Just wanted to post a tiny snippet of a conversation I had with my grandmother today. It may look like a trivial thing but quality conversation is so rare these days that I really cherish and try to preserve it when I have one.

    We were listening to Jagjit Singh’s ghazal,

    ہوش والوں کو خبر کیا بےخودی کیا چیز ہے

    عشق کیجئے پھر سمجھیے زندگی کیا چیز ہے

    “The sensible will never grasp the state of ecstasy;
    Dive into love, and learn what life can be.”

    when she exclaimed how volumes of timeless poetry had been written by men head over heels in love but when some of the same men eventually found or married their love, they were unable to live up to the romanticized unions of their own poems.

    I agreed with her acute observation and marveled at her ability to note such an objective point while listening to, and appreciating, the lyrical rendition of Nida Fazli’s celebrated poem. I responded,

    Women and men make classic, tantalizing milestones in each others’ journey of Love. The destination of Love continues to be someplace else though. In a higher calling than flesh and blood.

    She fell quiet for a moment then responded aptly with the following verse of Iqbal:

    متاع بے بہا ہے درد و سوز آرزو مندی

    مقام بندگی دے کر نہ لوں شان خداوندی

    “The true treasure glows in longing’s secret blaze;
    I spurn the loftiest rank, preferring humble ways.”

    I think all great poets and philosophers have pondered upon the remarkably evident thirst that women and men fail to satisfy in each other in the name of love. Love, like unquenched fire burning in the very center of one’s being, demands desperate action. Iqbal, in this verse, holds this suffering dearer than any material or spiritual wealth. Knowing its subject (God, woman, etc.) though cannot alleviate the pain, it can certainly impart the sense of it being worthwhile thus, making it more tolerable, and even, enjoyable for some as it’s in the case of Iqbal.

  • Adieu

    A fond adieu to a beautiful home

    Leaving the service quarters temporarily allotted on an assignment after you are posted out to a new place should not feel as blue as this photograph of the pomegranate tree stannding just outside in the compund lawn.

  • 43 Notifications

    There was a time
    when a seductive, blood-red
    Facebook notification
    would trigger in me
    waves of dopamine
    which flooded my bloodstream
    like amiodarone, lidocaine
    and a handful other
    difficult-to-spell drugs
    which i hope
    you never learn to spell,
    as they enter my papa
    through an IV cannula
    while he lies sedated
    amidst beeping, blinking screens
    and a flock of apathetic doctors
    desensitized by
    too much disease
    too less equipment
    and too often death.
    For too long
    I have been addicted
    to that dopamine
    while aching for interactions
    meaningful enough
    for a homosapien
    to carry on
    the futility, monotony
    called modern life.
    But now I ask
    if that really is “enough”.
    If, in my ten days of inactivity,
    43 notifications
    of a virtual book club’s activities,
    of the memes I have been tagged in
    made by sullen,
    self loathing, suicidal teens
    that are ironically intent
    on making their viewers laugh,
    of unreferenced, unverifiable anecdotes
    no better than oldwives tales,
    of pandemic-related quackery
    both religious and secular,
    of birthdays of people
    I haven’t seen in years,
    of friend requests by
    people I don’t recognize,
    really mean anything.
    It’s silly how important
    we think we are,
    when we are nothing
    more than
    43 notifications.

  • Mevlana

    I’ve an unresolved affinity for Maulana Rumi (Mevlana in Turkish) – an intuition that he might be the only saviour I will ever have. I taught myself basic Persian 3 years ago only to read his Masnavi and I still haven’t read it.

    What if he doesn’t live up to my expectations of him? What if I fail to live up to his?

    Konya is home to Rumi therefore, it was hard to come to Istanbul and forget Konya. Though I couldn’t visit it during my first layover in Istanbul while traveling to Italy, I made sure I see it on my way back. If you’re traveling to Europe from Pakistan and are interested in visiting Mevlana, Turkish Airlines will be your cheapest bet. After landing in Istanbul, you’ll have to take domestic flights for Konya and back because it is not an international airport.

    20190628_193100.jpg
    Landing in Konya on an overcast day. Taurus mountains can be seen in a distance.

    Besides being a small public airport, Konya is also a military base so I could spot Turkish Air Force’s C-130s on the tarmac while my plane taxied to the terminal. I had already booked a motel room near Mevlana Türbesi (Rumi’s tomb) earlier while departing from Milan. Soon after I had landed in Konya, i realized my European sim wasn’t exactly functional here and the natives wouldn’t understand English. I could very well see a disaster unfold – how on earth was I going to navigate my way to my motel and then to Mevlana’s tomb if not with the internet or a local guide understanding my language? Thanks to Mevlana though; he became my guide, my host. All I had to say to the passport control at Istanbul airport, the bus driver, the pedestrians, the random strangers, the beggars and the prostitutes of Konya, was the word “Mevlana”. It seemed to be a word from some universal language. A word powerful enough to warm up a stranger to another, a host to a guest, a guide to a lost traveler. Not long after, I was in my motel with Mevlana just 400 meters east.

    I spent that night in conflicting emotions. It was not exactly spiritual, to say the least. The room next to mine was occupied by a couple who started to let off their steam right after I unlocked the door to my room. I flipped open the Masnavi in my phone to distract myself and tried to read it over the loud thrusting and moaning but eventually had to give in, put my phone aside and wait for them to finish.

    Next morning, I set off early before sunrise. Remember I had no internet so I navigated my way in the morning twilight like ancient wayfarers and caravan guides with the rising pinkish hues on the horizon being my sole sense of direction for east. I went about my usual way, preferring narrow streets over wide roads every time I had a choice. This might have taken me long but led to some hidden treasures too.

    IMG_20191025_090147_000
    Nar-i-Ask – a small streetside art gallery I came upon. Nar-i-Ask is a Persian word, written here in Latin and Arabic script, meaning “The fire of love”

    Eventually one of the streets left me at a wide traffic-less intersection and a huge structure stood in the middle of it. I knew I had reached somewhere important. My heart skipped a beat – it could be Mevlana Türbesi.

    20190629_062711.jpg
    The western front of Cami Selimiye – a minaret of Rumi’s tomb can be seen at it’s back (to the right)

    I soon realized it was not. I walked past the intersection and around the building to reach the courtyard in its front. The wall inscription beside the door read “Cami Selimiye”. The architecture was similar to the mosques of Istanbul and the tiled space stretching in front of it seemed more like a public square due to its vastness.

    IMG_20191020_174651_345

    I was confused. Though magnificent it was in its own right, i was too close to the Rumi’s tomb to be happy for finding Cami Selimiye. Mevlana was nowhere to be seen. Or so I thought. Upon my inquiry, the street selling woman sitting on the stairs outside the Cami, told me what I saw to my left was in fact my destination. I zoomed out and yes, there it was. I had probably mistaken it to be an extension of Cami in spite of its very distinct architecture.

    IMG_20191025_075958_175

    It was a moment of epiphany, regret, happiness, sadness – quite a turmoil of emotions. I wanted a close up of Mevalana’s final resting place.

    20190629_063809.jpgMy return flight was 1000 hrs and the tomb was to open for visitors at 0900 hrs so this is the closest I got to Mevlana. I could see a series of small minarets of Mevlana’s tomb from the courtyard and wondered what life would be like for dervishes in the cells underneath them.

    Perhaps I was too impure to be let inside. Mevlana might have wanted me to read his Masnavi first before visiting him. So be it. I turn back.

    I’ll see you again, Mevlana.

    I took some steps then turned instinctively, one final time, perhaps to etch the memory of this place forever in my mind.

    20190629_064117.jpg

  • Peace

    If it were up to me

    I would wish you peace

    of all the things in the world

    because it’s been too long

    that you’ve been fighting

    unknown battles on faraway fronts.

    I can see you

    wearing out

    breaking down

    as the hands of clock

    are running round;

    living the battles alone

    I had once hoped

    to fight by your side.

    As I lay now

    in my comfortable chaise longue

    and you wounded,

    perhaps mortally,

    in a distant battlefield,

    I try to write

    a string of words

    a prayer or a wish

    that might comfort you

    against the ugly dance

    of raging death.

    There are n number

    of beautiful words

    you could say

    to a parting friend

    but I know

    for you

    “peace” is not one

    “not till your last breath”,

    you had said.

    A warrior you lived

    and you hope to die

    nothing less.

    So I’d wish you instead

    all the pretty four lettered words

    starting from “luck”

    and taking the liberty

    to end

    with “love”.

  • Where Earth meets the Sky

    Three kilometers into the x-country, i decided it was time to gear up the pace. I looked up at the pacer to my left to check if he was ready for the blast. Raja had just taken his shirt off letting the September sun wash over his sculpted torso, his abdominal muscles gleaming like rippling waves of bronze and his pace perfectly locked with mine with the kind of natural synchronicity that I had doubted before could even exist. In the agony of a race, it was a delight to look at him – his body leaning forward, neck craning slightly ahead of his shoulders and gaze fixated firmly on the dirt ground that rolled beneath us in a flurry – he was strong and steady and didn’t seem like giving up anytime soon. Neither did I.

    Ever since i had discovered him, Raja ran like that. And I have always marveled at his style which is beautiful, child-like and allows him to run fiercely fast. Out of hundreds of people I have run and competed with over the years, he seems to be the only guy who reminds me of Pre. The same lightning quick starts, mid race burnouts and the devil-may-care attitude once the race gun fires. But so long as he is running, there’s no denying the fact that he is a moving, huffing and puffing masterpiece.

    I am a big believer in the fact that where you look at in your run tells a great deal about who you are in life. And if it’s true, Raja, with his eyes always dug into the rolling dirt trail beneath him, in fact, is an earthrunner. Humble, generous, caring and easy to be friends with. I, on the other hand, am a skyrunner. Cocky, cold, private and aloof. And how the two of us can get along so well in a x-country run is a fascinating mystery that I might never be able to solve.

  • Backstreet

    Backstreet

    Treading the backstreets,

    On the hopscotch-chalked sidewalks,

    And in the strings of strange Trennbare verbs

    Of a stranger language,

    I have often secretly tried

    To trace your immaculate form,

    Connecting the invisible dots

    That lay all around,

    Scattered,

    Like silver mercury on earth.

  • A Canvassed Dusk

    “Do you see the red line floating across the golden ball of sun? This thin streak that splits it into perfect halves like a neatly cut melon?” He fell silent contemplating the moment, the texture, the rich acrylics.

    “Can you imagine what was it that she thought, that her brush dipped in red ripped through the heart of the sun, and it must not have taken a single stroke, you see. She must have swept it twice. Or thrice maybe, for that matter. Do you know what exactly makes a fragile brush in a delicate, feminine grip stab and rip and tear like that?”

    “No.”

    “I don’t either but it must be something really intense. Something that has set the sky ablaze, the wild grass crimson, the lake murky, the kayaks fluttery and the sailors, silhouettes against a scarlet sky.”