rameenwrites

[rameenwrites]

Recalling someone you absentmindedly recall your favourite most trait or part of theirs, and I remember, I remember the dark of her hair. 

It always fell down to her waist, waviness which evolved into curls at the near end, and when damp, they had still, always clutched onto her waist. As if they were her strength, as if they could not leave her alone. 

Neither could I. 

They say you tend to adore things you don't understand. As much as I love her, I don't understand her. And if it's any comfort to me, I don't think she may understand me either.

In life, you decide to walk the steps with or without someone unhappily. Both being bound to hurt each other, and in the process of it, both being bound to build from it together. 

Separating herself from the world when she feels negatively impacted due to certain things, I know she will face the crucial circumstances herself, yet however still, be there in the morning to smile and kiss me just the same. 

I want to climb inside her heart and reassure her that she has me, do I have her?  The brown in her eyes is misleading. 

I think I am afraid of her.                          Visioning her beauty is intoxicating. 

I think I will never be enough for her.                And it's made me a living dead man. 

Here is my heart, a cue for you.                    You've left me blistered and blue, my sweet.  

I closed my eyes on your love, now unable to ever get enough. Hoping that as you go on with your life you think of all the great things you will soon be. Hoping that a shred of you, even for a split-second, recalls your favourite parts about me. After all, you have been the one true person who gave meaning to my miserable being. 

Glance back from your bustling life and find that I have always been here. Right where you broke away from your burdens, and me, with time, I had done nothing but become the best of them. 

[rameenwrites]

Before twilight slips out and is replaced with the morning sun, I want to start off our day outlining the curve of your lips with mine.

Before the clock strikes seven and you wake up to your alarm, I want to pull you down to me and last a little longer next to you.

I'm certain that there must be people having their names carved into stone out of the achievements they plunder everyday, but here the time stills and I can't help but blur into you.

Such is the sweetness of embracing you that there is no room for drawbacks. Here, where the human entity is bound to suffer one way or another, I can however, cause no harm to anyone else in the pleasant and embraceful feeling of loving you.

[rameenwrites]

a love untouched 

[rameenwrites]

Caught between what could have been, and what was lost.

I hang onto the depth of your mellow voice calling out to me, a name only known to you.

With such sweetness, it rolls off your tongue so that when you pronounce it; I don't flinch, I don't stutter.

Because of how entirely it feels known to me, as if I'd heard you calling out to me in my past life.

The days grow and I lose my words to describe how you made me feel. The days grow and before I knew it, I'd absentmindedly replaced you.

It's not within my power anymore.

But this memory I recall, it pulls me back.

My name in your mouth.

Your hand above mine.

This memory I recall, and in the delicacy of it, I wish your love for me was genuine at the least, if not everlasting.

[rameenwrites]

Happiest birthday, Nana Jaan.

Eight years without you now, and you would have been eighty this day.

No words will ever be enough to describe the depth of you as a person, as a father, and as a grandparent.

So here, I'll recall few of the things I miss most about you.

I'm writing these so as to never forget.

After Fajr Azaan, your radio would hum the Quranic Translation when everything outside would be twilight. It's strong and bold voice would be heard from all across the mohala, and you would sitting in your room with a tasbeeh, or patiently listening, doing nothing at all.

I miss the sandwiches you'd make for me, ali, moaiz and alishba on early school mornings. They had a particularly mellow taste to them, made from love and unforgettable till this day.

I loved how you planned birthdays a week before they'd arrive and wait for them more excitedly than us ourselves. You were the bravest most person I'd ever seen, you stood your ground and never settled for anything wrong.

Always punctual in your prayers and very fond of the daughters you kept as princesses till you lasted, you perfected them as one would perfect a son set out to provide for generations of his family. Enough for them to remain independent from the harsh reality of this world, undoubtedly, you had known to experience it all. Being very careful that your daughters would not have to.

I miss hurrying downstairs with alishba to provide you your medicines when illness had struck you. Though you preferred doing it yourself, it was something we had grown fond of.

And watching tennis or cricket with you on PTV Sports till late at night, there is a warm and incomparable feeling to all of this. Your safaid kabuli topi still lies in my closet.

It has been there since the last eight years.

Dialing numbers for you when you couldn't do so yourself because of losing sight in one eye, and weakened vision in the other. You still managed to handle your affairs without so much as concerning the other.

I miss looking out for speedbreakers as you drove, when I would tell you to slow down and as for the ones I missed - it was surely a bumpy surprise for us both.

We were quite the team, the two of us.

I know you promised to be here and wished to see us siblings grow older, get married and have children. I know you wanted to be here, but you were already drifting away due to your declining health and I was too immature to realize the gravity of your words.

I would have atleast tried a little harder to make you smile once more.

Call for me up to you when it is time, I would like nothing more than you to come for me and escort me yourself. Anything which will grant me a glimpse of you.

Until then, Nana Jaan.

It's unbearable without you and always will be.

[rameenwrites]

Abu Mas’ud reported that the Prophet صلي الله عليه و سلم said,

“Whoever recites the last two verses of Surat al-Baqarah in the night, it is enough for him.”

Source: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 4723,

[rameenwrites]

“Everyday, I wake up to this feeling in my heart which lurches forward, looking for whatever it is that is missing or rather ripped out and haven't been found since.”

She tiptoes back into her cozy seat with a mug of coffee in her hands, covering the cup with her extended fingers, blowing air so as to cool it as much as possible before she would gulp it down in an instance.

My best friend, my cost-free therapist.

She talks enthusiastically, encouragingly. Never dare lose hope, she says. No matter what, one should never stop believing that things will one day, get better. Otherwise what is the reason we all thrive for? Surely there must be something, even if we accept that there is nothing left for us at all.

I can't help but admire her enough.

She never changes, using her dark silk camisole dress as her very own nightgown from the drastic night before, she stretches her bare legs on the table then let's her curls loose and sighs contently.

I stubble my half-lit cigarette into the ashtray which joins the long lit tens of others from before.

“Even the things you deem unforgettable, you can just as easily forget.”

Her dark eyes stare into the distance, I could never tell what she was thinking of. One can tell many things about a person from their eyes, but hers were a void in whichever light came in, never came out.

“And you?” I ask her. “What is your plan amidst this all.”

“It's a waste to spend that much time with someone only to bid them goodbye, I think I'd rather consult you and maybe, just maybe, if you happen to last a relationship more than five months, I'll open up couple's therapy. Such a wonderful idea, don't you think?”

It had been indeed. Continuing to brag on about how she should be nurtured well by someone, she hushes me furiously and I clasp my mouth shut in fear of her landing the mug at me.

A smirk then laces her lips. And I can just tell what she is about to say.

“Oh, don't you worry about me.”

She glances at me, teeth flashing like an 80's herione.

I make my own luck, baby.

[rameenwrites]

Dearest nana, we've grown closer to the day of your departure once again, and it aches me to see how minimal attention we give to what is left of your surroundings.

Everyone picks up your kabuli topi from the shelf, yet no one holds it tight to their chest, or nears it to their mouth in order to allow a soft kiss to your remnant.

We weep in our hearts, but never out loud.

Such is the way of life, one tries to remain strong when they are everything, but that.

To hold your head high is the only way to carry forward, to be brave, when all you need is to be nurtured.

And incase you wonder, your land of flowers is in its tragic glory.

Sometimes I think it is better that you have left for what is most meaningful rather than the days of this delusional life.

But in the meanwhile, you remain as a poignant wound which pricks open like brand new each time.

Having lost you I've lost the most important part of myself, and that is the heart.

[rameenwrites]

I want to tear out my heart and give it to you.

But you don't want it, so

I hold it tight and let it go, into the ocean and watch it being carried afar.

Only because I simply could not stand how it betrayed me,

and went soft for the ones who forsaked me

[rameenwrites]

Harry Holland, Lovers, 1982

[rameenwrites]

We’re standing in a plain field.

The dried grass reaches below my waist, discolored like the sky, in hues of a dirty yellow. I run the palm of my hand on top of it carefully. 

The sun is going down and the details no longer matter, but you’re as beautiful as the day when i first saw you.

Any moment might be our last. Let’s adore one another before there is no of more you and I.

We’re not in love, but would you like to be?

I’ll wait for you dearly. 

I’ll know when to hang on, and when to let go.

We’re not in love, but would you like to be?

You gaze into me with dark eyes that are unforgivable, All i want is for your sweet lips to brush against mine.

We’re not in love, but would you like to be?

I would have done anything you asked for, all those months ago. You wouldn’t even have had to ask. I already knew.

[rameenwrites]

Criss Cross (1949) dir. Robert Siodmak

[rameenwrites]

She sat at the side of the curb, a hefty notebook in her hand belonging to someone else, thrown away as its purpose had served its owner no longer.

She sat at the side of the curb, her chappal of the uncomfortable material of rubber nervously brushing against each other as her basil-colored eyes squinted further, examining its somewhat familiar cardboard exterior.

Curiosity caught the best of her.

Yet she could not comprehend what was in front of her.

Assembling her dust-printed Scarlett dupatta in place with one long swing of her arm, her small hands sifted through the filled pages of that very unusual notebook.

Alas, she blinked twice, retreated. 

And begun tearing out the pages that served her great interest for a short while.

Perhaps, even when her eyes came across this rarity, at the back of her head, she was still imprisoned by the unfortunate duties of her household forced on her small being. Thus, instead of lingering over the idea of what it was out of her own could have been passion, she became burdened by the thought of someone as a liability and a cold, horrible night to hungrily endure.

Pulling apart those pen-scribbled pages, she didn’t think twice for a moment. Fire for her mud shack, even for a moment or two was of much more importance to her. Once again, she gave up her infatuation, a dream out of reach, for the hopeless sake of others.

How long will stray children endure without any proper protection or education which is the right of every child?

They are indebted to premature obligations before their time, they are raised to follow the forsaken path meant for them, and never step out of it.

[rameenwrites]

I saw you in my dream last night

You walked with your eyes shut,

Asking if no one would hold your hand

I reached out for you almost instantaneously,

taking your hand and kissing it

the feel of you cold, tainted with drops of water

Knowing you are not alone, you do not speak again

We have buried you, yet you appear in your hospital gown still

I count the days after your death

All these years have passed, even so, you haven’t

[rameenwrites]

“Whenever i feel dissatisfied with him, i can only cross my arms and frown at him. I can never give him a hard look, or scoff at him.”

Thalia sits in front of me, distant and dreamy. Her eyebrows mildly amused, an elbow propped up on the edge of the lapis sofa.

“You see, he is this.. This thing i can never get angry at. And doctor, you are aware of how i seem to get irritated with the slightest bit of inconvenience.”

“Very well,” I smile.

“And does this person, as you name? Oh yes - Daud, does he know about you and your.. Plans?”

She shifts in her seat uncomfortably, sighing every now and then, shaking her head no, then yes, then no again.

“He isn't aware. I cannot plan to tell him. He complains that my name is as a lullaby on the tip of his tongue. He repeats it as a verse of the Quran. Acting as a charm to protect him from all sorts of danger, do you see who I'm dealing with? ”

I prop an eyebrow.

“And i do know that i haven't or ever will be able to treat him same, he is beauty and softness sculptured in one place, I am destruction cloaked in grace.”

“You have put it all smartly together..” i rub my chin. Her wavy dark hair had been brought to one side. She wore a silver necklace above her dark blouse, her eyes, although mellow and honey-like were gorgeous. They were rather deeply disturbed. Her hands fumbled.

“When will you tell him.”

“Who will take care of him?”

“What matters is that you tell him, confess. And leave, for the betterment. If you let him see you suffer, he will see you leave the world through agony and pain. If you do not, you will at least spare him the hurt.”

“And who will console me, doctor?”

Words inside my mouth gathered, and vanished - leaving my throat parched. As if picked up right now and thrown in the deserts of Sahara.

“I had prayed for a love that would completely consume me. And if not, i had prayed for a heart that would never be bothered again, born of solid stone.. And it seems that one of my prayers have appeared as a work in progress. Which, i believe i am aware of, but i do not want to confess it so.”

“And is he not that love? Can you not see? Dearest Thalia, you are ruining yourself unnecessarily. I say, take his hand and leave. Do not look back. Live, try to at least.”

She shakes her head once again, eyes fierce with a shock of electricity jolting its way into me.

“I am afraid, doctor.

It kills me ten times more to have him feel this way.”

I give her a look, long and steady.

Thalia had been one of my most mysterious and cunning patients. Everyday it would seem as if they had mustered up a new cloak to hide themselves behind, a concentrated - thought through cloak. To perhaps paint themselves safety inside the tiny tent of their heads, away from reality and its poisonous grasp.

Then to my surprise, she began revising her mother's words, her voice was one which anyone would've died to indulge with.

Ye nafrat buri hai, nikal do issay

Agar dilo mein kharish hai, hatodo ussay

Ye dunya na meri, na teri, na uski

Agar pyaar hai, batado ussay

I release a softened smile, my eyes concentrated on the long faded cigarette buds in the ashtray. 

“Then, you would know what to do.”

She relaxes herself on the sofa, looking away smilingly. The waves of her hair rested gracefully beside her elbows. The outdoor is conjested by cars that are busy rattling their horns.

Deep down, as she brought the cigarette to her lips, we both knew she would leave regardless.

[rameenwrites]

Here is to eight years without you, nana.

And almost seven to you, nani.

If you would ask me, I am not sure how I really made it this far without you.

When i go downstairs, my eyes travel to where you would sit and watch the weather from your seat.

And though, nana, that one of your eyes gave up, you had still been triumphant about life by tackling every problem nonetheless.

You were the pillar of this household.

Without you, this house can no more feel like home.

Dearest nani, when I think of you, I think of hardwork. I think of being brave and prosperous. I think of being faithful and firm, simple and stunning.

To encourage others and be kind, be kind.

Yet I crumble whenever in hope of following your footsteps, for I am weak and always will be without your loving.

I think of the cancer that covered your being, and I am back to being eleven again. It is as if it all took place yesterday, I will never repair from the loss of you both.

Eid is falling again, I hope my words reach you. I hope you listen to my prayers like scrolling open a letter from an dear old friend, a loving grandchild.

Eid is falling again and I am terribly empty.

I travel downstairs to where you would have been right now, nana. Sitting cosily in your chair right outside your room, letting the early sun trace you lightly. Letting the soft wind waver across you.

Nani, you would happily be in the kitchen. Eid's scrumptious breakfast set again before we know it, for all of us, you were an entire blessing of handling the house whereas we little ones, had a talent for trashing it.

And I can hardly remember the taste of your chai, will I ever get to see you in the kitchen again?

I have begged God for one more night with you. But I know well, that it is not possible.

I have begged God for your face again.

Come back, even as a shadow.

Even as a dream.

Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you.

[rameenwrites]

Montgomery Clift & Elizabeth Taylor in A PLACE IN THE SUN     1951   ›   dir. George Stevens