My Doppelganger

I think someone who knows me very well is playing a rather elaborate prank. There just can’t be another explanation for what’s happened over this weekend.

A person – who shall remain unnamed – added me on Facebook. I didn’t know them, so I didn’t add them immediately. Instead, I tried figuring out who they were. So I went through their info, and I was mighty impressed by what I found. A range of interests and inspirations similar to mine.

Then *gasp gasp*, a quote from my favourite poet-philosopher of all time! And note that this poet was Pakistani, so I was shocked and very pleasantly surprised to find that a European person would have even heard about him.

Next came a list of books that I love. Listed as favourite books.

Then people I love.

Then things I love.

All the same. Not like the same genre or something. EXACTLY the same.

I was intrigued. That’s the understatement of the century.

So I left a message on their wall. I told them all this, in a more civilised fashion than I’m relating it all here, of course.

They wrote back.

And then I wrote back.

And I have been writing back ever since.

And we’ve chatted a couple of times.

And I just can’t shake the – at times rather frightening – feeling that I’m talking to myself.

The same interests. The same habits, as far as I can see. The same issues. The same passion. The same apathy.

The same. Period.

Here’s to my doppelganger. I’m glad I met you.

Of You and I

We walk in circles, we talk in squares
caressing our skies, climbing spiral stairs

A moment of passion entwined with pain
desires untouched, yet virtues we gain

No longer we hold hands, in times when we must
Yet daylight creeps in, just when life seems unjust

Reveries of closeness, dreams of demise
Of well-worn paths, and defeaning cries

You seem elusive, and too far away too
I think I love you, but that’s just not true

To be is to end, and to end is to be
One is for you, and the other for me

In retrospect…

Deep down inside

I’m still a little boy who wants a remote-controlled car more than anything else

and a BB gun that looks cool.

Coke Studio

Hey all.

I just want to pimp out something.

Go to this Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/cokestudio

This is a yearly show on Pakistani TV where some of the best musicians in the country (if available) get into a studio and lay out four or five episodes of BRILLIANT BEYOND BRILLIANT music. This is their official YT channel, and all of the performances can be found here. I urge you – if you have nothing better to do of course, or if you love music as much as I do – to go to this channel and start watching from the first video all the way to the last. That order is essential, trust me.

Videos of particular note are the ones involving a duo called “Noori”. They brought the house down, so to speak.

In other news, I rarely find enough time to scratch my head nowadays, let alone post anything here or on Youtube. University is driving me insane again, so let’s hope I’ll be back soon. I’m actually thinking about firing up the old cam once again.

Until then.

PS: The music is mostly Urdu, except for a few songs in Persian and Punjabi, but I’ll be happy to assist should someone actually like it enough to want to know what it all means.

General ramblings of an obscene mind VIII

Before scooting off to Malaysia, I was a young, up-and-coming journalist here in Pakistan. I used to work for a major (by Pakistani standards anyway) English newspaper called “Daily Times” that has since gone to the dogs. I mean that quite literally as well: I saw a mut enjoying a hard-fought dinner of cow-innards from a god-fearing butcher’s shop, tastefully served on a copy of Daily Times, the other day.

I am the king of tangents. And aristrocratic hyphenation.

I used to return, worn down from some 10 hours of exhausting and deadline-hanging-over-your-head work at 3am every morning, and I used to stop at this gas station near my place for cigarettes and cell phone credit to waste on a woman who was to – a year or so later – rip my heart out.

There used to be this kid at the counter. He had a friendly smile and an un-gas-station-guy-like demeanor, so over a month or so, we went from me paying and walking out to us nodding at each other.

A year-and-a-half later, when I returned to Pakistan this time around, he was still there. And even though he deals with a thousand people a day, and inspite of the fact that I look significantly different from what I used to look like when he knew me, he recognised me instantly, and came out from behind the counter and gave me a hug. I was touched, physically and emotionally.

To be hugged by someone you used to nod to, well that’s a quantum leap, but he tells me he checked out the brand of cigarettes I used to buy from him, on a whim. He now smokes that very brand, and loves me for the introduction, and for ridding him of the curse that is Benson & Hedges.

On a side note, he also tells me that the gas station’s owner stopped procuring my particular brand of cigarettes after I left because sales dipped like hell, testament enough in my opinion to the ridiculously large amount I used to smoke back then.

I like that kid. He remembered me. I’ll remember him too, not least because he rubbed his liver against me.

As long liveth the merry man (they say), as doth the sorry man, and longer by a day.

– Ralph Roister Doister, Nicholas Udall

General ramblings of an obscene mind VII

I’ve been running away from relationships ever since the last one fell apart. It didn’t really make sense for me to run into another one, seeing as I found it hard to trust anyone at that point. I still find it hard to trust people, and that bugs me big time. I didn’t use to be that way.

Anyhow, those issues have subsided somewhat. I’m in the phase where I don’t care about relationships, but pretty soon this will pass as well, and then I’ll want one. There have been women around me that I’ve thought about that way once or twice, but back then I was too scared and too disillusioned to start something.

I’m sure that in a month or so, I’ll be ready. The problem is, in a month or so, I’ll be in Malaysia, and there are no women there that I am the least bit attracted to. A part of me says relationships are as much about being apart as they are about being together, but can I really endure another long-distance relationship? I think not. Relationships are already complicated enough.

So basically, by the time I’m ready to be with someone new, there won’t be anyone around to be with. I think I should stick to arranged-marriage.

There’s another problem as well. My dating options lie in very limited avenues. I’ve never dated someone for the heck of it, and I never will. I want it to go somewhere if I’m investing time and emotions in it. Hence, my options are restricted to Muslim women, because they are the only ones who will be willing to understand my no-sex thing. I no longer care about nationality (Indians are an exception, of course).

I used to think only Pakistani women were worth my while because we’d be alike, but the more I think about it, the more I realise I’m more un-Pakistani than most Indians. I don’t like the way they think anymore, I don’t do anything they expect of their man, and I think in a way that would be unacceptable to most of them. So unless a woman comes along who is as brazenly different as I am, there goes that window.

I think I’m destined to live the rest of my days with cats.

I feel pretty. Oh so pretty.

Wow. I don’t know if this is good news for me or bad, but where the severest bout of depression has relinquished its hold on me, it has also paved the way for a phenomenon that was until now completely alien to me.

I’ve suddenly become extremely paranoid. I don’t know how to put this into words exactly, but the best I can do is “paranoid”. It’s so bad that when I do occasionally get my arse out of the house, I’m looking over my shoulder constantly, fearing some unknown attacker. If not that, I’m fearing some sort of car accident, or something more horrible like a bomb blast or something.

If I go out with other people, I feel like running away and hiding in my room because they genuinely scare me to the point where I’m trembling slightly – and these are people I’ve known for a good 10 years or longer.

Yesterday, while out to dinner with my sisters and a friend, I had to park the car in the breakdown lane midway to our destination and had my sister take over because I was shaking too badly – almost about to faint, really – to keep the car straight, and I was literally twitching and jumping in my seat every time a car passed mine by.

I’m not sure if I’m going insane… maybe it’s just a side-effect of being holed up in my room all day in fetal position. I’ll make it a point to tell my shrink that in the next session.

Meanwhile, for the first time in months, I felt good about things for once.  I wrote a small script, that I’m hoping y’all will see on my Youtube channel quite soon. What it’s about, I’d like to keep to myself and those involved right now, don’t want to ruin anything, do I?

So I’m at a strange fork on this dark, psychotic road. I don’t know how to deal with the paranoia, yet what it has seemingly replaced – at least for now – was far, far worse, and I’m just glad it’s taken a break.

The rest, as they say, is trivial.

The Not-So-Emo Poem

I dare not walk the woods alone
I fear getting lost, of losing my way
I dare not brandish the stick and stone
For that has led many astray

I burn where there isn’t a fire
I think I burn for burning’s sake
I’ll run forever and never tire
And leave blind shadows in my wake

Take me over when I’m gone
Lead the way when I don’t know how
Don’t you dare await the dawn
Just take me over, here and now.

Here’s to the Original Krumbine. Here’s to Charly.

I know you are most likely far too disengaged to read emails (or blogs, for that matter) right now, but I thought I’d write this to you anyway.

You and I are nearly the same age. My father is precisely the same age as your father was when he passed away.

The reason for that insane little preamble is this, Jordan my dear friend: I have to make a fairly small amount of effort to empathize with the shock of losing your father so unexpectedly. Even trying to step into your shoes right now brings tears to my eyes, and I don’t mean that as a figure of speech. I can’t even begin to imagine the kind of torment something of this magnitude might entail for you.

Even though I’m just a distant contact over the Internet, please know that you have touched my life deeply, in ways that I may never be able to fully elucidate. I would love to do absolutely anything I can for you in this hour of hurt, as you did a mere week ago for me. I can be that little escape when it starts to get too real for you to handle, even if it is for a little bit. I have now realised – upon re-reading this paragraph – just how absolutely gay that sounds, but I really don’t give a fuck right now.

We have never met each other, and odds are we never will, but I still consider you a close friend. A real friend. So please, remember that I’m here, and regardless of whether or not you choose to cry a little on this Mildewed Muslim’s shoulder, I always will be.

You may not believe in him, but I do. God bless your father, and you, Jordan Krumbine.

Much love.

General ramblings of an obscene mind VI

I wrote a very emo poem just now. It was in fact too emo to post here, so I ditched it and decided to leave this small note here instead.

“Us, humans, have the will to do everything, but the power to do nothing.”

Toodles.