There are worlds within worlds in my love's eyes
They swim and dance with the light
And collide like star crossed lovers in the night
When in the darkness all is pitch black
They shine bright and strong in my world.

I look into my love's eyes and see my own
Reflected back, they are true orbs of beauty
Peering at me with their crystal gaze
Warm and deep like a secret held safe.

They twinkle like the night stars
Shimmery, silvery and searing
in their heat. When I look into them
All else melts away, forever into nothingness

chemical network

It's amazing what you can do with your body. It's a perfect example of mind over matter. You can control how you work your body, how you make it look and feel, and that in turn controls the way you feel about yourself. So, the process is from outward towards inward.

Since I'm feeling quite positive, I am going to write about all that stuff that you makes you happy and leaves you smiling, no matter what has happened before, and it is basically quite necessary to keep your balance.

Surrounding yourself with only the good things, one can immediately feel the change. You can actually deceive yourself into thinking that you're happy by feeling happy. It's a good thing. You need to deceive yourself from time to time.

What is our body but just a mass of mostly water and chemicals and neurotransmitters and electrical signals pulsing through an intense network of blood and nerves and sinew and muscle and bone. When you allow your body to change with the outside environment and let it change you and accept the season of change as it comes, only then can you truly accept the tides of times as they sweep through the current of history.

So let love carry you forward as the cool winds of mountainous plains and push you forward and lift you upward to a higher plain of new living. Start fresh today!

post reflections

Deepest. Truest. Oldest. Eternal.

Beauty demands to be seen. To be appreciated. To be absorbed. To be lived.

Pain demands to be felt. To be forgotten. To cease to exist.

The world spins around like a wheel ever turning on its axis, while you sit and wait for the shadows to lengthen across the backyard, watching as the sun goes down, another universe has already started somewhere and worlds within worlds spin madly on and on...

Seasons change and green changes to brown before it disappears forever into the earth.

Hear yourself in the million reflections ricocheting off the puddles of life.

Out, beyond yourself, deeper and further than the deepest, farthest realms of your self, beyond the softest embrace and the most enchanting secrets of the universe, lies a world completely unfiltered and devoid of materialistic gains and the soul lies bare and compact in its entirety.

The truth is shrouded within layers of love and the promise of a sky brimming with rain clouds, ever floating and wavering over dry, parched lands that have never seen it melt.

Ants creep up over the wall outside and creeping vines encase the wall and all the secrets within, sealing with a loving promise. An understood promise of trust and the oldest companionship witnessed by man.

Nature in all its most cruel and bewitching beauty gives man everything he has ever deeply yearned for and is everything he needs to live a life of promise and deepest gratitude and satisfaction.

t i m e l e s s

The moment that time has forgot. The Oneness and Unity of all things have melted into the nothingness of winter soil. Nothing springs from it except the dust that has scattered around like moths around the everlasting flame in the darkness. Out beyond the light and sun, meadows of green fields beckon and sway with gentle folds intermittently into one another like ocean waves always calling out to each other and gently crashing against one another. Books scatter with their pages fluttering around like free birds that can never be held captive to time nor man. My heart swells with pride to see their free, happy trajectory as I scan through the pages and run my fingers across the many lines of words that are as open roads for a hungry traveler set out on a long forgotten journey.

With the flicker of a flame distances shorten and the world becomes whole again. Cracks cease to exist and make everything as it was before. Setting aside the books and their fluttering pages for a while, I become lost in the ethereal beauty of the tiny branching cracks now filling up with light like tiny membranes around a thin translucent cover of a dream. With quickening breath, my hand traces the cracks one by one, until all have been illuminated by the omnipresent light and then they quickly dissipate.

On a hill somewhere among the clouds, a little stone house beckons me and waits for time eternal. Like notes played in true moments, everything reveals itself in tiny reflections around the glistening dew. Rain falls. More clouds gather. Fire crackles through the stone house. God and Time are One. Hanging those notes by the string of music, the storm rages on and the wild forest becomes still.

Pakistan - a nation of grumblers?

Before you get me wrong, I am not complaining (read grumbling), merely stating an observation, which might very well turn out to be a fact, if my hypothesis turns out to be correct, which I'm hoping by the end of this article, to attempt to find out.

So, are we a nation of grumblers? Who is a grumbler? And what is grumbling anyway? Well, the Oxford Dictionary defines a grumbler as a person who complains or protests about something in a bad-tempered but typically muted way. And 'to grumble' according to dictionary.com means to murmur or mutter in discontent; complain sullenly or to utter low, indistinct sounds; growl. While you picture a grumbler with this description, let me tell you something. Almost all nations have a distinct quality about them, whether it be the way they talk, the food they eat, the way they dress, or the way they celebrate. To give you an example, no Italian will be able to talk without a good flourish of the hands and almost all Italian conversations will be dusted with a fair amount of gestures and sign language, that are as much a part of the actual words they are speaking. You just cannot separate the two. With a grumbler living in Pakistan, grumbling is not an act of choice, it is a way of life, of celebrating life even. For a Pakistani grumbler, grumbling ensures that he is in fact living, breathing and existing and going about their daily business of working/grumbling.

Now, there are many different types of grumblers. It is important to classify your grumblers so you can navigate between the different classifications and steer your way across them on your day to day business. You may come across the Occasional Grumbler, with an average grumble of about 4 to 5 grumbles a week. A young sapling. Not too affected by the grumblesomeness (yes, it's a word in my dictionary) of the Pakistani life.

Next, there are the Constant Grumblers, who in their own opinion are the champions of all grumblers (which in fact, they are not, they are succeeded by the Absolute Grumblers). The average number of grumbles these grumblers make is anything between a 100 and 500. And that's all in a day's work. The Constant Grumblers find it a personal mission in life to grumble about anything under the sun, or the moon, and you find all conversations with them centred around a big, juicy grumble. With this big, juicy grumble, they are also in possession of a big, juicy, grumbly expression that drips with a huge, grumbly, disdainful passivity. The grumbles are always coupled with this big juicy expression. It is often mistaken for a trademark of the Constant Grumblers. You name a topic, and they will find a reason to grumble about it, be it the weather, the news, their food, their work, their family/spouse/children/girlfriend/boyfriend, their pets, the government, the cricket match we just lost, the bijli crisis, the kaam wali, the sabzi wala, their body, their health, their hair, their skin, other people's food, work, family, pets etc. You get the picture.

Of course, the Constant Grumblers and the Occasional Grumblers are nothing when compared to the Absolute Grumblers. At best, I think it would be safe to not make an estimate, in case this is being read by one. Now, here is a grumbler worth a considerable amount of mettle. The Absolute Grumblers don't talk, they grumble. They don't smile, live, breath, move, they grumble instead. Grumbling was most probably invented, patented and packaged by them in the old days, and they are the rightful owners of the Department of Grumbling, passed down to them through the generations by forefathers bearing huge bellies, who dealt in shady businesses of grumbling in dark alleys, wearing dark suits, circles of thick smoke swirling about them. Ok, well maybe not the dark alleys and suits, that would make it sound right out of a Marlon Brando Godfather movie. But, you know, they take their family business very seriously and there's simply no messing around with them. In fact, I'm going to let you in on a little secret, the Absolute Grumblers never state it out, or even insinuate it in any way, but if you don't join in and grumble with them about something or the other, they will stampede you with the overbearing burden of their grumbling and won't stop until you admit defeat in the face of this towering adversary of grumbling. It is not an easy feat, there is a very tricky way of getting out alive, and you must do so carefully with a lot of planning in advance, in fact, I have little doubt that you will make out alive after all the grumbling business with the Absolute Grumbler. The trick is to put in your two pence of grumbling, but only in a way that doesn't threaten or (God forbid), attempt to antagonize or intimidate the level of grumbling of the Absolute Grumbler. Think of the Alpha male Wolf and his puppies. You must join in the howl, but your ears must be laid flat against your head, and your howl must be several octaves and pitches lower than your Alpha leader. And whatever you do, DO NOT try to mimic the Absolute Grumbler's grumble or their style, you must be creative and think of another topic to grumble about, preferably something the Absolute Grumbler hasn't grumbled about in the past week, for they are equipped with a very good memory too! And that is the reason, why I think it is so difficult to make out alive after you have had the misfortune of meeting and grumbling together with an Absolute Grumbler.

Quite simply, the best way to make out alive, is to just avert your gaze, divert your step, and quickly run in the opposite direction as soon as you make out an Absolute Grumbler, which takes a lot of time and experience and in my case, a lot of near defeats with Absolute Grumblers. If luck is on your side, you'll find it easy to distinguish and make out the type of grumbler coming towards you and take the necessary steps/precaution.

Happy Grumbling!

Moinuddin Khwaja nayya karo par...

Mission: weight loss! Destination: unknown!

So you know how they say a little bit of spring cleaning is good for the house? Well, the same goes for the bodies! The weather's changing, and pretty soon, we'll all be shedding all those heavy layers of wool and knitwear, and that means revising your wardrobe before the new season. Recently going through my pictures taken at a party, I was shocked to see how the long, usually elegant sari failed miserably to look elegant on me, partly because maybe I was not wearing it the right way and partly because - I looked fat! With a sigh and a heavy heart, I realized how the recent years had taken their toll on me and my body, and oh how I missed my old photogenic self! That was the turning point. That's it! I thought, no more junk food, no more eating to my heart's content, no more sodas (not that I had many before to begin with) and no more fatty food! Hello exercise! and healthy eating :)

This is really very good, believe me. I've been feeling positive about everything since then. Having a really good breakfast, keeping myself hydrated, eating fresh fruit, and going for walks in the park with my mum. That is one thing that I really like. I simply cannot stress more upon the virtues of working out, in any way you can, for weight loss. The walks energized  and revitalized me and all those feel good endorphins really gave me that extra kick! P.S. Going to parks has another advantage, you can take swings and have a go at them like nobody's business and boy, was that a fun experience! It really brought back all those childhood memories and I remember feeling overwhelmed that day just by swinging and tilting my head back to watch as the sun and the clouds swayed in my vision...

So that is what I have been upto, and reading books and watching films that I'd been itching to get back to since I was busy with my thesis for the past year, oh and a little bit of cooking too :) Here's what I start my day with: a gorgeous soft boiled egg with a golden runny yolk that runs like liquid gold with a toasted slice of brown bread and black coffee. I season the egg generously with salt and pepper, and sometimes spread a thin layer of garlic mayonnaise that my mum makes, it is so divine!

And here is what I made for lunch the other day:

Hot and garlicky Fusilli with stir fried veggies

For the veggies I used an aubergine, 1 tomato, 1 green pepper, 3 small potatoes and 2 cups of green beans. Cut in fairly big chunks. Boiled the potatoes separately. Then in a pan I fried some chili flakes in olive oil, added some chopped garlic and added the veggies by turns so that they were coated with the garlicky spicy oil. Boiled and readied the pasta in the meanwhile. Added seasoning to the veggies, which was just some salt and pepper, oregano and rosemary and small sloshes of Worchestershire sauce and oyster sauce. Then all that remained to be done was dunk the veggies in the pasta and mix and serve onto plates! :) It was so much fun making this and I really enjoyed the vegetables. More on food later.