What Can I Do With You?

It disappoints me to think that you are a part of me! A part which if you were a garment I would have spread you on a sewing table, pull out the scissors from the kit, and cut you into pieces and made ribbons out of you for the children in the street to tie on the fences and hang on the branches of the trees they play joyously with their minds less heavier than mine!

You keep telling me things that aren’t helping me go forward. When I want silence, you yell at me with the possibilities of a hypothetical future that has neither a form nor a shape and is nothing but an illusion! Your words, I must tell you, are more often than not making the present heavy on my shoulders!

Why do you bring it to my awareness the things that my conscience wants to be blind? I don’t want you to talk to me when I am dressing up or when I am taking shower! I don’t want you to talk to me when I am putting my shoes on or when I am climbing the stairs. I don’t want your company when I sit looking outside through the window on my way to work nor when I return home. I wish you can leave me alone, and let the wisdom to reason take the decisions of my life.

Please don’t misunderstand me; you know how much I love your company in my life. You know how much I love to be with you; you know how much you contribute to the whatever richness I have in the ability to express the vibrations of my existence, and that of the life around me. It is because of you, that I see the pain of a crying child, or the agony in a fisherman’s house; those who do not have someone like you, I know, are barren in their life and I know it is your presence that has made me compassionate; it is your presence in my life that has made me empathetic towards others, it is your presence in my life that has made me understand the torment of the people who suffer. It is you who opens my eyes to the less privileged. I am aware of all your contributions, but, I want you to understand that you have become a cross that I am finding heavy as I walk up-hill in my life.

Or if you are with me, fill me with your caring words; enable me with your empowering stories; scream loudly at me the knowledge that you were so influenced from the books you read, from the few great people you associated with in the past. Don’t take me, through your conversations, to the dungeons of anxiety, fear and insecurity of life; say into my ears the mantras that will protect me from the negativity of the people and events I am surrounded with; let your words brighten me up; show me the silver lines in every dark cloud that prevents the light from reaching me. You have the words, you have it in you, and its only you who can help me, because its only you who is with me, every moment of my life.

Why don’t you understand your importance? Why don’t you understand the influence of every words that you are sharing with me?

O! my Thoughts, if only you can tell me things that are positive, how much more better I would have been!

For, don’t you know it is you who make me smile or cry, flee or fight, deliver or drown; it’s all about what you are telling me that makes a difference. Tell me about the best of possibilities in the worst of situations, and be with me as my powerful companion.

With Love, to my dear Thoughts,
Shahir

(a conversation with my 'thoughts'; perhaps for you, with yours)

With Love, Papa.

Wednesday, 16 June, 2010

My dearest girl,

I do not want to let this day go without leaving its footprint in our memories, for us to one day revisit them with joy, together; I know how much you cried, my dear one, and I know how painful those moments must have been for you, not knowing how little is its size when we look at it through our ‘experienced’ eyes!!

Dear girl, I miss being there with you; I miss the opportunity to unfold your new dress and dress you up while telling you stories of what you will have there as you reach, the songs and the plays in the middle of possible chaos. I miss the opportunity to tell you, my dearest one, to join the group that will be singing, and to be careful with the group that will be playing, and to not join the group that will be causing chaos on this first day of a long journey that you are embarking on.
That applies to your ‘life’ too; look out for the groups that are merry from the songs they carry in their hearts, and have in your heart melodious harmony, my love; watch your steps and have them firm on the ground to be safe from the pushing and shoving of those who take it as a ‘game’, dear girl; and learn to keep your distance from those who are causing chaos in the community, in whatever names and labels.

Bicycle, teddy bears, crayons and clothes, it wasn’t hard at all for us to buy them for you; but you ask us a piece of future, my darling, all we can do is to show you perhaps the direction, but it is in your little hands that you will hold the pencils now that you design your future. Oh girl, I am still designing, a future for me, a future for us! Designing and redesigning is sometimes the journey itself, and in it we must find joy of life. And in that pencil is a lesson for us and I will share with you this story. A pencil, it must write in hard and soft surfaces alike; in tough times and in good times, live we must. It can draw, and if you draw something wrong, use the eraser and redraw, but continue drawing; to do mistake is fine, erase them with righteousness and continue living. It’s not the colour of the pencil, but it is what is inside that makes a difference; no matter your shape and colour and height, sweetheart, it is what is in your heart and the wisdom of your mind that makes a difference.

And be guided by the light-house that’s so bright and shining for you – your mother. Take your mother’s character as a role model for you to live; take my mother’s strength of mind and raw ability to endure the ruggedness of this otherwise beautiful life as your bookmarks of reference when in need; take from me perhaps the strength of love and compassion I have for you, to love and be compassionate to others whom you meet in life. Toil a lot for measured laughter, for you will harvest in multiples; waste not your tears, for they won’t even grow a weed, let alone relationship.

I love you, my dearest girl, and I am holding your hands from this distance with my eyes closed, as you take your first steps on this first day to your school…. on the 16th of this June of 2010.

If I am not there with you today, my ‘kunthiri’ darling, it is but for you…

With lot of hopes, and with lot more of love.
Papa.
(Shahir)


Ps : Today, 16th of June 2010 is Mariam’s first day at school.

She's so special.

More than my greetings for her on this special day, I am thoughtful of the intensity of my prayers to have her for me, for many many more years to come; more than my greeting for her, I am thoughtful of whether my greeting will remind her of the years gone by, the many losses in return for few riches, the many falls and the few rises, the many pains and the little gains, and the perceived challenges ahead in life! Will that make her sit and think, all alone…, because I wished her today!!

There are times when I look at others, who live with theirs, taking out…even at their old age, wrinkled skins and shoulders bent, silver hair and can hardly hear, and I wonder, if it can be for them, O God, please be kind to grand me this wish, that I have a lifetime to live with her.

I don’t want to leave this world, leaving her behind me, for I can’t think of an image of her swallowing tears, sitting leaning on the wall, from the pain of seeing me go; I don’t want her to leave me earlier either, for I can’t think of how painful it would be for me to live through the days and nights with the realization of her absence in my life.

There isn’t a word good enough that I can find to describe my love for her; even that word – love - that has stood tall to describe the legendary relationship the world has seen, doesn’t suffice enough to contain what I carry for her in my heart; is love an intense mix of care, affection, concern, longing, a sense where you want to absorb their pain, a sense where you want to do things that double their joy, one that you wish for them more that you wish for you, a serene sense, an illusion of calmness, the fragrance of all seasons, the sole reserve of beauty, all that and more?

The sensations can’t be any different for you either!

Because, for many like me, mothers are so special; so special beyond definition – their existence has a fathomless meaning that fails definitions; so special beyond the demands of time – their lap are sought after by their children no matter how much they grow or which corner office they hold; so special above the ivy league of universities – the lessons we learn of their endurance and experience of life are beyond the volumes in their libraries; so special, that their endurance are not for them, but for their children; their ambitions are not theirs, but of their children, their steps in life are not to search their destination, but to create a path for their children travelling in search of to theirs!

It’s my mom’s birthday today; and she’s so innocent, she wouldn’t know that, for she has never celebrated one, nor will she celebrate this. All she did was to laugh “Ah! You remember the date!”


Shahir