It's an immensely sad thing to see your parents age, grow frailer, lose the youthful elements. But it is sadder to be a daughter (to your parents) in our society. And it is the saddest to be a married daughter who lives away from her parents. You can worry about them from the distance but there is nothing you can do about it. This feeling of helplessness grows onto you every passing day but you have to carry on with your new life. They made the same sacrifices for you — maybe more — as for any of your male counterparts but you lose the right to care about them the same way as any of your male counterparts can, the day you are given into someone else's custody. And there is nothing you can do about it. Nor can they. You can be the most strong independent woman all you want but this you can't escape. You have to live the rest of your life with this guilt. You couldn't be enough. You can't be. Then you get to have a daughter of your own someday and it's the same pain all over again but with a shift in roles and characters. And it goes on and on and on. What a sad thing to be a woman!

 I have been the most speechless on the occasions when my heart was moved the most, touched at its deepest, caressed on the corners I had long forgotten existed. On those occasions, I try to summon the courage to recall every fancy, deep, complex word in my meagre vocabulary but every single one of them seems absurd compared to the intensity of what I am feeling in that moment, so my lips refuse to move and that's when I inadvertently give in to the only form of expression my heart and brain agree on: tears. I have not known a better way yet, I don't think I ever will. 

In the Memory of my Precious Maggie

It has been only a few months since the first time I saw you, since the first time I held you in my arms. I could never have guessed you'd slip away so easily, so early out of my embrace. You have left a big hole named 'Maggie' inside my heart which nothing else can fill, ever. I hope to meet you someday at a better place, in a much better condition. I had so much love to give you, it breaks my heart to realize that you will never return to me, not in this world. 

I am dying to hear your innocent, high-pitched voice for one last time. I was not ready to let you go, I had so much faith in you, your strength, despite all the odds. I am so proud of you for fighting it all till your last breath, for teaching me to hope against all the odds. Nothing can replace the joy and warmth you brought to our hearts. I am so sorry you had to go through so much with such a frail body. I am sorry for not being enough, for not being a better friend. I can't stop missing you, looking at your photos and videos all day long, and crying, even as I write this for you. I can't shake the idea of you returning to me off my head, the days and nights I lived hoping you would get well soon and I would cuddle the heck out of you, tease you and give you all of my love and care. 

You were the liveliest, cutest, most innocent thing ever. I will not forget the cute massages you gave me with your adorable, smoll paws. I will not forget the eyes with which you used to look at me when I force-fed the food and medicines to you, that look that said: what is happening? Why is it happening to me? I hope that you are at a much better place as I write this, and free of pain, out of misery. One of these days I will find the courage to say you goodbye, hopefully. But if there's anything I can promise you now is the space inside my heart, solely for you. You didn't stay with us for long, but you gave us so many memories to hold on to forever. We are thankful to you for that. God bless, my love.

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If the harsh heat of Sun burns your bare skin, worry not.

For the same heat keeps you and everything around you alive.

If the quizzical uncertainties threaten to engulf your sanity, fret not.

For those uncertainties may be the string of hope for bleak possibilities nearing reality.

If the offensively luminous flash of light blinds every cell of your eyes, cry not.

For the luminosity might be carrying the photons bearing the message of tranquility for someone.

If the bare edge of glass mercilessly cuts open the skin around your flesh, hurt not.

For the same glass might be holding the finest wine to be poured in someone's glass.

But remember, remember this like one of your favorite childhood stories,

That when the Sun doesn't burn your skin, but brings warmth,

When the uncertainties come greet you with undying hope,

When the flash of light illuminates the darkness inside your soul,

When the edge of glass cuts your cord with the misery that bounds you,

Don't turn your back to yourself.

For the universe might not align the stars for you again.

They saw demons in the daylight,

They found allies in the dark,

They heard shrieks from the alleys,

Places where their memories were parked,

And when the doors of pity did open,

They'd jump back into their pits,

Put on the blanket of ominous silence,

They'd bury their eyes in the hollows.

Where the loudest sound was a whisper,

Of the wind that teased the yellowing paper,

Such was the place of their hiding,

A cellar without a tinge of hue.

The words collide, scatter and recoil,
Before my lips make a turmoil,
So I trap the words that fail to escape,
And bind them to form futile, arrhythmic poems,
Yet my words stay as meaningless as the whispers of the dead,
While every ear plays deaf.

Drowning in the gleam,

Of the eye catching sheen,

On the face of waters deep,

Under the calm of palm trees,

Cuddled in the arms of breeze,

Wrapped in warm memories,

My worries are put to sleep,

That's when I think of thee,

I think of thee,

Playing hide and seek,

In the garden of belief,

Far from the realm of grief,

The glimpse of glee on your face,

Worth more than jewels of a king,

I want to live that joy,

What better gift could I buy,

And not the ruins and remains,

Or the memories of dreary days,

From when hearts were loaded,

With only fury and vengeance.

I was twirling in the dark,
When the sky embarked,
On the hunt night-long,
With the army of stars,
In search of rebels on the Earth,
The glimmer in my eyes got me caught.

The Unresolved Enigma

A shadow, discerning, imitating in ways unrecognizable, wanders unrecognized,

A spirit finding spirit, too beyond the scope of senses to comprehend and rationalize,

Virtuous, fervent, instinctive, knitted altogether,

Looking for the scattered pieces of truth to gather.

Contest between puffs and drugs was to end at a verdict,

Liquor stole away the ruling, the crown, leaving both astounded.

They say let your steps find you your destination,

How are steps to know of their absurdity when heart is in domination?

For togetherness, apart-ness exist not, what is separation? Illusion.

Then why seek limit when you can reach infinity?

What did you see with eyes opened? Nothing.

What when you closed them to open the inner ones? Everything.

Longing of retention knocked at the door asking for asylum,

Was refused with words telling why beg when you already have it? You're misguided.

When truth kept a mask plastered on its ever-so-rare enchanting face,

Smile was used as disguise, followed never ending spell of mesmerizing quietness.

For the nothingness, the goodness inexistent,

Came an accepting call for the list of flaws, consistent.

Question of finding what was finding the finding arose,

The answer was there all along, the findings never found it out.

If ends were the ends, the world would have ended countless times,

Life is a journey through thick and thin, we call them good and bad times.

Talk about ceasing of ecstasy, eternity evoked,

Tell if any of the oceans ever said it had water no more?

To see the concealed, time embarked on a new journey,

A journey with the same start and destination, ever heard of it?

Happiness lost its way, worry could not avoid haste,

Thoughts, words and acts were there, subtly, way back to home was made.

The wind of wilderness withered solace away,

The thorn felt the agony, ironically, wailed for it to be taken away.

Serenity found its way to reach storm's elusive ears,

It whispered a tranquil note of hope, a gentle little gesture.

Not knowing the aversion, the underlying uncertainty of the storm,

Serenity kept overlooking and miscalculating the direction of the storm,

The storm still wanders in solitude, searching for serenity, mangling it in despair.

How is serenity to know the storm could never resolve the mystery it hid?

So like a shadow, a mirror, it will keep imitating and reflecting everything,

Knowing having nothing to own, no applause, doesn't ever bother it.

Beyond the limits of time and space,
Beyond the world of humans and race,
Under the spell of stars in the night sky,
Over the oozy layer of sand, let's catch light,
When the moonlight kisses your lucid, stern face,
In the mystifying embrace of solemn solace,
Listen to the serene song of moving water waves,
Pluck the strings of my heart with words you never say,
I will listen to the silence, the sound of your breaths,
While the cool breeze coaxes you till the child in you falls a prey,
To the emptiness of your heartbeat, amplifying in your veins,
Sing to me the song you like the least, is what you'd do next,
Till the hollowness shies away, sing till there's no agony left.

Wanderer

The moonlit tides of the sea settle,
At the sandy shore of the land of palms,
The gusty restless winds of memories cuddle,
With the train of thoughts traveling down the road to calm,
The blood-stained hands that just won the battle,
Bear the name of the sufferer written on the palm.

In the light of the Sun getting ready to gleam,
Set the sailor at dawn on the journey to glee,
Wearing the armor of disapproval, shield of disdain,
The ship sailed to a destination with no name,
To him silence is solace, darkness is grace,
Beauty is ghastly and freedom a treasure rare.

As the sky falls asleep in the lap of the night,
I wander in the territory of my thoughts wild,
A mysterious touch of a whisper travels through my ears to my eyes,
Bringing mist in the air, I try to look out but fail to find
I flinch for a while then return to the rhythm of my life
I'm the wanderer that never visits the same place twice.

I remember crying over the funerals of my heart,

When I disremembered that I never had a beat to dance on,

I loved the voices that resonated inside my mind,

They echoed in every bone of mine,

Now that I know it was a deadly delight,

In my ears hollowness whispers in tone impolite,

I am hollowness, hollowness is I.

What is it?

It's not the eerie silence that fills the space around me,
It's not the stillness of the breeze I once used to float in,
It's not the departed felicity that ran along with my breaths,
It's not the steps retreating themselves to find joy instead,
It's not the lost gentle tease of sunlight brushing my skin,
It's not the dawn stealing away the moon I spend my pulses watching which,
It's not the absence of the letters joy used to write to me once,
It's not the palm of my hands losing hold of serenity,
It's not the colors and life running away from my scenery,
It's not the return of the nothing I have always had with me,
It's not the longing for life to stay with me,
It's not the notion of me being a whisper that never was,
It's not the heart bruised by unrequited sentiments,
It's not the fear of losing what I never had,
It's not the sojourn in this world so transient and short-lived,
It's not living in the fallacy that holds me in its wings,
It's not my words always mangling the peace of my heart,
It's not my voice not being heard or misheard all this time,
It's not the realization of "What is meant to be, will be",
It's not my ears not hearing any echo for so long,
It's not the bullets fired from guns piercing my disguised skin,
It's the fear of the demons deep inside me which dwell,
It's the fear of my demons tearing everything so dear I hold to myself.

Why Believe in God?

(Part 2)

Let's talk about the origin of life on Earth now. The earliest form of life being microscopic, a basic cell, the building block. This cell though the simplest and the most basic component is unbelievably complex, contains several other constituents in itself. The cell, as it is said and believed, was a product of continual evolutionary process under the effect of the atmospheric conditions billions of years ago. 

Among all other constituents of the cell, let's single out DNA. DNA that holds information about the organism, the traits, physical as well as behavioral characteristics, a very powerful thing. Science and research has found that : "The human genome, the genetic code in each human cell, contains 23 DNA molecules each containing from 500 thousand to 2.5 million nucleotide pairs." Also if you stretched the DNA in one cell all the way out, it would be about 2m long and all the DNA in all your cells put together would be about twice the diameter of the Solar System.

As a result of abundance of reasoning and knowledge, we are aware that for the 500 thousand nucleotide pairs, their combination and sequencing is a vital factor that governs the properties of the genes, DNA and consequently the whole human genome. Must have taken very many years to form an organism, a complex organism capable of thinking and forming ideas with proper functionality, physical symmetry and pleasant appearance. Let us calculate the probability of these 500 thousand nucleotide pairs being perfectly located to help DNA do that miracle, How many years do you get, knowing that evolution itself is a steady phenomenon and it would have taken considerable measure of time to carry that out also keeping in view the fact that it doesn't know what the perfect alignment would be? The permutation of 500 thousand! i.e 500000!, the answer of which is a figure that no calculator on earth can calculate which is far beyond the calculated age of the Earth!

It's just like providing the monkeys a type-writer and letting them bang their hands over it, they sure will type words and sentences and pages, say 500,000 letters, but will those words and sentences make any sense, all of them being right on point? No, absolutely not. And again for those letters to make perfect sense, all of them, simultaneously, the probability is what I have already explained.

You decide now, what does your intellect, wisdom and intuition say?

Why Believe in God?

(Part 1)

Science believes that every phenomenon that is taking place in this prodigious universe is governed by a certain set of laws, principles. But what about the Law-maker? Is anything capable of running on its own without the direction of the Law-maker and keep following it for billions of years, the non-living and astonishingly huge bodies? An educational institution is established and inaugurated, students are admitted, they come wearing uniforms, there is a fixed particular time span for which they are bound to not leave its premises etc, how do they know of the rules and regulations? Did the the rules and laws ever get formed on their own? Can they?
You just come into existence in this world and learn about the existence of these stars and planets. Big bang theory they introduce to you which claims a continually expanding universe, all on its own, randomly without causing any destruction or affecting its orderliness. Your brain accepts that. That unlike the watch made by the watch-maker which works correctly only because of being accurately and diligently set, this universe keeps working with such proficiency spontaneously, unguided.

Just for once, have you ever ventured leaving your armor, your ego, any sort of biasing, rising above everything else, using not only rationality of your mind but the intuition of your heart, guidance of your conscience, to seek the greatest truth with true enthusiasm and devotion, have you? Search for it with true vigor and deep contemplation and not just for the sake of knowledge?

At times the yearning for uninterrupted seclusion steers one’s spirits to take them to the most desolated place that could ever be found, for one to let the lonesome air seep through one’s thick disguised skin and appease one mystically.
Sometimes there’s nothing that soothes one better than being embraced by the still air, the thought of being eyed by none but Him, free of care and obligations, knowing none would be able to track him, driving on the track that seems to have no end, through the solitariness of the atmosphere inhabiting one, the illusionary thought of being the master of one’s own senses and self for those moments. Talking to oneself, Him, aloud about everything, fanatically so that there lies no chance of being not heard or misheard, letting one's jar of joy and sorrow spill and feeling lighter than a feather afterwards. How could one not long for that once in a while?

You have innumerable different faces, I say. Each of them designed to serve every single person you know in our life exclusively. You don't feel the same towards any two people even, do you? Your parents, you might say you love them equally ardently but do you feel the same for each of them when their thoughts intercept the horizon of the endless territory of your farfetched perceptions? So let alone the whole group of them, your friends, family, colleagues, sharing equal intensity of your you-ness. You don't even talk to everyone in the same way when alone with them and if you do, you can't deny the difference in the energy you experience inside.
That and among many other faces of yours there is yet another face that only you meet in hours of complete isolation. The one wearing which renders you absolutely unrecognizable in the eyes of most recognizable of your acquaintances, the more vulnerable but farsighted one, the one with seemingly wiser and tamed reflection with hints of bruises over it, presenting the glaring agony boiling inside your soul. Yet you yearn, long for that face of yours inside layers of eluding veils to seek recognition, seek it but secretly, discovered but kept undiscovered because that face is not for everyone to see, is it? 

There were chunks of expressions lingering all over the walls. Hovered over them the belligerently disquieting shadow of the blackened ticker, my heart. Dead, aloof, just not dead enough, for worse only. The tips of the numb hands stumbled over impressions the expressions had engraved; only to fail in conceiving what they had to tell. There was no resentment because they had never learned to. But there were my feet then, which had only known to escalade and never back down, carrying me to the universe parallel to my world in the cellar, equally, resolutely mine, or perhaps just me, stepping into which or being that myself, brought my senses to a halt and exalted my self above it all like it could make me defeat any adversary effortlessly, it did, it will, it belongs to Him, so do I. I'm a part of Him, too endearing for Him to let down even if I were a terrifically midget and almost an insignificant speck among those exhibiting tremendous grandeur and glare too glary for my eyes to even have a glimpse of.

Why do I believe in God?

Primarily because I was born a theist, a Muslim, for which no matter how much I feel grateful, it would never be enough. I used to make puerile wishes, as a child and saw them being transformed to reality, the ones I used to share with my only, the most trust-worthy and a secret friend whom I could not see or hear but used to talk to every night and who felt to me closer than my very own heart. Who used to daze me not by words but the things He did, the way He did and the frequency with which He did. It couldn't be anything/anyone else other than Him, it has not been, it can not be. Because every time I call His name, I remember Him, a mysterious solace, tranquility takes me in its embrace. Because He always shows me a way, answers most of my questions, calms me down through the guide He has provided. Because I can’t, for even a femto second, assume a world without Him being omniscient, the Ruler, the flawless deity. Because surrendering to Him, getting closer to Him is the most relieving feeling I have ever known. Because every time He shows me He is listening, processing and is there.

Because everything can not come from nothing, spontaneously. Because even a clock, a garden, a human body, a gadget requires maintenance and programming in order to work efficiently. This prodigious world, galaxy, universe can not be a product that came into being on its own, working without any preternatural deity taking care of it. Because none could know the facts science is proving in the contemporary age, 1400 years ago, except the One who is the Master of everything and is All-Knowing and who mentioned them in His holy book. Because all those miracles would not have happened which have been happening and happen even today, the power of His mighty words would not have been validated so many times.

Because my inner voice says that some things are not to be made sense of, they need only to be felt and it is Him. Even a human mind can be too complicated to understand even after gathering the knowledge of the whole world, then who am I to expect myself to resolve His mystery? And no matter how much scientific reasoning you bring, I might give it a thought or a question may pop in my mind but never for a moment I’d doubt His existence.

A piece of paper was found by a pen to write on, 

With the ink of color of invisibility. 

The paper with every color except, 

The colors the pen was painted with. 

The ink, invisible, imprinted on the paper, 

Served nothing but vanity.

To the pen it was a whole new world, 

Which only it could dwell in.

The paper got painted by the world, 

With paints that didn't remotely symbolize it,

The pen still kept on writing on it, 

With the ink invisible it was filled with.

Inside every layer of the foreign colors, 

The paper got painted with,

The pen never let the truth, 

Of the paper slip away from its memory.

A slight wrinkle on the paper fills the pen, 

With an invisible ink of agonizing misery.

The pen would never know what the right ink is, 

To write on the paper with delicacy.

Yet it keeps moving in ways unknown, 

Making symbols cunningly.

No matter how many layers,

The paper gets subtly enclosed in.

The pen would never disremember, 

The colors it found the paper in.

No matter how many creases engulf, 

The paper's glamorous shapeliness,

As an eternal companion, 

A fellow unknowingly forbidden,

The pen would never give up the job, 

Of writing with the ink of color of invisibility.