Inspired by the vastness of our universe, and the impermanence and fragility of our own little blue green planet.
The moon hangs low like a key lime pie In a firmament strewn with golden gleams of zest The sky like a cosmic porcelain platter Holds this sweet perfection in a state of rest
I sip on my tea as I sit back in my chair And look at the glimmering stars up on high My mind is a telescope of infinite scale My soul, a radar that amplifies
I see nebulous orbs dancing around I see their frigid friends standing their ground I see the little ones and the gargantuan greats I see the middling ones jostling for space
I see luminous worlds move in grandiose arcs Leaving star dust in their celestial wake I see comets race into indigo depths Gleefully chased by their blazing tails
I see weighty old stars in their twilight of being Collapse in a mighty roar of ultimate endings I see embryonic knots of vital masses Heating up at their core in hopeful beginnings
I see torus-shaped, shard-textured asteroid belts Circling around an oblong of planets I feel the formidable power of gamma ray bursts As they cannonade up vaults of ink-silver granite
I see pulsars and quasars whirling around Solar winds spreading out in feathered plumes I hear the happy hum of the cosmos above me Like a foetus hears her mother from inside the womb
I collapse the telescope of my mind I shut down the radar of my soul I look back down into the eyes of our Earth Now blurred and smudged with eventide kohl
I don’t hear the hum of her kinetic voice Nor feel the tenderness of her warm embrace I don’t smell the bouquet of her fragrant skin Nor see the glow of her beautiful face
The cosmos continues to dazzle and shine To skip and to leap, to dive and to fly While our own little world continues to be The storm in our teacups, the dust in our eyes.
“Earth’s crammed with heaven… But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.” Elizabeth B. Browning
Spring turns to autumn which moults Into winter. The winds blow cold And the skies are a myriad shades Of grey. The trees in their glades Stand stark and naked. Their leaves Now mottled, dying underneath Trampling feet. Hurrying feet across Paths well trodden and paths that are lost In the gloom. Winter’s dirge Fills the spaces in between to merge With the mist. She throws a blanket On the quiet world. And then she touches My cheek. I turn my face away and she spreads Her arms. I’m enveloped from toes to head From right hand to left. I stand still And let her feel. She takes her fill And then undoes her vapory hold. I finally see The path stretching clear ahead of me
There’s something in the air In the way it moves around The living and the dead It carries a new sound Alien and profound It bleeds in and it seeps Reaching further than skin deep
There’s something in the breeze It has much to say In mystifying whispers The strange leaning of the trees In the writhing of the leaves Detaching from their seams By off-season guillotines Shimmer-sharpened by the breeze It moans against the skin In tongues we now don’t speak In tormented suffering But all that we can see Is the stirring of the blades In their darkened canopies
There’s something in the air A blinding glitter everywhere But the motes of light are still While a cosmic storm prepares A million miles away Thickening, darkening Marking time until It comes crashing, smashing in Sweeping us all in Its alpha and omega waves In beginnings and endings And lips everywhere Will be spilling the same prayers As with our souls bared We fuse, we unify With something new in the air.
I’m looking out through my balcony door The glass gleaming - I never miss that That sheen itself is a pleasure to see The gloss, the shine makes my heart glad
Then I look outside at the city lights Some glimmering others sunny bright I look beyond at the skyline that now Boasts a few high rises above the eighth floor
My mind telescopes into some homes But please hold that thought, don’t let it roam! It’s not a voyeuristic enterprise of the mind It’s reading the drive behind the grind
What makes that man who lives alone In a one room apartment on the third floor Wake up day after day after day? What makes him go out his front door?
What special dreams has he woven with time? Which ones has he decided to leave behind? Is the light in his eyes still glowing bright Or is he just stolidly marking time?
That woman who is holding down Two jobs in two different parts of town What is she hurrying and scouring for? What makes her oblivious to her aches and her sores?
That young boy barely into his teens His moustache is yet to take place of state On his young, adolescent face What is he doing out on the steets so late?
The young girl who sits up late by herself Stitching joras* that must go on the shelf Of an elite boutique. Do her dreams still speak? Or are they now mute wraiths of themselves?
In the pit of my stomach lies a spot of guilt The quickening of my heart tells me the truth Of the relentless grind, the killer odds But I tell myself - what can you possibly do…
The gleaming door now to my back I look over my balcony railing this time Beyond is a world that is dusty and raw My own pleasure wanes in the shadows of night-time
* Jora: In Urdu, a set of clothes, usually shalwar kameeze.
I saw a little spider today Weaving itself a delicate pathway In silken thread and gentle strides It made its way up the side Of the glass wall close to me I kept watching it carefully Partly because horror flicks Have made me squirm around these arachnids But mostly because of the enterprise It put into its little life
It climbed halfway up the glass And then a gust of wind alas! Tore its thready ladder up It swayed before going plop! Right onto the table where I sat with my coffee to stare At this busy creature lift Its body up bit by bit
I moved back in mild alarm Not because I’d come to harm That was not the thought I had My arachnophobia got me to stand It sat there a little concussed I think Before it gathered up its wits And off it went climbing again Forming anew, repairing
With so much drama in its life Buffeting winds, with predators rife The spider stays focused on its goals It weaves its web, mends broken holes We can learn a thing or eight From this marvellous arachnid To go on even when we’ve gone plop! To persevere, to climb back up Folks, if little spidey can be A superhero, so can we.
Sometimes while I sit, engrossed in life My brow lightly furrowed, concentrating On getting the task at hand done Running my five miles in the circle of creation
I hear a rustle, a little whisper Of someone on the periphery of my thoughts I glance up, as if to see the vision Of that someone that always flits across My mind on busy days like these Resting otherwise in my heart; I glance as if that heavenly soul has Bridged our realms that are so far apart.
I look up, afraid to lose the thread Of that feeling, that gentle touch Of someone nestling in my core Someone beloved, someone missed so much. I look beyond into the blurry depths Of my vision, desperately holding on To that fleeting caress upon my cheek Gifted, bestowed by a precious one.
The atoms of day, ricochet and I blink Once, twice. I am back in the circle of life I grope twice, three times for that lucid moment When i was in the same space, alongside Someone who most days quietly rests In the warmest nooks of my being A cherished one who on special days like this Takes my hand, eyes twinkling as she beams!
I glance up, my soul surging with joy For that precious moment, filling the void. Sometimes while I sit, engrossed in life I am touched by a beloved for a sweet moment in time.
Lockdowns, inbound, not allowed to go out. While Queen Corona, that prima donna gaily traipses all about. She’s making sure we don’t forget Her microscopic savageness! So she merrily mutates every 60 days In Vietnam, Brazil, India and the UK. I do despise her with a passion so! That dung of Newt; that Toady’s toe!
I tried to see the cosmic grace; Nature’s reckoning, her showing us our place; Cloaked in all her viral majesty, Bequeathing wisdom in all this travesty … But enough already! How much more Do you want us humans to buckle down and endure? You know we’re as stubborn as the proverbial asses No amount of beating will turn us into planet-loving masses!
So begone! Away with you, Ye vile Covid, Get out of our systems - Scat! Move it! Two years is enough of a pandemic battle; Go away! Depart with your deathly rattle. Even Nature is kind after tap-tapping her cane; You’ve ravaged our bodies; now you’re driving us insane. Seclusion, Solitude, I’m so done with these Ice Maidens Give me a cafe, a bar and a mall that is laden With throngs of happy and virus-free crowds Chattering, nattering and walking about!
This ode is for you as an un-fond farewell Please go to Mars; I hear its volcanoes are swell!
The beautiful tropical monsoon sky That changes colours in the blink of an eye. Inspiring awe in its kaleidoscopic wake It shifts and shimmers; now translucent, now opaque.
From the deepest depths of a cornflower blue To the delicate flush of a just ripe peach, It drifts and glimmers in rainbow hues An iridescent paradise just out of reach.
Then there’s the never ending mesmeric motion Of the cresting and falling Indian Ocean; It’s white laced edges hugging the shore In a primal dance telling tales of yore. This is the magic of the Lighthouse* promontory Where the heavens lustily encircle the sea.
The dust and clamour of the city assailed her with its brawny vigour as soon as she walked out of the airport in Karachi. She looked for Rustum’s familiar face in the surrounding milieu of cacophonous welcoming parties, stuporous janitorial staff and the predatory hordes of taxi kiosk attendants. In his low key, efficient manner her driver located her before she had caught sight of him. He took control of her luggage trolley and led the way expertly through the throng to the parked car.
At home, she was greeted with the faint smell of lavender Lysol mixed in with the fading aroma of freshly cooked, spice-resplendent food. Layla felt her stomach rumble in anticipation as she went into the kitchen to look at the gastronomic delights rustled up by her housekeeper. She’d cooked bitter gourd stuffed with minced beef, and fried okra. The hot pot had four still warm chapatis nestled in its cozy interior – one for her and three for the driver. She had a hot bath; relished her quiet dinner and sat back in the sofa, enveloping herself in the familiar sounds of silence of her apartment.
It was good to be back home.
Her phone rang as soon as she was turning in for the night. It was Sumaira.
‘Yay! You’re back!’ she said as soon as Layla picked up the phone. It was good to hear Sumaira’s voice – still buoyant, still chirpy, even at the waning end of the day.
‘I am back! Missed you woman!’ said Layla rousing herself from her solitary stupor. They talked for a while but Sumaira gave nothing away about who her mystery man was. After fifteen minutes of circling around the obvious with blitheful nimbleness, Sumaira finally ceased her torture of her friend and hung up with an exuberant bye and a kiss. Layla was left fretting in the grips of intrigue and conjecture for more than an hour afterwards. She gave an exasperated sigh and picked up a book to distract herself and to lull her somewhat jangled nerves. Sumaira was a tormenter and a bewilderer and even with her best friend, there were no special confidence privileges until she decided so.
After work the next day, Layla headed for La Etilier Suma to catch her friend in her own workplace where she was more likely to reveal and embellish than to bedevil and distract. Sumaira was bent over a sketch and was delicately filling the colours into each roseate and paisley, the very picture of imperturbable professionalism.
Layla looked at her for a moment and grinned ‘Maestro, thy deception is done. Out with it!’
Sumaira looked up startled. There was a pattern emerging to her being caught off guard she thought fleetingly before she closed her sketch book and stood up to hug her friend. She laughed as she sat back down.
‘It’s Karim’ she said simply.
‘Karim who?’ asked Layla while deftly suppressing the inadvertent bloom of emotions in her own heart at the mention of that name; that was still her little secret …
‘Of “Karamat and Sons” – Karim Zaidi’
Layla looked at Sumaira uncomprehendingly for a moment. But only for a moment.
‘Wow, really?’ she mananged to say while quieting her now pitching, hammering, lurching heart.
‘It was one of those unexpected things. I mean we’ve known him forever from a distance haven’t we? He was always so quiet… so aloof. But he’s actually a lovely man. Sophisticated, well read and …uff… those eyes!’ Sumaira gushed, laughing at her own quickened heart even as she glowed in the sharing of fledgling but precious confidences.
Layla looked at her friend as swarms of disconnected thoughts rampaged through her own head: What were the odds? Of all the men Sumaira could have had out there! Had she misjudged his quiet demeanour? Did she think he was the one man who would remain perfectly unaffected by Sumaira’s charms? Why did she think he was going to fall into her lap just like that? Why couldn’t he have fallen into her lap just like that? Well played, Universe! …
‘… and we spent that entire evening together’ Sumaira ended smiling.
Layla hadn’t heard very much after the First Disclosure and now looked at her friend with new eyes … hurting and resentful; stabbing and piercing; stinging and pricking eyes. She blinked twice, three times, willing away the flood that was gathering at the peripheries of her eyelids.
She said nothing but she smiled, for the benefit of her friend. Her angst, like her secret, was also her own now; and even in the throes of her frenzied emotions she knew now was not the time for either affliction to rear its tormented head.
That evening Layla sat with her solitude and her despair; the tranquility of her three week vacation, a now buried and forgotten memory. She washed her face and looked into the mirror. She lifted up the corners of her mouth in what should have been a smile but was instead a grotesque caricature of joy. She froze her face in the lopsided grimace, forcing herself to recall similar moments from her past; moments of self loathing, of unremitting agony, of wanting to end it all …
But she didn’t feel any of her earlier sense of tragedy. She felt only a pervasive emptiness that was almost narcotic in its numbness. She realized that she was not the tortured 17 year old anymore. She was a resilient, stalwart product of the curve ball life had pitched at her. She’d learnt to bat right back, into the eye of the storm. Even when her ordinary and extraordinary anxieties overwhelmed her, she remained afloat with her head above the water; taking in the serenity of the entire ocean rather than the tempestuousness of the cresting and falling waves around her.
She would survive this too.
Life, of course, was full of surprises, but she also knew the limits of joyful happenstance. Even while she sat on her wooden bench, enveloped in her solitude, daydreaming of knights in charcoal grey shalwar kameez, she was at peace with the calming ordinariness of the relationships in her real life. Ultimately, even when she made her brief, magical forays into What-Could-Have-Been, she always veered right back to reality. So yes, she would survive this.
Her friendship with Sumaira was worth more than a few lusty pulls of her heartstrings. Her soul connection with her best friend had to be worth more than her illusions of love and couple-hood; for that was what her fantasy romance had been – a theatre of the heart.
She drew back the curtains on the night sky and lay down, looking at the vastness of the city from her 7th floor sanctum. In time, the city lights faded in the radiant luminescence of a milk moon that shone into her bedroom lighting up her face as she slept.
‘I hear you’re quite the designer – I myself was a coffin maker in the US. Fancy coffins are big business there’, said someone who’s name she’d forgotten but who was steadfastly standing by her side while carrying on a mostly non-reciprocal conversation. Sumaira smiled blandly yet again and took a sip of her sprite and soda. She wondered for the 10th time in as many minutes where Hassan had disappeared to. Usually the crowd was larger and she was familiar with many of the usual suspects at these soirées. This appeared almost like a last minute attempt to make something of a Friday night – the patchy crowd that had gathered was dolorous and … sticky.
She excused herself from Mr. Glue-some, and walked purposefully towards nowhere in particular.
She stood in an unobtrusive corner of the garden and took a deep breath. God! When did unfamiliar crowds start getting to her? She usually loved the banter and the energy. It was this whole marriage prospect that was playing with her mind; even the oddball, to-meet-and-to-forget strangers at a party were now threatening to join the Groom Queue lined up in her head.
She needed a real drink.
‘Hello. I hope I’m not barging in on your … lonesomeness’, said a low mirthful voice near her. She looked up, startled to find Karim smiling at her, suddenly becoming conscious of her uncharacteristic shadowy form and furrowed brow.
‘Hi’ she smiled a little self consciously, feeling a tinge of discomposure touch her cheeks. The light and shadow accentuated her flush making Karim momentarily catch his breath. She shone even when she cloaked herself in eventide shadows … he thought in that moment of mush and liquid emotions.
‘I didn’t see you here … I was looking for Hassan and, you know, trying to hide from a Party Romeo’ she said laughingly, in superintendence once again of her wits and her charm.
Karim laughed and looked again at her beautiful face. He was still feeling the afterglow of the earlier heat of the moment; a pleasurable warmth that belied the usual gin and tonic haze he surrounded himself with at these social affairs. They stood in that corner of the garden, chatting comfortably about nothing in particular, blanketed from the world, while a nebulous moon looked on.
Like Layla, Sumaira too lived alone, but in the bounteous arms of a family homestead that was equipped with its crew of maids, gardeners and all the other amenities that are de rigeur for many privileged South Asian families who live between two or even three homes. Sumaira’s parents lived in Kent in the UK but came home every winter. Karachi’s winter, if its spring-like coolness can, at all be called that, was short and flamboyant. It was when the flowers bloomed and the parks were full of promenading, socialising hordes of Karachiites, glad of the faint, sometimes even fondly imagined, nip in the air. There was that handful of wintry days however, when one definitely needed a sweater or a jacket to brace against an almost desert-like evening chill.
She was having her first of many mugs of coffee of the day, a faraway look in her eyes. Asha, the old family retainer broke into her reverie to ask about what to cook for dinner. That question had become a pet peeve, resounding as it did with the regularity of sunrise, while holding within it none of the sustaining, nurturing quality. Asha’s cooking had suffered in almost defiant sympathy with her aching bones and failing eyesight.
She told her to make a salad. She’d have eggs and salad for dinner tonight.
Her phone lit up momentarily. She glanced at it abstractedly and then picked it up. She smiled; it was a message from Karim. Well.. it was more a forward really of something they had talked about the other evening, but still …
Was she falling in love with Karim? She asked herself upfront, point blank.
She wasn’t wholly sure, but he was definitely on the short list now … at the very tippy top …
Layla lay on the sofa in the lounge. The television was droning on in the background; her father was fast asleep on his recliner after a fulsome meal; her mother was on the phone with one of her sisters. She sighed contentedly. It had been a relaxing, settling, centering fortnight in Lahore. She still had another week to go before she descended into the tumultuous and confusing but also loving and giving arms of her adopted city. She looked at her phone. Layla had been so caught up in the happy sociability of parents and home that she hadn’t noticed the almost radio silence where there was usually a daily digital exchange between the friends. After a somewhat cryptic message that she had received from Sumaira last week, she hadn’t heard from her at all. She’d said something about having met someone new; about short lists that were becoming ever shorter and a choice that was becoming ever clearer. So, the Husband Hunt was in full progress Layla thought and waited for the familiar tightening of her chest. She felt only a nostalgia; a gentle wistfulness. It was the way of things. Sumaira would get married and she may even get busy as married couples do. But their friendship would stand the test of matrimony and its many busying enterprises. She felt unusually accepting and calm.
She suddenly missed her best friend, her soul sister. She typed in a message and put her phone away. She got up in the brightened spirits that were the trademark bestowal of all her home visits and gave her mother a quick bear hug from behind. They were going for their post dinner stroll in the lane outside the house. She looked up at the clear night sky with its winking constellations. Amid all that starry brilliance rested a demure quarter moon like a half closed eye …
Mahvash Mohtadullah 